Maggie waved for Loomis to join her.
He shook his head.
Still with his back to them, Smits dropped a cricket in the glass tank, then swung his gaze around for the first time. “You know what fascinates me about tarantulas?”
Loomis closed the door. “They’re great with kids?”
Smits frowned. “Their bark is worse than their bite.”
Loomis frowned. “Bark?”
“Their bad reputation,” Smits said. “Smart-ass.” He put the tweezers aside and pressed the lid down on the container. “When the reality is, they never attack unless provoked.” He turned to face them, showing a mirthless grin. “Okay, detectives, what do you want?”
“Case update,” Loomis said.
Smits pointed at him. “You. Sit.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You. Now.”
Reluctantly, Loomis sat down next to Maggie. He crossed his legs one way and then the other. “We’ll make it quick, Sarge,” he said. “Then we’re out of your hair for the rest of the weekend.”
“Cross your heart and hope to die?” Still, Smits’s smile had no friendliness in it.
Loomis nodded, not looking so sure.
Smits ambled over from the window and dropped into a big padded leather chair behind his desk. It raised his eye level six inches above theirs. He glanced at the gold watch dangling on his wrist. “Okay. You have two minutes. Shoot.”
“Did you read my report?” Maggie said right away.
“I did. And I have to say, Detective, it’s a little on the thin side. For instance, you mentioned you know the victim, but not in what capacity.”
“Knew,” Maggie corrected, causing Smits’s eyes to narrow. “I haven’t seen her in twenty years.”
“Childhood friend,” Loomis added.
Maggie glanced at him. “And before you suggest it,” she said to Smits, “there’s no conflict of interest here. We’ve been out of touch for the last twenty years.”
Smits stuck out his lower lip. “Name?”
“Rita Grigoryan.”
He sucked in his lip, then balanced a pair of reading glasses on the end of his nose, picking up a sheet of paper from a tray and briefly perusing it. “Not the same name you’ve stated here in your report.”
Loomis placed one of the photos on Smits’s desk. “That’s because, in the present day, she’s also known as Dana Cullen.”
Maggie sensed Loomis glancing sidelong at her, but her own gaze was fixed on the picture. Even though it was upside down to her perspective, she could see it was an enlarged version of the driver’s license photo she’d recovered at the lakeside crime scene. Maggie’s stomach muscles tightened.
Smits didn’t even look at the picture, which was atypical of him. Each of the six homicide detectives under his command knew that he was visually stimulated, and that the simplest way to keep him happy was to feed him something he could hold in his hands. Crime scene pictures were a particular delicacy that kept him sated for hours.
“Sounds like someone has their wires crossed,” he said, looking over the top of his readers at each of them in turn. “So which is it, detectives—Rita or Dana?”
“Both,” Maggie said.
He let out a tired breath, filing the report back in the tray. “Okay. Explain.”
Maggie prodded a finger at the photo. “I’m not yet sure why she changed her name, but twenty years ago, when I knew her, Rita Grigoryan was her name.”
Smits sat back a little. “Grigoryan? Why does the name sound familiar?”
“Her father owned a prominent accountancy firm back in the day. You probably heard of him. Big Bob Grigoryan. He had billboards up all over the city.”
Smits nodded. “I do remember Big Bob. Now that takes me back some. How’d that slogan of his go? ‘I got time for your dime.’” He looked at Loomis for confirmation.
Loomis shrugged. “Don’t ask me, Sarge. Apparently, Big Bob’s accountancy skills weren’t as legendary in New York.”
Maggie placed a photo from her stack next to the first. It was a zoomed-in shot of a gleaming gold ring wrapped around what looked like a burned twig. “The victim was wearing this wedding band. I’m thinking her being married accounts for the different last name.”
“But you can’t explain the first?”
“Like I said. Not yet.”
She saw a look of skepticism descend like a mist over Smits.
“No disrespect, Detective,” he said, “but I’m going to need more than your word to confirm an ID. Twenty years is a long time. It’s a generation. Details blur. Heck, I can’t even remember my first wife’s face—not that I’m complaining.”
Loomis laughed what was clearly faked laughter.
Smits didn’t seem amused.
Loomis cleared his throat, shifted in his seat. “Let’s not forget Novak has a photographic memory.”
Smits rolled his gaze round to Maggie. “I never knew that.”
“Well, it’s not quite eidetic,” she said. “I’m just good with faces.”
Smits leaned all the way back in his big chair and rocked slightly. “Way I see it,” he said, “the purse and its contents are good starting points in establishing who’s who here. You state in your report that you recovered the purse from an island out on the lake?”
“Reed mound,” Maggie said. “It’s a small mud hump about the size of a tennis court, covered in reeds. And it wasn’t even a stone’s throw offshore.” She slid a photo onto the desk. It showed Smits’s island with the small chunk of bright red reflecting their flashlights in the reeds.
Smits shrugged. “Okay, so how do we know it belongs to the victim?”
“For three reasons.” Maggie placed a photo of Dana’s purse in front of him. “One, the purse was clean as a whistle.” She pointed at the shiny red leather and the gleaming buckles. “It rained yesterday afternoon. The reeds were still damp, but the purse was bone dry. We also found fresh boot prints on the shoreline close to the body.” She added a photo, tapping a fingernail against the picture. “You’ll notice the deeper heel impressions and the position of the prints in relation to the water? Both indicate someone leaning back as they faced the lake.”
“We think,” Loomis said, “to toss said purse out in the water.” He demonstrated, sinking an imaginary basketball in an imaginary net.
Smits didn’t look impressed with Loomis’s athleticism, or with what he no doubt was beginning to think were their strong-arm tactics. “And it was still daylight when he supposedly tossed the bag?”
“We think early dusk.”
Smits nodded contemplatively. “In which case, and correct me if I’m wrong here, he would’ve been able to see he’d goofed up and the bag didn’t go in the drink. Begs the question, detectives, why didn’t he fix it?”
“The water looks deeper than it is,” Maggie said. “And there are gators in the lake. It’s possible he got cold feet.”
“Okay. And your second point, Detective?”
Maggie placed another 5 x 7 on his desk.
Smits glanced at it through his readers, one eyebrow raised. “What’s this supposed to be?”
“A copy of an old Polaroid picture. I found the original in the victim’s wallet.”
Smits picked up the photo for a closer look. “Kind of blurry. What exactly is it I’m looking at?”
“Rita,” Maggie said, her voice quieter than intended, “when she was seventeen.”
“That so? Well, excuse me if I’m having a hard time seeing it.” He switched on his desk lamp, studying the photo under the light. “Where’s she been keeping this, a sunny windowsill? I can barely make out there’s two people in this shot, never mind recognize features. What makes you think one of these girls is your childhood friend?”
“Because the other girl in the photo is me, and I remember it being taken.”
Both Smits and Loomis stared at her, the only sound coming from the tarantula feeding on the live crickets.
“Rita got a
n instant camera for her seventeenth birthday,” Maggie explained. “She went through a spell taking pictures of everything from sunsets to squirrels.”
Smits waved the photo. “And the both of you, it seems. Were you aware she’d kept this?”
“In truth, I’ve never given it any thought.”
She hadn’t. Teenage years were an exploration of the emerging self. A one-way trip to adulthood, marked by detours. Sometimes, dead ends. Who studied the road map once the destination was reached?
Maggie sat back and let out her breath. “Like I said, it was a long time ago. We did a lot of things that last year. Most of it I’ve forgotten. But I do remember her dad taking this photo. It was the night of the senior prom. The fact I found it at the crime scene goes a long way to proving the purse belongs to her.”
Smits pulled off his readers and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Okay, what’s your third reason?”
Maggie added another photo to the growing mosaic on Smits’s desk. This time, it was a close-up of the victim’s burned left hand.
“Rita was the victim of a stupid prank when we were little. She lost the end of her little finger. As you can see here, the same tip is missing. I believe it proves Dana and Rita are one and the same.”
For a moment, Smits scanned the montage of images, his tongue making brief appearances as he studied each print. Then he leaned back in his chair again, looking dissatisfied. “What else you got?”
Loomis said, “That’s it, as far as an ID goes.”
Maggie said, “The killer used an accelerant. Possibly gasoline. The boy that called it in, he had a can of gasoline in the trunk of his car, as well as bleach and duct tape.”
“And . . . ?” It was a similar cool reaction to the one she’d gotten from Loomis. “Where are you going with this? You think he’s involved?”
Loomis was quick to say, “I do.”
Smits’s gaze hung on Maggie. “How about you, Detective? What do you think?”
“I think he assaulted the girl, right before they found the body. I know he went on their date with a kill kit in his car. I think he’s definitely a person of interest. I don’t know if he’s the killer.”
“Do we need to bring him in?”
“Novak has him in Interview One as we speak,” Loomis said.
“Has he talked?”
“He’s lawyered up,” Maggie said.
“Has he even provided a statement covering last night?”
Maggie felt heat in her cheeks, knowing that apart from the verbal statement made to Deputy Ramos at the crime scene, they had nothing on paper regarding Tyler’s story.
Smits leaned back, the air going out of him. “Well, it’s Sunday. Unless he has a lawyer on retainer, which I doubt, no public defender is coming to his aid anytime soon. What about charges?”
“Not yet.” Maggie thought about Tyler knocking the phone out of her hand and the possibility, should Lindy fail to incriminate him, of charging him with assault of a police officer. But then Smits would probably say it was her own fault for being in the kid’s bedroom in the first place, and what did she expect anyway? “Before we head down the legal route,” she said, “I’d like to speak with the girl first. Get her side of the story. She’s due in at noon to give her statement. The last thing Tyler said before he pleaded the Fifth was she made him do it.”
“Hit her?” Smits looked apprehensive.
“Tyler’s comment was in relation to the stuff we found in the trunk of his car. He said he was told to bring them to the lake, and he was just following orders.”
“Could they be working together on this, these kids?”
It was one of many scenarios Maggie had considered last night as she’d pored over the crime scene, and later as she’d tossed and turned in bed. Her gut had told her that everything wasn’t as it seemed. When it came to premeditated murder, she knew never to underestimate anyone connected with the scene, no matter how initially remote they might have appeared.
“It’s possible they’re providing a mutual cover story,” she said. “We only have their word they found the body when they say they did. Tyler seems to be the dominant party. But it’s just as possible Lindy is the one in control, and all those tears were just an act designed to throw us off the scent.”
“Sounds like you have your work cut out for you.”
Maggie said, “I’m expecting that when we question the girl, we’ll get a clearer picture of what happened last night.”
Smits seemed to mull things over for a second or two; then he leaned forward. “Okay. Here’s what I want the two of you to do. Right now, forget the petty assault. It’s a misdemeanor. If the girl wants to press charges, we’ll get someone else to fill out the paperwork. You have more pressing matters to attend to. Somebody murdered this woman. You need to concentrate your efforts on finding her killer. If it turns out these kids are involved in more ways than they’re saying, we’ll come down heavy and make them talk.” He gathered the photos together and handed them back. “You have a couple of hours before noon. Check in with the ME. If you’re confident on the victim’s ID, then go speak with the husband. Bring me back something concrete I can get my chops into. In the meantime, until you can give me something stronger than suspicion, cut the kid loose.”
Maggie went to object, but Smits raised both hands.
“You can always bring him back in,” he said. “Now go. You’re using up all the oxygen.”
Chapter Nine
POINT BLANK
Had it not been for the lack of signage, the District Nine Medical Examiner’s Office on Michigan Street might have passed as a strip of local businesses. Lawyers’ offices, a veterinarian practice, a nail salon or two—maybe. The nondescript beige building sat within a wraparound parking lot edged in trees, its internal workings hidden behind tinted windows and a general outpouring of blandness.
Nothing to see here; keep moving.
“Sure you need me riding shotgun on this?” Loomis said as he parked the motor pool sedan in a space reserved for visiting police personnel. “You know Elkin hates overcrowding.”
His sunglasses obscured it, but Maggie knew there was reservation in his eyes. Behind the facility’s characterless facade were enough dead bodies to give her partner a major panic attack, and he knew it.
“We’ll make it a smash and grab,” she said as she unbuckled her seat belt.
“In and out?”
“Promise.”
“Okay.” He pushed open the door. “I’m trusting you here.”
After their case update meeting with Smits, Maggie had called ahead and spoken with Maury Elkin, the county’s chief medical examiner. Even though it was Sunday and the ME’s office would be staffed at a minimum, she’d requested a rush to be put on the examination of the burned body recovered at Lake Apopka. As with all premeditated homicides, time was of the essence. What was learned or not learned within the first forty-eight hours could be crucial to catching the killer. But Elkin was already one step ahead of her. He’d prioritized the few weekend incomings, postponing those that bore all the hallmarks of natural deaths, shunting Maggie’s homicide to the head of the list.
Maggie would owe him. Again.
Vegetation steamed as Maggie and Loomis crossed the parking lot in the morning sunshine. A cerulean sky hatched with vapor trails. Maggie pushed her sunglasses up her nose. Already, November was beginning to feel like a continuation of October, with the unrelenting heat seemingly in for the duration. Ten degrees warmer than usual, for the next week at least, according to the meteorologists. Unlike Loomis, who seemed to worship hot weather, Maggie had never been good with too much heat, and it exasperated him whenever she insisted on setting the car’s air-conditioning to deep freeze. For someone born and raised in a subtropical climate, Loomis had said, you’re one atypical Floridian, Novak.
When they were halfway to the main entrance, Loomis’s phone rang. He fished it out, then offered the phone to Maggie when he realized who the caller was.
“It’s for you,” he said. “The boyfriend.”
For a second, Maggie didn’t make the connection. Then realization hit her like a flamethrower and her stomach burned with guilt.
The boyfriend was Steve Kinsey, a part-time surfer and full-time psychiatrist whom Maggie had first met at a fund-raiser six months ago. They’d been dating ever since. Although they lived separately and things weren’t too serious, recently it had become something of a custom on the weekend to stay over, either at his place or hers, and last night, after Whitney’s neighborhood candy crawl, it had been Maggie’s turn to sleep at his. But then the call had come through about the lakeside DB, and Maggie’s plans had melted like Halloween candy left out on the sidewalk.
She told Loomis to go on ahead, that she’d catch up, then jammed the phone to her ear. “Steve?”
“Hello, stranger.”
“Before you say anything, I owe you a humongous apology.”
“No need.”
“Seriously. Something came up last night and our date completely escaped my mind. I would’ve called, but my phone got trashed.” It sounded like a bunch of excuses. Maybe because it was. “I’m guessing that’s why you’re calling on Loomis’s phone?”
“Maggie,” he said, “it’s okay. Nora told me you were busy. That’s why I left you alone till now.”
“Nora . . . ?” Something like a hornet buzzed in her head. “Nora called you?”
“Apparently right after you left her standing in the street. She said work had beckoned and it was unlikely you’d be coming over.”
“Nora called you?” The hornet bulleted around in her head, ricocheting off her skull.
She heard Steve laugh. “Now don’t go getting all Rambo on her, Maggie,” he said. “She meant no harm by it. Nora’s goodhearted. She used her initiative, is all.”
“It’s not her place.”
“Well, I guess she figured you’d be too wrapped up in what you were doing to remember our dinner plans. Looks like she was right.” She heard him laugh again, and the buzzing in her head subsided.
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