by Karen Rose
“I don’t know. When I got there some other ME techs had already cut her down.”
“This vic couldn’t have stuck her neck in the noose and still been able to kick the stool away,” Micki said quietly. “Somebody helped her.”
Noah looked up into Martha’s wide eyes. “Somebody killed her.”
“And went to a lot of trouble to make it look like a suicide,” Jack said. “Any note?”
“We haven’t found one,” Noah said.
Micki took more close-ups of the red stilettos. “No scuffs.” She held a shoe next to the victim’s foot. “And too small. Why go to all this trouble and leave the wrong shoes?”
“I wonder how many others he’s staged,” Jack said.
“And how many we missed.” Noah nodded at Londo. “You can take her down now.”
“Let’s check this apartment,” Jack said, “then go talk to the neighbor who found her.”
“Sarah Dwyer. Martha promised to water Dwyer’s plants while she was away.”
“How long ago was that?” Jack asked.
“Two weeks,” Noah said. “Officer Pratt said Dwyer got back today, pissed because her plants were dead. She came to yell at Martha, but nobody answered the door so she climbed the fire escape to bang on the bedroom window, and saw her hanging.”
Micki’s brows went up. “She went to all the trouble to climb the fire escape?”
Jack’s lips twitched. “Three guesses as to the plants she was so attached to.”
“I thought the same thing,” Noah admitted. “But I bet she got rid of any pot she was growing on her windowsill before she called 911. Let’s finish up here. I’ve already searched the bedroom and bath. You take the kitchen, I’ll take the living room.”
Noah was searching Martha Brisbane’s empty desk drawers when Jack came in from the kitchen, a can of cat food in his hand. “The vic had a cat,” he said.
“There weren’t any cats here,” Noah said and Jack frowned.
“A multiple murderer and a missing cat. Not good. You finding anything?”
“Nothing, and nobody’s desk is this clean. Let’s see the neighbor, get a next of kin.”
“You talk to the neighbor,” Jack said. “I’ll go door to door and find anyone who may have seen her more recently than two weeks ago.”
Sunday, February 21, 8:20 p.m.
Dell stretched out his hand. “Gimme the zoom.”
Harvey shook his head. “You should have brought your own tools.”
Dell shifted in the passenger seat. “They’ve been in there a long time.”
“Means it’s a big case,” Harvey said. “Bigger the case, harder they fall.”
“Sonsofbitches,” Dell muttered. “That article made them look like damn Messiahs.”
Harvey heard the hate in his son’s voice. He felt the same. “Which is why we’ll show the world the truth. Which is why you won’t be taking that gun out of your pocket.”
Dell’s jaw tightened. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t, not till now. But it seemed like the kind of damn fool thing you would have done. You shoot, and they become martyrs on top of being heroes. And you go to prison.” He shot Dell a glare. “I lost one son. I don’t want to lose another. We’ll be patient. We’ll watch and take pictures and prove exactly what kind of men they are.”
“They deserve to die,” Dell said.
“Of course they do. But once we show the world what they really are, they’ll go to prison.” Harvey’s brows lifted. “Do you know what happens to cops in prison?”
Dell’s smile was a mere baring of teeth. “They’ll wish they were dead.”
Sunday, February 21, 8:25 p.m.
Noah placed his mini recorder on Sarah Dwyer’s coffee table. “So I don’t have to take notes,” he said when she eyed the recorder. “How well did you know Martha?”
“I’d see her occasionally in the laundry room. We weren’t friends.”
“But you gave her a key to your apartment, so you must have trusted her.”
“She was a lady in my building,” Dwyer said impatiently. “Sometimes we talked.”
Noah watched her wring her hands. “You seem agitated, ma’am.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I just flew in from Hong Kong and haven’t slept in twenty-four hours.” She pointed to a small hothouse on her dining room table. “I get home, find my prize orchids dead, and my neighbor deader. And you have the nerve to accuse me?”
“No one’s accusing you.” Jetlag and shock could account for her nerves, and fury over dead orchids could have sent her up a fire escape. “What did Martha do?”
“She was a computer consultant. I’m pretty sure she worked out of her apartment.”
Noah thought about the empty desk. No papers, no CDs. Only the computer. Odd that a consultant who’d worked out of her home would have no evidence of work.
“In any of your conversations, did she seem depressed or afraid?”
“No. Usually we talked about how much we hated Mrs. Kobrecki. She’s the building manager. Kobrecki and Martha did not get along.”
He’d paged Mrs. Kobrecki several times, with no returned call. “Why not?”
“Kobrecki said Martha was a pig. Martha took exception. That’s all I know. If you want more, you’ll need to talk to Mrs. Kobrecki.” She grimaced. “Or her grandson.”
“Why don’t you like her grandson?” Noah asked.
“He’s a creep. Once I caught him taking my lingerie out of the dryer and sniffing it. I made sure never to do laundry at night again. He only seems to come around at night.”
“What’s his name?”
“Taylor Kobrecki. Why?”
“Just gathering the facts, ma’am. Do you know Martha’s next of kin?”
“Her mom. She’s in a nursing home, in St. Paul.”
Noah stood, giving her his card. “Thanks. If you remember anything, please call me.”
“What is this?” she asked suspiciously. “Did Martha kill herself?” Noah smiled vaguely. “We’re just following procedure, Miss Dwyer.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “I’ll have my gun loaded and next to my bed tonight.”
“Anything?” Jack asked, meeting him as he left Dwyer’s apartment.
“Maybe. You?”
“Bupkiss. You get a next of kin?”
“Nursing home, St. Paul. You get any calls back from the building manager?”
“Nope. I couldn’t find any tenants who seemed to care for her.”
“She has a grandson.” Noah’s brows went up. “Panty fetish.” “Interesting. I wonder if Mr. Panty Fetish has a record.”
“I’ll run the grandson, you find the mom. Call and I’ll meet you at the nursing home.”
“What about Gus Dixon’s case reports?”
“Records said they’d have everything pulled when we got back to the station.”
Jack checked his watch with a sigh. “No dessert for me tonight.” Noah gritted his teeth. “You get too much dessert, partner.”
Jack snorted. “This from the man who hasn’t had dessert in how long?”
Noah shook his head. Everyone saw that Jack was a train wreck. Everyone but Jack. “Just find Brisbane’s mother. I’ll meet you there.”
“I’ll call Abbott,” Jack said, “and give him a heads up.”
Abbott was their boss. “I already did, while you were having your ‘quickie dessert.’ ” Jack’s eyes flashed, his lie called out. “And no, I didn’t tell him you weren’t there.”
Jack let out a careful breath. “I owe you one.”
Noah met Jack’s eyes, held them. “Don’t make me sorry, Jack. Please.”
Jack looked away. “I’ll call you when I find Brisbane’s mother.”
Sunday, February 21, 8:45 p.m.
The crowd was cheering at the largest of Sal’s flat-screen TVs. It was college hoops and home team star Tom Hunter had the ball. Not much more needed to be said.
Eve watched her oldest friend fly across the sc
reen, dropping the ball through the hoop like it was nothing. A cheer shook the room and Eve rocked back on her heels.
“Yes,” she whispered, then jumped when a stream of cold beer ran up her sleeve. She jerked the overflowing pitcher out from under the tap and shook her sleeve with a grimace. Careless. She’d have to let it dry, as there was no time to change.
Tonight’s other bartender hadn’t shown. The line at the bar had been unending, but so far, no one was complaining. As long as the home team kept winning, that shouldn’t change. As long as the team kept passing to Tom Hunter, winning was assured.
“Your friend’s got a real gift,” Sal said behind her, quiet approval in his voice.
Eve jumped. For a man with a bad leg, Sal moved with surprising stealth. Then again, the bar was so noisy that she couldn’t hear herself think. Tonight, that was good.
“I know,” she said. She’d known Tom was gifted the first time she’d seen him play on a crumbling blacktop in a poor Chicago neighborhood. She’d been fourteen, Tom ten, both older than their years. She’d been a runaway, and in a different way, so had he.
They’d become friends, raised under the sheltering wings of three amazing Chicago women who had become Eve’s family. But her bond with Tom went far deeper.
Tom was one of the few who truly understood Eve’s nightmares, because the same monster haunted his. Both of them bore scars inflicted by Tom’s biological father, Rob Winters. But now they were both past all that. Reinvented.
Tom was the reason she was here, in Minneapolis. When he’d been awarded a basketball scholarship to one of the country’s top schools, he’d challenged her to come with him, to take her life back. To come out of the dark and start anew.
And she had. Now Tom was on his way to becoming a basketball legend, like his adopted father, Max Hunter. And I’m finally out of the darkness and into the light. “Tom makes it look easy,” she said. “Size fourteen feet should not be able to move like that.”
“I’m not talking about his game,” Sal said. “I’m talking about his talk to Josie’s kids.”
Eve glanced up at him, puzzled. Sal’s wife, Josie, was a high school guidance counselor in one of Minneapolis’s tougher neighborhoods. “When was this?”
“Last week. He said he planned to go to all the high schools, to tell kids to stay in school. Promised Josie’s kids he’d be back to play a game with their team, for the ones that stuck it out. The kids are still talking about him,” he said and Eve smiled, touched.
“It’s like Tom to do something like that without bragging. He comes from good stock.”
Sal lightly knocked his shoulder against hers. “You come from the same place.”
“Not exactly.” Tom’s mother, Caroline, was one of the amazing women who’d raised her. Eve had no idea where her own mother was, doubted she was still alive. “But I’ve been lucky enough to be taken in by good folks everywhere I go.”
She finished filling a second pitcher, lifting both into the customer’s hands. She’d stopped gritting her teeth against the pain. It was a constant throb now, but she thought she’d been hiding it pretty well. Until Sal nudged her aside.
“Ice your hand,” he said, then shot down her protest with a warning look. “Do it.”
“Yes, sir,” she said meekly and filled a bag with ice, wincing as she placed it on her hand. “Why are you here?” she asked. “Rich was supposed to be on with me tonight.”
“He called in sick.” Sal’s hands made quick work of the waiting orders. “Why are you here? Callie was on tonight.”
“She had a date.” Who’d finally shown up with a dozen roses and a story of a client who’d gotten himself arrested in an afternoon hockey brawl.
Sal frowned. “You worked every day last week.”
“I need the money. The leak in my roof is worse,” she said, but he shook his head.
“No, you need to go out on your own dates. You’re too pretty to hide in this bar.”
Being called “pretty” still startled her. Being accused of hiding, however, could not be borne. “I don’t hide,” she said more sharply than she’d intended. “Not anymore.”
She knew Sal studied her face even though she kept her eyes averted. For years people had stared at her face when they thought she didn’t see, but she’d always been aware of the horrified stares and the whispers. At least people didn’t do that anymore and for that reason alone her plastic surgeon should be a nominee for sainthood.
“I’m sorry,” Sal said. “It’s just that you work so hard here, then you go home and study, then go to school. And any moment you have free you spend in that Fantasy Island computer game of yours, what with its aviators and orgies. It’s not natural.”
That “Fantasy Island” computer game was really called Shadow-land, an online virtual playground. There was no Mr. Roarke in a crisp white suit, but like the old TV show, it was a place where adults could pretend to be anyone they wanted to be, interacting with millions of players all over the world while pursuing virtual fantasies.
Eve discovered Shadowland’s lure after the assault that had taken her life, literally and figuratively. The virtual world had been more than a game. It was a vital link to the outside world from which Eve, scarred and ashamed, had hidden for too many years.
Thankfully those dark years were gone. Like Tom Hunter, she’d reinvented herself. Shadowland was no longer an escape, but a tool for her graduate research.
At least it had started out that way. But the tool of her research had become a glitzy, gaping black hole, sucking her subjects into its virtual world of fantasy faster than she could grab them. The research that started out with such therapeutic potential had somehow become a trap, luring and endangering the very people she’d sought to help.
“It’s not ‘aviators,’ ” she said to Sal, irritated. “It’s ‘avatars.’ The characters are avatars. And where are you getting this orgy stuff?”
Sal’s eyes twinkled and she knew he’d poked at her on purpose. “I imagine that would be a lot of men’s fantasy. But not mine,” he added quickly. “Josie wouldn’t like it.”
“I’m sure,” Eve said dryly. Then she shrugged. “Besides, I’m not wasting my time playing computer games. Shadowland’s for my thesis, and you know it.”
Sal’s eyes stopped twinkling. “Exactly my point. Even when you play a game, you’re working. When was the last time you went on a date?”
Five years, eleven months, and seven days ago. That the amount of time should come back to her so quickly, after all this time, was… terrifying.
“I thought so,” Sal said quietly when she said nothing. “You’ve been under so much stress lately. This project of yours is putting dark circles under your eyes. I want you to take some time off. Take a vacation. Go to Florida and get some sun.”
Eve tossed the ice bag into the sink and started mixing a martini, the usual drink of the next customer in line. “Vacations take money, Sal. I don’t have any.”
“I’ll loan you some,” he said simply. “Tell me what you need.”
Abruptly she put the shaker down, her heart in her throat. “Damn, I hate it when you’re nice. Why can’t you be a mean boss?” Swallowing back what would have been embarrassing tears, she patted his beefy shoulder. “Keep your money. I’m fine.”
He shook his head. “You’re not fine. You’re worried. I see it in your eyes.”
She finished the martini and started with the next order. “I wish everyone would stop looking into my eyes,” she muttered, Callie’s observation about Noah Webster still fresh. She looked for a subject change and found it in the magazine Callie had left behind. “Jack Phelps was in here tonight, but he left before I could ask him to sign the MSP cover.”
“I heard it was more like he got called out,” Sal remarked mildly. “By Webster.”
She turned and stared at his profile. “How did you know that?”
His sideways glance was almost amused. “I know what goes on in my own bar, Eve. I’m surpri
sed it’s taken Webster this long. There was a pool, you know—how long Web would put up with Phelps before he requested a transfer or cleaned Jack’s clock.”
The mental image of such an altercation left Eve disturbingly aroused. “Who won?”
“Nobody. Webster’s outlasted all of our predictions. Man’s either a saint or a fool.” He slanted another glance her way, this one annoyed. “Maybe both.”
Eve thought of the parting words Noah had uttered with grim resignation, more a good-bye than a thank-you. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t think he’s coming back.”
Which was for the best. She didn’t have time for anything more than work, school, and her Fantasy Island computer game. Not true. It wasn’t the time she didn’t have. It was the heart. And various other internal organs that made a huge difference.
Sal sighed. “I’m sorry, honey.”
She made herself smile. “Don’t be.” She poured the martini and reached for an olive, relieved to find the canister empty. She needed a minute to herself. For just a moment or two, she needed to hide. “We’re out of olives. Hold the fort. I’ll get them.”
Sunday, February 21, 9:10 p.m.
Finally. The Hat Squad finally knew they had a homicide. It had taken them long enough. Three homicides, carefully staged. At least they’d seen it with Martha Brisbane.
He hadn’t realized how impatient he’d grow, waiting for them to engage. But as frustrating as the wait had been, the Hat Squad’s ineptitude better furthered his goal—to see them humiliated, degraded, their stature in the community obliterated.
To see stripped away that infuriating self-importance they wore along with their badges and guns. And their hats. He wanted each of those hat-wearing, knuckle-scraping Neanderthals to see themselves for what they really were. Worthless failures.
Which was precisely why he’d staged these murders as suicides.
He’d known they’d miss the first victim, perhaps even the second. That they’d be so eager to close a suicide that they’d miss the clues he’d left behind. He didn’t know what had finally tipped them off, whether it was that they’d finally seen the clues or because they’d finally connected Martha to the other two. Regardless, they would soon know that there had been others, that through their carelessness they had missed two homicides.
