The Perfect Suspect

by Margaret Coel

  “Tell us about Detective Beckman,” Marjorie said.

  “Like what? Is she a murderer?” He let out a loud guffaw. “Come on.”

  Catherine dropped onto her own chair. “I got a call from a woman who said she saw Detective Beckman on Mathews’s porch right after he was shot.”

  “Let me guess. A caller who refused to give her name.” Jason gave a massive shrug that sent his shoulder muscles rippling through the fabric of his blue shirt. “You know how many so-called witnesses contact the police department every day? Too many, I can tell you. A case like Mathews, they’ve probably already collected a dozen useless tips. Your caller probably called them, and they dismissed her as a crackpot, so she called here. Hopes to send us chasing our tails over some crazy fantasy.”

  “What kind of detective is she?” Marjorie said.

  “Moot question, from what I hear. Beckman had taken a few days off and was in Breckenridge when Mathews was shot. She got called in to handle the investigation . . .” Catherine started to interrupt, and he lifted one hand. “Okay. Okay. Breckenridge is only a couple hours away. From what I hear, she’s got a pretty good clearance rate, okay reputation. Professional, far as I know. Plus, she’s a babe, in case you didn’t notice.” There was something lazy and settled in the way he gazed around the office out of half-closed eyes. “Isn’t an officer at headquarters who wouldn’t like to get to know her better, you know what I mean. But she keeps to herself. Doesn’t mix business and pleasure, looking out for her career. The guys respect that.”

  “Was she having an affair with Mathews?”

  “Mathews?” Jason’s mouth hung open a moment. “You tell me,” he said, stabbing a finger at Catherine.

  “I don’t know,” Catherine said. This was the big gap she had never been able to close in David Mathews’s life. The rumors that trickled around him like water, then dried up and disappeared the moment she tried to track them. Mathews, a ladies’ man, and yet, until recently, Sydney Mathews had stayed by his side. Campaign stops, formal dinners, speeches, shaking hands and munching on hamburgers in a dozen rural communities, and Sydney right beside him, smiling, patting him on the back. She had stood on the top step of the capitol last January, flakes of snow blowing around her, a smile frozen on her face. But it wasn’t Sydney who had found her husband’s body; she hadn’t been home last night. It was possible she had spent the night at their home in Evergreen, the hideout, Mathews had called it in an interview a few weeks ago. “When I need to get away from the madness, I go there,” he’d said. Catherine could still see the fleeting, wistful look in his expression. “Recharge my batteries, you know what I mean?” She had nodded, and scratched the words in her notepad: even candidates need to get away.

  “I assume Detective Beckman has a private life,” Jason said, getting to his feet. “That’s how she keeps it: private.”

  “What if we were to tell the police about the call?” Marjorie had a way of probing that was nothing more than looking for confirmation on decisions she had already made.

  “It would go to Internal Affairs. They’d look at it, because they have to, and determine if there was any plausibility.”

  “How hard would they look?” Catherine said.

  “Like I told you.” Jason patted a few strands of hair over the bald place on top of his head. “Detective Beckman has a clean record. They’d look at the anonymous complaint, talk to her for two minutes, lose the complaint in a filing cabinet.”

  “We can’t go to the police.” Catherine glanced over at Marjorie who sat immobile, hands tipied under her chin. Finally she gave a little nod and Catherine turned back to Jason, wanting to make sure the police reporter who liked to shoot the bull with his off duty officer pals understood the risks: “If there’s the slightest possibility the caller has told the truth,” she said, “we can’t alert Detective Beckman. Look at it from her point of view. If she is guilty, she could have seen the witness outside the house. If she learns that she has been ID’d, she’ll use every resource she can muster to find the witness. If Detective Beckman has killed once, she’ll kill again.”

  Catherine sank back onto the chair. “The caller figured that out,” she said, looking past Jason to Marjorie, still leaning onto her tipied hands. The caller’s words rang in her mind. I know the killer. “I heard the terror in her voice” she said. “Raw, naked terror.”

  Jason puffed out his cheeks and blew a stream of air. “What does she expect from us? We’re not in charge of the investigation. We’re not the police.”

  “She expects us to run down the truth,” Catherine said.

  “Right! Without any help from her. Leave me out of this,” Jason said, lifting his voice an octave. “Go after the bad detective killer, if that’s the way you want to waste your time.”

  Catherine dug her fingernails into her palms. She stayed quiet a couple of seconds before she trusted herself to say, “It’s not a scam, Jason. You would know if you had heard her voice.”

  “Any other thoughts?” Marjorie said, focusing her gaze on the police reporter.

  “I’d say let it go. If she’s as scared as Catherine says, she’ll probably call back. Try to get her name. Then we can go to the police. Let them sort it out. It’s their investigation, and I sure don’t want any part of withholding information or impeding an investigation. No name, forget it. We’re up the old creek without the old paddle.”

  “So,” Marjorie said, drawing out the long, soft sound. “We wait and hope she calls back.”

  “We could wait until she’s dead,” Catherine said. “She’s assuming we’ll investigate her story. We would be waiting each other out. In the meantime, Detective Beckman could be looking for the witness. And if she finds her . . .”

  “Okay. Okay.” Marjorie threw both hands into the air, as if someone had just pulled a gun. “How do you imagine you can find this anonymous caller?”

  “She could be a neighbor,” Catherine said. “Out walking her dog.” The caller hadn’t mentioned a dog, she was thinking. “She could have been on her way to Mathews’s house. Maybe she’s a campaign worker, a friend.”

  “A friend!” Jason let out a little snicker.

  “I have to find out if she just happened to be outside or if she was on her way to visit David Mathews.”

  “Okay,” Marjorie said. “Take some time and see what you can run down. A couple of days, no more. Gubernatorial candidate murdered! It’s the biggest story of the year. There will be a lot of sidebars and fillers. Who’s going to take his place? How will the party regroup? What happens to the campaign and all those volunteers who expected a nice, cushy state job after their man got elected? You have enough to follow up on without getting sidetracked on what could be somebody’s sick idea of a joke.”

  “We done here?” Jason was at the door, gripping the knob.

  “Nothing we’ve said leaves this room,” Marjorie said.

  “Yeah. Yeah.” Jason flung the door back and stepped into the newsroom. “I got it,” he called over one shoulder.

  “One more thing,” Catherine said.

  Marjorie emitted a nearly inaudible groan. She had already swung back to the computer, both hands poised over the keyboard. She gave Catherine a sideways glance. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “I have to find out if there was anything between Detective Beckman and Mathews. Any reason for her to be at his house at midnight. If I can tie them together, it would give more credence to the caller’s story, even if I’m unable to find her.”

  “Find her,” Marjorie said.

  6

  “No one saw anything.” Sergeant Earl Crowley, egg-shaped gourmand and all around pain in the butt, crossed his arms over his chest and shot Ryan a look of incredulity and annoyance. From his perch on the edge of the desk, Martin tossed her a quick here-we-go-again look. The sergeant blocked the entrance to the cubicle that served as her office. Past his broad shoulders and thick head, she could see other detectives sauntering in and out of other cubi
cles. A low undertow of voices sucked at the air. At the far end of the detectives’ area, the blurred mid-morning sun filtered through a bank of tinted windows. Thirteenth Street ran below, and every once in a while, howling sirens and squealing brakes broke through the thick, concrete-block walls. “Three gunshots at midnight in a neighborhood where even the Jaguars don’t backfire, and nobody went to a window or opened a door and looked outside to see what in blazes was going on?”

  “That’s what the neighbors are saying.” Martin pushed himself off the edge of the desk and moved behind Ryan. Always looking out for her, covering her back, she thought. As far as partners went, Martin Martinez, strung as taut as piano wire with roped veins in a thin neck that rose out of the collar of his white shirt, was every detective’s dream. “First thing the neighbors knew anything was wrong was when Mathews’s housekeeper, woman named Edith Burrows, started pounding on their door at 5:00 a.m. They called 911.”

  “Names?”

  “Lee and Carol Kramer,” Ryan said. “They don’t want to be involved.” She felt nervous and unsteady. It was an effort to keep her voice from cracking. She had investigated dozens of homicides, peered at mangled and bloody bodies, seen with her own eyes what people did to one another. She had never expected to see David’s body, to see what she had done. The morning had been surreal, moving through the house, investigating the crime scene, staying out of the way of the lab techs, all on automatic. Her official self in charge, but that other self, the one that had pulled the trigger, kept threatening to erupt, take over, push away the thin veneer of control and competence. She had never meant to pull the trigger, but the other self had come out of nowhere. Then the loud concussion of gunshots, and David falling, falling. She blinked hard, trying to banish the image.

  She realized Crowley was watching her. “You okay?” he said.

  “I was looking forward to a few days off, Sergeant. You woke me up and ordered me back to work. Why would I be okay?” Ryan gave a shrug that she hoped would pass for normal. “Kramer’s the CEO of Maxwell Energy. His wife’s on two or three nonprofit boards.”

  Crowley shook his head, as if he had seen and heard everything, and this new information only confirmed that fact. “Social types that don’t want to sully their reputations with any connection to a murder. I’m surprised they bothered to pick up the phone.” He dipped his head, still focusing on Ryan through half-mast eyes. “Tell me you have something more than what we handed that pack of media hounds. Gubernatorial candidate shot to death in his home! That’s it? That’s all we have? The murder’s all over the national news. We’ll have TV talking heads from New York and Washington descending by this afternoon. They’ll come looking for raw meat, and we better throw them some. I don’t want this department looking like a bunch of hick amateurs stumbling over our shadows.”

  “It wasn’t a burglary,” Ryan said, still trying to corral the thoughts that bucked and raced around her head. In all the careful planning, the request for three vacation days that she’d put in last week, the untraceable Sig she had managed to slip out of the evidence room—it was still in her bag inside the lower desk drawer—she had never imagined she would be placed in charge of any investigation. She had never thought there would be an investigation, and there wouldn’t have been, if David had only listened. Still she had taken every step to protect herself, in case anything went wrong, she guessed. Set up the perfect alibi; registered at a condominium complex in Breckenridge. Then she had driven back to Denver and gone to David’s house at midnight when no one would be around. She knew the neighborhood. Shut down by ten o’clock, as if there were a curfew on fancy houses and expensive cars.

  And yet, someone else had been there. The dark figure of a woman standing on the sidewalk. The woman had seen her, and this fact, Ryan realized, had unnerved her, set her off balance.

  “We figure Mathews opened the door and let in his killer,” Martin said. “It was someone he knew.”

  The sergeant gave a loud guffaw. “That only leaves about five thousand people, give or take a few.”

  “Shot at close range. Two fatal shots to the chest, one in his thigh.”

  “Could be a professional.” Crowley looked up out of the corners of his eyes, as if he were remembering some previous case. “Someone could have arranged for a hit man to get close to Matthews and show up at his house.”

  This was too close, Ryan thought. The muscles tightened in her chest; God, she could be having a heart attack. She was a skilled shooter; first in her police academy class. “It wasn’t an assassination,” she said.

  Martin nodded, backing her up again. “A pro would have dropped the weapon, and it would be untraceable. He wouldn’t bother to pick up the casings. From the bullets the techs dug out of the wall, we know he used a 9mm. I doubt a professional would have risked nosy neighbors hearing the gunshots and showing up at Mathews’s house. Lots of better chances to get at somebody like him. Dark garages, parking lots where a hit man could move in fast and clear out. Even if people were around, nobody’d see anything.”

  “All right. Let’s look at another possibility,” Crowley said. “Three shots, two deadly, one in the thigh. An act of emotion, spur of the moment. After firing the first shots, the killer realized what happened and flinched.”

  “Lab techs didn’t find any suspicious fingerprints or hairs,” Martin said. “The killer didn’t leave anything behind. Cool and unemotional, I’d say.”

  “Maybe not,” Ryan said. Both men turned toward her. “Maybe you’re on to something, Sergeant. Whoever shot Matthews could have faltered on the third shot.” This was dangerous, she was thinking. She had faltered on the third shot. The image flashed again in her mind—David, stumbling backward. She turned to Martin. “How did you read the grieving widow?”

  “Distraught, probably in shock.”

  “What are you saying?” Crowley shifted his gaze between Martin and Ryan. “You think Sydney Matthews shot her husband?”

  “She wasn’t at home last night.” Ryan pushed on, feeling herself on firmer ground. The idea had hit her when she heard Sydney Matthews screaming out in the front like a animal with a leg caught in a steel trap. She had looked out the window as the uniform led the woman to the patrol car at the curb. She had crumbled inside the backseat, still screaming, out of control and helpless, in a way. The perfect suspect. It was only a matter of making the evidence conform to the premise. “Mathews had a reputation for chasing skirts. We’ve got the computer from the house. It’s possible he e-mailed his lovers.” Martin had gone to the district judge this morning and gotten a warrant to search the house and seize anything that might shed light on the murder, including the computer. David was scrupulous about never e-mailing her, and she assumed he treated his other women the same. Never leave a record, he’d said. Never leave anything behind that somebody might use against you. Still, she intended to check the computer and make certain there was no mention of her before the techs looked at it.

  She hurried on: “Maybe Mathews’s wife got fed up with sharing him.” Ryan could almost sympathize with the woman. She had felt the same way. “Could go to motive,” she said.

  “Sydney Mathews says she spent last night at the Evergreen house,” Martin said, jumping on board. Ryan could see the logic catching fire in his eyes. The spouse or partner was always an initial suspect, always the person who had to be eliminated before the investigation could move forward. It would be up to her, Ryan was thinking, to make certain Sydney Mathews wasn’t eliminated, and Martin would back her up.

  “The question is, Why was she in Evergreen?” Ryan said. “Quarrel? Separation? Does the woman own a gun?”

  “We can find out,” Martin said.

  Crowley took a moment before he said, “Where is she now?”

  “Back in Evergreen,” Martin said. “She’s number one on our interview list.”

  Crowley nodded. “Don’t get locked into a theory. Stubbornness has derailed more than one investigation. I suspect Mathews ha
d his share of enemies. Nobody gets to run for governor without stepping on toes and ruffling feathers. What about his company? I remember his partner coming in and wanting to file a fraud complaint a year or so ago.” He nodded at Ryan. “We sent him to the DA’s office. But you had taken the initial complaint, if my memory’s still working, and the DA’s investigator kept you in the loop. Called on you a few times since you had experience with fraud cases back in Minneapolis.”

  “The whole matter was a misunderstanding,” Ryan said. “The partner withdrew the complaint.” She had met David Mathews then, tall and silver haired, smiling, blue eyes twinkling, and so handsome every head turned to follow him through a restaurant or hotel lobby. She could picture him coming across his office, hand outstretched, when she had gone with the DA’s investigator to interview him. How tanned he had looked in the middle of winter, but David was always tanned, she learned later. Sailing on Lake Dillon in the summer, skiing Vail and Aspen in the winter. “Good of you to look into this matter,” he had said, as if he welcomed the investigation. He shook their hands, holding on to her hand a moment too long, she had thought. The feel of his palm next to hers had sent a chill down her spine. She remembered pulling her hand free. She was a police detective, a professional, and he could be a criminal. There was no room for any personal connection. As far as anyone knew, she had maintained her professional demeanor and composure during the investigation that had barely gotten under way when David Mathews and his partner, Broderick Kane, appeared on TV together, stating that the misunderstanding had been cleared up, and the complaint withdrawn. Kane had accepted Mathews’s offer to buy him out, and the name of the firm had been changed from Mathews and Kane Properties to Mathews Properties. Despite the agreement, a reporter at the Journal, named Catherine McLeod, had kept probing, asking questions about the quick, private settlement, but after a while, even she had moved on to other stories.