Simple (14 page)

“When you getting a roomie?”

If someone was assigned to his cell, he would never be able to think, probably wouldn't get to sleep.

“You ain't going to make it,” the big guy said. “Here.” He handed over the plate of cake. “I watch my weight.”

The others laughed.

Cal thought, He slipped a razor in. Something.

“Eat it. I ain't moving till you eat it.”

Small bites. Careful chewing.

*   *   *

“WE'RE CAUGHT,”
Potocki said when they dawdled at the restaurant to let Boss and his wife leave.

“Can you believe it? The man has some sort of radar? God!”

“It's sort of funny.”

“Sort of. Let's go to your place. It's not even quite nine o'clock,” she whispered. She felt young again and sneaky.

If Potocki holds her, if he kisses her, it's all over. She has no
STOP
button. She remembers a lecture she had to attend in college. The woman said, “There is no such thing as being carried away. It's always under your control. It's always a decision. You must always weigh consequences.”

Right. If you're not a romantic. If you don't value thrill, the game.

*   *   *

THE RESTAURANT
food is just about killing Christie. Marina has forgotten how hard it is for him to eat sauces and such, but because everybody else was hitting up the pasta at Del's, and drinking, he did, too. He popped a double dose of Prevacid when he got home. “While I digest,” he teased, “let's watch something.”

For a while Christie and Marina channel surf aimlessly before settling on a film with Tommy Lee Jones. It's good. It occupies him. Sort of. Not really.

What a mess for everyone, running into Potocki and Greer, who tried to pull off a just-working excuse. There was no choice but to all eat together. Marina sighed good-naturedly and kept a hand on his thigh for half the meal.

Christie understands what is expected of him tonight, and he wants to do it. He loves Marina, and there is no doubt about the fact that she's totally gorgeous.

Now she snuggles in close. In his mind, he experiments with an alternate life in which he is married to Colleen. In this alternate life, Colleen teases him unmercifully, calls his bluff on everything. All of it, this future unlived life, is extrapolated from ordinary work exchanges—the look on her face when he gets too serious, the glimmer of amusement at him.

She blushed when they all ran into each other.

Well, we can't live all our lives.

Potocki is such a good guy, too. Deserving, both of them, of something good.

He thinks off and on throughout the movie of the time he met Marina, how hard he resisted taking up with her. He was strong until she spoke about how she felt, until she touched him. She was officially married then. And he was, too. The memory arouses him.

FIVE

SUNDAY, AUGUST 16

IT'S SUNDAY, IT'S
morning, and the squad is irritable, cross-eyed with sleep. Christie notes that Colleen and Potocki enter separately and move to opposite corners of the room only to move back together five minutes later. Coleson and McGranahan elbow their way to the front of the room, implying they will present their case right along with Christie. Not quite, not quite. He wheels the chalkboard into position, sips a bit of coffee from the thermos he has brought. “Kill a few minutes,” he tells them. “Jim Meakie has agreed to come by. And a rep from Forensics, even though they've done hardly anything detailed yet.” A few of the detectives move about; some lean back, close their eyes. He adds, “Sorry our two guests are late, but we'd be better off waiting so we don't have to repeat.” He sits and gives himself over to thinking.

A couple of people go to get themselves coffee from where it is brewing. Coleson and McGranahan sit back, chatting together, legs crossed to indicate cool, but it doesn't take a practiced eye to see they are bristling.

Finally Bobby Baitz, the rep from the lab, comes into the meeting room, and soon after that Jim Meakie, the forensic pathologist who'd been on duty Friday night, arrives. Christie stands, signaling the meeting can start.

He says, “I know it's Sunday morning. I just need all of you to help with this. It's got some complications, and we don't want to take it to a hearing with any rough edges. We need detail. Some of the evidence fits. Some doesn't. So we need to make sure we've covered all the ground. This is not to criticize Detective Coleson or Detective McGranahan, who worked long hard hours. It's … the nature of the case.”

Coleson's brow is furrowed; he doesn't quite believe the case is unusual.

“I would like to let Bill Coleson speak first. Just to give us the basics of what he did.”

The man flushes and stands, arching his back, his good-boy-in-school posture.

He begins, “We classified it as a homicide. Justifiable or excusable or criminal or without intent, we did not try to decide straight off, but we ruled out suicide. The back door was open, her nightgown was torn at the shoulder, she had marks on her neck. There was no wallet in her handbag.” Coleson stops. He says lightly, “My wife tells me they're called handbags and not purses.” He is gratified by the smiles he gets. “We did a walk-through of the house. There was nothing untoward. Most signs in the immediate crime scene indicated criminal homicide. We proceeded from there. We called in Forensics. We have photographs, sketches, and our notes. They're in the report. I expect you've all…”

“I asked everybody to be sure to be caught up,” Christie says. “Go on.”

Coleson takes a pristine white handkerchief from his back pocket and wipes at his forehead. “We had no trouble identifying the victim. The man who called in the 911 did the preliminary ID, but then the father drove down later in the night after Greer went up to talk to the family, and so by ten at night we had the next-of-kin ID—though there was no doubt in our minds. There were a couple of photographs around in her house, things like that. And she sure resembled the photographs.

“In terms of motive, it looked like robbery. The door had some slight chip marks around it. But we also considered that strangling is very intimate for a robbery. We were not sure of motive. There were no documents of any interest, though we did take her computer and we did a quick check of e-mail and such. We sent detectives to canvass neighbors and talk to people from her work.

“Our best witness was the accused. He was distraught, but he had called the homicide in. He was willing to talk to us. He had been working for her. We took him to Headquarters and asked him to stay close and he did. He was cooperative for many hours, but after a while he started asking about going home. Eventually his mother came to the station, and we talked to her. It had been apparent to us that he was a little odd. She explained that he'd been badly beaten as a boy and had sustained some brain damage. He had experienced blackouts as a youth. We found his interest in Cassie Price and his proximity to the crime suspicious. We questioned him further. Our boys noticed there was long blondish hair in the work gloves on the porch. We asked if those gloves were his. He said yes. In no uncertain terms. The gloves were his. He eventually confessed.”

“Thank you,” Christie says. He does not remind Coleson that the identification of the gloves was not quite so sure at the time. For all intents and purposes, the gloves were almost certainly Cal's.

Christie does say, “For the record, let me say that the accused man, Cal Hathaway, also retracted the confession afterward. So we have a yes and a no. I saw the tapes. Detectives
did
administer Miranda, and there were no improper pressures or anything of that sort. I
will
say everyone was extremely tired, including the accused. That could eventually play some part in this. Now, when Cal Hathaway confessed, he did not say how he did the killing, so we don't have the details we need for a hearing. Then, of course, he retracted the confession, so we need to get those details on our own. And we need to prove those details exist.” This is the careful phrasing he practiced through most of breakfast. “Let's pause and hear from Dr. Meakie.”

Meakie has very closely cropped hair, more like a layer of fur. With a large nose and protuberant ears and large glasses, he seems like an intellectual insect or bird. He stood when Coleson sat. He says, “Victim definitely died from strangulation. There was struggle evident in the torn clothing and the position of the body, there was no rape, and death appears to have been quick. The position of the marks on her neck suggest the perp was most likely a right-handed man who faced her and strangled from the front. We estimated death to have occurred between midnight and 6:00
A.M.
I think the median, 3:00
A.M.
, is a very good bet for a more specific TOD. This time corresponds to the level of rigor and to the remains of food being digested. She was a slow digester, so there were remains.”

Coleson raises a hand. “Accused reported that he saw her making a hamburger. He was working on her porch.”

Meakie looks thrown by the interruption. “Well, yes, that fits.”

“Had she been drinking? Could she have been drinking a margarita?”

Meakie thinks, nods. “Alcohol would have evaporated, but there were acidic remains consistent with a margarita.”

“Anything else we should know?”

“A couple of things. She was apparently sexually active. She was fitted with an IUD.”

“So she didn't work all the time,” Dolan says. “A couple of her colleagues got that wrong.”

Everybody laughs a little.

Meakie continues, “There is one other thing, an unusual factor I'd like to add at this point. My assistant reports he found a chip, a small sliver of wood, thinner than a bit of toothpick, in her neck, in the back. It didn't do particular damage, but it stuck.”

“Wood?” Christie says.

“Yes.”

So, wood, yes, that would come from the gloves. It doesn't prove Cal's guilt, even though it seems to.

“Anything under her nails?” he asks.

“Something powdery. We don't know what. We scraped and sent to the lab. No blood. She didn't bleed.”

“Thank you.” Hands begin to go up. Ideas. He hates to cut off anybody who has interest, passion, but Christie says, “Just if you can give us a tiny minute. Hold on to those thoughts. I want to hear from the labs in case these good people have to go before we do.” Which was never if you were police, but he doesn't say it.

He turns to Bobby Baitz, who wears shorts and a T-shirt and looks younger than his thirtysomething years. “I know you don't have much time. I'll try not to hold you.”

“Kids are in the car,” Baitz says. “I'm taking them to Lake Arthur. Forgive the clothes.”

“Forgiven. If you would just tell us the few basics we have at this point and then what you might expect to get down the line, that would be helpful.”

Baitz takes a long pause. “Well, DNA down the line, of course. We picked up a lot of stuff, the usual stuff. Most of it will probably not be anything. We don't have all the prints identified—hers and the accused for sure around the house, plus a couple of other faded ones. We found some powder on the floor. We got scrapings from the lock—the lock was meddled with, probably using some kind of knife. No footprints other than those of the deceased and the accused. The big thing, the main thing we have at the moment is the work gloves that were outside the door on the porch. They had her hair in them. A couple of strands from the roots. And then also—this is important—there were a few splinters in the gloves. Just small, but it looks like a definite match for what Meakie found in her neck and a clue as to the means of murder.”

“Murderer wore the gloves,” Christie says evenly.

“I'd say so.”

Coleson and McGranahan balloon happily in their seats.

Man, it looks bad for Cal Hathaway.

Christie says, “Normally we would have to try at this point to ask Hathaway exactly how he did the murder—the kind of details that would stand up in court. Since he is now saying he is unsure he did it, and remembers nothing of doing it, we might not ever get to that stage. So. Here is what I need from all of you.” He pauses for a considerable time. “Let's play devil's advocate and list all the things that suggest the possibility it
was somebody else
. Anybody. So we can examine that list, consider it, and then shoot it down if we so wish.”

“Somebody else could have used the gloves,” says Hurwitz.

Christie writes on the board,
Gloves: Other user.

“Why would the murderer put the gloves back? He or she?” asks Denman. “Anybody with any—”

Hurwitz interrupts. “Right. If I did it, I'd figure it was too obvious to leave them with the body.”

“—sense would have taken them away,” Denman finishes.

“Right. That would make sense.” Christie writes under gloves,
Too obvious.

McGranahan, who has been grinding his teeth, speaks up finally. “Well, I happen to be the rep who went to Wecht's symposium on evidence. He said most of what we gather is unreliable.” He turns to Baitz and grimaces an apology. “Because, he says, most of everything can be argued this way and that, except,
except
DNA. I'd say we wait for an analysis of what's
inside
the glove.” McGranahan folds his arms.

Christie says, “Thank you, we will DNA the gloves. But if we could just continue to list the glitches—”

“Any particular glove markings on her neck?” somebody shouts.

Baitz answers, “No. Just the typical bruising from manual strangulation.”

The detectives appear to digest this fact. They
are
working their brains, in spite of the day and the hour, Christie is relieved to see. He looks to Dolan, but before Dolan can interject anything about their visit to the jail, he is interrupted.