Silent Witness

by Lindsay McKenna

  “Better. The crackers helped. Thanks for caring.” Ellen looked up into his narrowed gray eyes, his pupils huge and black. There was such intelligence there. Such warmth and concern. Jim Cochrane wasn’t the nasty bastard he’d like her to believe he was. No, he’d showed a lot of tenderness toward her in the bathroom. For that, Ellen was grateful.

  Cochrane frowned. “We need to go back into her bedroom. You up to it?”

  “I’ll try to be.” Ellen didn’t want to go, but she had to learn the elements of a good investigation.

  “If you can’t handle it, it’s okay,” Jim said gently as he moved down the hallway. “We’ll work around it this time.”

  Nodding, Ellen whispered, “I feel like an interloper here. Susan’s still so beautiful, as if she’s not really dead, just sleeping. I keep thinking she’s going to wake up and ask us what we’re doing in her home.”

  “It takes some getting used to,” Jim agreed, his voice soft.

  Ellen turned and saw Cochrane studying her. “Death is, well, so terribly personal and private.” She opened her hands in a helpless gesture.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “I just wonder how many tears Susan cried into that handkerchief before she died?”

  Shaking his head, he growled, “Don’t even go there, Ellen. You have to protect yourself from all of this. Now, let’s go to work.”

  She stood off to one side and watched as Cochrane searched the room with slow deliberation, missing no detail. Despite how she felt emotionally, she committed his movements and lessons to memory.

  “Nothing,” he said flatly as he finished. “Not a piddling thing to give us a clue as to why she took those pills. If she took pills. We don’t know that yet. The autopsy will tell us what she died of and what time she expired, but no answer as to why.”

  “You’re saying that someone might have forced her into taking them?”

  “It could be a professional hit.”

  Ellen’s eyes rounded. “Who on earth would put a contract out on Susan?” The thought was so foreign to her. Murder wasn’t something she would ever comprehend.

  Shrugging, Cochrane muttered, “Could be she knew something? Maybe someone bought the services of a professional to shut her up? Or maybe it was someone in her personal life? All good questions, but no answers.”

  “But, there’s no sign of violence,” Ellen protested. “Didn’t you say in order for it to be a homicide, there had to be signs of a struggle?”

  “Usually there is.” Jim pointed toward Kane’s head. “Professional hit men have a lot of ways of killing that don’t seem obvious. That’s why I was looking real close around her mouth to see if I could detect any signs of bruising.”

  “I was wondering why you were studying at her so closely.” Ellen shivered and avoided looking at Susan Kane’s body. She simply couldn’t handle all the emotions that were surging up within her. It took every ounce of strength she had right now just to look and sound professional.

  “I was searching for even the slightest marks on her neck, jaw or mouth. Professionals know just where to put pressure on nerve points to make a person open their mouth out of pain. Once they got their mouth open, it’s real easy to dump a bottle of tranks down them.”

  “What a horrible way to die.”

  “The coroner will tell us more. They’re trained to look for such things.” Cochrane studied Kane’s mouth. “They also have a means of detecting fingerprints on the victim’s flesh.”

  Ellen shook her head. “I never realized that.”

  “It’s not exactly public knowledge. Gardella was telling me that the tech people will look in case it’s a professional hit.” He rubbed his chin as he stared down at Susan Kane. “What a crying shame. Did you see her certificate out in the passageway?”

  “Which one? There are so many.”

  He laughed a little. “Yeah, she was hell on wheels when it came to her career, wasn’t she? Kane’s a ring knocker from the Naval Academy, and she graduated at the top of her flight class from Pensacola, which is no small feat, believe me. She was an F-18 Super Hornet Top Gun flight instructor. Those are pretty darn impressive credentials for a woman or a man. Talk about having smarts. And somewhere, in her spare time, she was able to get a Ph.D. in aeronautics from MIT. Lieutenant Kane was obviously a go-getter, a real Type A personality. No grass grew under her feet, as my ma would say. Pride of the Navy, for sure.”

  Ellen kept her hand pressed to her stomach. “She’s so beautiful. I have this crazy desire to go over and touch her shoulder, lean over and tell her, ‘Wake up.’”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.” Cochrane shook his head. “Nothing fits. I mean, why was she clutching a teddy bear, of all things? And look at this bedroom. It reminds me of something Walt Disney would decorate for Beauty and the Beast or Cinderella. Yet every other part of her condo is filled with antique furniture. There are some pictures on the television set and her accomplishments are displayed on the bulkhead. Normal things. You come in here, and it’s like Hollywood la-la-land.”

  “Maybe there were two very different sides to her,” Ellen said. Then she grimaced. “I’m sorry, but I have to leave this room. My stomach—”

  “That’s fine. Meet me out in the living room,” Cochrane said, feeling for her. Seeing the relief on Ellen’s face, he added, “I’ll be out in a few minutes. There’s just a couple of details I want to check out. I can talk to you about them later.”

  Ellen closed her eyes and clutched her stomach. “Okay. This is so upsetting to me. I just, well, I’ve had a couple of rough years with death.”

  Jim sized her up and saw devastation clearly marked on her pale features. He wanted to ask what she meant, but that was too personal. And right now was not the time. “I’ll be out in a little bit,” he stated. “Go eat a few more crackers.”

  Nodding, Ellen quickly left.

  Cochrane shook his head and went about cataloging the scene by shooting photos of even smaller items. Ten minutes later he sauntered into the living room, where Ellen was studying a set of framed pictures.

  “Did you look at these photos?” she asked. She wanted desperately to show him she could contribute to this investigation.

  He ambled over to the television set. “Yes. What about them?”

  “Look at them, Lieutenant Cochrane. This one shows Susan with two men about her own age. They’re all smiling and happy. Family?”

  “Significant others?”

  Ellen gave him a dirty look. “Why is it a man’s mind always runs in that direction first?”

  “You must be feeling better, Agent Tanner.” Cochrane grinned lopsidedly. “I’m not thinking in that particular direction. Doesn’t it strike you that Susan Kane doesn’t have a photo of her pa or ma here? Was she an orphan? Adopted? This other photo is of a woman, and they’re smiling and happy. And they have their arms around one another.”

  Ellen looked up at him. “Maybe her sister?”

  “Maybe she was a lesbian, and that’s her lover.”

  Ellen stared over at him. “You think?”

  “Anything is possible. There are gays and lesbians in the service no matter how much the military wants to deny it.” He bent over to look at the photos. “I’m going to ask the police to take these along as evidence. Maybe they’ll help us crack this case.”

  “Do you think it was murder?”

  “I reckon I don’t know,” Jim answered slowly. “That autopsy report will help supply the answer.”

  Ellen looked around the condo. “Susan did such a beautiful job of decorating. Everything is so clean, so neat.” She laughed shortly. “If you could see my old apartment back in Washington, D.C….! It looks like a hurricane zone in comparison to this one.”

  “Mine’s worse. A hog looking for a new waller would probably take one look at my place and gleefully move in.” Jim made an expansive gesture. “What you fail to understand is that military people are taught to keep things neat, clean and organized. I’m sure four years a
t Annapolis instilled those values in her.” He gazed around the living room. “But this is too clean. It’s as if Kane were waiting to get an E rating.”

  “E rating?” Ellen questioned.

  “Every operation in the U.S. Navy has a periodic Inspector General’s inspection. That’s when the boys from D.C. and the Pentagon descend like a flock of buzzards on a ship or station wearing white gloves, and examine every last thing there is to inspect. They look not only at appearances but at performance and record keeping. Station commanders quake in their boots over an I.G. They refer to it as an E rating. A bad rating and their career is torpedoed. And the unlucky officer that heads up the section with the poor results can kiss his career goodbye, too.” Cochrane snapped his fingers to emphasize the point. “Just like that.”

  “And Susan’s condo is ready for inspection?”

  “Yep. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is out of place. It’s as if she planned the whole thing. Even the window-sills and other ledges you’d normally find some dust on are clean. An I.G. team would be hard-pressed to find anything out of order. She doesn’t even have an Irish pennant on her uniform.”

  “Irish pennant?”

  “A Navy word for a thread hanging off your uniform.”

  “Oh.”

  “Did you look closely at Kane’s uniform?”

  “Uhh, no.”

  “Well, I did. No Irish pennants. Each brass buttons on her jacket is polished to perfection. All of her medals are straight and perfectly aligned to the left breast pocket. There’s no lint on her black-and-gold shoulder boards. I looked at the white heels she wore, and there aren’t even any smudges on the backs of them. Everything is too tidied up.”

  “Too perfect?”

  He gazed around and frowned. “Yes. I’ve got law briefs scattered from my kitchen table to my coffee table in the living room. I’ve got socks lying on the deck of the head.”

  “In other words, your apartment has a lived-in look?”

  He gave her a sour smile. “In my place someone could die and not be located for a week. This place seems to be too clean for even death to visit.”

  “I can smell a faint odor of Pine-Sol,” Ellen confirmed. “So maybe she washed the walls?” Her stomach was settling. Jim’s warm, engaging teaching style was helping her deal with her memories.

  “Reckon she got everything spotless, as if ready for one final inspection. Was she expecting someone to come over? Did they? If so, who? Did this other person or persons push Kane into taking those pills? Was it the 911 caller? If so, was this a lover’s spat? What the heck were Kane’s actions telling us?”

  Ellen followed him back to the couch and sat down, her voice low with emotion. “I don’t see how anyone wouldn’t be touched by seeing Susan clutching that teddy bear to her breast. I had this feeling she was more a little girl rather than a grown, mature pilot with a multitude of impressive degrees.”

  “There’s such a split here. Kane was obviously on the fast track in the Navy, yet she’s got this doggone teddy bear.” Cochrane scratched his head. “In some ways, she reminds me of my daughter, Merry.”

  “What a pretty name. How old is she?” Ellen saw the tension in his face melt instantly, and his gray eyes grow warm. Clearly, there was love for his daughter shining in them. How she ached to see such a look for her on a man’s face. But Ellen had realized that a great love came only once in one’s life, if ever. And she’d had hers. Still, she absorbed that look on Cochrane’s face, feeling like a thief.

  “Six years old.” Jim smiled and rocked back on his heels. “I’ve loved that kid from the day I laid eyes on her. I couldn’t be with Jodi, my ex-wife, when Merry was born—I was on temporary assignment to Washington. I arrived home two days later.” He pursed his mouth and revisited the pain of missing his daughter’s birth.

  Ellen said quietly, “I’ve found from my study that being a military wife is at times an awful burden. The man of the house is away more than he’s at home. It builds a lot of tension, and a lot of anger by the wife toward the husband.” She could see the devastation in Cochrane’s eyes. To miss your child’s arrival, one of life’s most precious moments, would be awful. She saw the angst in the set of his mouth, the tension returning to his features.

  Rubbing his palms on his slacks, Cochrane nodded. “No need to tell me, Ellen.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Jodi pulled the plug on our marriage two years ago. We split the blanket. I can only see my daughter on visits. She doesn’t live with me and it sucks.”

  Ellen sat very still. “Divorce is like going through a death.” Shrugging, she whispered haltingly, “My husband…Mark…died of a heart attack two years ago. I was at work at the time. I came home and he…” Ellen shut her eyes and whispered, “He was lying dead in the living room floor. At first, I thought he was playing a game with me. He was always such a tease. I bent down to shake his shoulder and…It was such a shock.”

  Jim scratched his head and shifted uneasily. “I didn’t know that.” Placing his hands on his hips, he looked beyond her. “Sorry.” And he was. When her lower lip trembled, he again found himself wanting to reach out and touch her, to try and soothe the pain he saw in her face. The ache in his own heart was very real. Whether he wanted to or not, he felt deeply for Ellen. Far more than he should, and he didn’t understand why.

  Ellen wiped her eyes self-consciously and mustered a slight smile she didn’t feel. “How could you know, Lieutenant? I didn’t tell you.”

  He nodded, and said apologetically, “I reckon we’re both struggling, then. Your husband died and so did my marriage. We’re a fine pair, aren’t we? Only I’m not so sure that divorce isn’t a continuing kind of dying process that has no finish, no end. It’s an ongoing emotional torture.”

  Ellen took a deep, ragged breath. “I can’t argue with you. Since Mark died, I’ve had a huge hole right here.” She pointed to her heart. “I was glad to get this assignment, if you want the truth. It got me away from everyone who knew us back in D.C.” She held his sudden, intense gaze. “In a divorce, there’s no walking away, especially if children are involved. It’s a painful situation for everyone.”

  Cochrane grimaced. “Life isn’t pretty, is it? Never mind, don’t answer that.” He forced himself to get back to work. Talking with Ellen Tanner was easy. Too easy. Speaking more to himself, he muttered, “This place is too meticulously clean. Kane’s too neatly dressed.”

  “It’s suspicious to me, too,” Ellen admitted. “Suicidal people usually don’t care about their appearance when they’re in that frame of mind.”

  “You’re very observant. Suicide types usually have sloppy homes. They’re depressed. They don’t care what they or their place look like. This officer’s home is too spit-and-polish perfect. Had she worn the uniform somewhere at an official function and then come home?”

  Ellen brightened. “Did anyone find a letter from her? An explanation why she took her life? If she did?”

  “I understand there was no suicide note found,” Jim stated, perplexed. “I’ve never seen a suicide yet where the person didn’t leave a note.”

  “So,” Ellen said, “you think this was a murder?”

  “It’s angling that way. As I said, we’ll know more after the M.E. performs the autopsy,” Jim said. “Let’s go. We’re done here.”

  Never had Ellen wanted to hear those words as much as now. She nearly tripped on Cochrane’s heels getting out of the condo. Lifting her face to the sunshine, she gratefully took several deep breaths to steady her unsettled stomach, then hurried to catch up with Jim as he strode along.

  “Where are we going now?” she asked.

  “We’ve done everything we can do here. I need to get back to the JAG office and drop this film off to Chief Hazzard at our crime lab. I want you to take the rest of the day off while I run a lot of errands. I have to get my case files squared away so we both can make sense of them in the coming week. I’ll drop you off at your hotel. You can come in at 0800 tomorrow morning
. We’ll start working together then.”

  Jim realized Ellen needed time to deal with being around a dead body. He understood that seeing Susan Kane had resurrected her husband’s death for her—big-time. He kicked himself, knowing he should have been more sensitive to begin with, asked more questions. Instead, he’d been so tied up with his own reaction to having an untrained partner that he’d let her fall through the hole all by herself. A good partner didn’t do that. He swore silently he’d make it up to her in some way.

  “Good, because I don’t even have my bags unpacked yet.” Ellen gave him the address of the hotel where she was staying.

  Cochrane started up the car and put it in Drive. “I have so many consarned things ahead of a dead body to deal with.”

  “Family obligations?” Ellen guessed, softening her tone. Her heart was settling down now, most of the pain dissolved. Part of it was due to Jim’s care of her. Despite his growly initial response, she realized he was a man who cared. Hope burned bright in her and she relaxed for the first time since they’d met.

  Cochrane’s mouth flattened as he drove the car out of the condo area and back onto a main street. “Hill folk are taught to take care of their families.” He slanted her a quick glance. “A family for us is knit tighter than a pair of crochet needles. This splitting of the blanket is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. My folks are still het up about the divorce. They love Merry, too. We visited them every year, so they got to see her growing up. Now—” his mouth turned down “—now it’s going to be next to impossible to take Merry back to see them, what with the judgment handed down by the local court.”

  She nodded. “I imagine, coming from hill folk, you’re one of the few in your family who’s gone on to a professional career?”

  Cochrane laughed bitterly. “Yeah, I reckon in one way I’m the apple of my family’s eye, becoming an attorney. I’m the only one of my generation to leave the hills and go ‘outside,’ try for a brass ring other than becoming a wood carver making walnut bowls for the tourists, a farmer or coal miner.”

  “It’s nice to see a man close to his family,” Ellen said, folding her hands in her lap.