Bleed (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (2 page)

Carl Grasso stood near one wall, almost leaning on it. He asked, “Do you have any idea who those two men are?”

“No.” Greta shivered. “But I have to admit I didn’t look too closely. I was shocked. Like really
shocked,
you know? My hands were shaking so badly I could hardly dial 911.”

A quick search was easy enough using her phone, and Ellie knew Miss Greta Garrison was twenty-eight, had graduated from a local high school and gone for two years to Marquette before she headed off to Los Angeles, where she had landed some small parts in television movies until her latest role had pushed her into the limelight.

Ellie sat down on the edge of the coffee table and smiled with what she hoped was reassurance. “If you did not shoot those two men—”

“I didn’t.”

“…then someone did. That someone was already in your house. Who stayed with you last night?”

“No one.” Greta’s voice cracked. She wore a pair of form-fitting jeans and a loose T-shirt, and quite obviously, no bra. She put her hand in her pocket as if searching for something. Her manager, a thickly built man in his mid-fifties named Jeff Sharpe, with a shock of silver hair and an expensive suit, said something under his breath and got up to go get her a tissue.

When he returned, he handed it over and his voice was brisk. “I know where this is going and let me say that if she says she was alone, she was. Greta does not lie.”

Ellie gave him a level look. “Good to know, but we still have two dead men, Mr. Sharpe. In
her
home, and she waited hours after the shootings to call the police. I am sure you understand we have questions. That is our job.”

She turned back to Greta. “Let me ask again, was anyone there with you?”

“No.” The actress shook her head. “I went to bed fairly early. We just wrapped up shooting two days ago and I flew in, had dinner with my mother, and then came home. I just wanted to sleep.”

Grasso stirred. “Who knew you were coming back?”

She glanced at him, her eyes liquid with tears. “Obviously my mother. Jeff, the production staff for the show, whoever arranges my flights—I think her name is Stephanie … a lot of people. I have a housekeeper who comes in to dust and keep the house up even when I’m gone. She knew too.”

In other words, if a pebble was tossed into the pool, there were a lot of ripples to hit the shore. Narrowing it down to who knew and who might have told someone else, and of those who might have yet told someone
else
 …

Ellie blew out a short breath. “Any hate mail lately?”

“She doesn’t read fan mail. Period.” Sharpe shrugged. “Who needs the angst, and she doesn’t have the time anyway. We have someone who goes through it and if she feels Greta should see it, she passes it to me. There are a lot of fans out there, and also some pretty sick people, trust me.”

“Actually, I don’t trust you at all, because I don’t know you, sir.” Ellie smiled with what she thought was reasonable civility. “Two men are dead, and I am going to assume, now that we have asked politely, you will get for us this ‘someone’ who reads Ms. Garrison’s mail and let us know right away if there were any serious threats. Okay?”

“She would—”

“Maybe not take everything seriously.” Carl sounded very reasonable as he interrupted, and in his thousand-dollar suit, looked like a very reasonable man. Unless a person knew his history. Ellie knew he’d taken out two suspects with deadly force in connection with an assault on a young woman who had a tie to his past, and he’d gotten clean away with it by claiming self-defense. If one of them hadn’t been unarmed, there might not even have been an internal affairs investigation.

Since they’d starting working together, she’d wondered more than once if those two killings hadn’t been calculated on a personal level. While she absolutely trusted his skills as a detective, she wasn’t all that sure she trusted him as an officer who had sworn to uphold the law without giving it his own particular slant.

Grasso added with a slight smile. “Here’s my card. We need to talk to her.”

August 14, 9:00
A.M.

“Thank you for getting back to us.” Ellie touched the pad on her phone to end the call and contemplated Grasso across the table. In the background, the coffee shop was busy, and silverware rattled. “Finally, news from L.A. She said most of the mail Ms. Garrison receives at the studio from male viewers involves sexual insinuations, but not all that many are threatening. Most of the mail from female viewers either gush over how much they enjoy her character on the show, or criticize her acting. There’s been nothing virulent lately.”

“Dead end?”

“Seems to be.” She contemplated her empty cup of coffee. “But I have to say, as a robbery it strikes me as off, especially since someone else knew they were going to break in.”

“That’s obviously our angle.” Grasso drank his coffee black, which somehow didn’t surprise her. He contemplated his cup, and flicked a glance upward. “Forensics doesn’t seem to pin Greta as the shooter. Shall we compare notes?”

“Oh, hell, I recognize that look. You’ve got something.” With a grimace she reached for her cup of coffee. “Fine. The assistant in L.A. is a dead end. What did you find?”

“Ex-husband.” He set a photo down next to an empty plate that had once contained a towering stack of pancakes but now just had crumbs and syrup. “He’s a producer. He gave her a leg up, and she gave him a kick in the ass out the door about two years ago. That sounds simple, but the problem is there is a refrain to this story. While they were married he shot an intruder. Not exactly the same scenario, but it’s definitely close. Guy came in the back door, and he says he heard it, went downstairs and … pop, one shot to the chest. As it turns out, the alarm was disabled. Sound familiar?”

It did. Ellie thought that news brightened her day. “Alibi?”

“I don’t know yet.” Today Grasso wore a beautiful dark blue suit, and she could swear his tie was monogrammed.
She’d
chosen a somewhat rumpled shirt out of the dryer, and promptly spilled coffee on her knee when she sat down at her desk, so she felt less than perfect next to his always immaculate elegance.

“When will we?”

“LAPD is cooperating.”

“Which means?”

His gray eyes were level. “That they’ll send us his file and question him. The case was dismissed as self-defense.”

“Did you get a feel from the officer you talked to?”

“I got a feel that the case was three years old and resolved and he didn’t work it. Does that answer your question?”

Unfortunately, it did. In short,
nothing
. She blew out a frustrated breath. “We need to find out if her ex-husband had that alarm code.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

There was someone bussing a table close by, but Ellie hardly noticed the clang of the plates as the waitress stacked them in the tub. “They’re divorced. Would he protect her that way?”

“Well, to quote Santiago, hell yes, he would.” Grasso smiled thinly. “She’s his meal ticket. The last show he produced didn’t do well, and though while they were married he was the successful one, that is no longer the case. She makes more money, and that clause was part of their divorce. For a certain amount of years he gets a cut, since he’s the one that hired her in the first place. Sort of a reverse alimony thing going on. The judge bought it, and maybe it is fair.”

“He has motive then.”

“Yes, but he would have to fly back and forth if he did it himself. So unless he’s a complete moron, he has an alibi.”

“There are options. Trains, renting a car—”

“All traceable. Surely he’s at least that smart.”

Good point. Ellie glanced at the window overlooking the busy street. Cars were passing, people were laughing on the sidewalk as they walked along, but then again, they weren’t having
this
particular conversation. She sure as hell wasn’t laughing. “Yeah, proving that might be interesting … but we’ll check, of course. Hired hit?”

“Here is the real sticking point; how would he know they were going to break in?”

She picked up a spoon and idly stirred the congealing cream in her coffee. “Good question. What if he’s organized crime? I’m less familiar with it than you, but—”

“Do you think?” he interrupted sardonically. “I’m not saying drugs aren’t run through the northern counties where you worked before MPD, but corruption down here is a whole different game. That said, I don’t think we have any idea here in Milwaukee what it can be like in a city about ten times this size like Los Angeles. If this is organized crime, we need the FBI. But I don’t see it that way.”

That was interesting. She studied him thoughtfully. “How
do
you see it?”

The waitress came and took away his plate, and Grasso smiled at her absently, but his eyes were distant.

“I think she knows who did this.”

*   *   *

The trail led in mini-circles, like a wolf circling in the snowy woods, coming around but never getting anywhere. Yes, there were a few tracks, but none seemed to lead anywhere but right back to the same place.

The hunt.

That was their province.

“We have an ID. At least for one of the victims.” Dr. Hammet was as businesslike as usual, but maybe a little tired. It was there in a hint of shadow under her eyes. “The crime scene team found a vehicle parked down the street that someone reported when they heard about the murders, and ran the tags. I took fingerprints from every available surface on the body or clothing, your forensics guy put them in the database, and wouldn’t you know, we got a match.”

“Good teamwork,” Carl said neutrally. “Who is he?”

The morgue didn’t bother him. He wasn’t sure why, but the sterile walls and cold floors were as impersonal as the body on the steel table. No ghosts for him; his ghosts were in his head, not in this environment of scalpels, and scales for weighing organs, and drawers for keeping the uncaring dead. It was over. They didn’t mind, and really, neither did he. These were not the gray faces that haunted his dreams.

He’d been way too young when his parents were killed. Alone afterward. Adrift. Bereft. He was perfectly aware the closure had never happened. He just had no idea what to do about it. That big empty house didn’t help matters, but he hadn’t been able to come to the place where he could put it up for sale. It had been over twenty years. He wasn’t a psychotherapist, but he guessed it might never happen.

The medical examiner picked up a clipboard. “Name is Hugh Cranz. Thirty-two years old and has a Bayview address, or at least he did when he last served time for aggravated assault in Illinois. I’ll leave the rest of it to you, because last I checked, you are the detective. Prison dental records confirm his identity.”

“It’s a lead.” Carl took the piece of paper and nodded. “That’s great. What about the other guy?”

“Not her ex-husband. We haven’t made him so far.” She crossed the room and slid open one of the drawers, her face contemplative as she surveyed the corpse, as if the victim could give her answers. “I’m going to say this though. Nice manicure. I found that strange. Fingers and toes. And he was dressed in black, like our friend Hugh, but his clothing was a lot nicer, from a good men’s store I’d guess. No tattoos, no sign of substance abuse, though he had an interesting mix of drugs in his system, but they were all legal. Mood levelers, anti-psychotics, that sort of thing. It will be in the report. Neither one got a shot off if they were armed. No residue on their hands.”

“Like Ms. Garrison, sleeping in her bower upstairs.” Carl crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the dead man. “This feels like a comic book, with a superhero stealing in to do away with the bad guys and disappearing into the night before the maiden ever even wakes up.”

The drawer slid back into place. “Look at it however you want, but this isn’t a comic book and she isn’t sleeping beauty either. Two men are dead. I know it to be fact since I was the one who sliced them open and tried to find anything that might help you catch your vigilante. Other than that one name, I can’t do a lot more.”

“You’ve done pretty well anyway. A name is like gold, Doc.”

She made a face. “I’m not fond of the nickname, but everyone seems to use it. Call me Janis. I’m fine with that.”

Janis suited her. Elegant, like she was, under those professional scrubs.

“Will do.” Carl took the stairs up—he hated elevators, always had. Maybe it was the idea of being trapped in a steel box, but if he could avoid them, he did.

The minute he was at his desk, he punched up Cranz on his computer. Yes, he’d done time. Several stints, in fact, in Illinois, but none maximum security. He wasn’t a
good
guy, Carl decided after perusing the records, but not a true bad guy. Some violence, but nothing deadly, or at least nothing he’d been caught for before he was popped by their player.

Who was his just-as-dead friend?

If asked, he would guess it was someone Greta Garrison knew. The nice clothing, the disabling of the alarm, the whole way it went down, showed someone was in the know. Her?

That would be his guess.

Whoever orchestrated the break-in disabled the alarm.

That was irrefutable fact.

Whoever killed them knew they were coming.

Those two things were part of the same equation.

But they didn’t add up in a cohesive way, and therein was the problem. He picked up the phone and punched a button.

“Yes?” MacIntosh sounded professional as usual.

“You with her?”

“Greta? No, not yet. I made an appointment and I am waiting.”

The vague hint of annoyance did not go unnoticed. Homicide detectives were not used to having to make appointments, but Greta was hardly the usual suspect. For that matter, she really
wasn’t
a suspect. He said, “Dr. Hammet didn’t have a lot to offer, but I think we need to go with what she didn’t have.”

“Didn’t have?”

“I find it often means more than what the ME
does
have.”

“I get it, no disagreement here. Fine. Like what?”

“One ID. He’s not a first-timer, but murder would be a step up. Assault. Some minor crimes. Hammet couldn’t make the second guy, but he was different. No prints in the system. Dressed better than the other one, and neither was armed.”