A few blocks later he saw a line of police cars and an ambulance parked in front of the building where James worked. When he reached the corner, he became part of a small throng of people standing there.
Even through the crowd, Owen immediately spotted his mother. She was standing next to the long-haired guy he remembered who had taken up her attention at the party.
“Mom?” he called.
“Owen?” she answered, seeming surprised to see him.
“You told me that you’d be here, remember? That there was some problem at James’s office.”
His mother grimaced, her tell that she was about to lie. Maybe not a complete untruth, but Owen knew she wouldn’t share everything she knew.
“I’m sure it’s all going to be fine.” Then, as if she had just remembered where he’d come from, she said, “What did the doctor say?”
“He said I’m in the program. He wants me to start the chemo as soon as possible. Like tomorrow, even.”
It was almost like a switch had been flipped in her. His mother pulled him into her embrace. “That’s wonderful news.”
When she released him, the man beside her extended his gloved hand. “Hey, Owen. I’m Reid Warwick, a friend of . . . of James.”
Owen shook Reid’s hand with his own gloved one. As he did, he asked his mother, “What did they tell you about James?”
“Nothing yet. They told Reid that there was apparently some type of robbery or something in James’s office. Unfortunately, James is not answering his phone, but I know he was in DC last night, and Reid hasn’t heard from him either, so I just assume he’s still in transit. His phone must be dead, and all this break-in stuff has nothing to do with him. Anyway, a police detective said he’ll be down to talk to me soon. Of course, he said that nearly a half hour ago. I’m starting to freeze out here.”
A man was approaching. By the swagger in his step, Owen knew he was a cop even before he saw the badge dangling from a chain around his neck.
12
Gabriel found this to be the toughest part of the job. Breaking the news of a loved one’s death was always difficult, but in a murder, it was also the beginning of the interrogation.
Stepping into the cold, he saw that the snowfall was roughly the same intensity as earlier in the day. The cars already had a dusting, as did the shoulders of the people who thought it was important enough to stop whatever they had planned on doing that day in the hope that they might see a man leaving the building in handcuffs. Or more likely, based on the ambulance, laid out on a gurney.
It was always easy to pick out the family members from a crowd. Gawkers had an entirely different facial expression. For cops it was like the joke about the chicken and the pig concerning a bacon and egg breakfast. The chicken is involved, but the pig is committed.
He spotted the victim’s spouse at once, aided by the fact that she fit his preconceived notion of the wife of an Upper East Side art dealer—attractive and wearing expensive shoes. Beside her was a man whom Gabriel might have mistaken for her husband had James Sommers not been lying dead upstairs. The man was also attractive and wearing expensive shoes. Between them was a teenage boy who didn’t seem like he belonged to either of them, on account of the fact that he just didn’t read as rich—he was too skinny, with long, unkempt hair and clothing on the grungy side.
“I’m Lieutenant Velasquez. Are you Ms. Sommers?”
“Yes,” the woman, who seemed barely able to speak, said.
“Let’s talk privately.” He steered the woman away. The boy should not hear what he was going to tell her. At least not from the mouth of a cop.
They walked together until they were out of earshot and a police cruiser blocked them from the boy’s view.
“I’m very sorry to tell you that your husband has been killed.”
Jessica Sommers reacted to the news that her husband was dead by bringing her gloved hands up to cover her face. It was a typical reaction, as people often sought to conceal their grief. On the other hand, it also allowed suspects to hide their reactions.
Gabriel always waited at this point, letting the spouse ask what had happened. Sometimes they didn’t do so immediately because they were in shock. But Gabriel always thought it was odd when that happened, and it usually made him think that the real reason they didn’t ask the most obvious question was because they already knew the answer.
Jessica asked a different question when her hands fell away from her face. “Can I see him?”
She wore the unmistakable mask of grief. Everything fallen: her eyes, her mouth, her shoulders. Bereavement didn’t look like anything else. Of course, that didn’t mean it couldn’t be faked.
“Yes. But not right now,” Gabriel said. “It’s a crime scene upstairs. No one’s allowed in.”
She nodded, as if she were hearing him in a foreign language and translating the words in her head. Then she asked the question that most people asked right away.
“What happened?”
“We’re still investigating. But the preliminary conclusion is that it was a homicide.”
She winced at the terminology. Gabriel had used it intentionally because of its vagueness. He wanted to see if the widow would seek more specifics. “How?” would be the most likely first question.
Instead she asked, “Who would want to kill James?”
“I was going to ask you that, Ms. Sommers. The first few hours of an investigation are the most critical, so any information you could give us would be extremely valuable. When did you last see your husband?”
“Yesterday.”
“At what time?”
She started to cry. “No. That’s not right. I didn’t see James yesterday at all. He left for work before I got up, and he went to DC last night. We spoke by phone
