Authors: Sandra Brown
“She beat us to the punch,” he said on the first one, nearly weeping with frustration. “She’s saying her house was broken into last night. Call me as soon as you get this.”
The next message: “Bitch says she didn’t leave her alarm system on when she went out for drinks with her girlfriends. How stupid does she think we are? I am going to crucify her, Howie, you hear me?”
The next: “Computer’s gone, along with the gun that’s registered to her—9 mm, just like our shooter. Call me when—”
I called my soon-to-be ex-wife instead. This had gone far enough, and my rationalizations were corroding.
Sherri had taken Toby and unofficially moved to South Carolina, to be closer to her parents. I hadn’t seen her for more than a few minutes at a time since the split, and then only when she was handing Toby off for a weekend with me. I could’ve made a fuss in family court about the arrangement, but I didn’t feel like I was in any position to fight her. Toby had been exposed to too much bitterness already.
“God, you sound horrible,” she said. She, on the other hand, sounded fine. The further she withdrew from me, the better she felt. “What’s up?”
I told her. I could hear it when she went cold on the other end of the line.
“Nadia.” She fairly spat the name. “I thought you said it was over with her.”
“It was. Is.”
“So what are you looking for here?” she asked, sounding exhausted. “You’re your own man now. You clean up your own messes.”
“In order to clean this one up I’m going to have to tell the chief.”
She laughed but there was no humor in it, only a resentful sort of self-pity and an open hostility I hadn’t felt from her since she’d noticed my increasingly erratic behavior and tailed me over to Nadia’s place one night. She used all the surveillance tactics I’d taught her as a lark when we were first dating, giving her the inside trade secrets I thought were inconsequential. Turned out she’d been a good listener, better than I ever was.
“Well, I guess my humiliation’s complete,” she surmised. “I’m going to keep Toby with me until you clear this up.”
No argument from me there.
“Did I ever tell you that you were the worst mistake I ever made?” she asked.
It was what you’d call a rhetorical question.
* * *
I arranged a meeting in the chief’s office with Stimple and Lori Wiese in attendance. The worst part was those first few seconds, all of them staring at me, uneasy but still trusting, giving me the benefit of the doubt.
So I just came right out with it.
“You guys know I got separated last year. You know we chalked it up to irreconcilable differences, the usual cop-spouse burnout syndrome.” No one had second-guessed that explanation; police forces worldwide were littered with collateral wreckage. “The truth is Sherri caught me cheating. I was having an affair with Nadia Yohn.”
At first Stimple actually cracked up, but within a few breaths his laugh had sputtered into gaping disbelief.
Chief Roberson asked me to repeat what I’d just said.
Lori Wiese was up on her feet, pacing. “And why the hell, exactly, did you not mention this before now? Why did you not pull yourself off the case as soon as Everhardt was reported missing? Why the hell did you attend that meeting yesterday?” Her hands were flying around like she couldn’t decide what to do with them.
“My wife asked me to keep the affair a secret,” I said quietly. I felt a great deflation coming on, like my bones had turned soft. Like I’d been holding myself rigid for so long I’d forgotten how to unclench. “I knew if the truth came out, the lawyers would use it and, well, Sherri didn’t want to feel publicly humiliated.”
“You humiliated her when you started screwing around with that—that—!” Wiese finally dropped her hands and stared at me. “I cannot believe I’m having this conversation.”
Stimple’s reaction was worse. The hurt on his face was apparent, a depth of betrayal I hadn’t ever imagined. I started to say something to him but he held up a hand and shook his head. The brief sense of confessional relief I’d felt quickly turned poisonous.
Roberson leaned across his desk. “As of this moment, you are suspended with pay pending an investigation. You are not to speak about this matter to anyone. If we discover that you’ve jeopardized a murder investigation, your losing your badge will be just the beginning.”
“What happened to her computer?” Stimple asked quietly.
“I don’t know.”
“What about
your
computer?” asked the chief.
“My wife took it when she left.”
“Of all the stupid, thinking-with-your-dick screwups—” Wiese continued, livid.
I said, “We still don’t know for certain that Nadia is involved in the murders.”
They stared at me like I was a foreign life-form, a particularly disgusting one composed mostly of quivering valves and offensive odors. “You’re right about that,” Stimple finally said. “But now we have to figure out if
you
are.”
* * *
I still lived in the house Sherri and I’d bought when we were first married; it was my only real asset, in terms of ownership. I didn’t know if it would survive the final terms of the divorce.
When the empty upstairs rooms loomed too large, I retreated to the basement to really turn up the Bose speakers loud and blank out all thought. I had my flat-screen down there, all my Drive-By Truckers and Avett Brothers and Bobby Bare, Jr. CDs, none of that radio country crap. Real music. It was the only thing I could disappear into anymore.
Nadia had broken it off with me a few weeks after Sherri left. “I love you,” she’d said, “I really do, but you’re part of this same damned pattern. The rich guy to the troublemaker to the cop with the heart of gold.” She’d smiled then and touched me on my chest. If I’d died right at that moment I’d have been cool with it. But instead she took her hand away and left me behind.
I couldn’t really blame her for what had happened with Sherri. Nadia was a catalyst. I’d given my wife a dozen reasons to leave, some having to do with the job, some with whatever was missing inside me. But now I was on the verge of losing my job, maybe my freedom, and yet all I could think of was those flashing eyes, those whispers, the way she’d clung so tight. I’d let Nadia walk away because I knew she was right, she
was
stuck in a pattern that was leading to worse and worse results. What I wanted for her most of all was for her to break free of the machinations of all the jealous petty dipshits who’d ever fallen for her, myself included.
I’d stowed my service weapon in my locker before I left the station. They wouldn’t demand it of me yet, not until Roberson and Wiese’s investigation—which I imagined would involve a lot of ass-covering and a concerted effort to keep it an internal affair—was complete. The only guns I kept in the house were a shotgun upstairs and my father’s little .22 pistol, an antique that I still fired sometimes on the range, just to keep it in working order. I stored the handgun in a cushioned wooden box down in the basement, in one of the coffee table drawers, right there by the couch.
I slid open the drawer and unlatched the box now, five beers in—bad idea.
The last time I’d taken it out was the day Nadia walked away. I’d just wanted to stop hurting. But I’d eventually put it back in the box and closed the lid on it. It was my son’s face that turned things for me then, but thinking of him now made me hurt even worse. I took out the .22 and checked the cylinder—fully loaded, six rounds. Small caliber, you’d have to aim it straight into your eye or your mouth or your heart for it to work.
I stared at the gun a while and then put it back in the drawer, too drunk to latch it back into its box, halfway thinking I might work up the guts sooner rather than later.
* * *
“She’s gone,” Stimple told me on the phone.
“Gone?” I croaked. It was nearly noon, but I was still entangled in stale sheets, the curtains pulled tight, a spilled beer sticky on the bedside table. I couldn’t even remember coming up from the basement.
“Lock on the back door broken, blood on the cabinets. The alarm company called it in this morning at around four. Where were you at that time?”
“I was right here, Carl.”
“We’re going to need to come out there.”
They arrived ten minutes later, Stimple pausing only long enough to sneer at my disheveled appearance before moving past me. One of the officers took note of my breath and handed me a stick of chewing gum. It was sickly sweet and made my mouth even drier.
They checked the place top to bottom and then took off. “Do not go anywhere,” Stimple ordered me on his way out.
But she was missing, and I couldn’t stand the empty house. I showered and went rogue.
* * *
I rousted Liam Gregg’s drug associates. My empty threats were rendered plausible by the madness in my eyes, but they didn’t know shit. I lied my way past security at Prestonwood and harassed Bertram Everhardt’s old golfing buddies. One of them must’ve contacted the station, because Stimple was on my phone within minutes of my leaving the country club, demanding that I take my ass back home and plant it there.
The impotent frustration shrunk my lungs down to wheezing knots. I drove to my place on autopilot, a single thought repeating:
Where are you?
Back home, I took a beer and headed for the dim refuge of the basement. I reached the bottom of the stairs and saw her there on the old ratty couch, face bruised and bloody, hands tied behind her back, eyes wide, a sob trapped behind a strip of gray tape.
I dropped my beer.
Carl Stimple was sitting on the couch with her, but he rose now and aimed a gun I recognized as a 9 mm at me, waving me to take his place beside Nadia. I raised my empty hands high and said, “Please, Carl. Whatever this is, stay calm.”
Stimple gestured toward a gray boxy object on the coffee table. “See that hard drive, Howie? Came out of her computer. All kinds of emails between the two of you on here, right?”
“You—?”
“Took it right out of her place. Figured it would complete the scene just about perfectly. You panicked, stole it before you decided to come clean.”
“Carl, we can talk about this.”
He shook his head ruefully.
“I talk, you listen,” Stimple said. “Now. Sit. Down.”
I moved onto the couch and Nadia leaned into me.
Stimple sneered. “The perfect couple. Howie, you’re an asshole. You know she really did kill my son? She really did. Ditched him as soon as they had their diplomas, traded him in to be the life of the party. Ronnie enlisted right off. Barely eighteen years old. Some of the guys in his unit wrote to me after, you know, told me how he never could quit talking about her, how he was always distracted, reckless, trying to prove himself.”
Nadia tried to say something from behind her gag.
“Shut up!” Stimple roared at her. “You might’ve forgotten about Ronnie but I never did. I kept an eye on you, watching as you milked your rich husband and then traded him in for a drug dealer. I’ve been planning to put you down for a long time, but I wasn’t quite sure how to make it work. When I realized you’d seduced my young protégé here, I knew I had my opening.” He saw my face and laughed. “Oh, yeah, I knew. Maybe I wasn’t quite certain until our little interview the other day, but I saw what happened when you two looked at each other. No mistaking that electricity.”
He was wearing gloves. His eyes were wild.
“Up until then, I was just going to frame her for Everhardt and Gregg. But this, this is so much better. Everyone knows how poor Howie’s life’s been falling apart these past few months, losing his family and all, buckling under the pressures of a new line of work. A perfect line of work for someone who wants payback on the girl who wrecked his life. A murder/suicide scenario if ever there was one.” He waved the 9 mm at us. “Same gun used in all the crimes. You’ve got the hard drive from her computer with all your secret messages. I want you to know this isn’t really about you, though, Howie, okay? This is about my boy.”
Nadia moved faster than I’d have ever imagined she could. She was up off the couch and barreling at Stimple with her head down before he could quite believe it. He looked like he wanted to laugh, but instead he fired. I saw the wound opening as the bullet punctured her back just above the shoulder blade. The force of her launch carried her into him and he spun around, deflecting her onto the floor.
I grabbed my father’s .22 out of the drawer while Stimple was distracted with Nadia. I knew I had to get closer to get off an effective shot. He was turning back in my direction when I shoved the little gun right up under his jaw. Firing all six rounds might’ve been overdoing it a bit, but I was kind of going on instinct at that point.
* * *
Nadia was in the hospital for a week with a collapsed lung. It was touch and go for a while there.
The day she was released I came to see her. Her parents were there, too, and none too pleased to see a police officer of any kind, especially one whose suspension had been extended while the investigation wound down. But Nadia reached out from her wheelchair and entwined her fingers with my own. I leaned in to kiss her while her folks stood there awkwardly.
Spark. Flash.
* * * * *
AFTER HOURS
William Bernhardt
There are enough twists in this story to warrant one of those road signs with a snaky arrow on it. Buckle up. ~SB
Major Morelli shoved his hands into the pockets of his trench coat. “Damn it all to hell.”
Morelli’s partner, Lieutenant Baxter, was so stricken she could barely speak. “It’s…a tragedy, that’s all,” she finally spit out in a halting, broken voice. “Just…a tragedy.”
The corpse sprawled across the king-size bed was, Morelli thought, perhaps the most luminous woman he had ever seen. Even now, with the color drained from her face, she possessed a spellbinding quality that he rarely observed in the living or the dead. A purity that came only with youth. A feminine dignity that even so much blood could not obscure.
“Must’ve been a heartbreaker,” Morelli added, to no one in particular.
“And so young. Hell, I got a niece about her age.” Baxter turned her back on the grisly tableau. “Think of everything she’ll miss, everything she’ll never know. Just makes me sick.”
“Try to keep your emotions out of it,” Morelli warned. “We have a job to do.”
“You’re always in control, right? Always the professional. Even when you’re looking at a crime so horrible it makes your stomach turn. Makes you want to give up being a cop and just slit your wrists.”
Morelli didn’t blink. “Let’s interview the boyfriend.”
On his way out of the bedroom, Morelli glanced through the still-open sliding door that led to the terrace. The Tulsa skyline beckoned with twinkling lights and an irregular skyline, innocent as a Christmas tree. He loved this town, loved its earnestness and well-meaning naïveté. Working here was like policing feral beast outbreaks in a wildlife preserve. Who would dream that even here, after hours, you could discover a horror like this?
He headed into the main living room where Baxter was already waiting. Dr. Barkley, the county coroner, had arrived. He was younger than Morelli and it showed. He had the expertise of a doctor and the aspect of a surfer dude, a combination Morelli never failed to find disturbing.
“She’s in there.” Morelli jerked his thumb back the way he’d come. “I’d like to know as much as you can tell me as soon as you can tell me.”
Barkley frowned. “Mike, you know I can’t reach any final conclusions until I’ve—”
“Yeah, I know the drill.” Morelli placed his finger on the lapel of Barkley’s overalls. “Nonetheless, I want to know as much as you can tell me as soon as you can tell me. I’d like a preliminary report in fifteen minutes. Understood?”
“Whatever.” Barkley passed wordlessly into the bedroom.
“Bit grumpy tonight, aren’t you?” Baxter asked.
“Just reminding the coroner who works for whom.”
“No, that girl is getting to you. The corpse. You’re totally on edge.”
“Don’t like having my sleep disturbed.”
“That I already knew.”
She handed him the photos from the videographers, as always, careful that their hands didn’t touch.
The affair started years ago. First it was an unexpected kiss during a stakeout. Now they spent most weekends together. No one knew. Departmental regulations didn’t permit intimate relationships between officers. If word got out, one of them would have to quit. Not to mention put up with endless harassment from fellow officers.
Morelli crossed the living room of the penthouse apartment. Baxter followed. They found the boyfriend huddled in the far corner of an elegant white sofa.
He was a delicate, slender man—in some respects as beautiful as his slain companion. His hair had been buzzed down almost to the scalp. Ironically, the extreme crew cut did not give him a hard, military appearance but instead made him seem simple and unadorned, almost childlike. His face was red and swollen to such a degree that Morelli couldn’t get a clear impression of his features.
Morelli opened his notepad and checked the name. “You’re Terry Farnum?”
The man nodded slightly.
“You knew the girl? Kim Masters?”
His response was more a tremble than a nod.
Times like this Morelli hated his job, absolutely hated it. Farnum was grieving hard, and nothing was worse than trying to pry information out of someone who really needed a comforting arm around the shoulder.
“Could you describe your relationship?”
Farnum pressed his hand against his forehead, obscuring much of his face. “We were in love.”
“I see.” Damn this job. He had to keep pushing. “How long had you…uh…been together?”
“Almost seven months now.” His voice cracked when he spoke. “I met her in this club I own down on Peoria. The Red Parrot. When I first saw Kim, I—I can’t explain it. You know how, sometimes, you look back on a particular moment in your life and you realize, that was when everything changed? That’s how it was when I connected with Kim. From the very first, I knew this was something special.”
“I gather your relationship was—” Morelli coughed into his hand “—sexual in nature.”
“It wasn’t the most important part of the relationship, but yes. That first night, after I finally worked up the courage to speak to her, she came home with me. But there was nothing cheap or sleazy about it. She may look young, but she’s an adult. And so smart. We stayed up all night talking, telling secrets, baring our souls. She had not led an easy life. She was confused, troubled, despondent. Said no one understood her. Felt everyone was judging her, finding her inadequate. She was on the verge of suicide. ‘Why can’t people just let us be who we are?’ she said. ‘Why can’t we be who we want to be?’”
Farnum closed his eyes. “I told her not to worry. Told her she was safe with me. Told her everyone is entitled to a small measure of happiness. And that included her. I don’t know how to explain this but, by the time the sun rose, it was as if—we both knew. Can you understand that? We both knew this was right. It was only natural that we should become lovers. Natural and so very right. She was the great romance of my life. Nothing else came close.”
Morelli watched Farnum’s face carefully. The police department’s initial suspect was always the spouse or significant other. But watching this man’s grief-ridden face, hearing his cracked and broken voice, Morelli found it impossible to believe he would do Kim Masters any harm.
“Do you know anyone who might have reason to kill Kim?”
Farnum shook his head. “I can’t imagine. She quit her job, after we got together. She lived here with me. Most days, she never even went out, unless it was a brief trip to do some shopping or some such. She had very little contact with other people. I think…I think she liked it that way.”
“What about yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does anyone bear a grudge against you? Someone who might try to get to you by killing your girlfriend?”
Farnum’s eyes widened, suddenly and horribly. “No. I mean, I can’t— It wouldn’t— No.”
Baxter cut in. “But there is someone with an ax to grind against you? Right?”
Farnum’s eyes dropped a notch. “I…owe some money. Business at the club dropped off this year but, unfortunately, my debts didn’t. I had to borrow. It’s purely a business arrangement.”
“With the mob?”
Farnum took a deep breath. “Do you know a man named Albert DeCarlo? Intercontinental Imports?”
Morelli did. DeCarlo was the top mobster in Tulsa Town. Inherited the position from his daddy. Intercontinental Imports was a front for all his illegal operations. “I know him.”
“He likes to hang out at my club. Has for years. But only recently did we have occasion to do business together.”
“How much do you owe?”
“Half a million.”
Morelli whistled. “And DeCarlo wants to be paid.”
“He’s expressed that desire on repeated occasions, yes.”
“Maybe the hit was a warning,” Baxter said. “Pay up or you’ll be next.”
“I don’t think so. I mean—well, I know that isn’t so.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“For one thing, I told DeCarlo yesterday that I’m taking bankruptcy. My assets are all in the control of the receiver now. It wouldn’t matter who DeCarlo killed. He’ll never get more than ten cents on the dollar.”
Baxter flipped her long brown curls behind her shoulders. “That wouldn’t deter that bloodsucker. He might’ve thought that if he pushed you, you might find some more money somewhere. Or maybe the hit was to teach you a lesson. Or to send a message to the other schmucks who owe him money.”
“I’ve known DeCarlo for years. Since he was a lieutenant working under his father. That isn’t his style.”
“But you said—”
“You asked if I knew anyone who had a grudge against me, and I do. But if DeCarlo wanted to send a message, he would’ve hit me, not Kim. He fancies himself a respectable businessman, in his own twisted way. He might’ve had me rubbed out, but he would never murder an innocent third person.”
“That’s a crock of—”
Morelli stopped her in midsentence. “No. He’s right.” Morelli was familiar enough with DeCarlo’s file to know. The young DeCarlo had been linked to a number of high crimes, including contract killings. But no one had ever suggested that he’d struck against a target’s wife or family or loved ones. He considered it a point of honor. He wouldn’t ice the woman to get at Farnum, no matter how much money was on the line.
“Okay,” Morelli said, “if not DeCarlo, then who was it?”
Farnum shrugged. “If I knew that, don’t you think I’d tell you?” He wiped puddles from his eyes. “Maybe a burglar.”
“The terrace door was open,” Baxter noted. “A burglar with good rappelling gear could have lowered himself from the roof.”
“These are very expensive apartments. Most of the tenants here are loaded. We’ve had a lot of break-ins lately. Maybe Kim caught someone in the act.”
Part of that was true—the Malador had a crime rate way above average. “We’ll check it out,” Morelli promised. He glanced up at Baxter. “Anything else you want to ask?”
“Well—yeah. You haven’t asked about the victim’s family or friends or bad habits or—”
“I think that’s enough for now.” True, they hadn’t covered all the bases, but he wanted to know more about the crime itself. And he wanted to give poor Farnum a break. “Let’s see if the coroner can shed any light on this mystery.”
Morelli returned to the bedroom. He stopped just before he entered and pulled his cell phone out.
“You going to pick up DeCarlo?” Baxter asked.
“I don’t see the point. But I would like someone to speak with him.”
“He’ll deny everything.”
“But he might tell us something useful, just the same.” Morelli snapped his fingers. “Do you know a mug named Ernie Bartello? They call him Bart the Dart.”
“DeCarlo’s top enforcer, right?”
“Right. If DeCarlo had this done, Bartello’s the one who did it. And if I’m not mistaken, Bartello likes to hang out at the Velvet Rose when he’s not working.” He punched a few buttons. “I’ll send someone out to pick him up. You send someone over to visit with DeCarlo.”
After they made their respective phone calls, they entered the bedroom.
Barkley was in the process of covering the corpse with a bedsheet. Apparently he had finished his preliminary investigation.
“What’ve you got for me?” Morelli asked.
“As I said before, it’s too soon to—”
“What’s the cause of death?”
“There is a bullet wound to the abdomen, near the heart. But I can’t say—”
“What about the time of death?”
“Can’t say.”
“Was she killed here?”
“Can’t say.”
“Did she know her attacker?”
“Can’t say.”
Morelli got right up in his face. “Look,
Doctor,
we’re investigating a murder here—the murder of a beautiful young woman who, as far as we know, never hurt anyone. Most crimes are solved in the first six hours—if they’re solved at all. So we need to know everything you can possibly tell us. Right now.”
Barkley batted his eyelashes, as if the pool bully had splashed water in his face. “I guess there’s one thing I can tell you about this…beautiful young woman.”
“What’s that?”
The barest glimmer of a smile flickered across his face. “She’s a he.”
* * *
Baxter looked as if someone had kicked her in the stomach. “What are you talking about? There’s no way—”
“I’m surprised you didn’t notice it yourself.” Barkley flipped the sheet covering the body up, then replaced it. “I’m going to arrange to have him taken to my office as soon as your forensic teams have finished scouring the crime scene.”
Morelli was just as stunned as Baxter, but he would never let it show. “I think we’d better have another talk with Mr. Farnum.”
* * *
Major Morelli squared himself in front of Farnum, contemplating how to proceed. He made half a dozen false starts, searching for the right words to broach the elephant now in the room. Farnum had referred to Kim as
her.
Did he think they wouldn’t find out? Was he too embarrassed to mention it? Or did he really not know the truth?
Morelli coughed into his hand, clearing his throat. “Mr. Farnum…uh…you say you’ve known Kim Masters almost seven months?”
“Right. Since that first night I brought her home.”
“And that was the first night you spotted Kim in your club?”
“Oh, no. I admired her from afar for weeks before I spoke to her.”
“Why did it take you so long?”
“I don’t know. I was hesitant. I have some…personal eccentricities. I’ve learned to choose my companions carefully.”
Morelli and Baxter exchanged a glance.
“Is something wrong?” Farnum asked. “Something about Kim? My God—what did they do to her?”
Her
.
He didn’t know. Morelli was certain of it. No one could keep up a charade this long or this well. Farnum had been with her for months, but he didn’t know.
Morelli proceeded. “You did say, didn’t you, that you and Kim Masters had a sexual relationship?”
“I don’t see that that’s any of your concern.”
“Believe me, if it didn’t matter, I wouldn’t ask.”
Farnum folded his arms across his chest. “Yes. What of it?”
“And…did you…” Morelli wiped his hand across his brow. “Do you mind if I ask what exactly it was you two did?”