Outwitting Trolls (3 page)

“A woman, you think?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Maybe that's what it was,” Sharon said. “Maybe that's who did this. Some woman. I've been thinking about it. I don't want to delude myself. I guess I didn't really know Ken. People change a lot in ten years, regardless of what they might say on the telephone.”

“We all do,” I said.

We stood there awkwardly, leaning our backs against the wall, waiting for the police. After a few minutes, Sharon said, “It just occurred to me. You haven't asked me if I did it.”

“Did what?”

“Killed Ken.”

“You're right,” I said. “I haven't asked.”

She looked at me, then nodded. “Oh.” She hesitated. “Well, I didn't, you know.”

I smiled. “Good.”

A minute or two later, as we stood there waiting for the authorities to arrive, a man turned the corner and started down the corridor. He was wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood over his head, so I couldn't really see his face, but I had the impression that he was white and young—late teens, early twenties. He struck me as out of place in this fancy hotel.

He took a few steps toward Sharon and me, and then he stopped. He hesitated for a moment, and I thought he was going to speak, but then he turned and began to run in the other direction.

“Hey!” I yelled at him. “Hey! Wait!”

He darted back down the corridor and disappeared around the corner.

I ran after him. When I turned the corner, I had the choice of an elevator, the stairwell, or a left or right onto another corridor.

I looked both ways down the corridor and saw nobody.

The numbers over the two elevators showed that one was descending from the seventh floor and one was stopped at the lobby.

When I opened the door to the stairwell, I heard the metallic echo of footsteps below me. The kid in the hoodie, I assumed, running down the stairs.

Already I was panting from my sprint down the corridor. I'd never catch him.

I turned and went back to where Sharon was waiting outside Ken's room. I leaned against the wall and tried to catch my breath.

“What was that about?” she asked.

I shrugged. “That guy panicked when he saw you and me standing here. I wanted to ask him why.”

“You think…?”

I shrugged again. “I think he was coming to Ken's room, but I could be wrong about that. Did you get a look at him?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “You think he's the one who killed Ken?”

“Maybe,” I said.

She looked at me. “But why?”

“Why would we think it was that man?”

“No,” she said. “Why would he kill Ken?”

“Why would anybody?” I said.

A pair of uniformed Natick police officers arrived a few minutes later. One of them, a young blond guy with a Marine Corps haircut and a linebacker's build, went into Ken's room. The other cop, a chunky fortyish woman named Lloyd, according to her nameplate, stayed out in the corridor with Sharon and me. All she said was “We're here to secure the scene till the staties get here.” Then she stationed herself outside the door with her hands clasped behind her, staring straight ahead.

The blond cop came out a minute later. Officer Lloyd arched her eyebrows at him. He shook his head. Then they both stood there with us in the corridor outside the door to Ken's room, rocking back and forth on their heels and toes, and nobody said anything.

Eventually Roger Horowitz and his partner, a pretty female detective named Marcia Benetti, showed up, and behind them an entourage of Massachusetts State Police officers and forensics technicians straggled in. Horowitz spoke briefly to the two Natick cops; then he and Benetti came over to where Sharon and I were standing.

He nodded at me and said, “Hey,” and I returned his nod and said, “Hey,” to him.

Marcia Benetti gave me a quick smile, then went over to Sharon. “I'm Detective Benetti,” she said. “I need your jacket.”

Sharon looked at her. “Excuse me?”

“Your jacket,” said Benetti. “For evidence. That appears to be a bloodstain.” She pointed at the sleeve.

Sharon shrugged, slipped her jacket off, and handed it to Marcia Benetti, who dropped it into a big plastic bag and carried it over to a tech who was standing outside Ken's hotel room.

Horowitz turned to Sharon. “Mrs. Nichols, is it?”

She nodded. “Yes. Sharon Nichols. I kept my married name.”

“We're going to need to talk with you. I assume you'll want your lawyer”—he jerked his head at me—“with you?”

“Yes, she will,” I said.

“Brady's an old friend,” said Sharon.

“That's swell.” Horowitz looked at me and gave me one of his cynical smiles. “Okay,” he said to Sharon. “Officer Lloyd here will stay with you until we're ready. You folks want some coffee or something?”

“Coffee would be nice,” said Sharon. “Milk, one packet of sweetener. Sweet'N Low, if you have it.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Black.”

“You bet,” Horowitz said. “We aim to please.” He went over to talk to a cluster of people, a few in uniforms but most in plainclothes, who were milling around outside Ken's room.

Ten minutes later somebody brought over a couple of folding chairs for Sharon and me, and a short time after that, a uniformed officer handed us foam cups of coffee.

People kept going into and out of the hotel room. After a while, a gray-haired man, accompanied by a younger Asian man carrying a big camera bag, showed up. Both of them nodded to
me. The medical examiner and his assistant. I'd run into them before. They talked with Horowitz for a few minutes. Then the three of them went into Ken's room, too.

My coffee cup was nearly empty when Horowitz came out of the room. “Coyne,” he said, crooking his finger at me, “you want to come with me?”

I got up and followed him into the hotel room. He stopped in the little foyer just inside the door and turned to me. “I suppose you and your client have contaminated everything with your fingerprints and whatnot.”

I shrugged. “Probably. Sorry.”

“Well, put your hands in your pockets. Let's try to keep the damage to a minimum.” He turned and continued into the room.

I followed him. Three young men and one woman wearing Massachusetts State Police windbreakers were conferring outside the bathroom. The ME appeared to be examining Ken's body. His assistant was taking flash photographs.

Horowitz went over to a closet. He opened the door and shined his flashlight inside. “C'mere, Coyne,” he said. “Take a look at this.”

I moved up beside him and looked into the closet. It was empty except for a red-and-black gym bag on the floor in the corner. Horowitz knelt down beside the bag, and I stood right behind him and looked over his shoulder.

The gym bag was unzipped. He pulled open the top and pointed his flashlight at the contents. It was full of small glass bottles. They were about the size that cough medicine comes in. Ten or twelve ounces, I guessed. “This bag was here,” Horowitz said. “Just like this, except it was zipped up. I'm wondering if your dead buddy here might've said something about this when you saw him last night.”

I shook my head. “What is it?”

He reached into the bag with his latex-gloved hand, took out one of the bottles, and showed it to me. It contained a clear liquid.
KETASET
was the word on the label. Obviously a brand name.

“Ketaset,” I said. “What is this stuff?”

“Brand of ketamine,” said Horowitz. “Common anesthetic used in animal surgery.”

I shrugged. “Ken Nichols was a veterinarian who probably performed a lot of animal surgeries, and here he is, at a convention of veterinarians.”

Horowitz smiled bleakly. “Ketamine is also a Schedule III drug that's sold illegally and abused by humans. It's a psychedelic. What we call a dissociative. Commonly used for date-rape purposes.”

“Date rape,” I said.

“Among other things,” he said. “Dances, concerts, parties. Wherever boys and girls gather. It loosens you up, helps you groove on the music. Diminishes anxiety and stimulates your libido. It can give you a psychedelic, out-of-body experience, a trip to what they call K-land, which you'll probably forget when you come down. They call it K, or Special K, or Ket. A bad trip can be pretty awful, I'm told. Then, as they say, it lands you in the K-hole. Special K was fairly popular back in the nineties.”

I shrugged. “Never heard of it.”

“Well, you ain't a cop,” he said. “Ketamine fell out of favor for a while, but lately it's been making a comeback. What they do is, they dry this liquid in a microwave and sell the powder in little plastic bags. The users, they either snort it or dissolve it and inject it.”

“And Ken, being a vet, had access to this stuff,” I said.

“And Ken,” said Horowitz, mocking my tone, “having access to this stuff, might also have been using it. Or selling it. We've
been seeing an increase in the number of break-ins at animal clinics and vets' offices in the past year or so. Ketamine is one of the things they're looking for. It's a fun drug again.”

It occurred to me that Ken Nichols, expecting Sharon to show up in his hotel room, might've had a logical reason to want to give his libido a boost. “Will it show up in the ME's tox screen?”

“We'll tell him to test for it,” Horowitz said.

“You think Ken was selling this stuff?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Why else bring a big bag of it with him from Baltimore? One bottle would be enough to take care of his personal needs and that of a few friends for a weekend.”

“So are you saying this ketamine is your motive for murder?” I asked.

“I'm saying no such thing,” said Horowitz. “We already got a perfectly fine suspect with many good motives.”

“You don't really think Sharon did this,” I said.

“Sure I do,” he said. “She's the spouse.”

“No, you don't.” I snapped my fingers. “Shit. I meant to tell you. After I called you, when Sharon and I were waiting in the corridor for the troops to get here, this guy came around the corner, took one look at us standing there, and turned and started running. I went after him, but I couldn't catch him.”

“You being old and out of shape.”

I nodded. “I thought the guy was acting guilty, turning and running like that.”

“Now you tell me.”

“Sorry,” I said. “It slipped my mind.”

“Yeah,” Horowitz said. “In all the excitement.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“One of your animal doctor's customers, maybe,” said Horowitz, “looking to buy himself some Special K. That what you think?”

I shrugged. “Could be, huh?”

“Could you ID this guy?”

I shook my head. “He was wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood over his head. His face was in shadow. I didn't get much of a look at it. I had the impression he was white, male, and young. Late teens, early twenties. A smallish guy, kind of skinny, five-eight or -nine, maybe one forty. Like I said, I didn't really get a look at his face. I could pick his sweatshirt out of a lineup, maybe, but not him. He could run fast, I can testify to that. Wearing baggy blue jeans and white sneakers.”

“He ran fast,” Horowitz said, “and you ran slow.”

“I've lost a step in the past few years.”

“I wish you'd mentioned this earlier.”

“I said I was sorry,” I said.

Horowitz went over and spoke to Marcia Benetti, who was conferring with the ME beside Ken's body. When he finished, she nodded, said something to the medical examiner, and left the room.

Horowitz came back. “We'll get some people looking,” he said, “but I'm not holding my breath. I'd be shocked if your friend in the hoodie isn't long gone by now. Too bad.” He jerked his head toward the door. “You got anything else I should know?”

“I told you I had a drink with Ken last night,” I said. “While I was there, he had an encounter with a guy.”

“What kind of encounter?”

“I didn't hear what they were saying,” I said. “I thought at the time that they must've been friends, but reading their body language, there might've been some anger going on between them. This other guy pointed his finger at Ken like his hand was a gun.”

“Could you identify this guy?”

I nodded. “Sure. I got a good look at him. He was fiftyish, dark, neatly trimmed beard with some gray in it, big forehead, balding on top. Wearing a suit and tie. I assume he was another vet.”

“You didn't get a name, did you?”

I thought for a minute, then said, “Clem. Ken called him Clem.”

“Clem what?”

“I don't know.”

“First name? Last name?”

I shrugged.

“We can check the registration,” he said, “see if there's a vet named Clem in attendance. Mr. Nichols didn't say what they were angry about, huh?”

“I didn't ask, he didn't say. I'm not sure it was anger. He did seem kind of upset, though. Implied he had a lot of problems. Now that I think of it, he was pretty jumpy the whole time I was there. Looking around the room, checking his watch. His cell phone rang several times, but he only answered it that once, when the bearded guy called from the other side of the room.”

“Clem.”

I nodded.

“What'd you talk about?” asked Horowitz. “Any hints about what was bothering him?”

“No, nothing like that. We talked about the old days. I hadn't seen him in about ten years.”

“You were with him how long?”

“Hour, maybe an hour and a half. Then he had to go to some committee meeting.”

“Did he talk about his wife?”

“His ex-wife, you mean?”

He nodded. “Your client.”

“No,” I said.

“And if he did, you wouldn't tell me.”

I shrugged. “She's my client.”

“Well,” Horowitz said, “we'll check out his phone, see if we can catch up with those two you mentioned. The kid in the hoodie and Clem with the beard. You got anybody else we should check out?”

“That's all I can think of,” I said. “Just those two. Look. What are you planning to do about my client?”

“Question her, of course.”

“When?”

“Tonight. Soon. Okay?”

“Please,” I said. “It's getting late. She's had a very traumatic experience.”

“She gonna be cooperative?”

“I don't see why not,” I said.

I went back over and sat on the folding chair beside Sharon.

She said, “Is everything all right?”

“In your conversations with Ken,” I said, “did he ever mention ketamine?”

She frowned. “Ketamine?”

“It's a recreational drug,” I said. “Vets use it as an anesthetic for animal surgery.”

“I remember now,” she said. “It's been a while since I worked in a vet's office. What about ketamine?”

I shrugged. “There was a bag of it in his room.”

“What do they think,” she said, “that he was selling it or something?”

“It kinda looks like it. Or else he was using it himself.”

She shook her head. “That just shows how much I didn't know him anymore.”

“Does the name Clem ring a bell?”

She frowned and shook her head. “Should it?”

“A guy Ken talked with when I was there, that's all. No reason you'd know him.”

She tilted her head. “So now what happens?”

“They're going to want to question you,” I said. “We don't have time to go over all the things they might ask you. They'll want to know everything you can tell them about Ken. About his business, his finances, his personal life. His friends and enemies. You should just answer their questions as well as you can. Tell them the truth. If they ask you something you think is out of line in any way, consult with me. I'll be there with you, and if I don't like a question, I'll tell you not to answer until we talk about it. Okay?”

“I don't really know much about him,” she said. “We've been apart for over ten years. Just what he might've mentioned on the telephone.”

“‘I don't know,'” I said, “is a perfectly valid answer. Don't hesitate to use it.”

“They think I did it, don't they?” she said.

“They'll ask you a lot of questions about yourself,” I said, “treat you like a suspect, sure. Don't take it personally. It's how they think. They consider everybody a suspect until they can eliminate them.”

“Especially the spouse. Or the ex-spouse.”