Smoke

“How would you characterize it then?”

She found herself stammering. “I-I-” she said stupidly.

Bloom glanced down at his notes and read. “ ‘Your shit is tight, girl.’ That comment doesn’t have a sexual connotation to you?”

Jesamyn shrugged and shook her head slowly. They were making him sound like some sexually frustrated psychopath, and pretty convincingly at that. If she didn’t know Mount, really know him, they might be able to convince her. And that scared her. She was scared for the man who was her partner and her friend. She looked at the video on the screen in front of her, frozen as Matt climbed calmly into his Dodge.

“Didn’t your eyewitness say that he raced from the building?”

Bloom looked at her. She nodded toward the screen and his eyes followed.

“He’s not racing,” she said. “He’s calm. That’s a discrepancy between the witness statement and the videotape. We’re talking about a life here, not just a career. You owe it to him and to yourself as a cop to check out that discrepancy. And to check out what I’m telling you about The New Day.” She leaned across the table and forced him to hold her eyes. “Because as sure as I’m sitting here, I will tell you that Mateo Stenopolis is no killer. The fact that he hasn’t had a girlfriend in a while and that his mom still does his laundry doesn’t prove a thing.”

Bloom held her eyes for a second longer, then rose from his chair. He was a rumpled, tired-looking little man with messy gray hair and a funny moustache. His suit needed a trip to the dry cleaners. He wore a simple gold band on his left hand. He wasn’t very tall, maybe five-six. He had a modest potbelly that strained the bottom button on his white oxford. But she was afraid of him, afraid of what he could do to Mount.

“Please, Detective Bloom,” she said. “Just take a look at The New Day.”

But he just gathered up his file and walked from the room.

“Don’t go anywhere, Detective,” said Bloom’s partner. “We have a little more talking to do.” They closed the door behind them.

A second later the door opened slowly and Dylan poked his head in.

“You okay?” he asked.

She simultaneously was happy to see him and wanted to put her fist through his teeth. She shrugged, looked away from him. She didn’t trust her voice at the moment. He entered the room and closed the door behind him, straddled the chair Bloom had just left. He held a gray fleece pullover in his hand, which he slid across the table to her. She took it gratefully and pulled it on. He always knew her so well; it was part of the reason he was able to manipulate her so easily.

“So, what’s the deal?” he asked.

“They’re trying to make him sound like some sexual freak.”

“Is that the surveillance tape?” he asked, nodding toward the video monitor.

She nodded, reached over, and rewound it to where Mount exited the vehicle. She fast-forwarded it and they watched as a small, balding man with an earring came rushing out the front door wrapped in a blanket, looking stricken. He ran to a nearby pay phone. A few fast-forwarded seconds later, Mount walked calmly from the building and climbed into his car.

“He’s calm. He doesn’t have a drop of blood on him. He’s not wearing gloves,” she said, looking at Dylan.

He nodded. “But look how he has the jacket zipped all the way up to his neck. On the way in it wasn’t even closed, you could see his shirt. The gloves could be in his pocket.”

She turned her eyes to his. “Whose side are you on?”

“Yours, Jez. I just think it’s better if you have an open mind.”

“What? Like be open to the possibility that my partner is a psycho who could beat a woman to death with his own fists and then walk out of her place like nothing happened?”

He shrugged. Looked at the wall above her.

“Come on,” she said with disdain. “Open your mind. Forget your history with him for one second and think about it.”

He let out a long, slow sigh. “There is one thing weird about this tape.”

“What?”

“If the guy came out just a minute or so after Stenopolis entered and called the cops, why did it take them twenty minutes to get there? I mean he had time to finish the job, wash his face, zip up his coat, and walk calmly to the car. They get a call that a woman is being beaten to death and it takes them that long? I doubt it. Someone will have to check the 911 tapes to get the timing.”

She nodded. “That’s true,” she said, feeling a rush of excitement. She watched her ex-husband for a second and wondered if she could trust him with her thoughts. He stared back at her, like they were in some kind of standoff.

“What?” he said finally, showing her his palms.

“Dylan, I think Mount is being set up.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Come on. Seriously, Jez?”

She told him about The New Day and the threats Templar had made. She told him about Jessica Rawlins. He didn’t say anything for a second after she was finished talking.

“Just tell me you think it’s possible,” she said. He held her eyes for a second and then looked away.

“I guess it’s possible,” he said grudgingly. “Unlikely, Jez. But possible.”

She sat back, relieved. That was all she needed: independent confirmation that her thoughts weren’t totally insane.

Nineteen

Lydia sat, fidgety and anxious, in the passenger seat of the Rover. They should have flown. But between Jeff’s ever increasing phobia of flying and Dax’s need to travel with a small armory, Lydia was outvoted. If they took turns and didn’t stop except for gas and snacks, they could make it in seventeen hours. A big waste of time they didn’t have. The sky was dusty pink and gray with the setting sun and a light rain fell. Lydia watched as the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler approached in the oncoming lane and then whipped past them in a wet, noisy blur. She shuddered at its speed and size, imagining vividly that it jackknifed and the Rover went crashing into its body, squealing tires, then metal on metal, killing all three of them instantly.

“Whatever the deal was,” said Dax, “seems to me like Tim Samuels got the fuzzy end of the lollipop.”

Lydia shook her head. “I didn’t figure him for a suicide. He seemed too narcissistic.”

In her experience people like Tim Samuels thought too much of themselves to ever put an end to their own lives. It didn’t rest well with her that she was so wrong about him.

“Is it possible someone else shot him in the head?” asked Jeffrey from behind her, reading her mind.

Dax shook his head. “No one left or entered his place while we were there. And you say no one left or entered while you and Jeff watched. Unless someone came and went and we missed it, which I doubt, there was no one else there to do the job.”

“Or unless there was someone in the house already,” suggested Lydia.

“We saw the flash in the upstairs window and were in the house in less than five minutes. If there had been someone else in the house, we’d have seen him leave.”

“They could have come from the water,” suggested Lydia, thinking of the beach behind the house.

“We’d have heard the boat or seen the lights. Besides, the water was really rough. Too rough for a small craft.”

“How did you get into the house?” asked Jeffrey.

“Through the front door. We were going to break it down but it wasn’t locked.”

“That seems weird. Who leaves their door unlocked?”

“Lots of people,” said Dax. “Look, if you’re planning on offing yourself why would you bother locking the door? What exactly at that point would you worry about protecting?”

“It’s a habit,” said Jeffrey. “You do it without thinking.”