The Cigarette Killer

by Claudia Hall Christian

  Ava scowled.

  “You should know that the bodies of Delmer and Delilah Seurat are right now on their way to the Forensics Investigation Division of the NYPD,” Curtis said. Ava nodded. “You can imagine how important your information might be to figuring out how they may or may not fit into this story. That’s not to mention this ‘Big Daddy’ character.”

  Without taking a breath, Curtis moved into interrogating her.

  “Did you ever meet ‘Big Daddy’?” Curtis asked.

  “No, never,” Ava said. “I met his wife, his kids, and even his grandkids last weekend, but Maresol, Seth’s housekeeper, sort of — she’s . . .”

  Curtis nodded that he knew who she was.

  “She remodeled the entire house last year,” Ava said. “She found a box of old photos during the remodel. She’s hung the photos in the newly refinished basement. There’s a picture of Seth as a kid, like ten, maybe eleven, years old, with Big Daddy’s father, Bud. They are wet — head to toe — with sweat. There are two pianos, facing each other, behind them. Big Daddy is standing to the side with his hand out, like he’s gesturing to them for an audience. Big Daddy’s probably twenty-five. I’m not sure.”

  Curtis nodded, and Ava shrugged.

  “There are a couple of other photos,” Ava shrugged. “I haven’t really looked at them closely. He seems handsome without being cocky.”

  Ava shrugged.

  “You’ve just looked at the photo with O’Malley it?” Curtis asked.

  “There are others with O’Malley in them,” Ava said. “That photo . . . he’s just so young. I mean, you hear the story that this little kid had to leave home for college and that he lived in New York City on the weekends, and it sounds kind of like a big adventure. But when you see him in that picture . . . It really sinks in.”

  “What really sinks in?” Curtis asked.

  “The cost of that kind of extraordinary talent,” Ava said.

  She gave him a quick nod, and he cleared his throat.

  “Was there a reason you never met Big Daddy?” Curtis asked.

  “None that I know of,” Ava said. “Doctor Bumpy Smith? Uh, I think his actual first name is ‘Leroy.’”

  Ava raised her eyebrows, and Curtis nodded.

  “He said that Big Daddy retreated from their lives when he knew they were safe and well,” Ava said. “Dionne, Bumpy’s wife, never liked Big Daddy, so I think that’s part of it.”

  “Even for Seth?” Curtis asked. “It’s my understanding that Seth was closer to Big Daddy.”

  Thinking, Ava fell silent.

  “Ava?” Curtis asked after a moment.

  “Sorry,” Ava said with a smile. “It’s just that . . . I don’t know. I mean, I assume Seth was close to Big Daddy, and surely he’s busted his ass in the last couple of weeks to get the funeral together and deal with Big Daddy’s estate. I just . . .”

  Ava sighed.

  “I guess we haven’t been married that long,” Ava said. “I don’t know everything about his life. Yet.”

  Curtis smiled.

  “You could ask Maresol, but you won’t get anything from her,” Ava said with a nod. “Dr. Bumpy or Dionne, either. They don’t talk about Seth — even to me.”

  “I’ve noticed that,” Curtis said. He tapped his pen against the table. “Why do you think that is?”

  She looked at the man for a moment. He’d asked the question in such a half-hearted way that he must already know the answer. Curtis waved his hand for her to answer anyway.

  “Seth does a lot of work that’s classified,” Ava said. “He’s on a team that finds MIA soldiers. A month ago, they brought a couple men, or what’s left of them, back from Vietnam. He just worked on a case for the director of the NIS.”

  Ava shrugged.

  “It’s the nature of the man,” Ava said. “He’s into a lot of different things — many of them are classified as national secrets. He cultivates relationships with people who don’t gossip, especially about him.”

  Curtis opened his mouth as if to ask whether Ava fit that bill. She raised her eyebrows in a “Yes,” and Curtis nodded.

  “We have already determined that if we want to know anything about O’Malley, we’d have to get it from you,” Curtis said with a grin.

  “You think I’m loose lipped?” Ava asked.

  The thought was such an insult that Ava’s voice reflected her indignation.

  “Because we have leverage over you,” Curtis said, firmly.

  Ava didn’t want to know what that leverage was, so she responded with an irritated smile.

  “What do you want to know?” Ava asked.

  “What does Seth O’Malley know about forensics?” Curtis asked.

  Surprised, Ava scowled. As if she couldn’t understand his words, she shook her head.

  “What?” Ava asked.

  Curtis repeated the question.

  “Uh, let’s see,” Ava said. “When I ran this lab, before everything happened with my dad and Beth, and O’Malley and I weren’t dating . . .”

  “When you were ‘Amelie’,” Curtis said.

  “That works,” Ava said evenly. “Seth was a detective for Denver PD. I met him two or three times at case conferences and, then, when we were working on the St. Jude murders . . .”

  “Before you were dating?” Curtis asked.

  “We started dating in the middle of St. Jude,” Ava said with a nod. “Does that matter?”

  “Who knows?” Curtis asked. Ava nodded. “Please continue.”

  “Uh, okay,” Ava said, slowly.

  “You were talking about giving Denver Police Detective Seth O’Malley forensic updates on his cases,” Curtis said.

  “Right,” Ava said. “I guess I’m not sure what to say. Unlike a lot of detectives, he seemed to understand the science or at least follow what we were saying. He’s the kind of person who, when he doesn’t understand something, he’ll stop everything to ask. He doesn’t like not knowing what things mean.”

  “‘Mean’?” Curtis asked.

  “You know — I’d say: ‘We used the gel matrix,’ and he’d ask what a gel matrix was and how it was made, who made it, things like that,” Ava said.

  “So Seth knows how to run a gel?” Curtis asked.

  “Seth?” Ava asked and shook her head. “When I said he wants to know how it’s made, I mean he wants to know that it’s made.”

  “What does that mean?” Curtis asked.

  “Is it made or something you buy?” Ava asked. “Is it something that’s uniform, or does it change from person to person? In other words, is it a variable for him to consider.”

  “Is it?” Curtis asked.

  “It can be. A lot of labs give these tasks to Lab Assistants or unpaid Interns. It’s not that they are incompetent or that the recipe is hard. It’s just that they haven’t made it very often.”

  “So it could be a variable,” Curtis said.

  “Exactly,” Ava said. “Seth doesn’t want to clutter his brain with extraneous details. Seriously. He’ll tell you those words exactly. When he’s sober, he has a near-perfect recall of everything that he sees and that happens in his life.”

  “Is he often sober?” Curtis asked.

  “He is now,” Ava said. “He wasn’t after Mitch died, but that was a long time after the Cigarette Killer case had gone through the courts.”

  “So the question is: ‘What does Seth O’Malley know about forensics?’” Curtis asked.

  Eleven

  “A lot,” Ava said. “And nothing. I mean, he knows what DNA is and maybe, just maybe, what it looks like by neutron microscope, and even how to isolate DNA from specimens. But the steps to doing it himself? No way.”

  Ava shook her head.

  “And a gel?” Curtis asked.

  Ava scowled.

  “You have to answer his specific questions,” the technician said, with a nod.

  “Oh, sorry,” Ava said. “I thought I had. I’d be very surprised if Seth could run
a gel, work any lab equipment, or . . . do anything inside a lab, really. I’ve never seen him on the inside of a laboratory. I should say that I’ve never seen him inside one of my labs.”

  She pointed to herself and looked up at Curtis. He didn’t raise his head from the pad where he was taking notes.

  “He doesn’t cook,” Ava said. “He doesn’t do anything like that.”

  “You’re saying Seth O’Malley is lazy,” Curtis said.

  “No, absolutely not,” Ava said. “He’s not lazy. It’s hard to explain, but he really just responds to what happens to him, I mean, instead of making shit happen. I mean, we know people who make things happen. You can feel their heat. When they’re around, anything is possible. Seth likes these people because he thinks they’re funny. But Seth himself? He responds to the messes others make.”

  Curtis blinked to encourage her to say more. Feeling like she’d answered his question, she fell silent for a moment before feeling the need to speak again.

  “You know that he has housekeepers, right?” Ava asked. “I mean, I’ve seen him make coffee, but that’s it. When he travels, he usually travels with his agent. His agent feeds him and makes sure his clothing is clean. After everything with St. Jude and my dad and all, he took me to Malibu. We stayed in a house on the beach for more than a month. He had meals delivered — breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Even after his daughter, Lizzie, showed up. He had someone come in to clean and do the laundry.”

  Curtis looked at Ava. His eyebrow dropped, and she shook her head.

  “I have never seen him make toast,” Ava said. “You know, bread in toaster, wait, add butter.”

  She moved her hand back and forth like she was buttering toast.

  “What about at restaurants?” Curtis asked.

  Ava’s gaze became vague. She fell silent and then shook her head.

  “I have never seen him butter toast. He doesn’t eat jelly,” Ava said. “Plus, making toast requires some kind of toaster. I’m not sure he can work a toaster. He does microwave food that Maresol or Claire makes.”

  Ava nodded.

  “He can work a microwave,” Ava said.

  “I think I know what you’re saying, but . . .” Curtis said. “How does cooking relate to what we’re talking about?”

  “Cooking is lab work for non-lab people,” Ava said. “You take a variety of ingredients, mix them together, add heat or cold, and the ingredients transform into something else. It’s just like lab work. O’Malley won’t cook. He never has — not ever. And even if he figured it out how to do it, he’d never take time away from the piano to actually make something with his own hands.”

  Curtis looked at her for a long moment.

  “He can knit,” Ava said. “I’ve seen him do it.”

  Curtis still didn’t speak.

  “Scarves, mostly,” Ava said. “For his fingers. Keeps them limber in winter. The scarves make a lot of money at charity auctions. He does finger pushups, finger yoga, and . . .”

  She looked at Curtis.

  “You know he’s a prodigy pianist, right?” Ava asked. When Curtis didn’t respond, she added, “Can I stop talking now?”

  “I notice that you don’t say that Seth O’Malley hasn’t done or can’t do lab work,” Curtis said. “You only say that he won’t.”

  “It’s improbable that he would do lab work,” Ava said.

  “Why not say that he hasn’t done lab work?” Curtis asked.

  “Because life is long,” Ava said. “I don’t know everything he’s done in his life. I just would have a very hard time believing that he would do lab work.”

  “You don’t believe he’d isolate DNA and . . .” Curtis stopped talking when Ava laughed. She shook her head. “Could he have asked someone do to it?”

  “Who?” Ava asked. “According to his friends, I’m the first person he’s ever known who worked in science, let alone a forensics lab. And I can tell you — the first event I went to as his girlfriend, there were women lined up to get his attention. They weren’t lab rats. They were movie stars, heiresses, models . . . It happens even now. And anyway, forensics in Denver was done by cops before that or done at the CBI. Anyone there know O’Malley or Delgado well enough to isolate DNA for them?”

  Curtis didn’t respond.

  “You do know that he’s famous worldwide for his piano playing,” Ava said. “He’s a prolific songwriter and symphonic piece creator. You want to know what he was doing during the time he was working this case — check out what music he wrote. It’s usually published a year or so after. Better yet, call his manager. He’ll tell you exactly what O’Malley was working on.”

  “And Delgado?” Curtis asked.

  “According to Seth, Mitch started getting sick a few years after they were back from Vietnam,” Ava said. “He was in and out of the hospital most of the last five years of his life. You could check the VA or get access to his medical records. They’re public record from the trial.”

  “Trial?” Curtis asked.

  “Mitch had to sue the VA to get treatment,” Ava said. “The VA to this day doesn’t recognize many of the diseases caused by Agent Orange.”

  “They only recognize a few cancers,” the technician said. Curtis looked at the technician, who said, “My dad was in Vietnam.”

  “Delgado was handsome, funny, and the best friend a man could ever have — according to Seth,” Ava said. “But he’s not well known to be super smart. Those men went through hell together, but a genius? Like O’Malley? Not Delgado. He was the earth to Seth’s heady brilliance.”

  Curtis’s cell phone buzzed, and he pulled it out to look at it. Ava waited for him.

  “That’s our assessment as well,” Curtis said. “So you know, the Inspector at NYPD FIS confirmed what you said — O’Malley can make coffee.”

  Ava laughed.

  “And not much else,” Curtis said with a grin. “I think that’s about all we need.”

  “What about my memories from the trial?” Ava asked.

  “Gives us something to talk about tomorrow,” Curtis said, and then he shrugged. “Let me know if something comes up that’s crucial from that time, otherwise, you’re needed elsewhere.”

  Curtis gathered his notes and left the room. As soon as the door closed behind Special Agent Curtis, the polygraph technician got up. He undid Ava’s leads. When she was free, she got up and stretched. The technician went to the door to open it. With Ava right next to him, the technician whispered.

  “There’s something hinky here,” the technician said.

  Ava nodded and left the room. Disoriented, she stood outside the room for a moment.

  “Ava?” she heard Nelson calling her.

  “Here,” Ava said.

  “Oh, good,” Nelson said. “I came to get you.”

  Rather than ask her how she was, Nelson’s eyes scanned her face. She gave him a tired smile, and he nodded.

  “What’s going on?” Ava asked.

  “That Special Agent Curtis called a case conference,” Nelson said. “He wants to see what every team is working on and what we’ve come up with. Bob thinks you’re going to be asked to go over the original investigation.”

  “I don’t have my stuff,” Ava said. “My notes, Beth’s . . . I’d have to go home.”

  “Exactly,” Nelson said. He nodded to two Federal Marshals standing just behind him. “They will go with you.”

  “Will you call Maresol?” Ava asked. “Give her a heads-up? I left her a message last night but didn’t get a chance to talk with her.”

  “She’s been contacted,” Nelson said. “We have ‘handlers’ who speak to the outside world for us.”

  Ava rolled her eyes, and Nelson nodded.

  “Maresol is getting everything from the basement,” Nelson said.

  “Good,” Ava said. “But . . . what about our work?”

  She leaned in close to Nelson.

  “We want to make sure that we look as bright as these other labs!” Ava said.
>
  Nelson nodded in agreement. In situations like this, they needed to defend their reputation for being one of the best forensic teams in the country.

  “Leslie and Fran are already working,” Nelson said. “We’ve received the package from NYPD.”

  “DNA from the wife?” Ava asked.

  “We have complete access to their investigation, including the entire electronic file on Seth’s envelope. I’ve talked to the forensic lead in New York about the envelope and the work they’re doing there,” Nelson said with a nod. “I went through images of the envelope this morning. They’ve dusted for fingerprints and identified quite a few. They’ve exhumed the bodies of Delmer and Delilah. I’ll sit in electronically on the autopsy. They wanted to know if we wanted to run our own DNA or if we would accept their results.”

  “Accept their results,” Ava said with a shrug. “I suppose if there’s something there, then we’ll need to run it ourselves.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Nelson said. “Bob’s stepped in to lead the team. Got everyone working first thing this morning.”

  He leaned in to her.

  “Spammy dropped by to see if we ‘needed’ his direction,” Nelson said in a low tone. “Bob chased him off.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Ava said with a grin. “Having that Bob around is pretty handy in a pinch.”

  “You mean having a decorated retired FBI forensic team leader and an internationally recognized expert in his field on your team is a good thing?” Nelson said with a laugh.

  “Talking him out of retirement to work with us was sheer brilliance,” Ava said with a smile.

  While Bob was Ava’s mentor, it was really Nelson who convinced Bob to come to work with them.

  “Anything else?” Ava asked.

  “Get back here are soon as possible,” Nelson said. “No dilly-dallying.”

  “Dilly-dallying?” Ava asked.

  “Direct quote from Spammy,” Nelson said.

  “Duly noted,” Ava said with a smile.