A Grand Murder Read online

  “Why didn’t you tell us about him before?” I asked. “Is it because you think he might have killed your ex—husband?”

  She glared at me with fire in her eyes.

  “No, I didn’t tell you about him because I thought his wife might have a problem with our relationship. Okay?”

  Even though I’d seen a lot of the bad parts of the world, something about cheating spouses still didn’t sit right with me. I couldn’t help but think of Gavin.

  Could he ever cheat on me? Would he? Had he cheated already? Anger ripped through me as I pushed the thought away. I knew Gavin and he would never cheat on me.

  Then again, I hadn’t been around much lately. I woke early and worked late, which left little time for anything else, including our relationship.

  Still, Gavin was . . . Gavin. This was the man who hand-washed my bras and hung them up to drip dry because I was hopeless at laundry. He made sure my washer fluid and my tires were always full. Gavin was a gem that any woman would want by her side.

  I got scared again.

  Being confronted with a woman who knowingly slept with a married man both bothered me and worried me. I had to call Gav when we were done here and see how he’s doing.

  “Philip is an executive at Stanley and Forster. I’ve known him and his wife for years. Nathan and I would go out with them from time to time.”

  She sipped her water, swallowed it, and then took a deep, shuddering breath.

  “It’s Nathan’s fault that I started sleeping with Philip.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “Nathan and Philip decided it might be fun to. . . to swap.”

  “You mean . . .?”

  The rest of the words stuck in my throat.

  “Philip would have sex with me, and Nathan would have sex with Philip’s wife.”

  It was a statement of fact. Like trading spouses for sex was somehow normal or acceptable behavior.

  I thought about some of Gavin’s friends. There wasn’t one I could imagine having sex with—not even in a drunken coma. If Gavin had even brought up the subject I probably would have sent him home to live with his mother.

  “And you agreed?” Louise said.

  “You obviously have never seen Philip. He’s a god.”

  Belinda grinned and crumbled the Dixie Cup in her hands, lost in her thoughts for a few seconds.

  “The sex was fabulous. Better than it ever was with Nathan. Nathan couldn’t even compare to Philip.”

  “Did you swap often?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No, Philip’s wife didn’t like it or couldn’t deal with it. But I couldn’t stay away from him after that. I had to have Philip, no matter what. He was magnetic, and I went after him. I’ve been obsessed with him ever since.”

  “Did your husband ever find out that you were still sleeping with Philip?” Louise said.

  “Yeah, he knew,” She said.

  “Is that why you’re divorced?” I asked. “Because he found out about you two?”

  “No. He knew, but it didn’t bother him. He even watched a couple times.”

  She tore the paper cup apart and threw the pieces across the table. “The bastard got off on it.”

  We sat silent for a moment. The weight of what she’d said required its own space.

  “That’s why we’re divorced and that’s why I wanted him dead.”

  Long buried pain and anger broke loose from deep inside her. Her jaw tightened, her eyes flickered with hate.

  “It was degrading. My husband didn’t give a shit that I was fucking his friend. Then he asks to watch so he can masturbate. I wanted to be with Philip, but part of me wanted my husband to be jealous, wanted him to care, to demand that I stay away from Philip, but he didn’t.

  He deserved to die. I’m actually sorry I’m not the one who killed him.”

  I had to admit—I would probably want Gavin dead if the same situation came up. A strange sense of pride poked at my chest because I knew that, with Gavin, the situation would never come up. I had a good man.

  The door to the interrogation room banged open, startling all of us. The chief stood in the doorway with Barnett Calloway, who was dressed to kill in a three—piece gray suit, perfectly tailored to fit his stout, middle—aged frame.

  Barnett stormed across the room and slammed his soft leather briefcase onto the table with a thud.

  “I demand you stop badgering my client right now,” he said. “When she asked for council you should have stopped questioning her. I’ll have any information she gave you thrown out of court as inadmissible. I’ll have bail arranged for her before you have a chance to turn the key on her cell.”

  Louise stood and walked toward him with a cool, confident, stare. He went mute and glared at her.

  She stopped in front of him, and ran her eyes down the length of him as if he were a piece of garbage that had just crossed her path. Then she drew herself up to her full height.

  “Mr. Calloway,” Louise said. “Mrs. Stanley hasn’t been charged with a crime and is free to leave any time she’s ready.”

  Louise walked past him, without a second glance, and out of the room.

  I stood and held my hand out to Belinda.

  “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Stanley,” I said. “I’m sorry we had to drag you all the way down here. We appreciate all of your help.”

  She shook my hand and gave me a weak smile.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Good to see you again, Mr. Calloway,” I said with a nod. “Chief.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw a slight grin on the chief’s face as I left the room. He might be a friend of Belinda’s, but the chief had no love for Barnett.

  Behind me, I heard Barnet Calloway demand to know, in precise details, what Belinda had told us.

  Who was badgering his client now?

  Nothing could make a high—priced defense lawyer shit his pants faster than losing the commission that a rich, accused client promised. Right now Barnet’s Jockeys were overflowing.

  I caught up with Louise halfway to the elevators.

  “Where are we going, Miss Louise?”

  “To see Digs. He texted me that he had something for us.”

  Good. He’d better explain his mitten comment, because it was making me crazy. I even dreamed about mittens last night.

  “What about Carter? Aren’t we going to question him?”

  “After we see what Digs has for us.” She punched the down button. “What he’s found might give us some leverage with Carter.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Digs was, once again, bent over a microscope. He spends so much time hunched over a microscope, keyboard, or some piece of evidence we’d brought him, I’m surprised he hasn’t grown a hump.

  He was the epitome of a good egg. If he didn’t spend all the time hunched over that he did, half of our cases would go unsolved. Without him a lot of victims would go unheard.

  Louise and I really needed to take him to lunch or something to thank him for all his hard work. I’m sure he’d jump at the chance to have a meal with Louise.

  “Digs!”

  He jumped to his feet and knocked a file off his desk in the process.

  “You got something for us?”

  “Christ, O’Brien! If I’d been working on something delicate, you could have screwed it all up.”

  He bent to pick up the papers scattered across the floor.

  “Did I screw up whatever this is?”

  I sat on the edge of his desk and poked at the slide under the scope.

  He slapped my hand away.

  “No, but that isn’t the point.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had a point.”

  I loved to tease and torment Digs. Some people collected stamps, I irritated the forensic guy.

  “Do you?”

  “Do I have a point?”

  “No, do you have something for us?” I asked. “You did text Louise, didn’t you?”
/>   He grimaced at me.

  “Yes, I did and I do, but I’m not sure I want to tell you now.”

  “Both of you need to stop,” Louise said. “In case you’ve forgotten we’re on a deadline and don’t have time to play games.”

  We hung our heads in collective shame. Louise, as always, was right and we knew it.

  “What do you have, Digs?” Louise asked.

  His need to make the woman, I’m sure he thought of as the mother of his future children, happy overwhelmed his annoyance with me. Not to mention that Louise wouldn’t put up with any more nonsense. He’d better come out with some information fast. Digs went into Mr. Efficiency mode.

  “Have I ever told you about my sister?” He sat, then swiveled his chair toward Louise.

  Not that I’m not all for wild tangents, but his sister seemed a little off topic to me.

  “No, I don’t think you have.” She settled into a metal—framed, padded chair across from him. “Why?”

  “And what does it have to do with our case?”

  He leaned in close, completely focused on Louise. For some reason I felt like I was intruding on their intimacy and that I should leave.

  “She’s the reason I became a forensic pathologist.”

  “Really?” Louise said.

  “Do tell.” I crossed my foot over my leg, laid it on my knee, and squeezed the edges of my aching foot. Another day on my feet and they would fall off.

  Digs gave me an “oh, shut—up” look, and then turned his attention back to Louise.

  “My sister Carol is four years older than I am,” he said. “Growing up I worshiped her. She was my hero. She kept the older boys on our block, who were only a year or so older than I was, from picking on me. I thought she walked on water.”

  Louise smiled like this was the sweetest story she’d ever heard.

  “That’s a fascinating story Digs, but what does it have to do with our case?”

  “Patience O’Brien, I’m getting to that.” He continued. “When I was fourteen, and she was eighteen, she got a job at a local grocery store to earn money for college.”

  His expression grew serious and his eyes distant.

  “One night, she was closing up the store with another girl when two men came in to rob the place.”

  I stopped massaging my foot and turned my full attention to him.

  “For some reason they decided not to stop at robbery. The men tied them up, raped them, and beat them before they cleaned out the registers and took all the cigarette cartons they could carry. Then they left. No one found Carol, or her friend, until the next morning, when the manager opened the store.”

  “Jesus, Digs,” I said. “She died?”

  “The girl she was working with died but Carol survived, except her brain injuries were so severe that she now has the mental capacity of a five—year—old child. Instead of going to college she had to go back to nursery school to relearn the most basic things.”

  Louise’s face became a mask of pain.

  “Anyway, they caught the two guys they thought had committed the robbery, when they tried to sell the stolen cartons of cigarettes. Unfortunately, forensics being what it was twenty years ago, they couldn’t pin anything on them, except trafficking in stolen goods. In the end they were let go for lack of evidence.”

  Digs shook his head.

  “A few months later one of the guys robbed another store and shot the male clerk at point—blank range. The only reason they convicted him this time was because a grainy store surveillance video looked close enough to convict.

  He was let go again on appeal because his lawyer argued that the video was too vague to prove it was his client.”

  It felt like all the air had been sucked from the room. Criminals fell through judicial cracks more than the general public would want to believe, but as a cop you never get used to it.

  The justice system is flawed. At times it does more to protect the criminals than their victims. You sure as hell heard about convictions on the news. A turn over on appeal, because of slick lawyers like Barnett Calloway, rarely if ever made the evening news.

  The public needed to believe that they were safe in their beds at night.

  “That’s when I decided to dedicate my life to forensic science. Well kind of. I think I first entertained the notion of jumping into a radiation pit to become a super hero and catch bad guys, but that didn’t quite pan out.”

  Louise flashed him a huge smile.

  Digs edged closer to her and leaned his elbows on his knees.

  “You see, It’s not that the forensics guys didn’t know what they were doing. They were just bound by the limits of science at that time.

  I’ve made a career of finding what’s not findable and discovering new ways of putting criminals behind bars. That way I could help make sure that what happened in Carol’s case wouldn’t happen to anyone else. So other victims would know justice.”

  “So you’ve found some new way of identifying our perp?” I asked.

  “No.” He leaned back. “I just wanted you to know about my sister.”

  “Why?”

  Louise looked as confused as I felt.

  “Because she helped me identify your fiber.”

  “Fiber?”

  He nodded. “The one found on your victim’s little knife.”

  “The Katana?” Louise said.

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, I give,” I said. “How’d your sister help identify the fiber?”

  “Ever since my parents passed away, I’ve been taking care of Carol. The other day I helped her get dressed to go to day school. When I helped her put her favorite mittens on, these thin fiber strands—” he held up a small sterile baggie with four strings inside. “got caught in the grooves of my watchband.”

  “And?” Louise said.

  “And I noticed a similarity between the colors and texture of the fibers from Carol’s mittens and the colors and texture of this fiber.”

  He held up another sterile baggie, inside there was one strand.

  “The one in this bag is the lone fiber from your crime.”

  Louise looked doubtful.

  “Digs, are you sure you didn’t deposit the fiber on the Katana by accident? You could have contaminated the evidence without even realizing.”

  He laced his fingers behind his head and rocked back with a smug look on his face.

  “I’m positive that I didn’t contaminate anything.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I said.

  “Because I wasn’t originally assigned to your case. Johnson was. He’s the one who found your fiber. I hadn’t touched the Katana at that time.”

  “So how did you get the case from Johnson?” I grinned.

  I knew he asked Johnson for it so he could work close to Louise. He had probably traded a few dozen weekends off to get the chance to work on her case. That’s why we ended up with him on ninety—nine percent of our cases.

  “Something came up so we traded.”

  Digs looked down at his desk and hunted through miscellaneous papers. Not exactly the way to convince someone you’re sincere.

  “Uh, huh, I see.”

  He gave me another “shut—up” look.

  “So?” Louise said. “The fiber is from a pair of mittens. So what? How does that narrow things down for us? We live in Minnesota. It gets cold. There are hundreds of brands of mittens in the stores, which probably use the same type of yarn. How is this revelation going to help our case?”

  Digs reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a pair of ugly, multi—colored fuzzy mittens.

  “They’re made from alpaca wool. Not a very common commodity and these particular mittens are only sold at one shop in town.”

  “Damn it, Digs,” I said. “Stop being cryptic and come out with it already. Your give—a—little—hold—some—back routine is pissing me off.”

  “You need more coffee, O’Brien.”

  That was a cheap shot, but probably t
rue.

  “There’s a little place in Frogtown where I picked up Carol’s, so I stopped and bought another pair. These mittens are manufactured by none other than the victim’s ex—wife.”

  “You’re joking.”

  He shrugged and shook his head.

  “Nope. They’re about the only thing in her fashion line that sells, according to the shop girl.”

  I turned to Louise. “Shit, we just let her go. I can’t believe we bought her act.”

  Louise stared at the mittens like they had all the answers she needed, but wouldn’t tell.

  “I don’t think she was putting on an act.”

  “What?” I stood.

  “She seemed sincere to me.”

  “She made the mittens. Making mittens with rare wool, which happened to have been found at her ex—husband’s murder scene, is more of a coincidence than I care to believe.”

  “Catherine, look at the facts. The lover’s wife knew Belinda Stanley—maybe she bought a pair of the mittens to frame her rival for murder.”

  She stood and handed me the mittens.

  “It’s a leap, but it makes sense,” she said. “We saw Belinda’s drama queen act yesterday. She wasn’t that great of an actress.”

  “Maybe, but this isn’t some TV melodrama we’re talking about. These are real people. Your theory is still one big, cavernous leap.”

  “Then let’s find out if it will fall.”

  “Okay, but I have to call Gavin first,” I said. “I feel guilty about not being home lately.”

  “The drawback of being a cop,” she said. “The lifestyle is hell on relationships.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I have to like or accept it.”

  I dialed Gavin’s cell. The phone rang. Once, twice, three times, four. His voicemail picked up.

  “You’ve reached—”

  I punched one to skip right to the beep. I didn’t need to hear how he was very busy on a job site today.

  “Hi, Gav, it’s me. Just wanted to say, hi. Sorry I missed you. I love you.”

  I punched the off button and hung up. My mind ran through where he could be, but thanks to Belinda, my imagination kept resting on the image of him wrapped in the arms of some leggy blonde, a blonde who didn’t care if he was married or not.