Murder One

by Robert Dugoni

  “Your friends drove you home?” Crosswhite asked. “And where did they drop you off ?”

  The boy gave another vague gesture in the direction of the window. “Down the street. It’s a couple of houses.”

  “There’s an easement, a path at the back of our house. He uses it to sneak out and in,” Richard said, making it sound like the boy had tunneled out of prison. “It leads past our backyard. It’s not really an easement, but the kids have made it one. It cuts between the two houses and comes up through our side yard. He hops the fence.”

  “Is that right, Joshua?” Crosswhite asked, never looking at Richard.

  He nodded. “Yeah . . . Yes.”

  “And your friends dropped you off there so your parents wouldn’t hear the car engine?”

  Joshua nodded.

  “And they left?”

  “They left.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I heard a noise, like something moving in the bushes.”

  “We have raccoons,” Richard said.

  Crosswhite ignored him. “What did you do when you heard the sound?”

  “I ducked behind some bushes. And that’s when I saw this person getting a bike out from a hedge. Then they got on it and rode down the street.”

  “Can you describe this person?” Crosswhite asked, careful not to suggest a gender. A good defense attorney would imply the police had suggested a suspect to a witness.

  “Black . . . I don’t know what you call them, like tights or something. One-piece.”

  “A wet suit?”

  He shook his head. “It seemed thinner than a wet suit, but . . . I don’t know.”

  “What color hair did the person have?”

  “I couldn’t really tell because of the bike helmet. But I think it was dark, like . . .” He searched the people in the room, his mother, then Crosswhite, and finally, Rowe. “More like his, maybe, without the gel.”

  “And you got a look at this person’s face.”

  He nodded.

  “A good look?”

  “Like, a couple seconds.”

  “Do you think you could pick out the face if we came back with a group of pictures for you to look at?”

  “I don’t know. I think so.” Joshua paused and, for the first time, brushed aside the tips of his bangs, revealing blue eyes.

  Rowe asked, “How old are you, Joshua?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “What club were you at?” He knew that underground clubs didn’t get too hung up on things like the legal drinking age and fake IDs. Rowe and Crosswhite would have to confirm the boy’s story and find out what he’d been doing. But that could be done later.

  Joshua’s voice became tentative again. “We were just listening to music. Another band we know.”

  “That’s fine, but I need to know the name of the club,” Rowe said. “I’m going to have to confirm some things.”

  “Are you going to talk to my friends?”

  “Right now I don’t think that will be necessary,” Crosswhite said. “We can get their names later if we need them.”

  Rowe backed off.

  Crosswhite sat forward. “Joshua, I need you to be honest with me. Did you drink any alcohol or use any drugs that night?”

  Richard Blume moved farther to the edge of his seat but resisted the urge to stand. “I don’t think I want Joshua to answer that question. I think I’d rather have my attorney here.”

  Rowe tried to stay even-keel. He wanted to say, “Listen, idiot, if you think that was a tough question to answer, wait until an experienced criminal defense attorney gets your son on the stand.”

  Crosswhite maintained the demeanor and tone of the schoolteacher trying to get to the bottom of a situation. “Mr. Blume, as we explained earlier, any time you desire, you can have your attorney present, that’s not a problem. If you would like to make a call, please do. We’re just trying to make sure Joshua is certain of what he saw. As I said, any family rules Joshua may have broken are between you, your wife, and your son. But why don’t we leave that question for another conversation.”

  “I had a couple of beers,” Joshua volunteered, not waiting for his father’s permission, his voice defiant.

  Ordinarily, Rowe would have asked the witness to accompany them to the Justice Center to consider a montage of photographs, but he had deduced that asking the Blumes to do so for Joshua’s trip down memory lane would be far enough outside Richard Blume’s controlled environment to get him to follow through on his desire to call his attorney. Legally, there was not much a lawyer could do, but that never stopped some from becoming as big a pain in the ass as possible.

  “We’ll bring back some pictures tonight for you to consider, if that’s all right,” Crosswhite said, letting Rowe know they were on the same page. They would keep things within the comfort of the Blume castle walls as long as they could.

  “That would be fine,” Richard said.

  Rowe looked at Crosswhite, only one more question to ask, and they both knew it. Crosswhite nodded. Rowe sat forward.

  “Joshua, this person you saw . . . Can you tell us if it was a man or a woman?”

  CAMANO ISLAND

  WASHINGTON

  Charles Jenkins entered from the garage, about to drop his keys on the counter, when he saw the ghostly silhouette at the sliding-glass door and didn’t want to disturb the image. Bare-chested and barefoot, his pull-up diaper sagging almost to the floor, CJ stood in the fading light with one hand on the glass, the other holding a bottle. Head tilted back, bottle angled, he sucked on the nipple as he watched his mother hose off the patio furniture. Water dripped down the glass, and Jenkins deduced why even before Alex turned and shot a blast from the hose, causing CJ to slap the glass, stiff legs dancing with delight, and emit a sound of pure pleasure.

  Who was Jenkins to judge?

  When Alex had told him she loved him, his first thought had been it would never work. Midfifties, he was twenty-five years her senior. He liked the Rolling Stones and the Beatles; she listened to Sting and Tom Petty. He had been drafted and spent thirteen months in a hellhole in Southeast Asia. She had graduated from college and backpacked through the same country on vacation. No one would have given them two minutes, let alone two years. And yet it had worked somehow. When she told him she wanted a child, he had the same doubts: thinking how stupid he’d look at the school events, everyone believing he was the child’s grandparent, not possibly his father. But next to Alex, CJ had been the single greatest joy of his life. That, too, had worked, despite the odds.

  So who was he to judge?

  Jenkins made a loud raspberry with his tongue and lips. CJ startled, and turned, wide-eyed. When he saw his father, he beamed, the nipple stuck between his teeth. “Wa-ter,” he said, slapping at the window. “Wa-ter.”

  Jenkins picked him up and felt the significant weight of his pull-up, another indication that CJ had been banished to the house after he got his clothes soaking wet. With the sun going down, the temperature had dropped. They watched Alex together. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and wisps of curls hung free about her face. She wore Dolfin running shorts and her pink skintight running top with the zipper, the one Jenkins loved to slowly unzip and watch her breasts emerge. With the suds running down her forearms and thighs, it reminded him of the scene in the movie Cool Hand Luke when the woman washed her car wearing only a sundress while dozens of inmates cleared weeds along the road.

  He tapped on the glass with his wedding ring. Seeing him, Alex shot another blast. CJ squealed and threw his bottle, then, alarmed to have lost it, he reached down, squirming. Jenkins lowered him to the ground and watched his son hurry off in a stiff-legged gallop to retrieve his bottle.

  As Jenkins slid open the door and stepped onto the patio, Alex turned and pointed the nozzle, causing him to flinch. “Don’t!” She laughed and gave Jenkins a short mist.

  “Are you hosing me down before I even try anything?”

  She held the
nozzle at her side like a gunslinger. “On the count a three, I’m a-gonna draw, partner. And I don’t mean draw with a pencil.” She chortled, the way she did when she found herself funny.

  “You’re getting a big kick out of yourself, aren’t you?” he said.

  “Somebody has to.”

  He walked closer. “You know I think you’re funny.”

  She whipped the nozzle at him. “Back off. You’re not touching this zipper until I finish the patio furniture.”

  “Why so motivated?”

  “I gave the dogs a bath.” The dogs lay sprawled in the grass where a patch of sun still remained amid the shadows. “So I decided since I had everything out that I’d tackle the deck, too. Help me with the table.”

  He helped her turn over the table, then stepped back as she soaped and hosed down the underside.

  “Did you talk to David?” She wrung out the sponge and looked over at him.

  Jenkins had not just stopped by Sloane’s house to find out what had happened at the Justice Center. He had information. Alex had checked with the organization that held the event at the Rainier Club, the one at which Sloane had been the speaker. Barclay Reid had not preregistered for the dinner; she had provided the organization with a credit-card number that day. By itself, it meant little, but it bothered Jenkins, who didn’t believe in coincidences.

  “He loves her, Alex.”

  She put the sponge on one of the chairs. “Are you sure?”

  “He said he did. And they sure looked like it.”

  “She was there?”

  “In her birthday suit. Him, too. In the kitchen.”

  She covered her smile with her hand. “Tell me you did not walk in on them.”

  “It’s not funny,” he said, though he laughed.

  Alex removed her hand, no longer smiling. “You didn’t tell him . . .”

  Jenkins shook his head. “He’s happy, Alex. For the first time since Tina’s death, he seems happy.”

  THREE TREE POINT

  BURIEN, WASHINGTON

  Summer in Seattle, Sloane had concluded, was the reason people in the Northwest tolerated the nine miserable months of gray and rain. God must have chosen Seattle to spend His summers; there was no other way to describe the beauty that befell the place almost immediately after July Fourth. The snowcapped Olympic Mountains to the west looked close enough to touch, and the water brightened from a bland gray to a sparkling blue, with everything beneath a great dome Michelangelo could not have painted better.

  Barclay minced cloves of fresh garlic on a chopping block, wearing one of Sloane’s red Stanford-basketball T-shirts. Jake had attended a camp at the school in the summer and had given Sloane the shirt. It extended to Barclay’s midthigh.

  They had spent a lazy afternoon reading books in the two Adirondack lawn chairs. Then Sloane had driven to the grocery store with a list of ingredients for dinner, a necessity if they expected to eat. Since Tina’s death, the contents of his refrigerator had ranged between bare and almost bare.

  He felt the comforting glow from the red wine as he bent to manipulate the radio, pausing on the Mariners baseball game, hoping to catch the score. He caught the tail end of an inning, the third out, and as they went to station break the announcer informed that the Mariners led the Angels, 5–3. He switched to FM and channel-surfed until he recognized a song by Green Day, a band Jake favored.

  “Don’t you want to listen to the game?”

  He refilled her glass of wine. “I’ll catch the score later on the news.”

  The sound of the knife hitting the wood block stopped. “Warm summer night, screen door open, steaks on the barbecue. Perfect night to listen to baseball.”

  “You’re a fan?” he asked.

  She mocked him, wide-eyed. “Oh my God! A girl who likes baseball!” She continued mincing. “My father used to take me to the Kingdome. And the firm has a suite at Safeco.”

  “A suite? I knew I liked you for a reason.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck.

  She reached behind, massaging the back of his head. “Be nice to me, and I just might take you to a game.” He let his hands wander but she squirmed free. “Uh-uh. We have work to do.”

  He kissed her neck. “We could eat later.”

  “You’ll be busy later.” She slapped him lightly across the cheek with a bundle of parsley, then handed it to him. “Chop.”

  As Sloane set to the task, she scooped the garlic with the knife and lifted the lid on the pot to add it to the sauce. The room filled with the aroma of tomatoes simmering. “What did your friend want?” she asked.

  Sloane looked up from the parsley. “Charlie? Nothing important. He’s working on another case in the office, a prevailing-wage claim. He just stopped by on his way home.”

  “What does he think about us?” Sloane didn’t have a ready answer. “He’s worried, isn’t he?”

  “He’s my friend. He wants what’s best for me.”

  She continued chopping. “Everyone needs a friend like that. You’ll let me know, won’t you?”

  He looked over at her. “Let you know what?”

  “If it’s moving too fast. If you’re not ready.”

  “I’ll let you know,” he said, and stepped toward her, stopping when he heard the doorbell ring.

  THIRTEEN

  KING COUNTY JAIL

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  The walls seeped the dull malaise of institutionalization—muted grays, opaque yellow lighting, and spartan furnishings.

  The feeling of institutionalization and claustrophobia increased as Sloane ventured farther into the jail. When he stepped from the elevator onto the seventh floor, the Psych Unit for those never before incarcerated, he covered his mouth and nose, the pungent smell a cross between the rot of food and the smell of urine in a public bathroom poorly masked by disinfectant and deodorant cakes. Though he stood in a glass foyer, it did little to mute the incoherent screams and shouts of the inmates milling about in red jumpsuits.

  He hated the thought that Barclay was among them.

  An hour earlier, when Sloane had pulled open his front door, Detectives Rowe and Crosswhite had flashed their identifications as if they’d never met. Whereas Rowe had previously entered Sloane’s home polite, even a bit apologetic, this time he looked like a man who had been hard at a task and cocksure he was about to accomplish his mission.

  When Barclay walked from the kitchen into the living room, holding the wooden spoon above the pot of spaghetti sauce, Rowe wasted no time advising Reid she was under arrest for the murder of Filyp Vasiliev.

  After the initial shock, Sloane had stepped forward. “Wait a minute.”

  But Rowe would have none of it, warning Sloane not to interfere or he would arrest him for obstruction. Rowe was not to be reasoned or argued with; the time for debate had long since passed. Rowe had already moved to action.

  Crosswhite read Reid her Miranda rights and accompanied her upstairs to change clothes. When Reid emerged, she wore the blue-gray pin-striped suit. She had removed her contacts and put on glasses. Rowe asked her to turn around and applied handcuffs.

  After Rowe and Crosswhite escorted Reid to their car, Sloane called Carolyn at home, instructing her to find John Kannin. Then he threw a change of clothes in his gym bag, locked the house, and left for downtown, uncertain when he might be back.

  If I had known he was going to walk, I would have just put a bullet in him and been done with it.

  Sloane hadn’t believed Barclay capable when she’d made the statement and still didn’t, but he hoped he never had to tell Rowe or a prosecutor she had said it.

  Sloane pushed a button on another call box and informed the guards in a raised circular tower that he was there to visit Barclay Reid. A guard directed Sloane to a booth with thick glass separation.

  “I want a visit face-to-face,” Sloane said, continuing to follow Pendergrass’s instructions. He’d called Tom Pendergrass on the drive to the jail. A military lawye
r before joining Sloane’s practice, Pendergrass had handled several small criminal cases and gave Sloane as much assistance as he could over the phone. He’d offered to come to the jail, but Sloane had declined, telling Pendergrass he would call later.

  A guard led Sloane to a windowless room no bigger than a broom closet with battleship-gray walls, a square table, and two plastic chairs.

  “Leave the door open,” the guard said.

  “How long can I stay?”

  “How much money did you put in the parking meter?” When Sloane didn’t respond, the guard said, “As long as you want; we’re open twenty-four/seven.”

  After several minutes, he heard footsteps. Barclay shuffled in between two officers, her hands cuffed to a chain belt around her waist. She wore slippers, a red jumpsuit, and her black-framed glasses.

  “Can those be removed?” Sloane asked, referring to the handcuffs.

  The officers said no, then departed, leaving the door open.

  Sloane struggled to project calm though he continued to feel lost in a system with which he had no prior experience. “Are you all right?” It sounded feeble and stupid under the circumstances.

  Reid’s gaze shifted to one of the walls. She sighed audibly. “I have to know.” She looked at him. “I have to know that you believe me, David. I have to know that you have no doubt, because right now I need someone to believe in me. Otherwise, I am going to go stark raving mad.”

  Sloane knew she felt as he did, a person used to being in control suddenly without any.

  “I told you, I believe you.” Sloane took one of her hands, which was cold to the touch and they sat knees to knees. She looked pale, but it could have been the lighting. “You didn’t talk to anyone?”

  She shook her head. “Who could have taken it, David? Who would—”

  “Barclay, stop.” Her brow furrowed. “You can’t tell me anything,” he said. “Not anything that could be evidence.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “There’s no privilege.” He didn’t need to explain that the law accorded a privilege to communications between certain relationships: lawyer and client, physician and patient, husband and wife, even clergy and penitent. Sloane did not fit any of those. “If they subpoena me, I’d have to tell them anything you say.”