Murder One

by Robert Dugoni

  “Anything I can do?”

  She seemed to give it some thought, shook her head, and left without another word.

  LAURELHURST

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  Rowe and Crosswhite locked down the crime scene and posted two uniformed officers, one at the front and one at the rear of the house. Throughout the day, the neighbors had gathered behind the police tape, along with the media and the curious, who always seemed to find their way to a crime scene. That number would only increase as word spread. A murder in upscale Laurelhurst would be a top news story, especially if the victim had been a suspected heroin-dealing businessman living among them.

  Crosswhite accompanied the packaged evidence to Park 95, the CSI processing building on Airport Way south of downtown. Rowe headed to the Justice Center on Fifth Avenue to get the initial paperwork started.

  Stepping from the elevator onto the seventh floor, Rowe passed two robbery detectives escorting an inmate in red scrubs and handcuffs through the beige and gray hallways in the direction of the interrogation rooms. An underground tunnel connected the building to the jail, making it easier to interview suspects in custody. In addition to the homicide unit, the Justice Center housed the sexual assault, gang, and domestic-violence units, along with the brass—the chief of police, lieutenants, and captains.

  The homicide unit consisted of fifteen cluttered cubicles positioned so that partners sat across aisles from one another, the desks facing away from the windows. Entering, Rowe heard the Mariners’ play-by-play announcer from the television mounted from the ceiling. He contemplated checking the score, but the smell of food, perhaps even pizza, had greater appeal. He hadn’t thought about eating until the drive back to the office.

  Rowe draped his windbreaker on the “skull of death” hooked over the top of his cubicle. The skull signified the detective team next up to work a homicide—gallows humor, but so far, unlike the T-shirts embossed with our day begins when your days end, there had been no memos from above. The skull would hang on someone else’s cubicle by morning.

  He followed the smell to the small kitchenette. His optimism soared at the sight of a pizza box on the Formica counter then plummeted when he found the box empty. “Bastards.”

  He stuffed two bucks into the lockbox, poured a fifty-cent cup of tea, and grabbed a bag of chips and a bag of miniature cookies. What more could a starving man want?

  At his cubicle he munched the chips as he logged on to the computer, opened a new file, and began typing in his notes.

  “When did you get in?” Ron Mayweather held a napkin with two slices of pizza in one hand, and a two-inch-thick stack of papers in the other.

  “Tell me the pizza is for me and I might marry you.”

  “Sorry, Sparrow, you’re not my type.” He handed him the pizza anyway. “But I thought I better save you a couple slices; the people around here are vultures.”

  “Bless you, my son.” Rowe made an exaggerated sign of the cross and took a large bite.

  Mayweather set the documents on the desk. “This guy’s a real piece of shit.”

  Rowe had called and asked Mayweather, their unit’s fifth wheel, to run a triple-I check on Vasiliev’s criminal history, then call the Seattle DEA’s office to get a copy of whatever file they had generated during the investigation that led to his arrest. Rowe wanted to know if Vasiliev had rolled over on someone or agreed to testify against anyone.

  “Any deals?”

  “Hell, no. The guy at the DEA said he was an arrogant prick, acted like they’d never get him. Burned his ass when Vasiliev turned out to be right.”

  Rowe took another bite as he flipped through the documents, which included newspaper articles on a federal judge’s decision to grant a motion to suppress evidence seized at Vasiliev’s car dealership in Renton.

  “They’re sending their file over without the sympathy card,” May-weather continued. “The guy said whoever did kill him should be charged with a misdemeanor homicide.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” It was a law enforcement joke, but not to Rowe.

  The phone on his desk rang. He wedged it under his chin so he could use both hands to continue flipping through the documents. The receptionist said a caller claimed to have information that might relate to the Laurelhurst murder. He and Crosswhite would receive and follow up on dozens of such tips, including the usual nut jobs and loose bolts who claimed to be channeling spirits and demons.

  “All right, put him through,” he said.

  “You need anything else?” Mayweather asked.

  Rowe covered the receiver. “No, I’m good.”

  Rowe introduced himself and listened, taking another bite of pizza. As the caller spoke, Rowe set down the documents and went to write the caller’s last name in his spiral notebook. “Can you spell that for me?”

  He continued to scan one of the news clippings as the caller continued, then he came to an abrupt stop. “Excuse me . . .” His eyes shifted to the name he’d written on his notepad. “Dr. Oberman? Can you give me that name again?”

  Rowe scanned the article again. “Where are you now?” He wrote the address. “My partner and I will see you in half an hour.”

  As if on cue, Crosswhite rounded the corner and tossed her purse in her cubicle closet, the front lined with photographs.

  Rowe hung up. “Holy shit.”

  “You talking about the pope again, Sparrow? Otherwise, there is no such thing. There’s just shit, and we’re stepping in it at the moment.” Crosswhite nodded to the remaining slice of pizza. “I hope you saved that for your partner.”

  Rowe swiveled his chair to face her. “You remember how I said this had all the markings of an execution?”

  NINE

  QUEEN ANNE HILL

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  The aroma of spices—ginger and basil and onions—seeped from the white cartons in the two plastic bags on the seat beside him. Sloane shut off the engine and tried Barclay’s cell phone again. When she did not answer, he checked the time on the phone. She had told him she was going to get in a workout, but she should have been home by now.

  After delivering the news of Vasiliev’s death, Sloane had gone back to his office and called Ian Yamaguchi, a reporter at the Times who covered the courts. Yamaguchi said the police were not releasing any details of the crime and likely wouldn’t for a while; what he knew was Vasiliev had been shot in the head and would be returning to the Ukraine in a box. The man who had intimidated through violence had died a violent death, and wasn’t that the way it always seemed to be?

  Sloane spent the better part of the afternoon resisting the urge to call Barclay, but like a man weaning himself off cigarettes, the urge became stronger with each passing hour. Late that afternoon she had called. She said she didn’t feel like going out but wanted to see him. He offered to pick up dinner.

  Sloane watched a runner turn the corner at the bottom of the steep incline, arms and legs pumping like pistons, churning up the hill in the fading daylight. As the runner neared, he saw the bandaged hand and pushed out of the car. Barclay arrived with a final burst, breathing hard and dripping sweat.

  “Sorry.” She walked in circles, hands folded on top of her head. “I didn’t realize the time. I sprinted the last mile so I wouldn’t miss you.”

  Sloane considered the hill. “I might be dead if I tried that.”

  She blew out a breath, hands on hips. “I needed to burn off some energy.”

  “I hope you also worked up an appetite.” He lifted the bags from the seat and followed her inside the front gate.

  “Exercise became my therapy after Leenie’s death. The psychologist said I was clinically depressed. He wanted to put me on antidepressants, but after what I had just been through, I wasn’t about to go that route. The alternative was exercise. It progressed from there. Sometimes exercise was the only way I could get to sleep.”

  Sloane knew the feeling. “You changed the wrap.” He pointed to the smaller dressing on her left h
and.

  “The other one was too bulky.” Inside, she walked into the kitchen and pulled out a large plastic bag. “I’m supposed to keep it dry.” She kissed him, her hand on his chest. “I don’t imagine I smell anywhere near as good as the Thai food. I’m going to slip on a plastic bag and jump in the shower. How’s that for an invitation?”

  Reid sipped her glass of Syrah, the plate in front of her full. Though she had been uncharacteristically quiet, Sloane hadn’t pushed her on the topic of Vasiliev’s murder. She sat back, holding the glass of wine. “Sorry I haven’t been better company. I really haven’t had much of a chance before now to digest what’s happened.” She put down the glass. “I just had such high hopes for the civil suit, for what it could do. I’m not really sure where to go from here.”

  “You can still lobby the legislature.”

  Sloane heard a series of chimes, and Rowe considered the clock on the mantel over the fireplace. “Doorbell,” she said. “Late for visitors. Probably a solicitor.” The chimes rang again. She put her napkin on the table. “Let me get rid of them.”

  At the front door, Reid hit the button to the intercom. “Are you a solicitor?”

  “Barclay Reid?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Seattle Police Department. May we come in?”

  Reid gave Sloane a shrug. He pushed back his chair and walked to the door. “Maybe he has news about Vasiliev.”

  “Ms. Reid?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry.” She pressed the button freeing the lock on the gate.

  Through a sidelight, Sloane watched a man and woman, casually dressed, enter and momentarily consider the garden before proceeding up the walk. Barclay punched in the code to deactivate the alarm, unlocked the deadbolt, and pulled open the door.

  “I’m Detective Rowe. This is my partner, Detective Crosswhite. May we come in?” They held identification and badges.

  “Certainly.”

  When Rowe stepped over the threshold, he stopped to consider the pile of shoes.

  “I do a lot of running,” Barclay said, closing the door. “But you can leave your shoes on.”

  “You sure?” Rowe asked. “I just put in hardwood floors myself.”

  Rowe looked to Sloane, who extended his hand and introduced himself. When Crosswhite heard the name, she said, “I saw you on TV. You represented the family of that National Guardsman killed in Iraq.”

  “That’s me,” Sloane said.

  “We were just finishing dinner,” Barclay said, gesturing to the table. “Can I get you anything to drink—water, cup of coffee?”

  The detectives declined and Reid invited them into the living room. They all remained standing.

  “Is this about Filyp Vasiliev?” Barclay asked.

  “Why do you ask?” Rowe replied.

  “Well, I understand he was shot this morning.”

  “Where did you learn that?”

  She motioned to Sloane. “David told me.”

  Rowe turned to Sloane. “How did you find out?”

  “I heard it while I was at the U.S. attorney’s office this morning. Under the circumstances, I knew Barclay would want to know.”

  “The circumstances?” Rowe asked.

  “Vasiliev was under investigation by the DEA and the DA’s office for drug trafficking,” Barclay said.

  Rowe directed his question to Sloane. “What interest was that of yours?”

  “I had the interest, Detective,” Barclay continued. “I believed Mr. Vasiliev’s operation distributed the drugs that killed my daughter; she died of an overdose about eight months ago. It’s been in the news.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rowe said. “My condolences.”

  “Last Friday a federal judge granted a motion to exclude evidence. I went to see David to discuss the possibility of bringing a wrongful-death suit against Mr. Vasiliev if the U.S. attorney decided not to appeal the judge’s decision.”

  “Wrongful death? You mean like O. J. Simpson?” Crosswhite asked.

  “Exactly,” Reid said.

  “You can do that?” Rowe asked.

  “We were hoping to find out,” Sloane said. “Obviously, it never got that far.”

  “So you had a personal interest in the criminal investigation,” Rowe said to Reid.

  “Very personal.”

  “Were you upset by the outcome of that investigation?”

  “I wasn’t happy about it.” Her remark sounded flippant. Then she became more serious. “I thought Judge Kozlowski made a bad decision that let a drug dealer back out into the community.” She started again toward the kitchen. “Are you sure I can’t get you something to drink? A glass of water?”

  Rowe said, “You own a handgun, Ms. Reid.”

  It wasn’t a question, and it stopped Barclay’s progress. “I do. A Smith and Wesson thirty-eight Special.” She smiled. “But don’t ask me anything more, because that pretty much exhausts my knowledge.”

  “Where do you keep it?” Rowe asked.

  “In a gun box in my bedroom closet.”

  “Can we have a look?”

  She looked to Sloane, then back to Rowe. “May I ask why?”

  “Let’s see the gun first,” Rowe said. “Then we can talk.”

  Barclay led them up the stairs to her bedroom on the second floor. Her bathrobe lay on the goose-down comforter where she had left it after they exited the shower. Barclay slid open the closet door and started to kneel.

  “We’ll open it,” Rowe said.

  She stepped back. Crosswhite bent on her knee and opened the box.

  GOLDEN DRAGON RESTAURANT

  INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  Jerry Willins felt sick to his stomach, and judging from Julio Cruz’s constipated expression, Cruz didn’t feel much better. The aroma of Chinese food, pungent and greasy, wafted up from the restaurant below, exacerbating Willins’s nausea. He stifled a burp, which brought an acidic burn to the back of his throat.

  The third man in the room, Micheal Hurley, silently dissected them over the top of his folded hands, elbows propped on the pale yellow, wood-laminate desk that looked to have been scavenged from a 1950s science classroom and wedged in the room like an SUV in a compact parking space. An open book lay flat on the desk. Reading the spine upside down, Willins determined it to be poetry by Robert Frost.

  “Where were you?” Hurley directed the question to Cruz, his voice flat and even.

  Cruz hesitated. “In the head.”

  In between the clang and clatter of pans and the shrill shouts of the cooks speaking Chinese, Willins detected the faint smell of tobacco—restaurant employees on a cigarette break in the alley.

  Hurley’s eyes, coal black in contrast to snow-white eyebrows, shifted to Willins. “I thought I made it clear that I wanted audio and visual.”

  “You did. It was raining and—”

  “Then you should have seen who put a bullet in his head. Did you see who put a bullet in his head?”

  Willins knew the question to be rhetorical. Cruz apparently did not.

  “We didn’t see nothing. It was black out. No moon or stars. And the storm.”

  Willins said, “It was seconds, at most. By the time I even figured out it was a gunshot and not thunder, it was too late.”

  Hurley sat back. His barrel chest rose and fell while he rubbed at a goatee as white as his eyebrows. “How am I going to explain this?”

  This time Cruz exercised better judgment and did not answer. They’d had high hopes for Vasiliev, and the cost associated with the operation had not been insignificant. Hurley turned to the opposite wall, considering a chart with rectangular boxes stacked like a family tree, some blank, some penciled in with eastern European surnames.

  “Maybe they knew,” Cruz offered. “Maybe someone found out.”

  Hurley said, “He was alone.”

  Willins understood. “If he had suspected anything . . .”

  “Maybe he didn’t,” Cruz said. “That’s
my point. Maybe he didn’t know.”

  “Chelyakov spoke to him?” Hurley asked.

  “At the dealership,” Cruz said. “Day before.”

  Willins nodded. “He told him they had a problem with that attorney, that she was talking to a civil lawyer . . .” He looked at his notes. “David Sloane. Chelyakov said he didn’t want the woman pushing any more lawsuits. He wanted Vasiliev to handle it. Couple hours later, Vasiliev has his two guys bring in Sloane and he threatens him—tells him to convince the woman to let it go.”

  “What was this guy Sloane’s response?”

  “Sloane . . . he didn’t sound intimidated, man.” Cruz’s accent became more pronounced. “Not at all. Said he’d kill him if he touched his family.”

  “Said he’d kill him?” Hurley asked.

  “‘Touch my son and I’ll kill you,’” Willins said.

  “Didn’t sound scared, neither,” Cruz added.

  THE JUSTICE CENTER

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  The room, a windowless, colorless box, radiated white. Overhead fluorescent lights illuminated the nicked and scratched metal table and three chairs. Light blue soundproofing foam covered the upper half of the walls to deter a suspect from shouting to an accomplice in one of the adjoining rooms.

  The unit referred to the room as a “hard” interrogation room, though the “soft” interrogation rooms, located on the same narrow hallway, weren’t significantly bigger and didn’t come with any additional amenities. With the doors shut, the rooms brought the claustrophobic feel of a prison cell, which was the point—to let a suspect know they were deep in the soup and the only way to keep from spending a very long time, perhaps the rest of their lives, in a room just as small and just as sparse was to cooperate, maybe even confess.

  Rowe didn’t expect that to happen tonight.

  “What do you think?” Rowe asked.

  Rick Cerrabone and Crosswhite watched Barclay Reid from behind one-way glass. Around them knobs and lights on the video and recording equipment flashed yellow and green. Before transporting Reid to the Justice Center, Rowe had called Cerrabone to give him a heads-up. He’d googled Reid on the Internet and knew of her status in the community—a former president of the Washington Bar Association. They would need to do everything by the book. The brass would be breathing hard down their necks, and since they were located in the same building, they wouldn’t have far to go.