Kansas City Cover-Up (5 page)

She trembled with a curious awareness that felt as vivid now as it had last night at the hospital.

“Is there bad blood between you two?” Jim asked.

Instead of answering, Olivia flattened her palm against the cool leather of her jacket and rubbed the back of her knuckles as if her right hand had somehow betrayed her. Oh, man. She was in trouble. Despite the stress Gabe Knight had caused, he’d somehow awakened hormones she thought had been in a permanent coma after tossing Marcus out of her life. She was totally screwed with both her family and her coworkers if she even hinted that she might be attracted to the reporter.

And Max was already feeling too chatty about her last relationship disaster to risk getting razzed about Gabriel Knight. “That’s right.” Max snapped his fingers at Jim. “You were working with the bureau task force for a while there. You’re out of the loop. Brower and Liv used to be an item. For a few months. Pretty hot and heavy before she transferred.”

“Shut up, Max.”

But she couldn’t get the hint through Max’s thick skull. “I’m glad she wised up and ended it. You know, for a while there, I thought I was going to have to rent a monkey suit and go to a wedding.”

She turned and glared.

Max had the good sense to raise a placating hand in apology as the elevator slowed. “Shutting up now.” But not really. He leaned his head confidentially toward Jim. “You know, people think I’m the one you have to watch out for on our squad since I’ve been around so long and I’ve seen everything. Or they worry about Dixon because he’s got that big, bad tough-guy thing going on.” Max pointed a finger at her. “
She’s
the one who’ll break you in two if you cross her. I recommend staying on her good side.”

“Good to know.” Jim gave a hesitant agreement, looking from one detective to the other.

Olivia turned away, rubbing at the seed of a headache throbbing in her temple. “Take your own advice, Max.”

The burly detective chuckled. “You know I love ya, Liv.”

The elevator bell dinged, announcing their arrival on the third floor. “Thank God.”

Olivia dashed out, leaving the gossip and that uncomfortable fascination with Gabe Knight behind her. She headed straight for a cup of coffee in the break room, hoping to claim a few minutes of peace and quiet, but she couldn’t shake Max and Jim, their questions or teasing until the roll call meeting was called to order.

After the half-hour meeting to discuss cases of department-wide concern, announce BOLOs and sign-ups for the upcoming annual baseball game against the fire department, Olivia, Jim, Max and Trent Dixon, the fourth detective assigned to their unit, filed into Ginny Rafferty-Taylor’s office. Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor had recently been promoted from her work as a homicide detective. But the petite blonde had slipped right into command of the cold case unit with an intelligence and air of authority that Olivia not only respected, but aspired to in her own law-enforcement career.

In contrast to the senior officer’s professional, no-nonsense demeanor, Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor’s office was decorated with framed artwork painted by her kids. A trifold picture frame on the shelf behind her showed a photo of her and her husband, Brett, a big, beefy man whose hair was as dark as hers was silvery-blonde, along with individual pictures of their daughter and son, who were carbon copies of their mother and father, respectively.

Somehow the lieutenant had found that equanimity between being a decorated career officer and being a woman with a life outside of work. Olivia had yet to figure out that balance for herself. And after her foolish affair with Marcus, she had a feeling she was further than ever from finding that happily ever after. So she concentrated on the part of her life that she knew she was good at—being an investigator who could ferret out the truth when others around her could not.

After listening to updates on other cases the team was working, Olivia briefed the team on the events of yesterday afternoon surrounding Ron Kober’s murder.

“Wait a minute.” Max’s partner, Trent Dixon, a former college football player, picked up the newspaper he’d set aside and unfolded it on top of the small conference table. He tapped the article he’d been looking for and Olivia leaned over to read it. “Gabe Knight’s column says that Ron Kober was subpoenaed to testify before the State Senate Ethics Commission regarding potential campaign fraud during Senator McCoy’s last run for election. Do we think his killer wanted to shut him up?”

Information Specialist Katie Rinaldi sat at the end of the table with her laptop, going back and forth between typing notes and the ongoing project of inputting updates on the unsolved case records she was transferring from paper files into the computer database. She tucked the shoulder-length strands of her chestnut hair behind her ears. “Should I be copying Detectives Kincaid and Hendricks on our discussion if they’re working Mr. Kober’s murder?”

“Not yet.” Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor sat at the opposite end of the table. “If we find anything substantive, we will. But until then, Kober isn’t our case. Jim, I see you pulled the file on the Danielle Reese murder from six years back. Did we get a new lead there?”

“That was my request, ma’am,” Olivia answered. “I’ve got a lead that suggests Ron Kober had a connection to the story Dani Reese was writing at the time of her murder. I can’t say that he’s her killer, but I’d like to follow up on it.”

“Katie, is Ms. Reese’s file in the system yet?” Ginny asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Pull it up.” Ginny typed a note on her own laptop before raising her gaze. “What’s your lead?”

Olivia picked up the folded newspaper and pointed to the byline. “Gabriel Knight. He claims that Dani was getting inside information about a link between Leland Asher and Senator McCoy’s election for an article she was writing. Kober was McCoy’s campaign manager at the time of her murder. If anyone had inside information on a crime boss’s support of a candidate, it’d be Kober.”

“And how does Mr. Knight know this?”

“Well, he suspects.” Olivia left out the fiancée part and stuck to the more important facts. “Dani Reese was a junior reporter at the
Kansas City Journal.
He was mentoring her, and read some of her notes on the story before she died.”

Max sat forward in his chair across the table, looking dubious about the reporter’s cooperation. “Can we get those notes?”

“I hope so. I know Mr. Knight isn’t a fan of the department, but this case is important to him. I intend to ask him.”

Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor nodded, approving the reopening of the case. “I’m all for anything we can pin on Asher to put him away. And some good press from Mr. Knight can’t hurt any of us. Let’s talk it out.”

Katie’s work on entering data on cold cases dating back to the 1800s made it easier to cross-reference information from different investigations. She’d started, of course, with the most recent cases, so everything the department had on Danielle Reese’s murder was there to access. But she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and frowned as she skimmed the screen. “There’s not much here. The ME’s report. Witness statements from the men who found her. According to the ballistics, the gun used to kill her was a .25 caliber semiautomatic. But no murder weapon was ever recovered.”

Jim skimmed the same information in the paper file he’d picked up yesterday. “No wonder the UNSUB had to shoot her three times. A little gun like that doesn’t carry a big punch. Unless he wanted her to suffer.”

“Maybe she knew her killer,” Trent suggested. “And he didn’t want her to die fast.”

Max leaned back in his chair. “Or Asher told his man to stage the scene so it wouldn’t look like a hit. Maybe Senator McCoy hired someone to silence her.”

The lieutenant reminded them of the original investigation. “In that part of town, it very well could have been a robbery. If she struggled with her assailant, he might have panicked. But these are all just theories. I won’t go to the DA unless we have a viable suspect and real proof.”

Katie raised her eyebrows. “Yeah, Uncle Dwight is a stickler for that kind of thing,” she added as her fingers flew over the keyboard, referring to the man who had saved her life when she was a teenager and become her legal guardian after marrying Katie’s aunt.

Olivia agreed that any of the three scenarios was plausible, yet unprovable at this point. “Do we still have anything in evidence?”

Katie read the short list off the screen. “Crime scene photos. Bullets the ME removed. The victim’s clothes, purse and a few items from her glove compartment. The officers on the scene said the insurance cards, registration and other paperwork were missing—maybe to delay identifying the victim, maybe as part of the carjacking—or else they just blew away. The notes here say there was a thunderstorm the night of her death. She wasn’t found until the next day, and the doors, trunk and glove box were all open.”

Max muttered a curse. “The wind and rain probably compromised the majority of any circumstantial evidence that was there.”

“Do we still have Ms. Reese’s car?” Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor asked.

Katie nodded. “It’s in Impound.”

“Wait a sec. Go back. We have her purse in evidence?” Olivia looked at the young single mom turned computer wiz. “Why would KCPD investigate her death as a robbery if her purse was still there? What else was missing?”

“Her wallet and phone weren’t in her bag or pockets. The investigator’s report says she wasn’t wearing any jewelry, but she had pierced ears. Marks from a ring and watch that were gone, too. They assumed the jewelry was stolen. No notation that any of it was ever recovered.” Katie looked up from the screen, her blue eyes wide with curiosity. “Hey, Liv. Is this your dad’s signature on the file?”

Olivia exhaled a reluctant sigh and nodded. She hoped the personal connection wouldn’t put her in dutch with the lieutenant. “I didn’t know this was his case until last night. We chatted some this morning. He said it was the only one he and his partner Al Junkert never solved. There just wasn’t enough evidence to go on. And no one with discernible motive.”

If Ginny Rafferty-Taylor was concerned about Olivia’s objectivity, she didn’t show it. “Was Gabriel Knight involved with the case back then? Did he tell your father his suspicions about Leland Asher and Senator McCoy?”

“Dad mentioned it.” Her father had also said that exploring Gabe’s suggestion had led to a dead end, including a blanket denial of even knowing Dani Reese from the senator’s office, and an unpleasant run-in with one of Asher’s men. But that had ended with nothing more than a disorderly conduct charge. “Dad said they couldn’t match ballistics to any of the guns owned by Leland Asher and his crew. And they all had alibis Dad couldn’t break. Either proof of being out of town, or a family wedding with video that put the rest of them, including Leland Asher, at the reception during the time of the murder.”

“Any records of Asher making big withdrawals around the time of the murder?” Jim asked.

Olivia shook her head, knowing what he was getting at. “If he hired a hit man, there was no paper trail that Dad or Al could find.”

Gabe Knight’s claims were looking less credible by the minute. Maybe, as her father said, the collusion story and cover-up was nothing more than a grieving fiancé grasping at straws. Danielle Reese could very well have been the victim of a random carjacking. Although Gabe had seemed so certain that his fiancée’s death was some kind of mob connection cover-up that Olivia had believed him enough to bring Dani’s case to the team.

And, maybe there was a little bit of Irish vindication running through her veins. If she could solve this case for her dad, it might make his forced retirement after a career-ending injury a little easier to enjoy.

“Are we a go on reopening Dani Reese’s murder?” Olivia asked, watching her supervisor’s gray-blue eyes for approval.

The lieutenant closed her laptop, signaling that the meeting was winding down. “Sounds like our type of investigation. Olivia, you take the lead. Reinterview any suspects and the men who found her, look at the crime scene, nail down the motive—you know the drill.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Olivia rose and pulled her jacket off the back of her chair. “I can follow up with Dad—see if he’s got any insights that might not be in the records.”

Jim jotted a line on his notepad and closed it. “I’ll go over to storage and pull the evidence box. We can look at everything with fresh eyes. If there are any trace samples, I’ll find out if there are new tests the lab can run on them.”

Ginny Rafferty-Taylor shrugged into her sky-blue blazer. “If this was a robbery, let’s prove it. If not, our best lead is to talk to the man who knew our victim best. See if we can put our hands on those notes she allegedly kept and find a motive there.”

“Best lead, as in Gabriel Knight?”

The lieutenant nodded. “You’ve already established a rapport. Talk to him. Let’s make him KCPD’s friend again. We need to get a look at the story Dani Reese was writing.”

Olivia adjusted her jacket over the white blouse she wore before answering. Her fingers hadn’t just started tingling at the mention of Gabe’s name, had they?

Thankfully, no one seemed to notice her hesitation. There was a chorus of
yes
,
ma
’
am
s as they shut down computers and pushed away from the table.

“I expect regular updates,” Ginny reminded them. “Keep in touch.”

“Trent?” Katie set her laptop on the table and hurried past Olivia to reach the dark-haired muscle man before he left the room. “Tyler has Little League tryouts this weekend. I was wondering if you could help him with his swing? This is his first year playing regular ball instead of hitting off the tee. I’ll throw in a home-cooked meal for your trouble.”

“Baseball’s not my sport,” the big man conceded. But he smiled at the mention of Katie’s son. “You know how much I like hanging out with the little guy, though. I’ll give it a shot. Saturday okay?”

While the computer genius and the detective worked out the details of their weekend afternoon, Jim circled around the table to speak to Olivia. “I’ve picked up that Knight isn’t your favorite person. Want me to go with you?”