False Witness (John Steel series Book 3) (7 page)

“Hi,” Sam began. “I am Detective McCall and this is Detective Steel. We are here to see Mrs Heller.”

The maid nodded and opened the door to let them through, saying, “Please, will you follow me?”

John Steel could tell by her accent and her looks that she was probably from Kosovo or some other Balkan region: he had spent enough time there when he was with the Army in the nineties to recognise people from that part of the world.

The apartment was large and modern with antique pictures and the odd piece of furniture here and there. The young woman led them down a long hallway to the sitting room, where a woman sat on a long white couch.

“Mrs Heller, the detectives are here, shall I prepare some tea?” the maid asked.

The woman smiled and nodded.

McCall and Steel approached the blonde-haired woman, who Steel estimated to be in her late fifties. Cosmetics and good living had clearly knocked a few years off her actual age, as she appeared to be a good decade younger. The woman rose to greet them.

“Hello, ma’am,” Sam began. “I am Detective McCall and this is Detective Steel. We are here because of your ex-husband, Andrew Carlson.” McCall saw the beginnings of tears forming in the corners of Mrs Heller’s eyes. Using a handkerchief that she kept in the sleeve of her blouse, the older woman dabbed the tears away before they began to flow down her pale cheeks.

“Please, sit,” Marie Heller insisted, pointing to two armchairs that sat the other side of a glass coffee table.

McCall and Steel thanked her and sat down. As they did so, McCall took out her small recorder and placed it on top of a pile of magazines arranged in a fanned display.

Steel looked at the pile and calculated that none of them had ever been read by this family—they were mostly about home decoration and interior design.

A couple of women’s magazines as well as some travel brochures were amongst several other dull looking titles, most likely used to spark off conversations for when the Hellers’ friends came round.

Marie Heller turned out to be softly spoken, and her voice held a hint of arrogance, and Sam detected airs and graces in her tones.

McCall gave a special smile she reserved for those who were newly bereaved. The maid walked in with a silver tray laden with a large china jug and several cups and saucers. A silver milk jug and sugar bowl sat neatly on one side of it.

The maid then filled all three cups and passed them round, starting with McCall. McCall smiled her thanks and took out her notebook.

“I presume your daughter has explained a great deal?” McCall surmised, watching as Marie took up the cup and saucer. She nodded to confirm McCall’s suspicion.

“Yes, poor girl. The doctor has given her something to help her sleep for a few days, because she’s in such a state of shock.Strange.” Marie looked curiously disinterested, making Steel’s brow furrow with suspicion.

“What’s strange?” McCall asked the question for him.

“She wanted to go back to work. She didn’t want to let anyone down.”

Sam could sense an odd tone in her voice, even though she tried to hide it.

“Mrs Heller, can you think of any reason why someone would do this to him?”

Marie looked at her cup and the dark liquid it contained. “Detective, my hus—, that is my ex-husband never left the house—not ever. I don’t know of anyone who would want to kill a man whose only company is a case of cheap beer in the refrigerator.”

Steel regarded the brightly lit apartment, thoughts cascading through his mind.

“If he didn’t work, where was the money coming from for bills and living expenses?” Sam asked her.

Marie took a small sip of coffee and placed the china cup on its saucer. “After the divorce we sold the house and we split it. He gets welfare benefits for being medically impaired. He can’t go outside so the state pays him to stay at home.”

McCall looked over at Steel then back at Marie. The female detective got just as far as opening her mouth to ask a question, when Steel shot in with one of his own:

“Tell me, Mrs Heller, what happened ten years ago?” Steel’s abrupt interruption was designed to elicit some kind of reaction.

Marie’s face dropped and she stood up, beads of sweat starting to collect around her forehead. “Well, Detective, I think we are all done, thank you for calling.”

She made a hand signal to someone who was standing behind the two detectives. Steel looked around, half expecting to see the tiny maid but instead he caught sight of a huge man with a shaven head and, apparently, no neck.

“Thank you for your time, ma’am,” McCall said, picking up the recorder and placing it in her jacket pocket. She gave a businesslike smile as she turned to leave.

The British detective sized up the man as he rose from his chair. Sure he was large but he was
too
large. Steel knew that he could have the man on the floor and unconscious in around a minute—maybe even in a couple of seconds.

“If we have any more questions we will let you know.” McCall turned back to face the now shaken Marie Heller who, after gathering herself together, straightened up and smiled like a cat.

“If you wish to speak to me again, Detective, it will have to be through my lawyers,” she told them.

The large man extended a hand to usher them out. Steel stopped at the entrance to the sitting room, and then turned to face Marie Heller.

“It must have shaken him up pretty badly when you dumped him for a rich guy,” he said, almost conversationally.

Marie Heller scowled, almost baring her teeth. “He left me alone with a child and no support! But I see no reason to justify my actions to you, Detective. It was his fault not mine. It was all their—” She stopped in mid-sentence, suddenly realising what she had just admitted.

“Please leave and never come back unless you have a warrant, which I doubt you will get,” Marie Heller told them curtly. She turned and looked out of the large picture window at the panoramic view of Manhattan.

As the two detectives entered the hallway, the door was slammed behind them as if it was meant as some sort of warning.

“Did you get that last speech?” Steel asked as McCall took out the recorder from her pocket and switched it off.

“How do you know I didn’t switch it off before?”

Steel tilted his head forwards as if to look down his glasses at her. “Because you knew I wouldn’t leave without getting a reaction from her.”

McCall grinned as she pressed the elevator call button. “Oh, I think you hit a nerve alright, question is, what the hell happened ten years ago?”

John Steel shrugged at the question. He had a head full of theories and none of them made sense.

“Okay, so what now?” McCall asked, looking back at the closed door to the Hellers’ apartment.

“Can I get a coffee, I never got to even start drinking mine,” Steel joked.

McCall shook her head in disbelief as the doors to the elevator slid open.

“Unbelievable,” she said, walking into the mirrored booth. As the doors started to slide shut she thought she saw the face of the maid peer round the Heller apartment’s doorway, a frightened look on her face. As they closed completely, McCall knew something was wrong.

There was a lot more to know, but Mrs. Heller wasn’t about to tell them anything.

McCall and Steel headed
back to the precinct after their short, but somewhat mysterious, chat with Andy Carlson’s dear ex. It was getting up to around four-thirty when McCall’s cell phone illuminated in its holder on the dash.

She reached forwards and touched the screen: the text from Tina at the ME’s office was quite clear. It said:
Get your butts back here.

The traffic was a mess, with people travelling back from work, the streets an ocean of yellow as the taxis plied their trade. However, despite this, the journey didn’t take as long as McCall thought it would.

*

They found Tina Franks sitting waiting for them on McCall’s usual seat on the operating table, soft music sounded in the background and the scent of blood and disinfectant filled the air.

“Okay Tina, what you got?” Sam asked.

Tina jumped down and headed for the body of Andy Carlson that was on one of the tables.

“Once I had removed the stitching from the nose I found two small tubes in there,” Tina explained as they walked. “Someone wanted him to die slowly.”

McCall looked puzzled as they arrived at the body. She looked at the man’s stitch-free mouth. “But the scorpion?” she asked.

Tina shook her head. “This one was a Malaysian Forest Scorpion. Its sting effect is about the equivalent of a nasty bee sting.”

Sam was now looking more confused. In her head it was a done deal: scorpion sting—man dies. End of.

“So the sting didn’t kill him?” McCall asked.

Tina rocked a flat-palmed hand from side to side, using her ‘undecided’ look. “Yes and no really,” the ME said eventually, still reluctant to answer the question.

Steel noticed a light patch on the man’s wrist, that looked as if it was where a band or chain had once been.

“What if he was allergic to stings?” John Steel asked. “What would happen then?” He could see the strain of concentration ease from Tina’s face, as if she was relieved that someone finally understood.

“So he had an allergic reaction to the sting,” Sam added, “but someone must have known that, maybe whoever did it was someone close to him?” New theories began to build in her head.

Steel could see where she might be going with her theory but found it unlikely. “You’re thinking his daughter did it, aren’t you?” he suggested.

McCall thought for a moment then bit her bottom lip, as if unsure of her supposition. “Well, she is the only one with a key and she would know his medical history.” She took out her cell phone and pressed the auto dial for Tooms then waited. After a couple of seconds, she heard Tooms’s heavy voice come over the speaker.

“Tooms, it’s McCall,” she began. “Get uniforms to pick up Andy Carlson’s daughter, will you. Don’t spook her, just say it’s to fill in some blanks. If she calls her mom we won’t get anywhere.”

Tooms acknowledged her request before she hung up on him.

Tina waited until she had finished then held up a clear evidence bag that contained a piece of paper. “Now for the next surprise. We found this in his stomach. Obviously someone had made him eat this whole, probably hoping it would be found later.”

McCall took it from her friend and held it up. The document was stained and most of the writing was legible to the naked eye.

“Something about lies and poison!” read out Steel, all he could make out that had been written on the once-crumpled piece of paper.

“Okay, can you get CSU to get their tech to look at it and try and tidy it up?” he asked.

Tina smiled and nodded. “I already did. It says:
YOUR LIES POISONED MY LIFE.
Also, CSU found the paper and the pen it was written with.” Tina gave an excited smile. “What’s more, it turns out that the needle that was used to sew him up was also from the victim’s house.”

Steel looked thoughtful for a second then looked up at the doctor. “So what was used as thread? It was too thick to be normal cotton. Wait, don’t tell me he used what I think he used.” Steel cringed, feeling the pain of it.

“If you’re thinking dental floss, you’d be right,” Tina said. “They also found the empty package in the bathroom. This guy breaks in and uses everything that is available, he doesn’t bring the stuff with him.” Tina could feel the next question coming.

“Okay,” McCall, asked, “but where the hell did the scorpion come from? Our guy couldn’t look after himself, let alone a pet.”

Tina shrugged and shook her head. “Sorry, Sam, that one we don’t know.”

McCall smiled, a little happier that there was progress. Steel looked at the clock above the entrance: the hands showed it was just after five.

“Okay,” John Steel said. “I have things to do and people to see, so until tomorrow, ladies.” He gave a short bow and left, leaving the girls some quiet time before the end of the shift. McCall watched him leave. She wondered where he was going and if someone else was likely to end up in the hospital tonight.

*

The reporter took the subway to the stop on First Avenue, as it was only a couple of blocks to his apartment on East Seventh Street.

The noise of the braking system screamed as they moved round a bend in the track but nobody took any notice. Everyone was engrossed in their tablets or smart phones, the odd person would have a book or magazine, and nobody looked up or made eye contact.

Edward Gibbs was busy flicking through his notebook at the story he was about to put together, something he had been working on for a while, and now he was almost ready to type it up for his editor. He was a reporter for the
New York Herald
and had been for around six years.

He looked up as a black guy in old army greens got up and started singing. Edward had to admit that the man was good, and so had no reservations about putting some loose change into an old food tin the singer was passing round.

The song didn’t take long and the people applauded after he was done and he moved on to the next car. Edward smiled as he watched the man start a performance for his next audience.

As the train’s brakes began to screech again he looked up and recognised the familiar sight of his station, and a warm feeling came over him—he was nearly home.

The night air had a bitter sting to it, as if small razors hung on every gust. The nights were starting to draw in and everywhere there was the feeling that winter would soon be here.

His walk to the apartment block didn’t take him long as the cold wind hurried him along. His building had black-painted fire escapes on the front that almost acted as small balconies for the residences. Entering the main hallway, the warmth of the building hit him with a pleasant shock, making him shudder slightly.

He was home.

As he entered his apartment, he left the door open so that the light from the hallway illuminated the room enough for him to find the light switch.