by Adam Mitzner
That answered Wayne’s question. Although he already knew as much. He’d googled it. If they didn’t have a warrant, which they apparently didn’t, he didn’t have to do anything.
“I’ve got nothing to hide, but I do have a deep distrust of the police state,” Wayne said. “I don’t want my DNA in some database for . . . well, forever, being used in ways that I have no idea.” He laughed. “I mean, I’m not even on Facebook.”
Neither of the officers thought that was funny. “Mr. Fiske,” Lieutenant Velasquez said in a tone used to convey the utmost seriousness of the matter, “up until this moment, we did not think of you as a suspect. But if you refuse to provide your DNA, we have to reconsider whether we’re looking at this right. My experience is that people with—as you said—nothing to hide don’t refuse to provide their DNA. So, to be very blunt about it, right now I’m asking myself, why would a smart man like Wayne Fiske refuse to provide DNA evidence—”
“Unless he’s guilty of murder,” Detective Jamali finished the sentence.
“I’ve got nothing to hide,” Wayne said again, wishing he hadn’t. He was protesting too much. “But I do know my rights. And unless you have a warrant, I have every legal right to decline your request. So that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Were you ever in Mr. Sommers’s office?” Lieutenant Velasquez asked.
“What?”
“Simple question. Yes or no, were you ever in James Sommers’s office?”
“Of course. I pick Owen up there sometimes,” he said.
“When did you do that last?”
Wayne decided he had said too much. “I need you to leave now.”
In the brief standoff that followed, Wayne could tell that the lieutenant was considering whether to arrest him right then and there.
“Okay. Thank you for your time.” Lieutenant Velasquez extended his hand as if to say, No hard feelings.
Wayne kept his in his pockets.
“Goodbye. Please let yourselves out.”
19
“Do you think they could have been in on it together?” Asra asked.
It was the morning after every single one of their suspects refused their DNA requests. Gabriel hated the feeling that a murderer was laughing at him, but he could almost hear the cackle.
“Possible,” he said. Indeed, a part of him was hoping that was the explanation. Conspiracies never held together. Like the old saying goes, a secret can only be kept between two people if one of them is dead. “But it sounds pretty unlikely. I mean, Jessica Sommers leaves her husband of seventeen years for another man, and then conspires with that same ex-husband to kill her new husband?”
“It makes sense if the only way to save their son was collecting on that insurance policy,” Asra said. “But I still think it’s more likely that Wayne Fiske did it alone. The wife was clearly hoping her husband would sell the artwork to fund her son’s treatment. But the ex-husband, he might leap on a surefire way to get his son’s treatment paid for. And if it means that the guy who stole his wife drops out of the picture, that sounds like a win-win to me.”
“How’d he even know about the policy?”
“She probably told him. The policy had a cash surrender value. Maybe she mentioned to her ex that they could cash it in and put that toward the treatment cost, and he decided it would be better to off the husband and use the proceeds to pay for the whole shebang.”
“And now she’s protecting him?” Gabriel asked.
“Wouldn’t you protect your ex-wife if she was a murderer?”
Gabriel considered that scenario. He couldn’t imagine ever not loving Ella, and he also couldn’t imagine ever cooperating with the police to put his wife behind bars, no matter what she had done. Not only because he loved his wife, but also for his daughter’s sake. And if Ella’s crime had been in furtherance of protecting Annie, he’d definitely stand by her, without a moment’s hesitation. Which was why he concluded that, if faced with the same calculus, Jessica Sommers would opt to keep the father of her seventeen-year-old son, a son who was suffering from leukemia, in his life and out of jail. And that would include lying about whether he’d been in her husband’s office recently, and giving Wayne a heads-up that the NYPD was coming to ask him that same question.
“So you’re giving the first Mrs. Sommers a pass?” Gabriel asked. “Even with that voice mail? And why on earth doesn’t Reid fill us in about Allison if Wayne Fiske is our guy?”
The questions hung in the air. Asra didn’t have a good answer to either.
“Let’s look at it from a different angle,” Gabriel said. “Maybe the murder has nothing to do with insurance at all. It could very well be a business deal gone bad. If Allison was working on a multimillion-dollar drug deal, we wouldn’t be thinking twice about spouses and ex-spouses. I’m not sure that this art transaction was any more legal.”
“Expending all this energy on motive doesn’t really matter at the end of the day,” Asra said. “It’s going to come down to the DNA match. Whoever left their blood when punching James Sommers is going to be our killer. We should just get subpoenas to collect DNA from all of them.”
If only police work were so simple, Gabriel thought. He often believed crime could be eradicated if it weren’t for the Constitution.
“No judge is going to give us a warrant to take DNA from every one of our suspects,” he said. “But I was thinking that maybe we could use one of those ancestry websites. We take the DNA we have and see if it matches anyone in their database. My guess is that it’s much more likely that our murderer has a relative who got into genealogy than one who’s a felon.”
“There’s no way the websites cooperate with us,” Asra said.
Gabriel knew that was true. Ever since the Golden State Killer was arrested in 2018, after police had tracked the DNA left at old crime scenes to the suspect’s relatives using such sites, the technique had been at the intersection of civil rights and criminal investigation. The problem was that the major corporate players—Ancestry.com and 23andMe, among others—had vowed not to cooperate with law enforcement. It wasn’t good for their business model if, in addition to helping people find unknown relatives, they were also making it easier for those relatives to be arrested. Which was why they refused even in the face of a subpoena. And so far, most courts had sided with them.
Gabriel had the distinct feeling they were running out of time. They had collected all the evidence by now. They had the forensics, they’d canvassed people in the area (which was how they knew about Haley’s proximity to the murder scene that day), and they had timelines establishing the whereabouts of their people of interest. And yet no one stood out as any more likely a suspect than anyone else.
After a week, cases got cold. After two weeks, they were frozen solid.
Jessica spent the main part of her days at the hospital. Her visits with Owen were limited to ten minutes every two hours, but rather than go home in between, she stayed in the waiting area. She preferred to spend the time in the company of others, even if they were nurses or family members of other cancer patients, none of whom she knew. At least that way she didn’t feel so alone.
Wayne would arrive after school let out, around four. Sometimes they would sit together for a while. So far, not a day had gone by in which he hadn’t offered to take her to dinner. Either at the diner across the street for malts or someplace else.
Twice she accepted. Twice she declined.
She knew that her ex-husband was hoping that it was the beginning of something more for them. She laughed at the irony that he could so easily sweep away what she had done, when it was impossible for her to do likewise. Her affair with James would forever define her, and she could not imagine living a life in which her partner pretended that it had never happened. Or that it had simply been an inconsequential detour in her life’s path, rather than the most actualizing choice she’d ever made.
The biggest reason, of course, was that James had showed her what true love was, and
going back to anything less was unfathomable. Still, Wayne remained the one person who understood what she was going through. Not entirely, of course. He hadn’t lost his spouse. But she knew that they were of one mind when it came to Owen, and that brought her the sole source of comfort she experienced these days. Like her, Wayne would do anything for their son, and that she did love about him.
Sometimes Owen couldn’t remember if he’d been in the hospital for a day or a month. Nothing ever changed except the sky outside his window, and that only went from blue to black and back again.
He continued to follow his friends’ group chats, which gave him a window into the life he had left behind. Occasionally he’d get a text from someone from school, checking in on him. Zoey Sanderson had actually DM’d him last week. It was only a heart emoji and a “feel better,” but it had come with three exclamation points. Owen hadn’t thought she’d even notice his absence. She certainly didn’t talk to him much when they were in school, outside of sometimes asking him about the chemistry homework.
Maybe if he ever got out of here, he’d ask her out. Assuming, of course, that Zoey had a thing for bald teenagers who might die at any moment.
The other day he had tried to play a little violin. Nothing fancy, but it had felt good to have the bow in his hands again, the chin rest against his jaw. He thought that with the door shut no one could hear, but the moment he was finished, Owen heard the applause from the nurses’ station and even some calls of “Bravo!” That felt good too.
Reid was holding tight to the portfolio case, a big black leather number he’d purchased for the occasion.
Allison had selected the St. Regis again. “I’ll even cover the fifteen hundred dollars for a suite out of my end,” she’d said with a smile.
Reid wondered if maybe they’d be able to use the room for more than selling some art. He even had visions that, after Allison’s client left, the two of them would pour the cash out onto the bed and roll around in it naked, like they did in the movies.
Allison opened the door after a single knock and smiled when she saw Reid on the other side. She was dressed in a conservative suit but still looked stunning, which caused him to smile too.
“Welcome, Reid,” she said. “Allow me to introduce you to my client, Harrison Ellis. Harrison, this is Reid Warwick.”
The soon-to-be owner of three Jackson Pollock pieces was African American, which surprised Reid, although he realized it shouldn’t have. No rule said that only white people should have expensive art, or the millions of dollars in cash it took to buy it.
The buyer was wearing a three-piece suit, which didn’t mesh exactly with his goatee.
Reid shook his benefactor’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Ellis.”
“Please, let’s be on a first-name basis. Call me Harrison. And may I call you Reid?”
“If you have the three million dollars we discussed, you can call me whatever you want.”
It was Ellis’s turn to smile. “It’s in my car, being guarded by my driver.”
Reid got that hinky feeling again. He’d brought the Pollocks, after all, and expected a simultaneous exchange. Nonetheless, he wasn’t about to bail on the chance of walking out $3 million richer.
“Still don’t trust me, do you, Allison?” he said.
“Why would you ever say that?” Allison replied with a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth expression.
“So I guess one of us has to show the other his first, right?”
“I know you’re not shy, Reid,” Allison said. “Be my guest.”
Reid brought his portfolio case over to the table. He unlatched the sides and opened it.
“If you don’t mind, I would prefer you not touch them,” he said. “But look as much as you like. As we discussed, there are three in total.”
Ellis examined the first Pollock, hovering over it to get a closer look. He then turned to Allison, silently asking her to opine.
“Perfect,” she said.
“May I see the others?” Ellis asked.
“Of course.”
Reid carefully flipped over the first Pollock, revealing the second one beneath it. Once again, Ellis looked up at Allison after examining it. This time she merely nodded.
That was Reid’s signal to flip the page. He repeated the ritual a third time.
“Three million dollars, cash,” Ellis said.
Reid didn’t sense that he was questioning the price. He was merely stating it.
“Yes,” Reid said.
“Tell Mr. Ellis how you came upon these pieces, Reid. As you know, collectors always like hearing about that.”
“The seller is a man who was very close to Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock’s widow, for much of Lee’s later years. These were given to him by Ms. Krasner as gifts before she passed.”
“And why is he selling now?” Ellis asked.
“He just feels it’s time. He’s an older gentleman, and he’s considering estate-planning issues.”
“Do you have any other questions, Harrison?” Allison asked.
“I don’t. Do you?”
“No. I think we’re all good here.”
“All except the payment,” Reid said.
That’s when the door flung open. Even before Reid saw who was on the other side, he knew what was happening. And cursed the fact that he hadn’t listened to that hinky feeling.
20
Captain Tomlinson knocked on Gabriel’s half-open door.
“The pleasure of your company has been requested by our brothers and sisters on the federal side of the street.”
Gabriel looked over at Asra.
“What about?” she asked.
“All they said was that they had some information that might be relevant to your investigation and wanted a sit-down.”
“When and where?” Gabriel asked.
“They were kind enough to slum it over here,” Tomlinson said. “They’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
Gabriel hated these interdepartmental meetings between the FBI and the NYPD, but they were a fact of life in law enforcement. They didn’t at all resemble the way they were portrayed on TV, however, like celebrity marriages gone bad with screaming on both sides about jurisdiction. In reality, they were simply a different constituency you had to manage. Like a boss you didn’t necessarily like.
When Asra and Gabriel arrived in the captain’s office, the feds were already there. A man and a woman.
Tomlinson’s office wasn’t quite large enough to accommodate four guests. Two squad room chairs had been pulled into the room for Gabriel and Asra, but it made for an awkward seating arrangement: Tomlinson behind his desk, the feds in his guest chairs facing him, and Asra and Gabriel sitting behind them, as if they were the audience and Tomlinson was performing onstage. The feds, at least, twisted their seats to form something of a circle.
For most people, ADA and AUSA are interchangeable titles. They’re all prosecutors. But much as the NYPD and FBI each have their types, so do local and federal prosecutors. As a general matter, those budding attorneys who had the choice chose to go to the federal side. The pay was better, and the level of criminal more sophisticated. That mattered more for lawyers than for cops because it made for an easier transition to the private sector later in their careers. On the other hand, the work was more interesting on the local side. Gabriel thought that being in federal law enforcement was all about financial crime, with the victims sometimes even less sympathetic than the perpetrators. Ella seconded that opinion, and she should know—unlike him, she’d had a choice of employers, and she’d chosen the DA’s office without hesitation.
“I’m AUSA Parker Henderson,” the man said.
He looked like a federal prosecutor. Young, clean-cut, probably from money, or maybe he’d had a big law firm job before going to work for the government.
“Special agent Allison Lashley,” the female fed said.
Gabriel looked to Asra. From her smile, it had clicked for her too.
“W
e’ve been looking for you, Ms. Lashley,” he said.
“Apologies for waiting so long for this reveal,” Henderson said. “We wanted to see how things played out before we had this meeting.”
“Someone want to tell me what it seems like you all already know?” asked Tomlinson.
“Special Agent Lashley here was the last person to see James Sommers alive,” Asra said.
“Second to last,” she said. “I didn’t kill him.”
Henderson said, “Mr. Sommers was, unfortunately for him, ensnared in a federal operation concerning stolen art. Special Agent Lashley told Mr. Sommers about his misfortune only a few hours before his murder.”
“I was undercover as an art appraiser for a client,” Lashley said. “I accompanied my CI—a guy who had done a previous deal with Mr. Sommers a few years earlier—to do a buy. A Jackson Pollock to be purchased from Mr. Sommers and his partner, a man named Reid Warwick. After that went off without a hitch, I reestablished contact with Mr. Sommers and we arranged a more significant buy. A three-purchase sale. I met with Mr. Sommers and Reid Warwick in Mr. Sommers’s office to discuss this sale. After Mr. Warwick left, I revealed myself to Mr. Sommers as a federal agent.”
“Was Sommers going to flip?” Asra asked.
“He didn’t have much choice. Under the sentencing guidelines, even for a first-time offender, he was looking at real time. And guys like James Sommers, they’re not built for prison.”
“So what happened that caused Mr. Sommers to crack his skull shortly thereafter?” Gabriel asked.
“Not sure,” Lashley said. “Sommers and I discussed the next steps. The standard stuff. Not to tell anyone, even his wife. That he should pretend that the deal we were doing went off without a hitch. That he’d wear a wire for the payoff with Reid Warwick. And when we were done, I left him very much alive in his office.”
“We figure that, despite our instructions, Sommers told Warwick, and Warwick killed him,” Henderson said.
“Why is this the first we’re all hearing about this?” Tomlinson said.
