“You know,” said Jin. “We could be looking at this all wrong. There’s another angle.”
“What’s that?” asked Diane.
“Someone could be getting rid of your enemies.”
Chapter 27
“Someone could be getting rid of my enemies?” said Diane. She didn’t like this angle at all.
“You could have a secret admirer who wants to make your problems go away,” said Jin.
“Let’s say for a moment that this scenario is true,” said Diane. “Then it follows that Patrice is in danger. Well, hell.” She fished the cell phone from her pocket, called Garnett, and relayed Jin’s latest idea.
“It’s just a thought,” said Diane, “and I think it remote, but you might keep an eye on her.”
“She’s already requested that we do so. She heard about McNair and has decided that you will be gunning for her next.”
“Oh, this is just great. You know, Garnett, I do have a reputation to uphold in this town.”
“I know. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Easy for him to say, she thought. “We e-mailed you a likeness of the individual generated from the skull fragments found in the basement,” she said.
“I got it. I’m showing it around now. This is the first break we’ve had in the meth case. Good job.”
“Marcus’ men collected the evidence in the basement,” said Diane. “There have to be more bone parts from there. I have a couple of long bones, a rib, and the skull fragments from the basement, that’s it.”
“Maybe it was all obliterated,” said Garnett.
“Do you know how hard it is to obliterate bone?” asked Diane.
“I’ll check on it,” he said.
“Have you been able to look at any of the other evidence from the basement area?”
“No. McNair’s unit is working on it. They’ll let me know when they have something.” Garnett thanked her again and hung up.
Diane thought he was in rather a hurry to get off the phone.
“Well,” said Diane, “Patrice had the same idea… but she’s asked for police protection from me.”
The three of them laughed. She didn’t think it was funny.
“I’ll be going through the books we brought from the Cipriano apartment,” said Diane, “while you guys work on the other two cases.”
The books were stacked in boxes in one of the glassed-in workrooms of the crime lab. The ones David had already gone through were on the table. He had made a list of the titles, authors, copyright dates, editions, and subject matter. She scanned the list, looking for a title, a name, or anything that might sound like the phrase Jere Bowden thought she heard. Nothing sprang from David’s page of notes.
Diane continued where he left off. She flipped through the books, looking for margin notes or anything stuck between the pages. She went through about twenty books and… nothing. David was right. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you have a hard time finding it.
She had started on a second boxful when Neva came into the room.
“I got a call from one of my sources,” she said. “I have some information.” She dragged up a chair and sat down. “It was another jogger who found McNair on the path. He said when he parked his car he saw a guy walking up the road. He was wearing a synthetic black winter coat and bill cap that matched, jeans, and work boots. He had graying dark hair, from what he could see. He noticed him because he didn’t look like either a jogger or hiker. Does that sound familiar?”
“That’s the description of the guy Jere Bowden saw at Joana Cipriano’s apartment,” said Diane.
“That’s what they are thinking at Homicide,” said Neva.
“So the murders
“I suppose it could be a coincidence,” said Neva. “I mean, after all, it’s not like those are unusual clothes. You could go around the city and find a half dozen men dressed like that this time of year.”
“I supposed they asked Joana’s ex-husband if she knew McNair?” said Diane.
“They did, and he said he’d never heard of him. Neither had her mother or her friends,” said Neva.
“Did the witness have any other information?” asked Diane.
“Just that he thought the hat was new or the guy was a dork.”
“Excuse me?” said Diane.
“The bill on his cap was straight, not curved. You know, you have to train your cap bill to have that curve in it. Most new hats don’t have it. It’s dorky to not train your cap bill.”
“Of course.” Diane had rolled up many a baseball cap bill and stuck it in a glass to get that curve in it. “If he saw the bill of the cap, did he see a face?”
“Partial face. The guy’s collar was pulled up and he had his head turtled down and his hands in his pocket as though he was cold.”
“Thanks, Neva. That’s a good lead. Thank your informant for me.”
“Sure. The police are kind of funny on this one,” said Neva. “Normally, a member of the fire department like McNair would be held in the same regard as a member of the police department. They would pull out all the stops to find his killer. But McNair was considered lower than Internal Affairs because of the way he’s gotten so many good cops in trouble.” She shook her head. “He was a nasty fellow and he’s sure caused a lot of problems. Garnett has to report directly to the mayor every day. They said he’s pulling his hair out trying to deal with all of this-and he has a nice full head of hair.”
“I can imagine. When Garnett gets the report on trace from both the crime scenes, get me a copy. I’m particularly interested in the fiber evidence from all the crime scenes.”
“Sure. You really think you can get Garnett to put in a DNA lab?” asked Neva.
“I don’t know. The museum might do it if the numbers line up the right way.”
“Jin’s really excited. Boy, you know how to reward people for accomplishment-shopping in Paris, DNA lab.”
Diane laughed. “I suppose I do.”
“OK, Diane,” Frank said after washing down a bite of pizza with a swallow of beer, “tell me about your day.” His blue green eyes glittered with amusement. “Why do you think you will need an alibi?”
Diane related the entire mess as they sat at her dining table eating pepperoni, mushroom, and sausage pizza. She started with Blake Stanton trying to hijack her car and ended with McNair taking the evidence.
“Now both Blake Stanton and Marcus McNair are murdered. A city councilman would like me to be the killer, for some reason I can’t fathom.”
When she finished, Frank was no longer smiling; his eyes didn’t have that wrinkle in the corners they got when he was amused.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the attempted carjacking?” he asked.
“It paled in comparison to finding Star,” said Diane. She cleared off her oak dining table and threw the pizza box in the trash. She put the other pizza he brought in the refrigerator. Frank always brought more food than they could possibly eat. A consequence, he said of coming from a family with two older brothers and an older sister.
“You are also important to me,” he said when she returned to the table with coffee.
“I know, but it was over, and there would be plenty of opportunities to tell you.”
“It must have been terrifying, facing a crazed kid with a bloody stump and a gun.”
“Scary perhaps. He looked mainly pathetic, except for the gun. But what I really need is to find out who killed him and who killed McNair-and Joana Cipriano. You know, everything we’ve found out about her doesn’t point to a person involved in criminal activity. Actually, I don’t know that McNair was involved in anything criminal. It’s just that I wouldn’t put it past him.”
