Josh returns to the table. I give Julia a look to let her know to drop the subject.
A few minutes later, Julia looks at her watch. “I have to get going. I have an early meeting tomorrow.”
“Are you okay to drive?” I ask.
“I’m fine,” she says, pulling on her jacket. “I only had two. And I ate food and drank quite a bit of water. It’s you two I worry about.”
“We’re good,” Josh says. “I’ll get an Uber, and Liz lives right over there.” He points in the direction of my building.
Julia picks up her purse. “Thanks for the invitation. This has been lovely.”
“Let’s do it again sometime,” Josh says while I grin like an idiot.
Julia smiles and waves and breezes out of the restaurant, checking her phone as she walks.
“Let’s have another drink,” Josh says.
I nod and signal the waiter. We order another round. I sip my margarita while trying to ignore Josh’s pointed stare.
“Quit bullshitting me,” he says, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“You’ve been saying that for twenty-five years.”
“And yet you keep bullshitting me. You need to move on, Liz. It’s been a year. A year.”
“I don’t know what that means.” But I do. I’m still hung up on the woman who knew me too well, well enough that it terrified me right out of the relationship. I regret it, and my inveterate inability to have a normal relationship, every day.
“The lawyer is interested in you.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me.
“I’m not interested.” But what if I am? I shake my head.
“You need to move on, Liz. If you’re not going to move on, then fix it with Cora, because she’s perfect.”
“She’s not perfect. No one is.” And I can’t fix it, anyway. What’s done is done.
He accepts my recalcitrance after a few argumentative minutes and moves on to tell me about his life, his partner, and his job. We talk about him until my own minor personal perils evaporate. When it’s time to go, he orders an Uber ride. We wait outside for it. The car pulls up, and we hug.
“Take care of yourself, Liz. And let’s do this again soon.” He squeezes my hand and turns to walk away.
“Bye, Josh. Love you.”
During my walk home, it occurs to me that I didn’t know what love was, once. And I might not have known it even as I experienced it. But I know it now. That matters. And it’s too late. That matters, too. What does that mean, Dr. Shue?
She always writes in ballpoint pen. Cora, not Shue. We had a conversation about it once. I use decent rollerballs, always black. But Cora is a fan of what she calls the “throwaway pen.” It’s the kind of pen you get as a perk for filling out a loan application or the kind you steal from the bank.
She explained it to me once. “If you use a throwaway pen, you don’t miss it if it disappears, and you can just replace it with whatever pen comes next.”
I asked her if the ink color mattered.
“Yes, you can just switch because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. Your report gets done. You get a high-five from your partner and maybe your boss, and then you go home to the love of your life. So screw it. Who cares about your ink color? There’s more to life than continuity.”
I told her that it really does matter. I like continuity and consistency and patterns.
She asked me to move in with her, and I threw it all into the fire. After the best months of my life, I balled it up and tossed it in, watched it ignite as if I didn’t care, as if it were some shitty old newspaper. I got too immersed in work. I drank too much. I pretended to be someone else, an apathetic, uncaring asshole. And I guess I gave a convincing performance. I thought life would be easier that way, but it hasn’t been. It’s not.
When I get home, I chug some water to offset the tequila and the regret, then I yank The Republic off my bookshelf. I go over to the dining room window. Something moves in the bushes below, and I get an eerie feeling. I tell myself to stop being so jumpy. After an hour of Plato, I turn off the lights and go to bed.
Chapter Nineteen
The next morning, I go straight to Allie Cox’s apartment. As I pull into a parking space, I spot Allie’s downstairs neighbor, Ellen Preakness, standing outside. She’s wringing her hands and looking around wildly.
I climb out and jog over to her. “Ma’am? Are you okay?”
She puts a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“I’m Detective Boyle.” I show her my badge. “We spoke on the phone. Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“U-Upstairs. A-Allie.” She points up at the building behind her. “I-I c-called 9-1-1.”
“Okay. You wait here.” I run up the two flights of stairs.
I have to sidestep a pool of pinkish water to knock on Allie’s door. No one answers. The stream seeping out from under the door is probable cause. Holding my service weapon in my right hand and standing beside the wall, I try the knob and whisper a thank-you when it turns easily. I follow the water to the bathroom. The door is open, so I stay to one side of it. I’ve already guessed what I’m going to find, but I can’t be too careful when walking into the unknown.
Weapon raised, I step into the bathroom. The area is tiny with nowhere for anyone to hide. Allie is in the bathtub, and the faucet is still running. I shove my gun back into its holster. I feel for a pulse even though I can tell from the whitish film on her glassy eyes that I won’t find one.
I pull on a pair of latex gloves and take some pictures with my phone before shutting off the water. A few minutes in, the paramedics and two Cleveland Heights patrol officers show up. The paramedics push past, but the cops recognize me as police, so we talk for a minute.
“You’re not really in our jurisdiction,” the female patrol officer says.
“I know. I had a meeting scheduled with her. Then this happened. Call a homicide detective—she’s dead.”
“Okay, but we’re going to need you to step into the hall. It’s just protocol. No offense.”
I give her a little salute. “Call the medical examiner,” I say before I head out into the hallway.
I pace for a minute, deciding whether to leave, because I know who will probably be showing up soon. But Allie is part of my case. Heights officers are well known for being bored enough to ticket you for going five over the speed limit. They don’t work a lot of “real” cases, mostly just burglaries and the occasional assault. But right now, I’m less worried about turf wars, hurt feelings, and whatever that fizzy feeling is in my chest than I am about what happened to Allie and what she wanted to tell me. I can’t just go. I break out my phone and start taking pictures of the door and jamb.
“You can’t be here.” The voice is a familiar soft alto.
I turn around to face her. “Hi, Cora.” I feel a surge of something that I ignore. “The door was unlocked. She was involved in a case I’m working. She called me last night. When I got here, the neighbor—”
“I’m serious, Liz.” Her dark eyebrows come together in a way that makes a serious frown mark between them. She points down the hallway. “Get out of here.” The intensity in her eyes could burn a hole through a phone book.
She steps around me and goes into Allie’s living room. I follow her, staying too close, and she ends up in the corner between the couch and a bookshelf. I glance at the pictures lined up in front of the books: a photo of Allie with Jen Kline, one of her with the tattooed bartender from Winky’s, one of Allie and her mother. I stifle a gasp when I spot a photo of Allie and Kevin.
“I found her,” I say. “The neighbor was outside when I got here. I had an appointment to talk to Cox, the deceased, this morning. When I got here, well…” I gesture around with my hand. “I need to know more. I need to know what happened to her.”
She flexes her jaw. “I said I never wanted
to see you again. This is—you are—way out of line.”
I notice a silver strand in her dark hair that wasn’t there before. I nod and take a breath. I’ve been way out of line before, and I know what that means, coming from her. I take another, slower breath. “It’s important. It’s a kid case, Cora.”
She knows my thing with tragic families. She knows more about me than I care to admit. I don’t remind her that I can find out everything I need to know from Watson. Our medical examiner and the crime lab serve the entire county, not just Cleveland proper. I maintain eye contact. I don’t like being a bully, if that’s what I’m doing, but I refuse to back down.
She shakes her head. “Don’t touch anything. Not a single thing. This is my scene, and you’re lucky as shit that I’m not holding you on suspicion of this. I’m calling the ME, and you are not to leave my sight.”
Am I really that predictable? It takes a lot of willpower not to roll my eyes, but I know that gesture would get me kicked out of here in a jiffy. “I understand.”
While she makes the phone call, I take the time to study the living room. Allie decorated it tastefully with French-language prints and lots of photographs. She has quite a few books and records. A copy of Rolling Stone sits on the coffee table, next to the TV remote and her phone. I pull a new glove out of my jacket and slide it on. But as I reach for the phone, Cora takes two steps my way as if she means business. I shove my hands in my pockets.
I don’t see any signs of a struggle, nothing to make me think this was anything but a suicide. But why would she commit suicide when she had an appointment to talk to me this morning?
Cora hangs up and puts her phone away. She jabs a finger at the door. “Go wait in the hallway.”
Biting back a sarcastic remark, I do as she says. Cora isn’t playing a game. She’s being a consummate professional and protecting her scene from me, which is exactly what I’d expect of her. I’m lucky she’s telling me anything at all, instead of demanding that I leave the premises.
Out in the hallway, I text Goran: Allie Cox is dead in Cleveland Heights, and you’ll never believe who I just ran into. What’s happening? You at work yet?
My phone rings. “I’m driving,” Goran says. “On my way to work. What’s this about Allie Cox?”
“Dead. Looks like a suicide.”
“Man, they’re dropping like flies.”
“You’re telling me. Watson’s people are on the way.” I glance at the door, which Cora shut behind me. “Cora’s here.”
“Where?”
“Here. Allie’s apartment is in the Heights.”
“Whoa. What do you want me to tell Fishner?”
“Don’t tell her anything. I’ll handle it. Make something up and text me the story. I’m gonna try to sneak back in there and take a better look at the body.”
After we hang up, I slip back into the apartment.
“Looks like a severed femoral artery,” Cora tells a uniform in the bathroom.
A severed femoral artery will take a person out pretty quickly. I try to become one with the wallpaper while Cora and her guys take a look around. She catches my eye once and scowls, but for a moment, I think I see something other than anger behind her eyes.
Once Watson’s crew gets the body out of the tub, I give Cora a questioning look. She frowns but nods. I step over and scan the body before they zip her into a body bag. On her left shoulder is a small puncture mark that I didn’t notice earlier. I snap a close-up to add to the ones I took before I was thrown out.
“Find anything?” I ask as I step back from the gurney.
Cora fishes something out of the bathtub. “Box cutter.” She squeezes the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “I have no idea why I’m cooperating with you, of all people in this fucking universe, but I’ll tell you that we found what looks like a suicide note in the bedroom. It was under a bed pillow. But we don’t even know if she wrote it. We’ll have to run a handwriting comparison.”
“Just let me see it.” When she hesitates, I add, “Listen, I’m not trying to steal your case or fuck with you. I was invited here by the victim, remember?”
The female uniform tries to push past me to talk to Cora. “Detective, the neighbor is a mess.”
“Yeah, I would be too if bloody water was seeping through my ceiling when I woke up in the morning,” Cora mutters. “Get her to the hospital. Tell her someone will be by in a little while.”
The uniform trots away.
“The suicide note?” I say to remind her, even though I know she hasn’t forgotten my request.
She gives me a long, hard stare. “I’ll send you a copy of the note once we get it processed.”
“And get Watson to look at that left shoulder. Something isn’t right. My gut says homicide.”
She scans my face. What is she looking for? I wonder if she can see the regret under my cop veneer. “I’m going to need a statement from you,” she says.
“You still have my number?” I ask.
“Against my better judgment.”
“Thanks, Cora.”
Without responding, she turns away and goes back to work. I stare at her for a minute before I leave the apartment.
On my way to the station, I make a few calls and learn that Miller didn’t make any phone calls from the jail, other than one to his lawyer, who refuses to give me any information. Miller had no visitors, in jail or at the hospital, so it’s unlikely that he’s responsible for Allie’s death, even from a distance. I’m certain that whoever killed Allie killed Kevin. The question is what Allie knew. If I’d driven to her house last night instead of going out to dinner, I might have the answer to Kevin Whittle’s murder, and Allie might not be in a body bag right now.
Once I get to the squad room, I ask Goran if Miller’s family has been notified.
“I think the hospital called his sister, one Marnie Phillips of Cuyahoga Falls. Are you going to tell me what this morning has been all about?”
“I told you. Allie Cox is dead, and Cora Bosch is the primary on the case. I don’t believe it was a suicide, and my gut feeling is that whoever killed her also killed Kevin Whittle.”
He leans back in his chair and squints up at me. “Are you all right?”
“Not really. I mean, I was supposed to talk to her this morning, and instead, I found her dead in a bathtub.”
“What about the Bosch thing?” He knows most of the long, shitty story. But he also knows I don’t like to talk about it, so he doesn’t bring it up much.
“I think she’ll give me limited info. Who knows with her?” I decide to change the subject. “Right, so Sean Miller doesn’t have parents, because he and his sister were long-term foster kids.” I walk over to the crime board. “The sister with the black sedan. The sister with keys to Sean’s garage. Marnie Phillips.”
He flips open his notebook. “That was the name on the Vicodin bottle in Miller’s medicine cabinet. Think it could be a prescription drugs racket?”
“Maybe she’s not as clean as the system thinks she is.” I shuffle a stack of papers on my desk and pull out the preliminary report on Marnie Phillips. “Nada. Totally clean, at least on paper.”
“Maybe she was the brains behind the operation?”
“Could be. And there’s something else nagging at me. The keys to the garage. Miller said it was left unlocked most of the time, so nobody would have needed keys to get in. But this wasn’t a crime of opportunity. We agree that this was a planned crime, right?”
He nods.
“It’s leaving too much to chance, that the garage would be left unlocked. I’m gonna dig deeper on Marnie.”
He stands and stretches his shoulders. “You want coffee?”
“Of course.” I flip open my computer.
I dig up some information on Sean Miller’s sister. Marnie Phillips, née Miller,
married Craig Phillips, aged twenty-seven, four years ago. Marnie Phillips is twenty-four. Her driver’s license picture shows a pleasant-enough-looking woman, with shoulder-length dark-brown hair and brown eyes. She’s five eight and weighs one seventy. She’s a third-grade teacher at Lincoln Elementary, so she’s been fingerprinted. Other than a traffic ticket six years ago for making an illegal left turn, she has no record.
I bring up their address on the satellite map. Their house is like every other house in Cuyahoga Falls: a modest gray Colonial with white shutters, some shrubs in the front, and a driveway leading to a two-car garage. An American flag hangs from the porch. A lot of people call the city “Caucasian Falls,” because it’s the most lily-white section of the Akron-Canton area. Summit County’s middle-class white people like to live there so they can brag about low crime rates, good schools, and high property taxes.
Craig Phillips works for the city as a school bus repairman. He had a misdemeanor charge for reckless driving a few years ago and again last year. I read that as DUI, pled down. He got his license back about six months ago. There was a misdemeanor petty theft last year when he stole some candy bars from a gas station, a seven-year-old drug charge, and some older juvenile offenses, but those records are sealed.
When Goran gets back with our coffee, I give him an update on what I’ve learned so far. He agrees that we need to pay Marnie Phillips a visit. I grab my laptop, and we head to Fishner’s office.
Standing just inside the door, I say, “We need to go talk to Miller’s sister in the Falls.” I hold my breath, waiting for her response. I don’t know if she’s going to put me back on paperwork, send me home, or insist on riding with me. None of those would be good.
She narrows her eyes at me. “Do you have anything on this sister?”
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