ideas off of first.
“I’ve read every interview and statement, and all articles I could find on the brothers. It’s clear that when their father was killed in the workplace accident, CJ became the male father figure-he was fourteen. He pressured Wade to grow up, which is why Wade is both responsible outwardly-historic preservation, philanthropy, civic responsibility-and extremely childish. He sleeps around with numerous women, he’s obsessed with baseball, and he’s jealous of Dennis.”
“Why?”
“Because Dennis gets to be a kid forever. Wade was forced by his father’s death and his older brother’s disapproval to grow up before he was ready.”
“So is Dennis guilty?” Suzanne asked. “Or were they a team?”
“If Dennis is guilty, he’ll confess. He’ll tell the truth, whether Wade was involved or knew about it. He’s scared of getting in trouble. I can’t be certain without seeing Dennis with his mother, but his brief statement, and the fact that he didn’t ask for his mother or want her with him, makes me think he doesn’t have a strong bond with her, which also supports my theory that the brothers raised him. I can speculate why, but I honestly don’t know without interviewing her or seeing them together.”
Hicks stuck his head into the interview room. “Barnett and his lawyer are here.”
“Put him next door,” Panetta said.
Hicks handed Panetta a file. “This came in from the lab last night. The FBI called Friday to find out where it was.” He shot Suzanne a look.
“I didn’t call about a lab report,” Suzanne said.
Lucy cleared her throat. “I did. It was the residue test from the first victim. The report wasn’t attached to the autopsy, and I didn’t know if it had gotten lost or they hadn’t gotten to it.”
Hicks said, “They ran it yesterday, put it at the top of the pile.” He winked. “Must be your sexy voice.”
“Get our suspect,” Panetta ordered and opened the report. He skimmed it. “The black powder is ninety-eight percent ultrafine charcoal and two percent gum.”
“Gum?” Lucy questioned. “Could she have aspirated a piece of gum when she was being suffocated?”
Panetta handed her the report. She read it, but didn’t understand it-except it wasn’t chewing gum.
“As you pointed out,” Suzanne said, “the first murder was spontaneous. You were at the crime scene this morning; those abandoned buildings are neither clean nor sanitary. The killer could have grabbed whatever was handy.”
“Maybe our suspect had charcoal in a bag to go home and barbecue after he killed her,” Panetta reasoned.
Lucy gathered up her files. Panetta wasn’t serious. She thought this report was important simply because it was an anomaly, but she needed to think it through, and right now both Panetta and Suzanne were itching to talk to Dennis Barnett.
“In your first conversation, Suzanne, he talked about Wade’s girlfriends who were mean to him,” Lucy said. “Find out how they were mean. What they did, how that made him feel, what his actions were. Did he ever defend himself and how? Was it always Wade standing up for him? And you’ll have to ask about his mother, his childhood.”
“So he has mommy issues,” Panetta said, obviously irritated.
“Everyone has mommy issues,” Lucy countered. “I didn’t say it was an excuse to kill.”
They left the small conference room and went next door. A one-way mirror showed Dennis Barnett with his attorney. Dennis was wide-eyed and curious. Maybe a bit scared, but more interested in the room. His attorney was older and dressed in a suit. He didn’t look happy.
Lucy focused on Dennis. He was broad-shouldered and muscular. He had blue eyes and an inquisitive childlike gaze. He also fidgeted.
He turned around to look behind him, at the blank wall, and Lucy had a flash of recognition. She stopped Panetta from opening the door.
The detective looked at her, irritated. He hadn’t liked her assessment, he was old-school-the “psychobabble” wouldn’t appeal to his investigative approach.
“Suzanne, where’s the witness drawing?” Without waiting for her response, Lucy riffled through her file folders until she found a copy.
“It’s him. His profile.”
Suzanne looked at the drawing, then at Dennis Barnett. “I didn’t see it at first, but I think you’re right.”
Panetta walked over and frowned. “I didn’t see it either, but it’s the profile. But everything is a bit exaggerated in the picture.”
Lucy agreed. “He looks mean in the drawing, but not sitting in the room. He appears harmless now.”
“It was done from an older memory,” Suzanne said. “Unless the witness views a lineup and identifies him, I don’t think we’ll be able to use it.”
Until now, Lucy hadn’t believed that Dennis Barnett was guilty. She was certain that the killer was obsessed with Wade Barnett, either an ex-girlfriend or someone who knew him well, such as a secretary.
She was wrong. How many other things had she been wrong about? Why was she even here in the first place?
She sent Sean a message.
I was wrong. The man the witness drew with Alanna Andrews the night she was killed is Dennis Barnett.
Sean considered breaking into Charles Barnett’s Brooklyn Heights penthouse apartment a challenge. It was a secure building with state-of-the-art locks, a doorman, and a security camera. But it was still just a place, and Sean had never yet been defeated by a building, or a computer system.
It took less than ten minutes to assess the best approach to breaching the twelve-story building, then one minute to bypass the electronic lock that led to the parking garage under the building.
He smiled as he drove his GT into the structure and parked in 12A, Charles Barnett’s empty slot. He was in Europe, Wade Barnett was still at Rikers, and by now, the FBI would be interviewing Dennis Barnett. The apartment should be empty.
Once he was upstairs, Sean picked the lock of Barnett’s apartment and slipped inside, quietly closing the door behind him. He had left his gun in his trunk-on the off chance that someone was living in Barnett’s apartment, Sean might be able to talk himself out of an arrest for breaking and entering, but not if he was armed. Still, if his hunch was right, no one would be there.
He listened for any hint that someone was in the apartment, but it was dead silent. The place was tidy but not immaculate. There were a few glasses on the counter in the kitchen, the kitchen chairs weren’t pushed in, and the cushions on the couch weren’t aligned. It didn’t necessarily mean anything.
But even through the steady drizzle, Sean could see the Brooklyn Bridge outside the picture windows.
There were three bedrooms. One was small and appeared unused. The second had a hastily made bed, the dresser littered with coins and crumpled dollars. Sean went through the items and found a receipt from Abercrombie amp; Fitch for $310.07. The credit card was in the name of Dennis Barnett.
He’d brought the tag from Kirsten’s shirt with him. It, too, was from Abercrombie amp; Fitch, and he compared the item number to the receipt.
Dennis had bought her two pairs of sweatpants, a sweater, two shirts, and four pairs of underwear. Sean searched the bedroom and found no other clothing from the receipt.
He then went to the master bedroom and knew this was where Kirsten had stayed for five days.
The bed had been stripped and made, but the dirty bloodstained sheets were in the hamper. Bloody bandages were in the bathroom garbage, and supplies from a local pharmacy were spread out on the nightstand: gauze, bandage tape, topical antibiotics, pain relievers.
Sean went to the den and booted up the computer. He looked through the browser history and saw that Kirsten had definitely sent the message from this computer on Thursday morning.
He stared out the window as he put together the final pieces of the puzzle. Dennis Barnett had been caring for Kirsten here in this apartment. Why had he not taken her to the hospital when it was clear that she was very sick? Had she convinced him that someone was trying to kill her? Or had she gradually gotten worse, leaving him
