She woke before first light, and with only the cat curled against the base of her spine.
“Time,” she muttered, then stared at the display that popped on the ceiling.
5:04.
She lay there sincerely wishing the five had been a six, because she was damn well awake. Roarke, she imagined, was fully dressed in one of his gazillionaire suits and heading a meeting with someone somewhere on the other side of the planet, or beyond it.
On the off chance she could think herself back to sleep for an hour, she went over what she had.
Plenty of people going in or out—or out and in—Greenleaf’s building in the twelve hours prior to his death. She spotted the neighbor/friend—black, sleeveless dress, sky-high black sandals—heading in just after eighteen hundred. And she’d come out, with Beth Greenleaf, talking, laughing, at twenty-forty-eight.
Webster, carrying the brew, walked to the building entrance at twenty- one-twenty-three. Eight minutes later, MTs rushed to the door. The two uniform cops followed a scant minute after.
That had Webster approaching the main doors five minutes after TOD. The apartment door cam feed showed him arriving, knocking, then finally entering the apartment a full seven—close to eight—minutes after TOD.
Gauges and operator might be off a minute or two—three tops. Not seven.
She could, with absolute objectivity, take Webster off the suspect list.
She’d run the apartment door feed back twenty-four hours from TOD. No activity until Greenleaf left shortly before noon. Then his wife went out around fourteen hundred. He came back about an hour after she left, and she returned about an hour later.
No one came to or out of the apartment door until Elva Arnez arrived at twenty-thirty-seven.
Bedroom window, she thought again. The point of entry, the point of egress.
Since thinking only kept her awake, she rolled out of bed, calling for lights. Galahad rolled, too, but only onto his other side while she went directly for coffee.
She’d had plans for her first morning back, she considered as she drank that first sip of heaven. Catching up on paperwork, reviewing cases opened in her absence, closed in her absence. She’d had a nice vision of easing her way back into work, maybe even pulling out a cold case to dig into if nothing came in hot.
No chance of that now.
After downing the coffee, she headed into the shower.
She ordered the jets on hot and full, and just basked in them while she went over her morning schedule.
Crime scene, re-interview Arnez, interview Robards, her partner. Her run on them the night before hadn’t given her any prior connection to Greenleaf, no relations who’d been cops.
Robards had a couple of minor bumps in his teens. Shoplifting, defacing public property (graffiti), assault—charges dropped when witnesses corroborated he’d punched a guy who’d gotten his jollies grabbing a female by the tits and dry-humping her without consent.
Otherwise, their records looked clean. Both were gainfully employed, she as the manager of a downtown boutique, he as a vehicle mechanic.
Still, other than his wife, Elva Arnez was the last person known to see Greenleaf alive.
Except his killer.
Eve stepped out of the shower and into the drying tube. She closed her eyes, let the warm air swirl.
Ready for more coffee, she grabbed a robe. When she stepped out, Roarke stood at the AutoChef—yeah, a gazillionaire’s suit—with the cat
circling his feet.
“You’ll get yours, mate.” He glanced over his shoulder.
That face, Eve thought. They’d passed the three-year mark, and that face could still deliver a short-armed jab straight to her heart.
“As will you. I’m thinking waffles would strike a note with you this morning.”
“They strike one with me every morning. I woke up at five.”
“I wasn’t far ahead of you. Here you are now, as it’s our first day back.” He set a plate of salmon on the floor. “Don’t bolt it. I’ve breakfast, so why don’t you see to a pot of coffee.”
“Got it.”
The cat bolted the first couple bites, then slowed down to savor—if cats savored—when no one snuck up to steal the rest of the salmon.
Eve programmed the coffee while Roarke set the domed plates on the table in the sitting area. Her ’link signaled.
She grabbed it from the table by the bed. “It’s Whitney.” “Go on then. I have the coffee.”
“Sir,” she said as Whitney’s wide, dark face filled the ’link screen. “Lieutenant. This is difficult news.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I knew Martin Greenleaf thirty years, I suppose. We didn’t always agree, but I never doubted his integrity or his dedication. Suicide is sometimes a brutal by-product of the job. From your report, I sense you don’t see this as the case.”
“I want to reexamine the scene this morning and consult with Morris before making that determination, Commander. But no, sir, I don’t see it as the case.”
“Lieutenant Webster finding him adds a complication.”
“Actually, Commander, I feel that’s an advantage. I can clear Webster, as I reviewed the security feed for the main building and the captain’s apartment. Webster arrived after TOD, and entered the scene minutes after that. The logs show he made the nine-one-one for the MTs and uniforms barely two minutes after the time stamp shows him entering the apartment. The captain had been dead nearly eight minutes before Webster entered the apartment.”
“From the detective’s and the department’s vantage point, that’s a relief.
How is it an advantage?”
She’d thought that through as well. Point by point.
“If this is homicide, the killer didn’t expect anyone, and assumed the body would go undiscovered for another two or three hours. Webster gave us a jump. Added, the spouse may have compromised the scene if she’d discovered the body. Even a cop’s wife would react, might touch or move the body, the weapon. Webster secured it, followed procedure. He didn’t contact me personally, but went through Dispatch with a request.”
Never taking his eyes off hers, Whitney nodded. “He can’t be part of the investigative team.”
“No, sir, understood. I’ve agreed to keep him apprised of developments and would like to use him, as needed, for insight. He’s very close to the family, Commander.”
“I’ll leave that to your judgment. I need to know when you’ve determined homicide. As I believe you will. We weren’t friends, but I knew the man for three decades, and I know he had pride in his record on the job. I don’t believe he’d mark that record with suicide.”
“I appreciate your insight there, sir. I’ll contact you after I’ve consulted with Morris.”
“Good. Welcome back, Lieutenant. Whitney out.” “So the day starts early,” Roarke commented.
“Yeah.” She set the ’link back down. “At least it starts with waffles.” And bacon, she saw when he removed the domes. And plump berries. Eve drowned the waffles in butter and syrup.
“I can’t say it’s murder yet, not even to Whitney. Not until I get Morris’s report.”
“But it’s murder.”
“It sure as hell is. A decent plan to set it up as suicide. Decent,” she repeated. “Not close to foolproof. But say Webster doesn’t find him. The spouse does and, in her understandable shock, she grabs the body, so that’s compromised. She kicks the weapon in her rush to get to her husband, or she picks it up. That’s compromised.”
She could see it, she thought as she ate waffles. She could see just how it had been meant to go down.
“Maybe whoever catches the case doesn’t notice the single unlocked window. I’d kick their stupid ass, but maybe. Or maybe Webster arrived before the killer locked it again. Could you lock a window from the outside?”
“Me personally, or anyone?” Walked into that one, she thought. “Start with you personally.”
“Yes, and I have.”
She considered that over a bite of waffle. “How?”
“Depends on the lock and the window, of course. No alarms wired on these, and simple—but sturdy—thumb-style locks. The simplest way, if you want to ghost it, would be a high-powered magnet pressed to the glass at the point of the lock. With finesse you could unlock and relock.
“Unless you’re well practiced, it would take some time, some patience, and that considerable finesse.”
“Maybe. Maybe.” As she ate, she tried to picture it. “More time on the fire escape adds more risk somebody spots you on there. It’s dark, but it’s barely after nine, and people are out and about. It’s a nice night. That’s a maybe.”
“Another maybe is the widow left it unlocked, simply forgot. You take her at her word she didn’t. And I agree. Another investigator might not.”
“One or two windows unlocked, that’s careless, most likely on the victim or widow’s part. A single one unlocked that leads to the fire escape?”
Shaking her head, she ate some bacon.
“That’s a rookie mistake. Whoever did this had a decent plan, but isn’t a pro. And I don’t think a cop.”
“You worry about that.” “Sure.”
Had to, she knew, when the victim was an IAB captain. Retired or not. “But a cop would know better than to put just two clear prints on the
weapon. And if it’s me doing it? I find a way to lock that window from the outside, or I unlock a few more before I leave the scene. An investigator could wonder, justifiably, if the widow’s just confused about the locked windows, or if one of them opened a couple to get a breeze, then forgot to lock them up again.
“It’s the one that sticks out, the one that wants to say: I’m just a coincidence. And bollocks to that.”
Roarke pointed a warning finger at the cat, who’d finished the salmon and hoped for a bacon chaser.
Galahad sat and furiously began to wash. “Then there’s the note,” Roarke said.
“And you had that right. It’s the wrong tone. And she’d have known—he couldn’t have hidden it from her—if he’d been planning to self-terminate. Add now I trust Whitney’s judgment, and he says Greenleaf had too much pride in the work he did to end it with a scar like this.”
She drank some coffee. “Why does a man who’s about to kill himself have the game on-screen? Maybe, you could say maybe, for the comfort, the normality. But I don’t buy it.
“Webster tips the scales,” she added. “Greenleaf’s not going to tell him to come over, shoot the bull awhile if he’s going to shove a stunner under his jaw. If you want to try the theory he wanted Webster to find him, then why did he wait until nearly twenty after nine when Webster was coming by about nine? He didn’t do it until nearly twenty after nine—that’s a half hour after she and the neighbor left.”
She shrugged. “Timing’s off, and that’s a fact. Timing’s off because the killer didn’t know anyone was coming over.”
She got up, walked into her closet, and realized all at once she had to actually think about clothes for the first time in weeks. And to think about it inside a deep, thick forest of clothes.
“Shit. Shit. I’m out of practice.”
“It’s midsummer.” From behind her—quiet as a cat—Roarke laid his hands on her shoulders. “Go for the cool and light. Here, I’ll steer you through it until you get back into the swing of it.”
He took down pants nearly the same shade of pearly gray as his suit. “A splash of pink in the top would set this off, but I know you better.”
“Damn right.”
“So white it is, and the linen jacket with the thin line of darker gray leather at the lapels and cuffs. You’ll want dark gray boots and belt to pick that up.”
“Okay.” She took the jacket, noted it already had the magic lining inside. “Is this new?”
He just smiled. “Possibly.”
Now she glanced at the label. “Leonardo.”
“He does know what you like as well as what suits you. We’ll have to go by, see the progress on the house. In three weeks it’ll be considerable.”
“Okay. We’ll make time. I’m going to get an earful on it from Peabody anyway.”
They both heard the domes he’d set back on the breakfast plates clang to the floor.
“Bloody hell.”
As he marched out to scold the cat, Eve dressed.
When she came out to get her badge and weapon, he’d set the domes back in place. And the cat was nowhere to be seen.
“He tried to play the innocent bystander.” Amused, Eve strapped on her harness. “Okay.”
“When I made it clear I knew better, he stalked out, as if insulted by the lack of trust.”
“I wonder what your business rivals would think if they knew you argue with your cat.”
“I wouldn’t call it an argument.”
After shrugging into her jacket, she stepped to him, took his gorgeous face in her hands, kissed him. “I’ve got enough time to set up my murder board. Case board,” she corrected, “before I head out.”
“Want help with that?” he asked as he walked out with her. “I’ve got it, and you must have a solar system to buy.” “That’s not scheduled for another twenty minutes.”
“In that case, you could generate the ID shots—that includes Webster.
I’ll take care of the crime scene images.”
When they got to her office, he did just that, then got them another round of coffee as she arranged everything to her liking on her board.
“A high-powered magnet,” she mused as she worked. “To handle the window lock from the outside.”
“It’s one way. Low-tech lock,” he pointed out. “Low-tech tool.”
“Maybe, and if I’m wrong about this being a pro job, or at least someone with solid B and E experience who doesn’t mind killing a retired cop.”
She stepped back, studied the board. “It sure isn’t much for now.” “You’ll get more.”
“Yeah, I will. And I’m going to go do that.”
“My best to Peabody.” He drew her in, kissed her forehead, then her lips. “Take care of my cop.”
“Affirmative.”
He thought of Elizabeth Greenleaf, facing the first day of her life without the love of it. And slipped his hand in his pocket, rubbed the gray button he kept there as he watched the love of his leave.
She drove downtown knowing she’d arrive on scene well ahead of Peabody, but she wanted that solo walk-through. In the quiet, in the light of day.
It felt good to sit behind the wheel, driving on familiar streets, bombarded by familiar sounds. Too early yet for the ad blimps to paste the air with their hype for bargains. But maxibuses farted along on their stops and starts to pick up early shifters, disgorge the night shifters.
Most street LCs would’ve called it around dawn, but she caught sight of a couple of them, likely aiming for a bagel and schmear and some shoptalk after a long night’s work.
Dog walkers herded their charges—all sizes and shapes—and day nannies headed in to herd theirs.
With the windows down she caught the scent of cart coffee and breakfast burritos. Then a block later, the unfortunate stench of a broken recycler.
She heard the metallic clang as shopkeepers rolled open their security doors for the day, and the bouncing beat of bass from another open window.
Rather than hunt for parking, she pulled straight into a loading zone and flipped on her On Duty light.
She studied the building from the sidewalk. The bedroom of the apartment faced the side street and the apartment building across it. No shops or restaurants street level on either building.
She’d send some uniforms to knock on doors on the off chance somebody looked up or over and saw activity on the fire escape.
She walked around to it, looked up.
Easy enough to bring the ladder down to street level, just needed a hook. Since she’d brought one with her for that purpose, she crooked it around the bottom rung.
It rattled down.
Would anyone have noticed the sound? Why would they? She studied the rungs, noted the dust on the handles confirming the sweepers had worked there, too, as requested.
She climbed up.
She’d reached the second floor before someone stuck a head out of a window. The woman of about fifty had angry eyes and a really large kitchen fork.
“What the hell you think you’re doing?” Eve took out her badge.
“Fine. What the hell you think you’re doing, Officer?”
“Lieutenant. My job, ma’am. Did you see anyone on this fire escape last night, between eight-thirty and nine-thirty?”
“No. We didn’t have a fire, and this is a decent neighborhood. If I’d seen someone sneaking around out here, I’d’ve given ’em what for and called the cops.”
The woman lowered the kitchen fork, but didn’t put it down. “Did somebody break in the building?”
“We’re working on establishing that. You’re directly below apartment
321. Did you hear anything from overhead last night—again, between eight-thirty and nine-thirty?”
“No. That’s the Greenleafs. They’re quiet, respectful people. And we got a solid building here. You don’t hear your neighbors unless they’re stomping around or playing music or screen too loud.”
Now she put down the fork, leaned out a bit to look up. “They got trouble up there?”
“Yes, ma’am, they do.” “That’s too bad.”
Eve crouched, saw a bedroom inside, the bed already tidily made. “How did you see me out here?”
“I heard the ladder go down, so I got this.” She tapped a finger on the fork. “And I came for a look-see.”
“You’ve got your windows open.” “Getting some air in here.”
“Were they open last night?”
“Close them up before we head out to work. I open them when we get up, get some air. Wouldn’t have them open at night. It’s a good
neighborhood, but you don’t wanna be stupid, do you? Probably wouldn’t’ve heard the ladder when you say anyhow. We’d’ve been watching some screen in the living room.”
“Okay. Appreciate it.”
“Hope it’s not bad trouble.”
So saying, the woman shut the window, turned the lock.
Eve continued up and now crouched at the Greenleafs’ bedroom window, tried to imagine finessing that little thumb lock with a magnet.
Maybe not impossible—certainly not for Roarke—but tricky and tedious. Worth it, would be worth it, if you wanted to stage a murder as a suicide.
She straightened, looked up. But easier ways.
Find a way to get in a few days before, and bank on no one noticing the unlocked window.
She ran it through as she climbed back down.
Middle of the day, most of the tenants at work. Repair person, delivery person—nobody notices.
A lot of trouble, a lot of damn trouble, which meant the appearance of suicide ranked as important, or nearly, as the killing.
After shoving the ladder back up, she took the hook back to her car. She mastered in, took the stairs.
Decent soundproofing, she noted when she came out on three. She could hear some muffled voices—a screen turned up too loud—and what struck her as the inevitable wail of a baby, but it sounded as if the baby suffered in some far distant tunnel.
Working-class building, a solid one, people up and getting ready to start their day, or those night shifters grabbing a meal before turning in.
She engaged her recorder, sealed up, then unsealed the door. Inside still smelled of sweepers’ dust. The streaming sunlight highlighted thin layers of it, had motes dancing in beams.
Eve went to the bedroom first, set her field kit on the bed before moving to the window.
She’d locked the window to secure it the night before, and unlocked it now. As she remembered, the lock moved smooth, easy, silent.
She looked toward the closet. Beth Greenleaf fussing about shoes and earrings. She hadn’t put the rejected pair away, but set them by the closet.
Moving to it, Eve looked at the two-level shoe rack—mostly her shoes— and crouching, picked up what she assumed were the new pair.
No marks on the soles.
Still crouched, holding them, she looked back at the window. Chat, chat, chat, she imagined.
I don’t know why I bought these. Blah blah blah.
Back turned to the window, putting the new shoes down, picking out another pair from the rack.
Eve replaced them, walked back to the window, once again slid her hand under the privacy screen, flipped the lock.
Three seconds, no problem. Elva Arnez could’ve done it.
No connection, no motive—so far—but the means. And the means required a partner to do murder.
Yeah, yeah, they’d have a follow-up conversation, and she’d have one with the cohab.
She unlocked the window again, and this time opened it. Silent and smooth like the lock. She climbed out, eased the window down.
Now counting off in her head, she opened it, climbed in, closed it behind her.
Seven seconds. Up to ten if you’re slow and careful.
“Then he takes out the stunner, crosses to the door. He stops, listens.” She followed the route herself. “A careful look out. Slip out of the room and you’d see him from here, back to the door, in his chair. Game on- screen, the sound masks any you make. Step up behind him, jab the stunner to his throat, fire. Fast. He convulses, slumps. Get that message on the screen, as close to TOD as possible. Press his fingers to the weapon, drop it. “Do you check, make sure he’s dead? Maybe. Then you go back the way you came. You’d have to linger a few minutes to hear Webster at the door, but if you did—and why would you?—you’d bolt. No time for the magnet
trick if you used it to get in. Just get out, get gone.”
Still running it in her head, she went out to open the door at Peabody’s knock.
“Hey, welcome home—hell of a welcome.”
“Yeah.”
“First, before we get down to work, was it wonderful?” “It was wonderful.”
And she was pretty sure Peabody had more red streaks in her hair. How did that happen? Why did it happen? But it was nothing to the bright pink jacket.
Eve didn’t know whether to be relieved or just tired that her partner had switched her usual pink cowboy boots (her own fault) for pink skids.
“Sorry you didn’t get any time to ease into things.” “It’s how it goes. A lot harder on Captain Greenleaf.”
“Yeah.” Peabody’s brown eyes shifted to cop mode. “A nice place.
Homey, clean, but lived-in. Webster found him?”
“In here.” Though she’d put it in her report, Eve ran it through briefly. “It’s not going to be suicide. We’re not calling it until we talk to Morris, but it’s not self-termination.”
“He’d have made a lot of enemies.” “Look around. What do you see?”
“A nice place,” Peabody repeated as she walked through it. “Really clean. There’s sweeper dust and all that, but under it, clean. Seriously tidy. Some pretty things, but no jumble. The office is his space. From the living room setup, I’d say they hang together here, watch the screen. Lots of family photos. Some kids’ drawings on the friggie.”
She moved into the bedroom, opened the closet. “His clothes are all organized. Hers not as much. It looks like she was shoving through them trying to find something or make up her mind what to wear.”
“Did you hear that?”
“What? I didn’t hear anything.”
“Exactly. I just unlocked the window, but you didn’t hear it. Point of entry.”
“You think the friend—upstairs neighbor, right—who was here unlocked the window for the killer?”
“She was here. It’s worth another look. I ran her and the cohab, and I got nothing. But it’s worth another look.” She locked the window again. “Roarke says you could use a magnet to finesse the lock from outside the glass.”
“Seriously?” Peabody walked over. “Yeah, I can see that now that I think about it. Easy access to the fire escape, from the street, or from above. But why go to all this trouble to make it look like suicide?”
“Another question.”
A good question, Eve thought. A cop question.
“I don’t have the answer yet, but it’s going to matter. You just want him dead? Lots of less complicated ways. But you want it to look like suicide, in his own home, with him taking himself out because of guilt and regret for working in IAB.”
She looked back toward the office. “You have to know the wife’s going to find him, so maybe you want that, too. It’s personal, Peabody. It matters. Still … he didn’t suffer, died unaware. It’s the family left behind who’ll suffer. Maybe that matters, too.”
She stepped back. “Let’s go have a talk with the neighbors. Contact EDD, have them come in for the electronics. We’ll come back, go through the scene one more time, but I want to make sure we don’t miss the neighbors.”
