by Adira August
"I did," I told him. "How come I don't hear it now?"
"Didn't want to go deaf waiting for you. They got some kinda major concert in the park speakers. I pulled the plug. Figured the murderer probably didn't touch it. Used a piece of paper, anyway."
"Were the doors open?"
"Yeah, didn't touch them, either. Freezing my ass off in here. You want me to plug the music in?"
I nodded and he left. I pulled out my cell and turned on the audio record function. It was no use getting pissy about uniforms touching shit. What I needed to know was what they'd done and how. That meant they had to be able to tell me without fear they were going to face anyone's wrath.
Whoa, shit!
Wink wasn't exaggerating. The volume was extreme, some cacophonous old rock and roll. I held the cell out, over the threshold, to get the full effect inside. Wink came back with his hands over his ears.
"Okay, pull the plug again," I shouted miming the action because I was pretty sure he couldn't hear me from two feet away. I kept recording until it stopped.
The silence was ringing. And buzzing. It was going to take a minute for my hearing to recover. That level of sound would have penetrated the overgrowth. And made it impossible for anyone inside, to think.
"Okay," I said when he came back. "Let's see the body."
The patio doorway led into a large summer room. Tile floors, casual furniture, a wet bar. The body, which appeared to be a woman, was folded up, as if huddled against the front of the bar when the fatal blow was struck.
The head was down, chin on chest, face hidden. A significant amount of brain matter oozed from a wide split in the skull along the coronal suture. Fingers on the right hand were obviously fractured.
I crouched and turned on my toes, surveying the scene from the victim's point of view. The room wasn't disturbed, indicating the attack had taken place here, in front of the bar. The blood confirmed - cast off from a swung weapon, patterning the walls and ceiling, furniture and floor.
Somebody got seriously pissed.
Under a coffee table, a woman's red spike heel. I swivelled around to check the victim's feet. One bare foot in a sheer stocking. The the other foot still partially inside another red spike heel -
-fuck, no.
I rose. Pencil skirt. Whip thin. Black hair.
Somebody had beaten Louise Heston Bryant to death after she left Scene and Not Heard. I didn't say anything. I didn't want anyone asking how I knew her.
"Sergeant?" Cushman took a step over the doorway.
"Freeze!" I shouted at her. She did, mid-step, eyes wide. She looked around for whatever threat I was cautioning her about. She hadn't yet learned it was her.
"I'll come to you, wait outside."
"Okay. Uh - the lab's here, and the ME van. They're coming in the front door."
I looked at Wink. "I'll bring 'em back," he said.
"Thanks. Look around in plain site for a woman's purse, okay?" He nodded and headed for the front of the house.
I found Cushman outside wearing a dark blue trench coat that looked like cashmere. I wondered what she'd do with it the first time she had to slide down a muddy embankment to a scene in a culvert.
"Um, I got here and the neighbor came over. The one who called? I have some names. The residents', Celeste and Louise. She didn't know last names. She thinks they're lesbians." Cushman shrugged. "She also thinks the owner died or went to a nursing home."
"She's a talker," I said. "That's good and bad. Easy to interview, hard to tell fact from imagination. Did she say what time the music started?
She flipped a notebook page. "Around ten-thirty, too loud for her to sleep. Finally called it in around two."
"'Around' is not a time," I told her. "The complainant live alone?"
"I … don't know."
"A defense attorney will. Go find out. Get the exact time from dispatch. Talk to the other neighbors."
"They're asleep," she said, looking confused.
"There's plenty to do while you wait for them to wake up," I said, checking my watch. "Did you try and contact the residents?"
"I left messages with your number, I thought you'd want to talk to them first."
"Good." I took out my notebook. "Let me have what you've got."
The call from Celeste Farleigh Sugarman came at seven forty-five, after her flight landed at DIA and before she deplaned.
Upon hearing that an as-yet unknown person was found dead at her home, she screamed in my ear, "He killed her, didn't he? That fucking cop killed her!"
My chest was suddenly a vacuum. "Which cop, ma'am?" I asked.
"I don't know! She called me in the middle of the night, she was beside herself. Said if she ever saw the son of a bitch cop again, she'd kill him. She wouldn't tell me what he did! I got the first flight out."
I covered the mic.
"Wink, tell dispatch to send an airport uniform to escort Ms. Sugarman to homicide while I keep her on the the phone."
He stepped away and keyed his radio mic.
I assured her we would pursue every suspect, even a police officer, and got as much preliminary information as possible until the uniform showed up.
Putting her and her statement in a box in my mind, I turned back to the blood spatter I'd been contemplating when my cell rang.
"What's so interesting?" Gordi asked me. Dan Gordi was new to the Medical Examiner's office and he was dead smart. And I don't mean that in the British vernacular way.
"Not sure," I said. "But there's something …" Bothering me. There were literally thousands of blood drops patterned on the wall, like polkadot wallpaper.
"We got cast off in layers here," Gordi said. "And in various directions, like he was swinging the weapon back and forth."
"Yeah," I agreed. "But the killer was also stationary, which is why the layers. So the pattern of blood that came flying off the weapon during the backswing or follow-through should be consistent."
His eyes swept the wall. "But you think it's not?"
Gordi and I had only worked a few cases together, but we'd quickly developed a mutual respect. He believed in understanding the scene to understand the evidence of the body. He knew more than a lot of homicide cops about crime scene analysis.
I took a step back, trying to get a kind of gestalt of the whole pattern set. Cast off spatter can tell you the angle and direction of the swing by slant of the elongated drops and their "tails." On the wall, many of the blood drops were long, like exclamation points. The bodies of some sagged - big drops, pulled down by gravity.
There. One of the drops was round. On closer examination, it appeared roundish. It wasn't spatter.
"It's splat," I mused.
"What?" Gordi joined me. I showed him the round drop amid the oblong spatter. "What the hell?" He squinted through his horn rims. "Is that a hair?"
"Leg. It's a mosquito. Someone smashed it against the wall here."
"You think it might be the killer's?"
"Or the victim's. Or a witness." I pointed. "It partly overlays the tail of one of the cast offs. So it happened after she was killed."
I called to a lab tech taking blood samples. She carefully segregated the contaminated section from the rest and placed them in separate evidence baggies.
Gordi called for the stretcher and bag. Rigor seemed to be set, and he’d wait to open her up at the morgue. But I did get a view of her face. Her forehead was distorted from the blow across her skull, but it was recognizably Louise Bryant.
"You have a time of death estimate for me?"
He squatted by her lower leg. "Livor mortis here on the calf." He pressed with his thumb. The color didn't change.
"It's oh-seven-fifty-eight, now. Time of death before midnight. We'll see after I post her."
A TOD before midnight fit with the neighbor hearing the music at ten-thirty, if the killer turned it up to hide the screams. If.
I got pics with my cell, while Gordi felt her body through her clothing. "Left humerus brok
en. … Right shoulder - feels shattered at the socket. … Okay, I need to get her back for films. This feels like gravel in here."
He stood up, shaking his head. "Somebody went to town on her, Dane. Somebody strong."
"Or batshit crazy," I said.
8:15am In Chambers
I left Cushman to secure the scene and headed downtown. Sunrise had chased the wind away and left a clear, blue, Denver-standard day. It was only about two miles to downtown, but it was rush hour, and I crawled along at five miles per hour with my cell in my hand.
My witness from the airport delayed her police escort to headquarters by becoming hysterical and ending up in the airport clinic.
I didn't think much of it one way or the other. People responded in fairly unique ways to news of a death. People also faked emotions and had their own agendas.
According to the uniform, the doctor there offered to sedate the woman and have her admitted to the hospital of her choice, all the while throwing filthy looks at him. But Celeste Farleigh Sugarman insisted on being brought down.
I had about an hour. And I needed the time.
"This is Sergeant Dane, DPD homicide," I said when my call was answered. "Is he in, yet?"
"Good morning, Hunter," said a teasing tenor. "How come you only call me when you want to talk to the judge?"
"I don't know, Arch. Poor judgement?" Archie Macdonald was clever, reliable and an outrageous flirt. "So is he in?"
"It's a matter of opinion. Right now, he's standing in the hall, just outside the door, with coffee in hand talking to someone I cannot see. So, while he is not precisely in, he is, I suppose, present."
"Arch, I need a favor. I'll be there in twenty, maybe less. Can you hogtie him for me?"
He sighed a long dreamy sigh, "Oh, don't I wish. He doesn't have anything until nine, I'll let him know. Will you be alone?"
Arch was flirty, but damned good at his job.
"Yeah, and it's not about anything on his docket or likely to be."
"I'll let him know."
Archie fluttered his pale eyelashes at me when I entered and picked up his phone. He was middle-aged, and slightly paunched with wire-rimmed glasses. He did have a still-full head of dark blond hair and full, rose-colored lips. He would have been quite the enticing twink in his youth. Arch behaved with perfect decorum appropriate to the cultural norms of a county courthouse. Except with me and a few others he knew well, when he reverted to an oddly stereotypical version of a Broadway chorus boy.
All of this belied his extensive knowledge of and exquisite taste in fine art. Prints of little known modern masters adorned the antechamber and the interior office of the District Court judge.
"Go on in," he smiled, hanging up the phone and staring openly at my ass as I walked by his desk.
Archie, like everyone else outside of Scene and Not Heard, had no idea what my sexual inclinations were. But when his first flirtatious comments brought laughter instead of rebuke from me, he turned his flirt setting to high whenever we were alone.
The brushed chrome lettering on the judge's door said, "Hon. J. Addington Symonds." I went inside, leaving the door open per protocol. Archie would have noticed if I'd taken it upon myself to close it. I knew he was watching and listening. I wanted to avoid arousing a lot of curiosity.
Ad didn't look up when I entered his chambers, he just kept making notes on a brief. Blocking Archie's view through the door with my body, I put my cell phone on the desk in front of Ad Symonds with the note app open:
Louise Bryant's been murdered
His eyes shot to mine. He picked up his phone. "Mr. Macdonald, I'll need a few minutes. … Let me know. … Yes, that would be fine."
The door closed quietly behind me. I picked up the cell and wiped the note. Ad turned on some music and pointed me into a chair.
I remained standing and brought out my notebook. Business first.
"Judge, I need your movements from eight pm last night to two am this morning," I said quietly but in my working voice.
Ad blanched. I waited. He licked his lips and considered his answer.
"I was out having dinner and drinks until a little after ten o'clock. I was home by ten forty or so and didn't leave again. I phoned no one after that time. I went to bed."
"Thank you," I said, making notes. "Who did you have dinner with?"
He face crumpled a little. "Hunt …" he whispered. A plea.
"Trust me, now," I said.
He had no choice, really. "William Beckford. My partner."
I knew Becks was Ad's law partner. But I also knew Ad meant life partner. Others knew, also, but they didn't broadcast it. The couple considered their sex lives private. Gayness wasn't their secret, belonging to a BDSM club was.
I put the notebook back into my coat pocket and sat down. And told him what Celeste Farleigh said about Louise wanting to kill an unknown cop.
"You left not long after she did," Ad said. "Do you have an alibi? "
I nodded. "Cam."
"I see," he said, sitting back in his chair. "Finally picking a side, are you, Hunt?"
I sighed. Silently. There was no time to deal with Ad's bruised ego right now.
"This minute, I have one agenda, that's to identify a killer. I have to go interview this Sugarman woman who lives at the house, figure out her relationship to the victim - "
"Sister," Ad interrupted. His old family was in the same social strata as the Farleigh old family. "That's your only agenda?" Ad asked.
"Judge Symonds," I began, wanting to bring him back to the real issue. "After I interview this witness, what I should do is run down everyone who was at the club last night and account for their whereabouts. But I can't. Because what I must do is tell my Captain about my conflict of interests. That I can't work on this case. You know Captain VanDevere?"
Ad shook his head.
"He won't come in on week-ends," I told him, "because he spends both days at Light of The World, where he is a Deacon and Elder."
Ad mouthed a silent fuck and turned to look out his window.
Light of the World was a mega-televangelist, make the living Jesus cringe with embarrassment at it’s version of theology, church. Deacon VanDevere believed in living his religious beliefs which included God-mandated heterosexuality.
I didn't have to explain to Ad. The name of the church had been enough. We could be certain VanDevere would arrange for everyone to be exposed as members of Scene and Not Heard. That "everyone" included many very prominent people, wouldn't stop him. It would encourage him to bring the mighty low.
Ad thought for a few minutes. "Okay. Go back to work. I'll take care of this."
"Yes, sir. It'll take about an hour for the interview. Whatever else happens, I won't compromise the investigation," I told him. "Hard limit."
His face softened when he looked at me. "This time," he said, "you trust me."
I knew J. Addington Symonds was one of the few judges who truly deserved the title "Honorable." I could afford to trust him. At least for the next hour.
I stood. "Yes, Judge."
"And, Detective?"
His voice stopped me at the door. I looked back with one hand on the doorknob.
"Wait for VanDevere to come to you."
THE FIXER
"This is not good."
"Yeah."
Two men in business suits walking through Civic Center Park on a Thursday morning garnered not so much as an eyeblink from the other business suits hurrying by.
"Who was there?"
"Everygoddamnedbody."
"It was munch Wednesday!"
"Yeah."
"You're sure his alibi is good?"
"He was with Camden Snow."
"The Olympic kid? Shit. This just gets better and better."
"You want to hear the membership roster?"
"No! Just … don't talk."
The men walked on in silence toward the City and County building. At the wide sweep of stone steps leading to the front entrance,
they paused.
"Consider it handled."
Judge Symonds nodded briefly and walked away.
9:40am The Sister
Celeste Farleigh Sugarman waited in a hard metal chair, legs crossed at the ankles, hands folded loosely in her lap. Her black hair, cropped short, sleek and geometric, dared not disarrange. She didn't fidget or gaze around or brush at imaginary lint. She might have been at a charity luncheon, waiting for the speaker to arrive, knowing she was being surreptitiously photographed by paparazzi.
Close.
I watched her through the one-way from the observation room where the camera was set to record. I tried to imagine her hysterical, weeping, screaming, or doing much of anything that took an evocative verb to describe. As she waited, it was impossible. But as I recalled her voice on the phone and observed her rigid posture, I believed she was fragile as blown glass. Breaking her would be a very big mistake.
Cushman appeared in the doorway. "Everything’s wrapped up. House is sealed. Dispatch has two uniforms on it."
I kept my eyes on Celeste. "Do you come from money, Cushman, or just dress like you do?"
"I - I went to private school on scholarship. My father is an auto parts manager at a car dealership."
I didn't look at her; I knew I'd cost her something. "That was a boarding school?"
"Yes," she said, her voice tight.
"Good. I want you to start the interview with Mrs. Sugarman. I think she'll be more comfortable with you than me, right now. I'd like her to feel safe." I looked her over. She was still wearing her coat.
"Keep the coat on. It'll make her think she's a top priority. Give you something to do, taking it off. Give her time to adjust. … You can handle this?"
"I'm brown," she said.
"Yeah, the demeanor and body language says familiar and the color lets her still feel superior, even though you have the gun."
Cushman hesitated. "You're … cold."
"I'm objective and good at my job. … Use whatever tools you have at hand, detective." I waved her away. "Go. I'll be watching."
I started the camera and adjusted the volume control.
