The Next Widow: A gripping crime thriller with unputdownable suspense (Jericho and Wright Thrillers Book 1)

by CJ Lyons

  The Cambria City PD’s building hadn’t been updated for decades, still housed in a five-story post-war building that could have easily passed for a VA hospital with its utilitarian yellow brick design and lack of ornamentation. An anonymous box—not unlike the apartment he’d lived in before moving out to the farm a few months ago.

  Living at the farm he’d been surprised by a sense of rediscovery, an almost childlike joy in simply watching out the window, observing how even under a leaden winter sky, the world was in constant animation. For the first time since Cherise died he’d been moved to poetry. Not to write it—that creative well had been bricked over after Cherise was gone. But to read it, examine it, use it to see the world. Preserved in boxes in the rafters of the cider house, he’d found his old books, his favorite poets being those who didn’t simply pour their own emotions onto the page but who rather used their insight to reveal the world for what it really was, beyond what the people sleepwalking through it wanted it to be. Keen observers not only of their environment but of the human soul. He’d devoured their words, hoping to absorb their insight, their vision… their clarity.

  Luka reached the station’s personnel entrance, bathed in the glare of security lights. He glanced down and saw a flash of color against the mud and snow beside the pavement. Three small flowers. Irises, his gran’s favorites—Cherise’s as well, although the ones he bought her were much larger than these miniature rebels. Two were a deep, vibrant purple and one was a bold yellow that dared you to ignore it.

  And yet, he’d bet that of the hundreds of people who traveled this path day after day, he was the only one who’d noticed these valiant harbingers of spring.

  “Having a senior moment?” a familiar voice called from behind him. Ray Acevedo, his second in command. Despite the fact that, unlike Luka, he’d had a full night’s sleep and the advantage of morning grooming, he appeared grizzled beyond his forty-two years. Ray always looked like that—back when he’d worked undercover, he did so to disappear into the background, watching and listening while feigning a drunken stupor.

  Ray held the door open for Luka and together they strolled inside, waving to the officer manning the desk.

  “Hear we have a red ball,” Ray said. “Told Denise not to wait up for me tonight.”

  “Smart thinking.” The team would be running full throttle on the Wright murder in addition to juggling their other open cases, plus Ray and their fourth member, Scott Krichek, would be taking any overnight calls tonight. It might be a few days before any of them made it home for more than a shower and change of clothes.

  Luka and Ray avoided the ancient elevator that was prone to temper tantrums and together climbed the stairs to the third floor where the investigatory units were housed.

  “How’d the kid handle it?” Ray meant Harper, although technically Luka was three years younger than Ray.

  Harper puzzled Luka. She was next up on the promotion list but had already been passed over by the other investigatory units—something she was clearly unaware of, given her attitude. When her file reached Luka’s desk, he’d had mixed feelings. Her test scores were superlative, after six years on the street her jacket was still clean of any red flags including civilian complaints or official reprimands; she even had two citations for valor.

  But the reviews from her commanding officers painted her as over-zealous, arrogant, ambitious, and an “independent thinker.” All traits that would have been seen as advantageous qualities in a man, Luka couldn’t help but notice. So he’d taken a chance and requested she be assigned to his squad even though officially she kept only her patrol officer’s rank. Best of all worlds. He got the extra manpower he needed along with a chance to evaluate her firsthand. It made Commander Ahearn happy as well—patrol officers cost less than detectives.

  “Didn’t hear anything from the fifth floor,” Luka said, referencing the top of the building where supervisors like Ahearn had their offices. “Maggie said she did okay. Plus, Harper gave me cover so I could take my time with the widow.”

  “What’s she like? The widow? She a POI?” Person of interest—the politically correct term for anyone who tipped past mere witness into the realm of suspect.

  “Too early to tell. She’s—” Luka paused at the landing, searching for the right word to describe Leah Wright. “Self-contained. Hard to get a read on.”

  “Because she was in shock? Or because she’s a conniving sociopath?” Ray asked cheerfully as he opened the door leading into the bullpen. He wouldn’t care which was the right answer, as long as they nailed their man—or woman—in the end.

  They wove their way through the maze of desks—most empty since day shift for detectives didn’t start for another hour—Ray dumping his navy peacoat and canvas messenger bag at his desk while Luka went into his closet-sized office to shed his own coat. The floor’s layout always made Luka think of an industrial floorspace: the assembly line gathered in the center, then small offices, interview rooms, storage closets rimming the periphery, anchored at either end by larger conference rooms. The cubicles were meant to be randomly assigned, but like always found like: the drugs and vice guys had clustered at the far corner, shoving their desks together as if defending the Alamo, their sergeant’s office opposite Luka’s, while Luka’s squad was spread out in a semicircle, marking their own territory: their coffee machine and the “good” interview room with the chairs that didn’t squeak.

  He checked his messages—nothing urgent that couldn’t wait—then arranged his notes to share with the rest of the team. Finally, he headed back out to the bullpen, weaving through desks to the coffee station. Every member of his squad except Harper had their own personal mug and beverage supplies arranged in cubbyholes above the machines. It was a sacrosanct space that no one, not even the vice squad pranksters, dared to invade.

  Luka’s own mug was a nondescript indigo blue ceramic that was so old he hesitated every time he reached into the microwave to retrieve it. Cherise had bought it at Target when they’d moved in together senior year of college. Seventeen years ago and he refused to replace it. Once, it had a matching partner. He rubbed the tip of his middle finger. The scar couldn’t be seen, not after all these years, but he remembered the blood swirling through the soapy water after the cup had shattered while he was doing dishes, waiting for Cherise to come home from her LSAT review.

  The night she never came home. The night the knock on the door had come and when he’d opened it, it’d been the police. The cut on his finger had healed but no amount of time could dim the memory.

  The microwave chimed and he opened the door. What would Leah Wright be haunted by after last night? The sight of her dead husband? The feeling of crawling through his blood to get to her child? The vacant look in her daughter’s eyes?

  The mug was hot, too hot, enough that he couldn’t pick it up by its body, had to resort to holding it by the handle. Seventeen years. Past time to let go, he knew. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

  Luka headed to the conference room that functioned as the Violent Crime Unit’s nerve center. Scott Krichek and Ray Acevedo already waited at the battered conference table, a strangely elongated ovoid, seventies style slab of faux hardwood. Ray had his trademark Steelers mug of coffee along with a laptop and his reading glasses, while Krichek had surrounded himself with a special self-warming cup of some noxious hipster butter-coffee-mushroom combo that he called his brain food, along with laptop, tablet, phone, notepad and pen. Luka set his own mug of herbal tea—he was saving caffeine for later when he hit his wall and needed it—beside a fresh notepad at the head of the table. He enjoyed handwriting his notes; something about the scratch of pen against paper allowed him to think better.

  “Where’s Harper?” he asked.

  Before anyone could answer, the door sprang open and Harper rushed in, juggling her tablet and a stainless-steel travel mug. “Here, here,” she said as if this were rollcall. “Was following up—”

  “On the donut run?” Krichek as
ked, stretching lazily. “Cuz I don’t see any, boot.”

  Harper stopped half in and half out of her chair, a chagrined expression on her face. Boot was what rookies were called when they began their patrol training. With one word, Krichek had firmly cemented Harper’s lowly position in the squad’s hierarchy—the position he’d vacated when she came on board.

  “Relax. Krichek wants donuts so bad, he can get them himself,” Luka assured her, aiming a quick scowl at Krichek, who immediately sat up straight. “Give them the bullet.”

  Harper fumbled a bit at first with the summary, but then hit her stride, providing a coherent and accurate picture of the crime scene, enhanced with photos projected onto one of the whiteboards lining the far wall. Luka highlighted major characteristics of their unknown killer by writing them on a second whiteboard along with a timeline.

  By the time Harper finished, his whiteboard was still almost completely blank. Except for a short list: the killer wore booties and undoubtably had forensic knowledge, nothing obvious was missing from the house, and, despite the extreme brutality of the attack, the killer left a witness behind. The timeline itself was not all that helpful: the time stamp from when Ian picked up his wife’s car followed by his wife’s phone call ending around eight twenty and then nothing until twelve forty-one when the 911 call had come in.

  Luka stood at the whiteboard, marker in hand, facing his team. Krichek and Harper both leaned forward, palms braced on the conference table as if eager to race out and chase down errant clues and suspects.

  “Thoughts? Ideas? Impressions?” He liked to open a case up, especially this early on. Eventually, the facts would build the story of what happened, but too often Luka had seen detectives settle on their story first, then twist the facts to fit the narrative they’d committed to. He’d found that brainstorming as many avenues of investigation as possible helped to prevent that tunnel vision.

  Ray scowled at the photo of Ian’s body projected on the whiteboard. “That much violence takes a hell of a lot of passion.”

  “Right,” Harper agreed, coming close to interrupting him. “Passion. Like maybe from a love triangle.” She looked to Luka for permission and he gave her a small nod. Usually he would have waited until after they dissected the crime scene before beginning to build a profile of their victim, but she appeared ready to burst. “We found these.” She tapped her tablet and photos of drawings of the naked woman in her twenties appeared. “They were hidden behind the victim’s desk. And there was this note, dated last year—maybe when they first met?”

  “Wright was having an affair?” Krichek joined in, sounding eager.

  “That’s why I was late—tracking down the girl in the pictures,” Harper told them. “Full name is Katrina Balanchuk, twenty-four years old, here from Ukraine on a student visa, getting her MFA.”

  Ray glanced at the clock: not even seven thirty yet. “Who’d you wake to get that info?” Meaning, had she tipped Balanchuk to their interest, maybe spooked her or given her time to bolster an alibi.

  “Instagram and Facebook,” Harper retorted. “She’s not on Twitter.”

  “Loving husband and father, giving his own life to defend his daughter—or older married professor involved with a much younger student?” Ray mused. “Scorned lover seeking revenge? Or the wife discovered the affair, went after the husband?”

  “No way a woman did that,” Krichek said, nodding to the crime scene photos of Ian’s mutilated body. Then he paused. “Unless she wasn’t alone. Had a partner.”

  Luka tapped the marker against the board, snagging their attention. “Harper, what else did you learn while you were on the scene?”

  “Calendar crowded with their work schedules and activities for the kid—only social event I saw was a Superbowl party. Tons of pictures of the kid, seemed like she’s the center of their world.” A hint of wonder crept into her voice as if she couldn’t imagine such an insular life.

  Neither could Luka. Hard enough helping his grandfather out these past few months since his gran died; he marveled at people who worked fulltime and juggled kids. Funny, because when he was younger, still in school, when Cherise was still alive, he hadn’t dreamed of anything but having a family.

  “Wright did government consulting,” Harper continued. “I couldn’t find out much last night. Maybe today I can make some calls to the feds.”

  That earned her a grunt of skepticism from Ray; the feds were not likely to share and if Wright’s killing had anything to do with his government work, they’d want in on the case in the name of national security.

  “Point is, this isn’t a routine home invasion.” Harper sent a nod in Luka’s direction, indicating that she’d been listening when he’d schooled her at the scene. “Not with our actor leaving no trace of himself. And no way was Wright some random target.”

  “Let’s start there,” Luka said, reining them in. “Why Ian Wright?”

  “Three Ps,” Ray said. Harper frowned, not yet knowing the team’s shorthand.

  “Three motives,” Luka explained. “Power, profit, passion.”

  “Definitely not profit,” Harper said before anyone else could comment. “Nothing obvious taken. Not much to take, in fact. I found paperwork for student loans they’re still paying off, not to mention the cost of a kid. These guys might both be working nice jobs, but they weren’t getting rich, at least not that you could tell from the house.”

  “Once we get the financials, we’ll learn more,” Luka said.

  “What about life insurance?” Krichek asked. “What’s the wife get, now that hubby’s kicked?”

  “Might also be a reason for the bloody overkill,” Ray added. “Some policies you get double the payout for homicide.”

  “Not to mention saving the cost of a divorce and custody fight,” Harper put in.

  “Krichek, you work the finances,” Luka said. “Have your warrants ready to go as soon as the banks open.”

  “You really think the wife could have set this up? Put her daughter through that?” Krichek said, reminding Luka of how young he was. Maybe not in years, but in experience.

  “Wife got to play the hero,” Ray reminded him. “That video the uniforms took is pure gold in the hands of the right defense attorney. She’s an ER doc, blood wouldn’t bother her.” He looked to Luka. “Any vibes from the interview?”

  Luka shook his head. For some reason it was difficult for him to see Leah as more than a victim. He reluctantly wrote Leah’s name on the whiteboard beside Balanchuk’s, leaving a large space below it where they would fill in the gaps with actual facts.

  “Canvass pop anything?” Ray asked.

  Luka nodded to the stack of field interviews the uniformed officers had submitted from the scene. He’d already reviewed them and prioritized a select few for follow up. “Patrol found three neighbors with doorbell cameras. Only traffic the cameras caught during our window was a motorcycle speeding down the street at eleven fifty.” He added the data to the timeline with a note:

  Motorcycle near scene.

  “Video’s too blurry to make any ID, but the tech guys are trying to clean it up.”

  “Our actor leaving the scene?” Krichek asked. “Makes sense. If he knew the wife’s work schedule, he’d want to be gone before she got home.”

  “Why?” Ray played devil’s advocate. “He could kill her just as easy as the husband if she walked in on him.”

  “Except she didn’t—she called 911 from the back door,” Harper put in. “If he was still inside, he’d have the cops to deal with, not just the wife.”

  “Maybe the wife was in on it, setting up an alibi,” Krichek interrupted. “I mean, her shift ended at midnight, right? But the call didn’t come in until twelve forty-one. How long’s it take to get from the ER to her house? Maybe she was there the whole time, watching her accomplice do in the cheating hubby and made the 911 call after the killer left and was in the clear. Just saying—”

  “We don’t know if this motorcycle guy is our
actor,” Luka reminded the younger detective, before he could spiral too far away from the facts. “But he is someone we need to talk to. He could just as easily be a witness.”

  “Here we go.” Harper’s excitement bled into her voice. She scrolled down on her tablet and selected the image, transferring it onto the whiteboard. “Traffic cam a block away on Second caught a motorcycle heading away from the area. Timing fits, gotta be the same one. There’s not much traffic in that neighborhood that time of night. A few cars, SUVs, but that’s the only bike on that camera half an hour either way.”

  “Great, there you are. Go get him.”

  Harper didn’t surrender to Ray’s needling. “Plate obscured; driver’s face shielded by a full-face mask on his helmet. Tinted,” she added before Ray could say anything.

  “I already put in a request for the tech squad to check the other traffic cameras, see if we can track him,” Luka told her. Her expression appeared deflated—she obviously hadn’t realized exactly how much he’d gotten done after he’d left her at the house.

  “Not too many traffic cameras in that part of the city,” Krichek said. Luka remembered that he’d worked that patrol sector while still in uniform. “You might have better luck with private ones. There are a few ATMs that might have caught him. And a jewelry store on the other side of the park, if he turned down Maple, headed to the interstate.”

  Harper nodded and made a note as if she planned to knock on every door herself. “Thanks.”

  “We’ve Casper the Fucking Ghost on a motorcycle, maybe our actor, maybe not. And an actor smart enough to cover his tracks—” Ray glanced at Harper.

  “So far nothing from forensics. But they have a shit ton to go through. We may still get lucky.”

  That drew a wry chuckle from Ray and Luka. They both knew how fickle luck could be.

  “What else do we have to go on?” Luka asked.

  “What about the roses the wife got in the ER?” Harper asked. “The card was typed, not signed. And having them sent to the ER’s desk clerk? Seems like a good way to make sure she had witnesses when she left Good Sam, setting up an alibi.”