by Blair Howard
Thursday, February 9, 2:00 p.m.
It was just after two o’clock that afternoon when Kate knocked on Ellis Warren’s front door. We had arrived in force: Kate’s official car and two cruisers, each containing two uniformed officers.
“Hello Judge Warren,” she said when he opened the door. “I have a warrant to search the house, garage, and any outbuildings. We’re looking for a 16-gauge shotgun. Do you own such a weapon?”
“What the hell?” He snatched the papers from her hand. “Who the hell issued this?” He scanned the document. “Hah! I might have known, Judge Henry Strange.” He looked over Kate’s shoulder at me. “Starke. You have a hand in this, you son of a bitch. Okay. You got your warrant, but you’re not a sworn officer; you’re not setting a foot inside my house. Lieutenant— whatever your name is, you and your officers may enter, but not him.”
He glared at me; I smiled back at him. “That’s fine with me. I can wait out here, where the neighbors can watch….”
“Damn it! Damn you! Come in, all of you. Starke, you stay in the foyer, and not a foot further.”
The foyer, if it could be called that, was about an acre of open space—yes, I’m exaggerating—that provided access to the living room beyond, a formal dining room immediately to the right, a huge kitchen to the right of the living room, and a winding staircase to the left. Beyond that, I assumed, were several more ground floor rooms. And it was in the foyer that Kate assembled her team. While this was going on the judge stood impatiently by and watched; Mary Ann was nowhere to be seen.
“Is Mrs. Warren at home?” Kate asked. “If so, I’d like you to ask her to join us.”
“She’s not here. She’s out of town for a few days visiting her mother.”
She nodded. “So, Judge Warren. I’ll ask you again: Do you have one or more 16-gauge shotguns here in the house or anywhere else?”
“We do. There’s one in my study, in the gun safe, along with my other guns. I never use it though, never have. I don’t like it. It’s neither a 12-gauge nor a 20-gauge, something odd, in between. I don’t think it’s ever been shot. I’ll get it for you.”
“If you don’t mind, sir. I’ll come with you. I’d rather you didn’t touch it… again.”
“Again? Again, you say? I haven’t touched the damned thing in twenty years or more. The only reason I keep it is because it belonged to my father. It’s worth… well, I don’t know, quite a lot, I should imagine. He gave it to me just before he died, back in December of ’98. I locked it away and haven’t touched it since.”
I watched as Kate pulled on a pair of latex gloves, and then they went off together. Two minutes later, they returned; Kate held the gun, a custom Browning Sweet Sixteen, with both hands. It was indeed a beautiful weapon. The barrel and furniture gleamed in the soft lights, the gold inlay on the chamber bright and sharp.
Too bright? Recently cleaned? I wonder.
“This is the only 16-gauge shotgun you own, Judge Warren?” Kate asked.
“It is. Look, I know why you’re doing this. I was given a copy of the autopsy and ballistics reports by John Dooley. It claims that Peter was killed with a 16-gauge shotgun. That’s preposterous. We all carried 12-gauges that day. I don’t think Heath and Alex even own 16-gauges. Your ballistics person must have made a mistake. He fell on his gun. I was there, damn it. Hell, I wasn’t but a few yards away when I heard Heath yelling. He must have been dead for… I don’t know… several minutes at least. We were still in the woods when we heard the shots…. Oh my, I never realized. I thought it must have been…. I was on my way to the trailhead….”
“So,” I said, “just to be clear. The last shot you heard was, what, five minutes, two minutes before Myers found him? Is that what you’re saying?”
For a minute, I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he nodded and said, thoughtfully, “Five. Five minutes at most. No more than that.”
I looked at the shotgun in Kate’s hands. “That needs to go to Mike Willis,” I said. “I doubt he’ll find anything, but it’s worth a try.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Take a look.” And she held it out so that I could see the ends of the barrels. They were clean, really clean—and then I saw it. About a half inch down inside the bottom barrel was a tiny spec of… something, and I looked at her and nodded.
“What? What is it?” Warren asked.
“Probably nothing,” Kate said. “We’ll see. You’re sure this is the only 16-gauge you own?”
“How many times do I have to tell you? Yes, damn it. It’s the only one.”
“Fine,” she replied. “I’ll give you a receipt for it and we’ll be on our way.” She did, and thanked him, and we left him standing on the top step of his front porch, staring after us.
“We need to get the gun to Mike Willis and have him harvest whatever that is in there,” I said. “When you’ve got it, call Jacque and have her give you our FedEx number and then send the sample overnight to DDC.” I looked at my watch. It was almost a quarter after three. “If he can get it done quickly, there’s still time to get it to FedEx for delivery by ten tomorrow morning. I’ll call Lindsey and ask her to rush it.”
“Shouldn’t we send it to our lab?”
“Sure, if you want to wait for a month. Look, this weapon is part of my investigation. It has nothing to do with Helen’s death, although it might when we get the results back, so let’s get it done quick and easy, without all the bureaucracy, okay?”
“Okay then. It’s your money.”
“No, it’s Helen’s. And it’s what she would have wanted.”
Kate dropped me back at the office and then went about getting the shotgun to Mike Willis. I waited as long as I could stand it, then picked up the phone and called him.
“Hey, Mike. What was that crap on the inside of the 16-gauge? Did you figure it out?”
“What? What crap…? Oh, that crap. Yes. I told Kate I’d give you a call. It’s already on its way to DDC.”
“You were going to call me? Hell, Mike, it’s been two hours. When were you going to call, for Christ’s sake?”
“Um, yeah. Sorry. I’ve been busy.”
“So?”
“It’s human tissue, Harry. Old, but it’s still viable, I’m sure.”
Jeez! Thank you, Lord. “Okay, Mike. And… sorry I jumped on you. I’m antsy as hell right now. I owe you one—no I owe you a lot, and my heartfelt thanks for all you do. You’re a good friend. Thanks.”
“Oh, hey. You don’t need to apologize; we’re good. You know that. Anytime, Harry. Anytime.”
Chapter 31
Friday, February 17, 9:00 a.m.
The next week dragged on and on. The weather was terrible again. There still wasn’t much to do at the office…. Ah, there was a high-end divorce case I could have taken, but I’d quit chasing erring husbands a long time ago and I wasn’t about to start up again.
I took a lot of time off that week. I played some golf—not as much as I would have liked, just eighteen holes on Tuesday, the one sunny day we’d had in I couldn’t remember how long—but the ground was soggy, the greens slow, and the bunkers might as well have been beaches at low tide: the sand was wet and cloying. I went to the range and practiced until my fingers hurt: yes, I shoot with both hands. I took Amanda to lunch most days, and when she couldn’t make it, I took either Kate or Jacque. By the time Friday rolled around, I was wound tighter than an eight-day clock.
But Friday did arrive, finally, as it always does, and it quickly turned into the blackest day of the new year, at least for me: the rest of the DNA results from Lindsey at DDC arrived.
It was just after nine o’clock that morning when Jacque dumped the bulky FedEx package on my desk. It contained the DNA reports on the human tissue taken from the inside of the barrel of the 16-gauge Browning, and on the samples we’d taken from Harrison and Warren.
I was grinning to myself, the proverbial cat who ate the cream, as I slit open the package and extracted the contents and began to re
ad through the reports. Then, slowly, the more I read… the grin turned into a frown, and then a scowl. I couldn’t believe what I was reading: the comparison reports were devastating. Other than the tissue sample from the gun, which matched the sample taken at Peter’s second autopsy, there were no matches: no match between Warren and the hairs in the cap. No match between Harrison and the hairs in the cap. And no match between either of them and the hairs in the truck. What the hell?
I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. It had to be Warren. Nicholson’s tissue, his DNA, inside the barrel of Warren’s Browning 16-gauge proved that it had to be him. It was his friggin’ gun, for Christ’s sake.
Something was way out of whack. The white cap, the Sweet Sixteen, both Warren’s. The hairs…. Christ!
Well, I couldn’t place him inside the truck that killed Helen, but I sure as hell could place him and his gun at the scene of Peter Nicholson’s murder. But the cap? The hairs? And if not Warren or Harrison, who the hell could they could belo—Oh hell no. Not in a million years. Could they? Yeah! They could, damn it. Why didn’t I think of that before?
I called Kate, and then I called Judge Strange. I told them both what I was thinking and what I thought we needed to do to put this thing to bed. Next I called Sheriff Steve Walker and told him what I was planning, and I asked him to join me; the Peter Nicholson killing was, after all, a county case. To say he was surprised to get the call would be the king of all understatements. He questioned me at length, but in the end, a little reluctantly, he agreed to join us.
Chapter 32
Friday February 17, 3:30 p.m.
Kate picked me up at three thirty that afternoon. She was driving her unmarked Crown Vic and had two uniformed officers in the back seat, leaving the front seat for me, and we drove to Riverview and the Warren house.
“So,” I said. “Do you have the warrants?”
She smiled at me. “I do. Do you think we have our killer?”
I smiled back at her. “I do.”
Steve Walker was waiting for us when we arrived outside the Warren home.
“Good afternoon, Judge,” Kate said when he opened the door. “We’d like to talk to you about the murders of Peter and Helen Nicholson. I’m not formally pressing charges, but you might like to have your attorney present. Would you like to call him? We can wait while you do.”
“My attorney? What the hell are you talking about?” he asked as he backed into the foyer. We followed him in. “What the hell’s going on here? And what are you doing here, Sheriff?”
“I think maybe you do need a lawyer, Judge,” Sheriff Walker said. “I really do!”
“What’s going on?” Mary Ann Warren asked.
By now we were inside the vast living room, where she was seated at a small table with her iPhone. She stood as we came in, but Warren waved her down again.
“Don’t worry, my dear. Just more damned stuff about Peter. They’re not going to be here long, I promise you.”
I shook my head. “We know that the gun we took from here last week killed Peter Nicholson, Ellis,” I told him quietly.
He looked at me like a bird of paradise had just crapped on his head. I think he was too stunned to answer, so I continued. “You were there that day, so would you like to tell us what the hell happened? The 16-gauge had Nicholson’s DNA inside the barrel—blowback—from the shot that killed him, and you know what that means. We also have testimony that you were wearing a white golf cap that day, and we found a white golf cap not ten feet from Nicholson’s body. We have sworn testimony from four different witnesses that you were having an affair with Mary Ann at the time of his death, and had been for more than a year before.” I turned to look at Mary Ann Warren. “We also know that Peter had persuaded you to stop seeing Ellis. Isn’t that true?”
She said nothing. Didn’t move. Not even a twitch.
I nodded. “But there was more, wasn’t there, Judge. Nicholson was threatening to expose you to the Securities and Exchange Commission for insider trading if you didn’t give her up. That’s also true, isn’t it?”
“I. Didn’t. Kill. Him,” he said through clenched teeth.
“You had plenty of reason to, though, didn’t you.” I stared at him for a long moment, then said, “But I believe you, Ellis. I don’t believe you did kill Peter Nicholson.” Then I turned to her and said, “Because it was you, wasn’t it, Mary Ann.”
Her face went white, her mouth dropped open, and for a moment I thought she was going to pass out, or worse, throw up. She didn’t do either. Instead she looked down at her hands, and clasped them tightly together in her lap.
“Kate?”
Kate nodded. “Mary Ann Warren, I have a warrant for a sample of your DNA in order to make comparison tests with the DNA taken from hairs found in the white golf cap on May 3, 2002, and hairs found in the truck that was used to kill Helen Nicholson on January 18 of this year. I am now making a formal request that you supply such a sample,” she said, taking a small plastic box from her jacket pocket. “Please open your mouth.”
“The hell she will,” Warren said. “Mary Ann, you keep your mouth shut. I’m calling my attorney. You say nothing and you do not give them your DNA….”
“Stop it, Ellis,” she said. She was already crying; the tears were rolling freely down her cheeks. “It’s over. I knew when I lost my cap that day that they’d figure it out eventually. I couldn’t go back for it. I heard you coming. I saw Heath through the trees. You were all too close….
“I… I did love him, you know.” She looked up at us through her tears. “It’s just that I loved Ellis more. I couldn’t give him up, not ever, and I knew Peter would ruin him if I didn’t, so… I decided…. Well, you know.” She looked down at her hands; her knuckles were white.
“So you killed him?” Kate asked. “You just decided to kill him? How could you do that?”
She looked up again, unclasped her hands, shrugged and, her eyes bright and clear and free of tears, seemingly without remorse, said, “I had no choice.”
“And Helen Nicholson?” Kate asked.
She shook her head. “I didn’t have a choice there, either. She was going to dig him up and spoil everything. I had to stop her, and I did….” She had a slight smile on her lips and a faraway look in her eyes. “You should have heard the bones crunch.”
“Mary Ann Warren….” Kate said, taking her handcuffs from the back pocket of her jeans.
And, well, you know the rest.
Chapter 33
Friday, February 17, 9:00 p.m.
Later I sat alone in my study, gazing out of the window. The night was cold and clear and the visibility almost infinite. I sipped my scotch, lost in thought—not quite depressed, but filled with a deep sense of loss. The lights of the city below were bright and beautiful; the river was a shimmering silver sash that snaked away into the distance, wrapping itself around the city and then meandering east toward the great towers of the Sequoya nuclear plant just visible as two brightly lit spots on the horizon.
As I reviewed the events of the past few weeks, I couldn’t help but think of Helen Nicholson, and I wished I could have given her the news. No, it wasn’t good news, but it would have provided closure.
Hell, no it wouldn’t. It never does. That’s just a load of bull, psychobabble. How the hell does anyone ever get over one of their kids being murdered? How many times have I looked a grieving parent in the eye and wished to hell I was somewhere else, my own parents included? Then my thoughts turned to my kid brother, Henry. He’d been murdered less than a year ago. I knew who did it, and I’d sent him to hell, but did it bring closure? Hell no, and it never would. Henry was gone forever, leaving me and my father and his mother, Rose, with just a few fleeting memories that dimmed with each passing month.
The door opened behind me. I looked around, knowing it was Amanda, and I smiled up at her, patted the space on the sofa beside me. She sat down and I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her to me.
“Y
ou’re in one of your moods again, aren’t you?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Another case done with and you’re suffering from post-partum depression, but it will pass. It always does.”
I nodded again, but then thought for a moment and said, “I don’t know that it will, this time.”
She leaned forward, turned and looked at me, concerned. “Why not? What’s wrong, Harry.”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I feel empty. I don’t know what it is. I was thinking of Helen… and Henry… and Dad… and me… and… and you.”
“Me? Why me?”
The truth was, even I didn’t know. I did know that the death of Helen Nicholson had affected me more than any I could remember, other than Henry’s.
“I’m not sure, but I’m thinking I can’t go on like this. I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years. Some are dead. Some will never see the outside of a prison cell. Some are still out there…. I’m tired, Amanda. I’m tired of constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering. And I worry about you, all the time. And then I think about what happened to Helen and I go cold; my hair prickles on the back of my neck, and I think, ‘What if….’” I shrugged again, and pulled her to me.
She put her hand on my chest and pushed, leaned back, and stared into my eyes. “Harry, you can’t live like that. We can’t live like that.”
“I know,” I said. “I want out, Amanda. I can’t do it anymore. I dream about it, about you, and not just at night, but even when I’m awake, alone, like just now. I wake up sweating. It’s…. I’ve seen too much death. Do you have any idea how many homicides I’ve handled or been involved in over the past seventeen years? No? I don’t even know; I never did bother to count them, but it’s in the hundreds. Hundreds of people dead, and for what?”
“Harry….”
“Yeah, I know. It’s what I do, what I chose to do….”
“And now?”
“I don’t know. I can’t do anything else, and I can’t just sit around and wait for God…. I was thinking… about those weeks we spent together in the Islands….”