“I’m told the man was not a neat housekeeper,” says Harry.
“So what did you find?” says the detective.
The tech still catching his breath. “What’s left from a piece of Black Tar.”
A piece is a street term. It’s about twenty-five grams, in this case Black Tar heroin. Going price to a buyer is about a thousand dollars. In this country the supply almost invariably comes out of Mexico.
“Just one question,” says Avery. He looks at me. “Do you have any idea what Murphy was doing here?”
I shake my head, start to answer.
“Oh, we think we figured that one out,” says the tech. “The other guy called him.”
“What are you talking about?” I say.
“We’re checking phone records right now, see if we can place the time. We found this right by the phone.”
He holds up an evidence bag. Inside is a business card, the one Murphy dropped on Crow the night we delivered the subpoena.
“We pressed redial,” says the tech. “It was the last number dialed from the phone upstairs.”
TWENTY-FOUR
* * *
Visions of Murphy on the bed, a slab of steel buried in his chest, dance in a dark web of restless dreams as the night wears on. I doze and wake, unable to find sound sleep, my head tossing on a rumpled pillow. Finally I reach over and move a pile of papers on the nightstand so that I can see the clock.
Susan is purring gently, sensuous little snores, her body curled up behind me, a spoon, one arm dangled loosely over my waist.
As gently as I can I move her arm, ease my legs out from under the sheets, and sit up at the side of the bed. It’s three-thirty.
I’m wearing pajama bottoms. Susan’s got the top, like a trophy.
As I stand up, the bed creaks. She is a light sleeper, so I turn to look. She stirs, adjusts her pillow. Just when I think she’s going to drift back, her sleepy eyes open and look at me.
“Hmm.” She stretches long, languid legs under the covering sheet. “What’s wrong? You can’t sleep? I can fix that.” She reaches over, takes me by the wrist and tugs me gently back toward the bed. Her hands are at the nape of my neck as I hit the sheets, bumping knees and naked thighs, one of my own drawn between hers as if by some invisible polar force. Her nipples are hardened like bullet points pressing against my chest.
Susan is good at this, mesmerizing acts of seduction, until you are no longer certain who is seducer and who is seduced. Like one of the giant predator cats, she owns the darkness, the hours of the early morning.
Her lips are on mine, her tongue between them. Within seconds I can no longer control myself, pajama parts flung in the melee with the force of beasts in the brush. Susan likes to play rough. She has drawn blood on more than one occasion, her teeth now nibbling on my earlobe as I move within her. Her legs are locked around me. She grips me, rises up, arms around my neck. Balanced on the edge, her hands suddenly move, fingernails raking my back. Susan sends a jolt tingling down my spine until it washes over me, an instant of unsurmountable release.
Susan’s not done. She spurs me on, her heels pressing, locked at the small of my back as she falls gently, a leaf in the wind, toward the sheets. The use of her muscles is a mystery to me. The small of her back arches up off the bed, her eyes shut tight, her upper teeth biting into her lower lip.
I move within her one more time before it dies. Susan issues a stifled scream, a rigid shudder passing through her body as she twists in the bedcovers beneath me. True to her word, she has fixed it. I have forgotten what it was that woke me.
We are both groggy in the morning, fallout from our adventures of the previous night. I stand looking in the mirror over the vanity in Susan’s bathroom, running my hands through my hair.
“It seems I’m not the only one with a problem sleeping,” I tell her.
“What are you talking about?”
There are two little bottles of Ambien, prescription sleep medication, on the countertop. I pick one of them up and rattle the tiny white pills inside.
“Oh that. I take one once in a while. It’s the job,” she says. “Problems at work.”
“Maybe your inability to sleep is something else.”
“What do you mean?” Suddenly Susan sits up, image behind me in the mirror. There’s a defensive edge to her voice, the sleepy tone gone, as if I’ve hit a raw nerve.
I turn to look at her. “Maybe you’re not used to living with somebody else. Strangers in your house,” I tell her. “In your bed.”
“Oh, that!” She shifts gears. “Don’t be silly.”
“What did you think I meant?”
“Nothing,” she says. Her head’s back down on the pillow. Patting the bed for me to return.
“Maybe Sarah and I should find someplace else?”
“No.” She props herself up on one arm. “Not after what happened last night.”
“I’m not talking about going home. Maybe a hotel.”
“Sarah’s not going to be comfortable in a hotel room.”
“You’re right. I’ll leave Sarah here.”
“She’s not going to be happy without you,” she says.
“But she may be safer,” I tell her. “I can’t get the girl out of my mind.”
Susan looks at me, a budding question mark.
“Amanda. Jonah’s granddaughter. You think they wouldn’t do to her what they did to Murphy?”
“I’d almost forgotten about her,” says Susan.
“I haven’t. Haven’t been able to get her out of my mind since last night.”
“Why don’t you go to the police?”
“No need to go to them. They’ve been coming to me pretty regularly.”
“You know what I mean. Tell them what’s happening. Tell them about Ontaveroz.”
“Ryan already knows. More than he should. And I still have no evidence.”
“You’ve got two dead bodies,” she says.
“Yeah, but the cops have their own theory as to how they got that way. They’re not going to believe me.”
“How do you know unless you try?”
“If it weren’t for Jonah’s trial, they might humor me,” I tell her. “Provide some protection. At least watch the house. But with the trial, any action on their part that lends credence to the theory that the Mexican killed Crow and Murphy opens the door to arguments that he may have also killed Suade. No way Ryan will permit that.”
I’m looking out the window at her backyard. Sunlight filtered on the hard surface of the patio outside. Shadows of leaves, sharp edges dancing over the cracks in the stone pavers.
She gets up, comes over, nuzzles up behind me, hands around my waist. I can feel the warmth of her body against mine. We stand there, a swaying silhouette in front of the French doors.
“I’m worried that I’m putting you in danger,” I tell her. “I saw what happened to Murphy. In the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” she says.
“I’m not talking guilt. I’m talking hard reality. What these people will do if they feel it’s necessary to come after me. Right now they figure Crow’s dead. They’re in the clear. What happens if I get lucky? Turn over another rock? And I have to try.”
“Why?”
“Because otherwise the best I can do is a verdict on some diminished charge. Jonah’s going to go to prison. Don’t you understand? He’ll probably die there.”
There’s a deep sigh from Susan as she hugs me a little tighter. “I’m sure if he did it, it was self-defense,” she says. “Suade’s gun.”
“Problem is he says he wasn’t there.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I have to try to find Jessica.”
“You think she�
��ll help her father?”
“I don’t know. But at least I can try to get the child back.” I turn to look at Susan, her arms still around me.
She’s not looking at me. Instead she’s gazing out at nothing, over my shoulder into the yard.
“I’ll help you,” she says.
“No. I don’t want you involved any more than you already are. If you’ll take care of Sarah . . .”
“I’m already involved.”
“You mean Suade’s gun? Ancient history,” I tell her. “Another day or two in court, Ryan will forget where it came from.”
This doesn’t seem to move her much.
“The child’s in danger,” she says. “We’ve got to find her.”
“You leave that to me.”
She doesn’t respond. Instead ignores me, changes the subject.
“One thing puzzles me,” she says. “How do you think they found this man Crow?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. It’s possible they followed Murphy and me the night we served him. If so, Ontaveroz probably squeezed Crow to see if he knew where Jessica was. He would have found the subpoena and Murphy’s business card.”
“You said Crow didn’t know where Jessica was.”
“That’s what he told us. Who knows what he might have told the Mexican? Anything to stay alive. If Ontaveroz found the subpoena, he would have known we were getting ready to put Crow on the stand. That could have put Ontaveroz on display in the middle of Jonah’s trial. I doubt if he wanted the publicity.”
“That’s why he killed Crow?”
“I think so.”
“It still doesn’t make sense,” she says. “Why would he kill Murphy?”
“If he thinks Crow told him something.”
“But he didn’t.”
“Ontaveroz doesn’t know that.”
I am thinking this was not a voluntary act on Crow’s part, the phone call to Murph.
“They probably injected Crow after the call, put him in the tub, then sat and waited for Murphy to show up.”
I feel her body shiver against mine with this thought, her chin resting on my shoulder as she looks out through the glass.
“But if they think Crow told Murphy something, and they followed the two of you to Crow’s apartment that night, then they must think you know something, too.” She pulls her head away and finally looks up at me.
“That’s why I can’t stay here any longer,” I tell her.
This morning Ryan plows old ground, trying to get it right this time. His witness is a firearms and ballistics expert from the county crime lab, Kevin Sloan.
Blond and in his early thirties, he looks more like a cop than a lab technician.
They quickly go through the grain weight of each of the bullets, confirming that the rounds that killed Suade were a three-eighty caliber. After all the jostling with Dr. Morris over this very point, Ryan for some reason is now comfortable with the caliber. In light of what we know about Suade’s missing gun, Harry and I are left to wonder why.
Ryan gets into lands and grooves on the bullets, and the witness tells the jury that the firearm that killed Suade was a semiautomatic, based on the rimless cartridges found at the scene. According to Sloan the firearm isn’t implicated in any other crimes, at least not according to the DOJ computer used to keep track of such things.
“Anything else you could determine from the cartridge found at the scene, or the bullets taken from the victim’s body?”
“There were ejector marks on the cartridge, indicating it was fired only one time. Probably store-bought rounds. Whoever owned the gun was probably not what we would call a hobby shooter, someone sufficiently familiar with firearms that he would load his own ammunition.”
“Anything else?” says Ryan.
“The lands and grooves, the spiral for this particular pistol displayed a right-hand twist. That means the bullet as it traveled down the barrel of the pistol would have spun in a clockwise direction looking from the breech, the chambered end. As a general rule,” says Sloan, “American-made firearms, semiautomatics, have a left-hand twist. The bullet spirals in a counterclockwise direction as it travels down the barrel. Colt, Browning, High Standard, Remington, most of these would be a left-hand twist. European-made weapons generally use a right-hand twist. Clockwise.”
“So the pistol in this instance was probably European-made?”
“That’s what I would conclude. It’s a popular caliber,” he says. “There are a number of European manufacturers marketing semiautomatic pistols chambered in the three-eighty caliber.”
“So you’re telling us it would be difficult to identify the specific make or manufacture of the gun used in this case, unless we found the weapon itself?”
“That’s correct.”
Ryan’s trying to head me off, undercut the significance of Suade’s gun. Put it out of reach, so that without the pistol itself I can’t prove the rounds came from her pistol. This leaves the jury in a world of conjecture. She owned a gun, but was it the murder weapon?
“That’s all I have for this witness,” says Ryan.
I waste no time.
“Mr. Sloan, are you familiar with a pistol known as a Walther PPK?”
“I am.”
“Is that a semiautomatic pistol?”
“It is.”
“And where is that particular pistol manufactured?”
“Originally in Germany,” says Sloan. “But, under license, some are made here in this country.”
“Do you know whether the Walther PPK is chambered in a three-eighty caliber?”
“It is.”
“Isn’t it a fact that the Walther PPK three-eighty is often carried by police officers as a backup weapon?”
“I know officers who carry it,” says Sloan.
“Is that because of its compact size and weight?”
“Yes. I would say so.”
“Would it be accurate to characterize this semiautomatic, the Walther PPK three-eighty, as a ‘woman’s weapon’ because of its small size?”
“Objection. Calls for speculation. Assumes that there is such a thing as a ‘woman’s weapon,’” says Ryan.
“The witness is an expert,” I tell the court.
“No foundation,” says Ryan.
“Sustained,” says Peltro.
“Are there handguns that are more likely to be carried by women?”
“I don’t know,” says Sloan.
“Isn’t it a fact that women tend, as a general rule, to buy and use handguns with a smaller frame?”
Sloan thinks about this for a moment.
“As a general rule that’s probably true.”
“Thank you. And isn’t it a fact that the Walther PPK three-eighty is just such a firearm?”
“I suppose,” he says.
“So if a woman wanted to carry a gun, this would be a perfect gun to carry in her purse?”
“I guess, if she wanted to carry a gun.”
I get into the number of rounds the little Walther will hold, seven, eight if you put one in the chamber, and the fact that it produces a right-hand twist, just like the lands and grooves on the bullets taken out of Suade’s body. I’m making good progress with the state’s own witness, and for some reason, whether he’s just putting on a face for the jury, Ryan appears unconcerned by this.
“Let’s turn to the type of pistol we’re talking about here, semiautomatic. Can you explain to the jury how a semiautomatic pistol operates?”
Ryan’s sitting there. I can tell by the look, he’s wondering whether he can make an objection, maybe beyond the scope. But he doesn’t.
“That’s quite complicated,” says Sloan.
“Just in layman’s terms,” I tell him. “A si
mple explanation.”
“Bullets generally load from a clip into the handle of a pistol. When the clip is properly seated, the top sits just behind the chamber. In order to chamber the first round, you have to pull the slide back and let the recoil spring slam it forward. This will catch the first round from the clip, and seat it in the chamber closing and lock the ejection port at the same time. On weapons that have a hammer it will also cock the hammer in firing position. Then if the safety is off, all you have to do is pull the trigger. Each successive round then as it’s fired activates the slide sending it backward, automatically chambering the next round and cocking the hammer.”
“So all you have to do after seating the first round is pull the trigger?”
“Yes. If the safety’s off,” says Sloan.
“And the gun will fire as fast as you pull the trigger?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you familiar with the concept of trigger pull?” I ask. “The amount of pressure necessary to fire any particular weapon?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to object,” says Ryan. “This is beyond the scope of direct.”
“Your Honor, counsel raised the question as to the type of weapon being semiautomatic. I think I have a right to inquire into how such a weapon works.”
“I’ll allow the question.” Peltro from the bench.
“Just in general terms, isn’t it a fact that trigger pull is measured in terms of pounds of pressure necessary to pull any trigger to its release or firing point?”
“As a general concept that’s correct.”
“Now I’m going to set up a hypothetical question for you. You’re an expert on firearms, right?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s assume you’re comparing a revolver, what is known as a double-action revolver. You know what that is, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Explain to the jury.”
“A double-action revolver would be one for which you don’t have to manually cock the hammer to fire it. You can merely pull the trigger and this will rotate the cylinder, line up the next round with the barrel, bring the hammer back, and fire it.”
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