Had his skin flaked in a way that it could be found in Pitt’s office, on the floor or under the hooker’s nails?
He cursed the woman and even more so himself for being so careless. He had allowed a struggle, a flaw in his perfect plan. Ace was not accustomed to being sloppy.
Chapter 27
After coming back from the hardest part of a police investigation, talking to the family of the murdered victim, Dale sat at his desk reading reports. One by one his team members came to check in with almost nothing to show for the day. He had to have something to inspire his aggravated group.
Parker and Duncan had talked with Pitt’s wife.
“Mrs. Pitt was cold and distant. She knew he was a cheating dog, but she stayed with Pitt because of the children. Also she shows no signs of being employable herself. Anyway—no help from her. She seemed happy that a hooker died. No surprise.”
“So she has a motive?” Dale asked.
“She didn’t kill her husband,” Parker stated without delay. “She has a solid alibi and is too fragile to do it anyway.”
Dale agreed, but like everyone else who gained financially but didn’t have the strength for the killings, she could still have hired a killer. She was just playing the good wife and wanted her sleazy man dead.
Smith and Ramirez reported that Pitt’s employees all had been hired off the street. Most of them have a criminal record of some sort, but no one seemed to hate Pitt. No one was too sorry he died. They all had solid alibis.
They hadn’t seen unusual documents or visitors around the office. Sanders had made several appearances in the office to talk with Pitt, but that was routine.
Dale thought the $30,000 in the safe was enough for Pitt’s employees to kill the boss. The killer was definitely looking for something in Pitt’s office.
And again, Sanders’ name came up. The biggest problem: Sanders’ employees refused to talk while Pitt’s couldn’t stop.
Lucas and Sanchez reported that many of the prostitutes knew the girl who had been killed and had Pitt as a client themselves. But none had any reason to kill Pitt.
“They called her ‘Amber,’ but no one seems to know her real name. Just for fun, I flashed Watters’ picture around to see what kind of reaction I would get. One prostitute ID’d him. She said Watters has a soft spot for another whore. The streetwalker that I talked with said that he is more than just a client. The two are close. She goes by the name Chloe.”
“Any luck finding her?”
“No one had seen her all day, which is unusual.”
Dale just went through the motions. He was sure Watters was with Chloe somewhere. Any man would think of his woman first. So why hadn’t Dale?
Watters was such a good collector that there were few accounts outstanding—killers who wanted to erase a debt.
“Watters had left his mark on the clients. A few were hobbled in some manner and even though they never admitted it, we assumed the injuries were from Watters. The gamblers were afraid to talk. Watters is more scary than jail. Even the few who still owe money are accounted for.”
Edwards and Morris had interviewed private and public bookies. The general consensus was that no one liked Pitt, but no one felt threatened by his business.
Harper and Elliot showed up before their night shift on Linda Grant. The lead officer got right to her report.
“Linda Grant spends her days in high-end boutiques and her evenings in five-star restaurants getting wasted from the top shelf. She’s made very few phone calls—a couple to friends and family, her attorney and one to Shawn Grant to discuss the terms of the sale.”
Dale wanted more information from this group. “Before I pulled you off the Grant questioning to put you on Watters’ stakeout, how far did you get with Grant’s attorney?”
“Like we said before, Grant had made an appointment to see his lawyer for Tuesday morning. The attorney wouldn’t say what the purpose of the meeting was. When we asked about a divorce, he couldn’t say because as Grant’s lawyer, he also represents Linda Grant. But I don’t think he really knew the purpose of the meeting.”
Was Grant going to his attorney for divorce papers? Did the killer know about the meeting and murder him before the papers were filed and served, which would automatically bring the will into play? Grant’s death made the prenup null and void, while a divorce would cut Linda out of the will completely. His death, twelve hours or so before the appointment with his lawyer, was more than coincidental.
“Okay, team,” said Dale. “Meet back here first thing in the morning. I hope to have something for all of you by then. Good night.”
The group nodded and went home.
He turned to Jimmy. “Well, partner. Our surveillance team has nothing to report either. We’re goin’ nowhere with this one and fast.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“You go home too. Spend some time with that pretty wife of yours. You and she both deserve a night together and a family dinner.”
“What about you? Maybe you should do the same.”
“Don’t tell me what I should do,” Dale snapped, his pulse quickened, but he caught himself.
Jimmy’s wide eyes answered Dale.
“Sorry, I’ll be fine. I’m just gonna finish up some paper work and go home too.”
“All right, buddy. Have a good night.” Jimmy rushed from the office.
Dale was alone in the detective bureau. He needed to get to the “basement.” The crew had turned up nothing useful from Watters’ car, so he hoped they could retrieve something from the bomb that had been planted underneath. Anything.
He knew that spending excessive amounts of time on the job was one of the reasons why Betty had left. This investigation kept expanding at a dizzying speed. In less than forty-eight hours, four people had been murdered. He thought that more people were going to die soon. Because forty-eight hours had passed, his chance to solve Grant’s murder was, by the stats, cut in half. Two weeks without a break came close to a zero rate of success. The clock was ticking very loud. He still suspected two killers. Someone else had killed the police officer with a gun. A knife was close and personal. A gun was remote—it suited another kind of killer.
He had to find a break in the case somewhere. He turned the night lamp off on his and Jimmy’s desks and followed the long, musty hallway down to the basement forensics lab.
The tech looked up from a microscope and checked Dale out over the bifocals perched on the end of his nose. The man’s hair was greasy and disheveled and his white lab coat grimy. The eraser head of a pencil peeked out of his breast pocket and another was tucked behind his right ear. After a deferential nod, he went back to his microscope.
While Dale waited, he checked the dismantled bomb resting on the countertop. The pieces lay strewn about, each numbered and named.
He was inspecting the blasting cap and C-4 when the lab technician finally looked up again. “I’ve been waiting for you to come down.” He smacked on gum and blew a bubble.
“So, tell me about the bomb. And no mumbo jumbo bullshit. You know that I know squat about bombs.”
“Great, another simpleton.”
“Just tell me.”
The techie got up off his stool and walked over to Dale and the bomb. “All right, in layman’s terms. A chunk of plastic explosive had been secured under the driver’s seat, because that was the center of the target—the driver. The C4 had a detonator shoved into it and the detonator wires had been attached to the ignition wires. The bomb
