Morrison nodded.
Peña leaned against the car as exhausted as Morrison looked. “I ran some field tests where I had enough quantity. So far I've got PGM 2+2, AB positive. I'll run the other samples back at the lab. No semen, no flesh. Oh, I almost forgot the good news. I found a trace of human blood in the shower drain, but not enough for more specific testing. And in the kitchen, put neatly away after being carefully washed, I found a butcher knife which tested positive for human blood at the base.”
“Type?”
“Not enough of a sample. I should be able to do something with DNA but I won't know for 10 days to two weeks. How many of the other samples do you want tested by DNA?”
“All of them. Our man Swensen asked to call a lawyer friend an hour ago so that was the end of questioning. Maybe we'll stumble across a body, but maybe not, depending on how careful he was. I'd like a team of criminalists to keep working the crime scene. I want it picked clean.”
Peña nodded. “You'll have to call Fred if you want an entire team.”
“All right. Any luck with the cleaning items or missing portion of the rug?”
Peña shook her head and said she had swabbed the scrubbed area to test for blood and cleansing agents.
“When can I have a report?”
Peña thought for a moment, scrunching her eyes as she did. “Three days?”
“Fair enough. Call me for an oral briefing if you find anything you think I need to know sooner.”
Peña agreed, said goodbye and drove off, marveling that she would be watching sunrise as she drove back to the police station. The entire night spent inside the Swensen residence had seemed like half an hour.
~
Ruth Morrison turned to examine the exterior again for several minutes, searching for anything she might have missed the night before. Though she was weary and having trouble focusing she had downed three quick cups of coffee before leaving the station and could feel the energy rising in her. By noon, she knew, she'd be dead on her feet.
She looked to her right, over the top of a small hill and spotted an American flag on top of a pole. One of the uniforms said that was Barry Goldwater's house. The flag was hooked up to a photo cell and was raised and lowered every day automatically to a recording of the National Anthem.
Morrison turned back to the house. When questioning Jack Swensen, even in those first few minutes, she was quite certain this was a homicide, not a kidnapping. Why else all the blood and the missing wife? Vicious, random killers don't clean up after themselves. Swensen's seeming cooperation had not swayed her from her first impression that he was likely the killer. Now that he was hiding behind his lawyer she was convinced. He was a man of means, accustomed to having his way. Why shouldn't he think he could get away with murder? Even one as brutal and sloppy as this.
The only troubling aspect of the night had been her inability to obtain a confession. Since Morrison had come to homicide three years before and was teamed with Kosack the pair had never failed to get a confession when they were able to question the prime suspect for eleven hours as they had here. She told Kosack as she left the station that if this kept up it was going to damage their reputation. Maybe it was time for her to play bad cop while Kosack with that hound dog look played the good guy.
Morrison took a turn through the empty house looking for anything out of the ordinary. On Leah Swensen's dresser was a professional photograph of her and a cat. Morrison stared into the eyes of the missing woman as if searching for answers.
The eyes were a deep blue and fixed firmly on the camera lens. They were set in an attractive face of a women in her late-20's with auburn hair, perhaps a bit chubby, a wide, generous smile. The tiger striped buff colored cat was unusual in that its ears lay forward instead of standing up. It appeared contentedly pampered. Morrison slipped the photograph from its frame and placed it in her purse.
Half an hour later she locked the front door behind her, replaced the police crime scene tape, then walked over to the house next door and pressed the doorbell button. The effects of the coffee she had downed earlier were already dissipating.
~
After Jack Swensen left the police station with the admonishment not to return to his house until it was released to him, Kosack drove by his own apartment, showered, changed clothes, then went to Swensen Steel Company, located on the west side just past the Black Canyon freeway in a commercial zone south of Indian School Road. The office was a free standing, single story block structure. It adjoined a large work yard which was wrapped by a tall chain linked fence and was partially canopied. He could see the flash of welding, hear the clanging of heavy steel. Perhaps a dozen men were working, all of them Hispanic from what he could tell.
An obvious but still quite beautiful woman sat behind a receptionist desk. “My name is Jodi Iverson,” she said as she rose with her hand extended after he had announced himself. Balanced in the other hand was a cigarette. She wore a tight fitting ivory colored sweater and 1940's style slacks of deep chocolate on a better than average body. Her eyes were the grey of fresh granite, her eyebrows carefully plucked. The hair was fine and expensively dyed white-blond, but dyed nonetheless. Her mouth was fleshy and plump. If there was anything negative in her appearance it was her small, even teeth.
“Is Jack all right?” she asked in the husky whisper, taking a last pull on the cigarette before stabbing it out.
“Certainly. I'm sure you'll be hearing from him shortly. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“Well, we could use his office until he gets here.”
“That's fine.” Kosack watched the firm buttocks oscillate as he followed Iverson into the office.
She sat in Swensen's chair behind a large, shiny desk, pulled a leg under her, then picked up a yellow pencil as she spoke. She was 26 years old, she said, had worked here for 18 months as a clerk/receptionist and was willing to answer questions. “You're the one I talked to briefly on the telephone last night, aren't you?” she said.
“That's right.”
Iverson eyed him speculatively. “Ask away.” She placed the pencil between her tiny white teeth.
“Where did you go after work yesterday?” Kosack began.
She shrugged. “Home.”
“No stops?”
“Just for milk and bread. Pretty domestic, huh?”
“You didn't go to the Palomino for drinks?”
A slow smile spread across her lips. “Is that what Jack said?” Iverson appeared bemused.
“Don't worry about what Jack may or may not have said. Just tell us what you know.”
“What I know? What I know is Miss Suzie Que, Leah Swensen, was a calculating bitch. Cold hearted, and hard as nails. I know, don't speak ill of the dead.”
“Who said anything about her being dead?”
“You're from homicide. It doesn't take a genius.”
“Tell us everything you did from the end of work yesterday until this morning.”
“Everything? Even the dirty parts?” When he didn't respond she continued. “You're no fun. O.K. The office cleared out about a quarter to six except for Jack and me. We had a drink in his office, right here, and talked a bit.”
“What about?”
“The usual.”
“What is that?”
She sighed and Kosack couldn't avoid looking at the breasts. “About how trapped he felt married to Miss Perfect Home-maker. How cold she was to him. About how she helped him start the company and that if he left her she'd ruin him. Like I said,” her eyes closed momentarily in boredom, “the usual.”
“Then what?”
“We stretched out on his couch. The nice leather one over there.” She pointed with the yellow pencil and smiled angelically.
“Stretched out?”
“Yeah. You know.” Again the bemused smile spread across those fleshy lips. There was a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.
“Tell me.”
“We were naked. O.K.? I don't think I have to draw y
ou pictures, do I? You look all grown up and everything.”
“So you had sex?”
“I guess you could call it that. I'd say it was a quickie. He was in a hurry to get home.” She shook her head as if she could not comprehend the logic.
“You two did this a lot?”
“What's a lot? Two or three times a week. Maybe at Jack's age that is a lot.”
“Did you ever go away with him?”
Her brow furled in concentration. “A couple of trips. We spent one long weekend together when his wife visited old friends in Texas last month.”
“Did he have plans to dump his wife for you?”
The question had no visible effect on her. “We talked a little about it.”
“A little?
“O.K. Have it your way. A lot. But I don't think he was going to do it. He liked having money too much and figured she'd clean him out.”
“What about you?”
“He liked having me around too. I can be a patient woman. I did tell him though that I thought maybe we had run our course, you know? As they say, I'm not getting any younger.”
Kosack considered that for a moment. “Did he ever talk about skipping the divorce, yet still getting out of his marriage?”
“You mean kill Suzie Que? You're sick. It must come from what you do for a living. Nobody kills Miss Perfect Home-maker. She ironed his shirts just right. In this day and age, can you believe it? She cooked chicken a la orange to die for. She baked bread for God's sake.” The yellow pencil clicked against the tiny white teeth for an instant. “She might have bored the hell out of Jack and been a lousy lay, but he wasn't going to kill her. Jack couldn't kill anyone.” Iverson placed the pencil down, extracted a cigarette from a pack of Marlboro's, lit it then inhaled with obvious relish before laying her grey eyes on Kosack. “No. It's not Jack. After all, he didn't even have the balls to get divorced.”
By lunch time the two detectives met at Bill Johnson's Big Apple on East Van Buren to compare notes. Morrison found the sawdust on the floor disgusting since it always found a way to creep into her hose, but Kosack was addicted to the deep dish apple pie. He didn't appear to object to the gun totting swinging hips of the waitresses either. A strong aroma of barbecued ribs floated in the air.
Kosack told his partner that along with Iverson he had interviewed Mike Cushing and Peter Kaufman, estimators in the office. A fourth employee, Paula Dinelli, wasn't due in the office until afternoon.
“You go first,” he told Morrison as he dug into a chiliburger with extra mustard and onions. Morrison opened her note pad, then blinked her eyes to focus. She told him that a neighbor, Ramona Durlacher, had heard fights at the Swensen house, but hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary that night. If a rampaging gang had attacked Leah Swensen and drug her off to their car someone should have noticed. Kosack grunted.
“The other neighbor is Kathleen Ruman, divorced, alcoholic. What I would call a faded beauty. She heard no fights, but then I doubt she was conscious when any of them happened. She has never met Jack, but talked with Leah Swensen several times. Kathleen was sunbathing by her pool while Leah worked in her garden. They spoke over the block wall.”
“Very neighborly.”
“Not really. That crew's about as friendly to one another as inmates on a cellblock. Get this. I'm quoting Ruman here. 'Leah said she was afraid of her husband. I asked her why and she said he was seeing someone at the office and she was afraid they were planning to kill her.'” Morrison looked up expectantly.
“When was this?” Kosack reached for a cigarette.
“It's 'No Smoking' now, Tom.”
“Ah shit,” he groaned, slipping the pack back into his pocket. “Asshole fascists.”
“Kathleen wasn't certain when Leah told her. She had been drinking wine coolers as she baked her ageing flesh. She thought it was perhaps a month ago. Maybe longer. What about the girlfriend?”
Kosack made a face. “Men have killed for a lot less. She's pretty frank. Tell me about the forensics first.”
Morrison briefed him on Peña findings. When she mentioned the blood in the shower drain and at the base of the butcher knife Kosack nodded his head lightly as if he had been expecting something like that. “I had a team put on this morning to work the place over,” she continued. “They pulled the toilets, removed the drain hose from the washing machine and swabbed it all out.”
“Anything?”
“A trace of human blood in the washing machine sump.”
Morrison put her notes aside and started on her Caesar salad with chicken bits.
Kosack eased back in his seat and eyed his partner appreciatively. “You look really good, Ruth. I think you could afford to eat a regular meal. That rabbit food must be getting old by now.”
“When you've got bone structure like I do every pound counts,” she said then smiled warmly. “You always think I look good.” She patted his hand. “But we were talking about a murder, remember?”
“In that regard I'd say we've got a case,” Kosack allowed as he gestured for the waitress. “He offs his wife with the butcher knife, then tries to wash it up. Like every amateur he thinks he can get rid of all the blood. He hauls her away in his Jag, then showers off the blood and washes the clothes he was wearing. It's looking like murder one.”
“We don't have a body, Tom. And I forgot to get the warrant for the car. Sorry.” The vision of her bed suddenly disappeared.
“It's safe in his garage along with his wife's Acura. Get the warrant and forensics can check it this afternoon. While you're at it, include both cars just in case he tried to be cute. You should go through the house papers looking for her doctor. Maybe he or his lab will have a slide of her tissue or blood to match to what we found in the bedroom. And don't remind me about the body. No one saw anything?”
“I think we should get some dicks to canvass the neighborhood this afternoon. If we can find someone who saw him in his Jaguar after midnight that will help. If they remember which direction he was driving it might lead us to a body.”
Kosack grunted. “I don't like not having a stiff.”
“Who does?”
Kosack and Morrison had worked 15 homicides together as the primary team and until now always had a body.
“How many places would you think there are to get rid of one permanently?” Kosack asked speculatively.
“Take your pick. We've got a honeycomb of old mining shafts ringing the city all the way from Wickenburg to Queen Creek. If Jack Swensen knew where one was located we'll never have a corpse.”
“You're saying he drove into the desert in his nice shiny sports car?” Treating such a car like a four wheel drive didn't strike Kosack as plausible, certainly not for someone as persnickety as Swensen appeared to be. And if he had it would show. The car looked clean to him, the sides as smooth as the day Swensen took delivery of it.
“I don't know. We'll both feel better when we find a body. Maybe it'll turn up.”
Kosack ordered the deep dish apple pie while Morrison had a refill on iced tea. “So tell me about the office,” she asked.
“The standard industrial model. Five office employees counting Swensen and about a dozen grunts working the yard. Mostly illegals from the looks of them. It's a busy place, a money maker I'd say. The story about stopping for drinks is a crock. Mike Cushing says he went straight home from work. Nobody asked him to drop by the Palomino. He noticed nothing unusual in Jack's behavior that day. He says he knows nothing about an affair or trouble on the home front. He's what I would call an angry young man. We'll get nothing out of him. Pete Kaufman was better. He went straight home too and doesn't want to get involved, but when I pressed him he said he thought maybe Jodi and Jacky were doing the in and out in the office after hours. He thought Leah was nice though a bit cold and Jack was pretty much an asshole for treating her like this.”
“And Jodi?”
“A babe. And looks as easy as she is. She's got the hots for Jack's earning potential
and figures screwing her way into a comfortable future beats working for a living. If Jack didn't look so guilty my bet would be on her.”
“Maybe she helped.”
“Maybe. That's one more thing to check out. She may have motivated our boy by telling him she thought they'd 'run their course.' Her words. She's not getting any younger, you know. Guess what she and Jacky were doing instead of having a friendly drink at the local tavern.”
“You're kidding!”
“Right there, she says, on that really nice leather couch. A quickie, she says, because lover boy was in a hurry to get home.”
“What for?”
“He had a murder to cover up, remember? He could only dilly dally so long.” Kosack broke the crust of the pie. “She says he was always talking about getting a divorce, but didn't have the guts, 'balls' she said, to do it. She says he wouldn't kill anyone.”
“That's what everybody says.”
“Yeah? Well, in her case I got the feeling it was like a shortcoming or something.”
FOUR
Edward Perry took his seat behind his desk, an expanse of glossy mahogany, and eyed Jack Swensen. Until now Perry had handled what few legal problems his client's commercial steel company developed. While Swensen's company was prospering its debt load was considerable and he had little liquid money. The account was basically so minor Perry had given serious thought to dumping it off on one of the junior partners.
The first thing he noticed was that Swensen was not looking good, what with the lack of sleep and the grilling from the police. His client tossed his suit jacket on the back of the chair beside him then placed his large face into his hands.
Perry had no misgivings about how close a call this had been, assuming his client was guilty, and that was the assumption he always made. He'd worked too long at the County Attorney's office to think otherwise. Morrison and Kosack were among the best. They didn't require such primitive techniques as bright lights and nightsticks to obtain a confession.
Wrath in the Blood Page 3