“No rape,” she said.
“And no robbery,” Kins said. “Shea would not have needed the money, and he would not have taken her personal possessions because they would have linked her to him.”
“He also would have known to take her burner phone,” Tracy said. “And that her regular phone would not likely have anything incriminating.”
“The report implies the person surprised her,” Kins said. “She had no bruises, cuts, or scratches anywhere on her body to indicate she’d put up a struggle or had attempted to defend herself against an attack.”
“Mukherjee ran to get away. Shea could have surprised her when she stopped. It would have been dark and difficult to see, and there were certainly enough trees for him to hide behind.”
“What if we assume the killer either followed her to the park or was already in the park?” Kins said.
“Then we have a different problem—why did Kavita go there?” Tracy said.
Kins gave it more thought. “Let’s assume she was upset about Aditi.”
“She was upset about Aditi.”
“So what if she went there because she’d planned to meet someone there, or someone wanted to meet her there?”
“Not Sam,” Tracy said. “He was at a game. And not the father, who was traveling. Not likely she’d want to meet Nikhil or her mother.”
“That leaves Aditi,” Kins said. “Or someone random. A second sugar daddy?”
“There’s no evidence of a second sugar daddy, and her bank account doesn’t indicate a series of deposits from a different number. And we have the same problem. Why did she go into the park?”
Kins took a drink of soda, studying the board. “So, what we know is she walked into the park, which we have to assume means she went there voluntarily, or at least seemingly voluntarily.”
“I think that’s the key,” Tracy said. She drew a timeline on the board. “She arrived at the hotel at just after 7:30.” Hotel video of the lobby documented the time Mukherjee obtained a room. “And she left at 8:52.” A camera in the parking lot captured Mukherjee leaving the hotel alone. “Who knew she was going to the hotel?” Tracy asked.
“Shea for certain,” Kins said.
Tracy underlined his name on the whiteboard. “Maybe he didn’t leave the hotel. Maybe he was waiting in the car to follow her, without her knowledge.”
“What about Shea’s wife?” Kins said. “Shea indicated she suspected he was cheating on her. What if she followed him, then followed Kavita?”
Tracy wrote “Mrs. Shea” on the whiteboard. “Neither explains why Kavita would have gone to the park, but let’s keep them up there for now.” Then she said, “What about Aditi? What if Aditi knew Kavita had a date and knew the details of that date? Shea said he and Kavita kept to a routine and used the same hotel. Aditi might have known that routine.”
“So then she lied when she said she didn’t know Kavita had a date?” Kins said.
“Maybe . . . or—” Tracy thought for a moment. “Even if she didn’t know their routine, she had the ability to follow Kavita using the app on her phone.”
“Yeah, but you said she seemed genuinely surprised when you asked her about the shared Apple account.”
“She did, but maybe she knew that question was coming. And Aditi could have lured Kavita to the park without following her from the hotel. She was living close by with her parents. She could have called Kavita and asked her to meet before she left for London.”
“And the park makes sense because Kavita would not have wanted to go to the house and face the mother and the rest of the family,” Kins said. “You said she didn’t even want to see them at the apartment.”
“That’s what Aditi told me.”
“So maybe the park is a place they both know and Kavita would have gone there willingly. But what’s Aditi’s motivation to kill her best friend?”
Tracy paced near the table. “Jealousy?” she said.
“About?”
“Maybe we’ve been looking at this from the wrong perspective. Maybe, instead of Kavita’s perspective, we should look at it from Aditi’s perspective?”
“Which is what?”
“For one, Kavita was going to live the life she and Aditi had dreamed of living since they were little girls. In fact,” Tracy said, thinking of their conversation with Aditi, “with Aditi no longer going to medical school, Kavita was prepared to get started. It was no longer just a dream. It was a reality.”
“That’s true,” Kins said.
“So what if Kavita told Aditi about the money, about the fact that she had enough for the two of them to at least get started.”
“It’s too late,” Kins said. “Aditi has already gone and got married.”
“What if Aditi has regrets, second thoughts, doubts. And this was just like Kavita, Aditi would think. Kavita was the prettier of the two, the one who got all the attention and got all the breaks.”
“Including the doctor who is paying for Kavita’s medical school, while Aditi got the losers who wanted blow jobs in the car.”
“And Kavita did better in school, though Aditi worked harder,” Tracy said.
“That would piss you off,” Kins said. “It would piss me off.”
Tracy paused, considering it. Then she said, “That’s a lot for a young woman to have to take.”
“It is, but enough to kill her best friend?”
“Crimes of passion or anger don’t always have a reason. The person acts on impulse. Consider that Aditi knew the park. She and Rashesh were living close by, and she and Kavita grew up together and played there together.”
“You’re saying she could have known about the well.”
“Could have,” Tracy said.
“How did she carry the body?”
“She had Rashesh, or maybe someone else in her family,” Tracy said.
“And Aditi could have driven Kavita’s car back to the apartment building with someone following her,” Kins said. “It fits. But the biggest question is still motivation.”
“I agree. So what if Aditi went to India for a cousin’s wedding, like she said,” Tracy said, thinking out loud as she paced. “And while she’s there, her mother and family start in on her about getting married?”
“They likely did.”
“The pressure would have been significant, and this time Aditi did not have Kavita for moral support. Rashesh and his family could also have been in on it. Aditi said the fathers had grown up together.”
“The two families had this planned,” Kins said. “I can see that.”
“Aditi said she and Kavita were both under pressure from their families, but that Kavita was the stronger of the two. What if her family used this opportunity, when Aditi was thousands of miles away from Kavita, to pressure her, and Aditi couldn’t fend off that pressure alone?”
“She allowed the marriage to happen to satisfy her parents, not because she wanted it? You’re saying she, what . . . snapped or something?”
“Not snapped, just that she’s in a different country and this man, this successful, single man, shows interest in her. She said that she was ready to submit to her mother’s wishes and didn’t want to do the sugar dating from the start. Both their families are at the wedding, and the mother’s arguments start making sense. Aditi isn’t going to be young forever; she isn’t going to have a lot of other suitors—a lot of other men, especially in the United States. Here’s a man who wants her. At the very least it must have made her feel special. And she’s away, in India, at a wedding. Getting married doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.”
“But,” Kins said, “she has to come back to the States, back to her apartment.”
“Back to the life that she had before she left, back to reality . . . And suddenly the magnitude of her decision begins to take hold.”
“She realizes it was a mistake, a dumb mistake.”
“Add to that the fact that Kavita then tells Aditi that she had enough money for both of them to get starte
d in medical school and . . .”
Kins stood, nodding his head the way he did when things made sense. “She realizes how much she’s thrown away. How close she had been to the dream.”
“She could have been a doctor, just like her best friend,” Tracy said. “And now she’s not just married, she’s moving to London, to another country, to live not only with a man she hardly knows, but with his entire family, and she’s going to have to take care of all of them.”
“It had to be overwhelming,” Kins agreed. “Maybe too much.”
“So let’s say Aditi knew Kavita was with the doctor—it was a standing date—every Monday night. And she knew the park, and she knew the hole in the ground.”
Kins grimaced, still struggling to come to grips with the information. “I hear you, I do. But to kill your best friend? To hit her with a rock?”
“Maybe she didn’t set out to kill her. Maybe Aditi asks Kavita to meet her in the park to just talk to her. Maybe Aditi, overwhelmed by everything that had happened, just needed to talk to her best friend, to her sister, without her husband or anyone else present.”
“It doesn’t sound like she was going to get any sympathy from her parents,” Kins agreed.
“She’s panicked. She’s frightened and not thinking clearly. And the park is a place where she and Kavita grew up together. It represents a time when they both still had their dreams.” Tracy paced, trying out her theory, how it sounded when spoken out loud. It sounded right. It made sense. “Maybe Aditi wants help, and Kavita says there’s nothing she can do.”
“She could get a divorce,” Kins said.
“I don’t think so. It isn’t done. At least that’s what Kavita’s mother indicated.”
“Kavita had thirty thousand dollars, though. She could have helped her.”
“But Aditi said Kavita was upset. She’d torn up Aditi’s check. Maybe Kavita was still upset at Aditi for getting married without even calling her, without giving Kavita the chance to talk her out of it. Maybe they were both upset with each other. Sisters can be that way. They start arguing and one thing leads to another.”
“And Kavita turns to walk away . . .”
“And Aditi, with her life crashing down all around her, angry and overwhelmed, picks up a rock and lashes out,” Tracy said.
“We’ve seen married couples do it, two people seemingly in love and one does something stupid and the other reacts.”
“Kavita was going to live Aditi’s life, and Aditi hated her for it, at least in that moment,” Tracy said.
“It sounds plausible, Tracy, it does, but how do we prove it?” Kins said.
Tracy thought for a moment. “Kavita’s phone records. We know that Aditi tried to contact Kavita that night. We need to check for calls to Kavita’s cell.”
Kins searched through his computer screen, Tracy leaning over his shoulder. “Nothing,” he said. “But she could have used the burner cell phone’s number.”
“Which would explain why it wasn’t there,” Tracy said. “It would have recorded a phone call from Aditi’s cell phone number.”
“We’re going to need more, and my sense is we’re not going to have the time to get it before Bellevue steps in.”
“Maybe we can get more.” Tracy returned to her desk and picked up the phone.
“Who are you calling?” Kins said.
“Andrei Vilkotski,” she said.
CHAPTER 45
Faz never had a chance. The building at the front of the property was not just a retail store; it was also the property’s surveillance center. He learned this as he was led inside a room and saw multiple computer screens providing around-the-clock surveillance of every inch of the storage facility from every conceivable angle. He’d been on one of those screens from the moment he stepped onto the property, and they’d been watching. The scope of the camera’s coverage confirmed what he suspected, that the storage lockers were holding something much more valuable than other people’s surplus home supplies.
The man who had put the barrel of a gun to Faz’s head was the same steroid-induced bouncer who’d been standing guard in the driveway of Little Jimmy’s home the night of his birthday party. Every vein in his arms looked like bloated worms burrowing beneath the skin, and his shoulders and chest muscles strained the fabric of a blue security shirt. He’d disarmed and handcuffed Faz, and he’d taken his cell phone, which was a problem, because Faz had not had the chance to transmit his location or any photographs to Del.
“I remember you from the other night,” Faz said as the guard handcuffed his wrists around a three-inch pipe that ran the length of the wall. “That must have been one hell of a big bee that stung you. You really should consider carrying epinephrine to help reduce all that swelling.”
The man looked at Faz like he was crazy but didn’t verbally respond. Clearly, he didn’t get the joke.
He left and returned minutes later, this time with the man Faz had followed from the park to the storage facility and a third man Faz did not recognize. They all spoke Spanish. Faz couldn’t understand what they were saying, but he was pretty sure he knew the topic of their conversation.
How did he get here and what had he seen?
The man Faz had followed walked closer. “You’re the detective from the apartment, the one who shot Eduardo.”
“Not me,” Faz said. “I was just an innocent bystander.” He decided it best that he not reveal this guy’s relationship with Andrea Gonzalez until he had a better sense about what was going on. “I’m going to need your names for my report.”
“You are one stupid shit,” the bouncer said.
“That must have been a bitch to spell on your grammar school tests. How about a nickname?”
The bouncer threw a hook, hitting Faz just above the right temple. It felt like he’d swung a sledgehammer. The blow knocked Faz from his feet and he dropped to his knees, though his hands remained extended above him, the cuffs unable to slide down past a metal strap bolted to the wall. His head pounded and he struggled to shake clear the stars assaulting his vision.
“Man,” he said. “You guys really need to improve your sense of humor.”
The bouncer stepped toward Faz, poised to deliver another blow, but the man Faz had followed stopped him, again speaking in Spanish. It developed into a heated discussion, until the bouncer turned and left.
“You realize I called my partner,” Faz said from his knees. “He has your license plate and he knows where I am. So, anything happens to me, Vaquero, and you’re looking at the mother of all shit storms. If I were you, I’d make a run for the border. We’re not interested in you. We’re interested in Little Jimmy. Give him up now, and vanish. It might just work.”
The man turned his back to Faz, speaking softly to the third man in the room. Whatever he said, the man was not in agreement. He punctuated the air with animated hand gestures. In the mix of incomprehensible words, Faz heard “Little Jimmy” uttered in English multiple times, probably because Pequeño Jimmy just didn’t have the same menacing ring to it.
After several minutes, the man he’d followed approached. “You’re going to have to take that up with Little Jimmy. Here’s a warning. He doesn’t like you very much.”
Faz felt a welt expanding on the side of his head where he’d been punched, and he was still struggling through the pain and the cobwebs. He decided the best defense in this instance was an offense, any offense, even a perceived offense. He shrugged. “You had your chance. All of you. Mark my words. Kill a cop and it’s going to be fire and brimstone around here. They’ll torch this place, burn down this whole operation, and all of you along with it. If you live, you’ll be sharing a cell at Walla Walla. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
CHAPTER 46
Kins looked at his watch. “It’s after hours,” he said. “Andrei isn’t going to answer at this time of night.”
“He’s on that new detail,” Tracy said, dialing the number. “Because of the cell phone thefts. And I have his mobil
e number.”
“Put him on speaker.”
Vilkotski answered on the fourth ring. “Andrei, it’s Tracy Crosswhite and Kinsington Rowe. I have you on speaker.”
“So, then I can assume you are not calling to whisper sweet nothings to me,” Vilkotski said.
“I could do that, Andrei,” Kins said.
“That I could do without,” Vilkotski said. “Please don’t tell me you’re calling because someone stole your cell phone.”
Tracy laughed. “We’re sorry to call you at home, but we have another question for you about cell phones.”
“Could be worse,” he said. “I’m listening.”
“If I used the Find My iPhone app on my mobile to find another person’s phone, would there be some record of it?”
“A record? No. I mean, the person you were attempting to find might know, but that would only be if they took the time to look at the app,” Vilkotski said.
“What would they be looking for?” Kins asked.
“The app places an arrow on your home screen, but only for a brief time. I think it is ten seconds, but don’t quote me on it.”
“You’re saying the person would have to be looking at their phone at the time the app was activated, and know what to look for?” Kins asked.
“Exactly.”
“Okay,” Tracy said. “But I want to know if there is some type of record generated on the phone that is doing the search. For instance would there be some way to find out if I had searched for someone else’s phone using the Find My iPhone app on my phone?”
“I don’t believe so, but this I would have to research. What are you trying to determine?”
“Well, ultimately,” Tracy said, “we’d like to determine if one person searched for another’s mobile to find out where they were going.”
“How old is the phone?” Vilkotski asked. “The phone your person is using to search for the other.”
“I don’t know,” Tracy said. “Why?”
“Because you could forget about the app and just view the location history of the phone. Do that and you know everywhere the person has been.”
A Steep Price (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 6) Page 27
