by Mike Omer
“Do you think I could wear earmuffs?” he asked.
“No.”
“Not even if they’re black?”
“Absolutely not, Bailey, and we shall never mention this again.”
Hannah watched Violet take crime scene photos, feeling envious. There was something about Violet, a certain feeling of wholeness. She always seemed calm, always did her job with perfection, didn’t seem to mind that people treated Matt like her boss even though he wasn’t.
Hannah wondered if Violet ever lay in bed for hours, unable to fall asleep because her mind couldn’t turn off. Did she ever punish herself for days and weeks about a decision she’d made? Did she ever feel as if she was being stretched, about to break, like three-hour-old bubble gum?
Matt came out of the basement and approached Hannah.
“There are dry blood stains on one of the walls in the basement,” he said, “as well as the bottom stairs. And the floor looks like there was a large stain on it, and someone cleaned it. It’s possible to see the outline where they cleaned. The stain pattern on the wall indicates that it was probably a stabbing.”
Hannah froze in fear. “Could it be Abigail?” she whispered.
Matt looked at her thoughtfully. “Maybe,” he said. “If she was stabbed several days ago.”
“How many days?”
He shrugged. “I need to run some tests,” he said. “Blood dries very quickly.”
Hannah’s brain spun. “Hang on,” she said. “You said there was blood on the stairs.”
“Yes,” Matt said. “The stabbing occurred on the stairs to the basement.”
“And then the victim tumbled down the stairs to the floor?”
“That’s the most likely explanation, but I’ll need to—”
“It’s Glen Haney’s blood,” Hannah said. “That’s where he was killed. It matches the findings on the body.”
“I’ll run a DNA test,” Matt said.
“It’s him,” Hannah said, with a certainty she was desperate to feel.
Captain Bailey and Agent Mancuso walked back inside. Bailey approached Hannah. “Detective Shor,” he said, “you’ll be investigating this case with Detective Lonnie.”
Hannah’s eyes widened in surprise. She glanced at Mancuso, saw her and Clint speaking with each other in hushed tones. There were black pouches under Mancuso’s eyes. She stood as if it took all her effort not to crumple on the floor like a used rag. Hannah knew how she felt.
“You’ll be working with the FBI. Agent Ward is assigned to the case as well. I want to be filled in about everything you find out.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied dutifully
“Hannah…” he said.
“Yes?”
“This wasn’t your fault. Now find that girl, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m going home,” he said. “There are enough agents, investigators, and detectives here to fill a stadium. You don’t need me.”
She nodded at him. “Thank you, sir.”
He left. She chewed her lip, then approached Clint. Mancuso had left as well, and Clint was now talking on the phone. She waited patiently for him to finish the call. Finally, he hung up and looked at her.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey yourself,” he answered, his face passive and unsmiling.
She sighed. “I’m… sorry?”
“Are you asking me if you’re sorry? How would I know that?”
“No! I’m telling you I’m sorry,” Hannah said. “I screwed up. I shouldn’t have looked in your files. And I should have told you when Naamit received that e-mail—”
He shook his head. “There’s no way to know what would have happened if you did,” he said. “I understand why you didn’t.” His voice was still tight. His past warmth was gone. Hannah wondered if it would ever return.
“Thanks,” she said.
They looked at each other for a moment, and Hannah understood that they’d never be in each other’s arms again. She had broken his trust, and even as easygoing as Clint was, this wasn’t something he could just forget.
“They found the Volvo that Simmons was driving this morning,” Clint finally said, his voice slightly softer, though the formality stayed. “They just informed me.”
“Yeah?” Hannah blinked, trying to sharpen her dulled wits.
“Yes. In New Hampshire, at the side of the road. With the duffel bag the Lismans used to deliver the ransom. Empty of course.”
“He switched cars and bags,” Hannah said.
“Yeah, like the kidnapping. They don’t keep using a vehicle once they committed a crime while driving it. Our people are going over the car and the scene, see if he left any trace.”
“Even if he did, we know he was the one driving it,” Hannah said. “I doubt anything would lead to his accomplice.”
“True. I was also told he has a criminal record. Burglary. He was released six months ago, after two years in prison.”
“Anything else in his file?”
“Minor misdemeanors. Nothing serious. He had a fence he used to work with, so we’re sending an agent to talk to the guy, see if he knows anything. Darrel could have been working with someone from his past. We’re contacting the patrol officer who caught him as well, an Officer… Finley?”
“Kevin Finley,” Hannah nodded. She doubted Kevin would have anything useful to say. He was not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. Or the nicest, for that matter.
“Right. We’re also already in the middle of a door-to-door, to see if anyone saw anything. There are several CCTV cameras around here—one of them might give us something useful, though I doubt it. Those guys were very careful, and you could pretty much drive all the way from here to the highway without being caught on video.”
“What do you think happened?”
“Well… The kidnappers met here to celebrate.” Clint nodded at the champagne flute on the table. “I guess they fought about something. A disagreement about the ransom money? One grabbed a knife, stabbed Darrel, broke the champagne bottle on his head, then finished the job. Grabbed the money and took off.”
“What about Abigail?”
“Took her with him. Probably as a hostage. If he’d wanted to finish her off, he could have done it here, left her with Darrel’s body.”
“Maybe they moved her earlier,” Hannah suggested.
“Yeah.”
“Detective,” Matt called. Both of them turned their heads toward him. He was frowning at something near the door to the basement. They walked over. There was a small nail in the wall.
“What is it?” Hannah asked.
“Check out the fibers on the nail,” Matt said.
Hannah looked closely. A bunch of black fibers were twirled around it.
“Simmons probably used to hang his coat here,” she suggested.
“There’s a coat rack by the door,” Clint said.
“And it’s a weird place for it,” Matt said. “Didn’t the other kid… Gracie, say the kidnappers had ski masks?”
“That’s right,” Hannah said.
“I think they hung them here,” Matt said.
“Why here?” Clint frowned. “Why not in a drawer somewhere or—”
“Because they wanted to put them on whenever they went down to the basement,” Hannah said, suddenly excited. “They didn’t want Abigail to see their faces.”
“So they probably did intend to set her free,” Clint said. “There’s no mask here.”
“Whoever took Abigail took the mask as well,” Hannah said. “He might still intend to let her go.”
“Did he leave the house wearing a mask, carrying a child?” Clint asked. “They wouldn’t have made it three blocks before being arrested.”
“There’s a sharp smell of something chemical in the basement,” Matt said. “The girl was possibly knocked out before they got into the car.”
“And if the car was in the garage, no one would see them getting into it,” Hannah said. “He probably put her in th
e trunk.”
“Okay,” Clint said. “Let’s keep looking.”
Driven by renewed enthusiasm, Hannah began slowly investigating each room, careful not to move anything that hadn’t been processed yet. She found several empty pizza boxes in the garbage outside, and made sure those were bagged as evidence as well. She returned to the kitchen and stood in the entrance, trying to get a feel for what had happened.
The body was gone, taken to the morgue. The entire room was littered with evidence tags, and Matt was carefully placing shards of glass into an evidence bag. Violet was dusting the champagne glass on the table.
Something felt… missing. Darrel had been a big man. If there had been a heated argument, he wouldn’t have gone without a fight. But despite the large stain on the floor and the broken bottle, the kitchen looked too clean for a struggle. There was a drying rack by the sink, full of glasses and plates, completely untouched. The champagne glass on the table stood undisturbed. No… This was quick.
Violet frowned, looking at the champagne glass. Hannah approached her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Smell this,” Violet said, motioning to the glass.
Hannah sniffed. “Smells like champagne,” she said.
Violet shook her head. “There’s something else…” She looked around the room. “Anyone here with a good sense of smell?”
One of the FBI agents turned his head. “Me,” he said. His nose was actually kind of small, almost button-like, and Hannah doubted there was a sharp sense of smell accompanying it.
“Can you smell this glass?” Violet asked.
“Sure,” he said and approached.
“I have a good sense of smell,” Hannah mentioned as he sniffed. “I didn’t smell anything.”
“Yeah, there’s a weird smell here,” the agent said, raising his head. “Something like… almonds?”
Violet nodded. “Cyanide smells like almonds,” she told Hannah. “Not everyone can smell it, even if you have a wicked sense of smell. It’s a genetic thing. I think there’s poison in this champagne glass.”
Hannah looked at her in surprise. “So… one of them tried to poison the other?”
“I guess so.”
Clint walked over, overhearing the discussion. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.
She shrugged. “We’ll get it to your lab and test it,” she said. “But the smell’s there for sure.”
“So one of them tried to kill the other even before the stabbing,” Clint said.
“The taste would be quite bitter,” Violet said. “Also, Cyanide is weakened when you put it in a sugary alcoholic drink. It reacts with the sugar, and creates a different compound called Amyg… Amyg… Matt! What do you call the thing that cyanide and sugar makes?”
“Amygdalin,” Matt said, joining them.
“Right,” Violet said. “So I’m guessing he drank a bit, noticed the weird taste, and put the thing down. And it wasn’t strong enough to affect him. Most people don’t know that cyanide isn’t effective in sugared alcohol.”
“And then they fought,” Clint said.
“No,” Hannah said with certainty. “And then the other kidnapper stabbed him in the back, taking him down. He thought the poison might fail. This entire thing was planned.”
Her phone rang. Bernard’s name appeared on the display and she felt a pang of longing. Her partnership with Bernard was never loaded, never complicated. She answered the call.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he said. “Darrel Simmons has a criminal record.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I know, the FBI told me.”
“Okay,” Bernard said. “So I just called the city jail. Apparently he shared his cell for the last two years of his incarceration with a man named Gustav Bowler.”
“Is Gustav out?” Hannah asked.
“No, he’s still inside. He’s in for three more years.”
“Okay. Thanks, Bernard. Anything else?”
“No. How’s it going there?”
“It’s getting complicated. I’ll fill you in later.”
She hung up. “Simmons had a cellmate for the past two years named Gustav Bowler,” she told Clint.
He nodded. “We’ll send someone to talk to him.”
“I’ll go,” Hannah said. “Want to join?”
Clint shook his head. “I need to update Mancuso about this development, and get this champagne tested ASAP,” he said. Hannah thought he just wanted to avoid her. “If our other kidnapper bought the cyanide, we might be able to trace him that way.”
“Okay,” Hannah said. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
Gustav Bowler was a short, wide man, with a head as flat as a shelf. Atop the shelf lay stubbly blond hair, through which his pink scalp was easily visible. He watched Hannah and Mitchell as they sat in front of him, his eyes giving away nothing but slight boredom.
“Mr. Bowler, you were cellmates with Darrel Simmons for two years,” Hannah said.
“Two years?” he asked, his voice relaxed and sleepy. “If you say so. Time does fly when you’re having fun.”
“Did he talk to you often?”
“Yeah. He was a good guy. A good cellmate. Didn’t get violent, or angry. Never tried anything funny, even though I could sometimes hear him masturbate at night. Didn’t snore either, unlike the asshole who currently shares my cell. He snores like a chainsaw.”
“Mr. Bowler, did Simmons ever—”
“He did fart though. Said the prison food gave him gas. Quite frankly, it gives everyone gas. Prison yard sometimes sounds like a tuba concert.”
“Mr. Bowler, did Sim—”
“I can hold it in, but it probably isn’t so healthy. I don’t think Darrel could hold it in. Our cell smelled like a sewer gone bad.”
“Did Simmons ever talk to you about—”
“I think if anyone had ever lit a match in our cell after dinner, the whole prison would have blown up.” Gustav burst out laughing. “Can you imagine that? Death by fart fire?”
Hannah massaged her temple. She was well aware of the obsession men had with flatulence. All her Dad’s jokes included someone farting. He used to tell them at dinner, and her mother had never failed to remind him they were eating. Still, she was not here to talk about digestion problems.
“Darrel Simmons is dead,” she said abruptly.
Gustav’s laugh died. “Really?” he asked.
“Yes. I wanted to know if—”
“Oh, man. How did he die? Was he in pain? Does his mother know? Did you contact his mother? Oh, man…” A tear ran down Gustav’s cheek, and his meaty lips quivered.
“I’m sorry,” Hannah said. “I can see you were very close. We could really use your help catching his killer. Did he ever—”
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry. Did you say killer?” Gustav buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shuddering.
Hannah glanced at Mitchell. He nodded and cleared his throat.
“Hey man,” he said softly. “Hey, Gustav. Here.” He pulled a Kleenex packet out of his pocket and handed it over to the crying man.
After a second, Gustav removed his hands from his face and took one. He blew his nose into it, then took another one to wipe his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice still quavering. “It’s just… we spent two years together here, you know? He once stopped two bastards who were about to… assault me in the shower. We talked, you know. A place like this, you need a friend.”
Mitchell put his hand on Gustav’s arm and squeezed lightly. Gustav raised his eyes to look at Mitchell. His breath shuddered as Mitchell said, “I totally understand. I once had a very good friend. I get what you’re going through.”
“Yeah, I mean… We were very close, you know?” Gustav whispered.
“Yeah,” Mitchell answered.
Hannah watched in disbelief as Gustav’s face slowly relaxed. Jacob had once told her Mitchell could get anyone in pain to open up to him, but she’d n
ever seen it for herself.
“Detective Shor and I are looking for Darrel’s killer,” Mitchell said.
“Oh man. How did the bastard kill him? Was he in pain?”
“No, it was very quick,” Mitchell said, his eyes soft and truthful.
Hannah thought about Simmons in the pool of blood. Quick, my ass.
“Did you call his mother?”
“The police are notifying her,” Mitchell said. “But we need to catch the person who did this.”
“Yeah, sure. You get that bastard!”
“Did Darrel ever tell you what he planned on doing once he got out?”
“Well, he told me after he got out,” Gustav said.
Hannah could see Mitchell tense up. “He visited you?” Mitchell asked.
“Yeah, I told you. We were really good friends. Came here six weeks ago. Told me he had something really huge. That he was planning something big with his boss. Said it was gonna change his life. Told me he’d leave me some money to come and join him once I’m out, like in that movie The Shawshank Redemption, you know? Except I look way better than Morgan Freeman, that’s what he said.” Gustav smiled, new tears springing from his eyes. “How we laughed at that joke. He was such a funny guy.”
“Do you know who his boss was?”
“No, he never said.”
“Do you know where he worked?”
“I forget. It started with an M, I think Something like Mush Tools or Moche Tools…”
“Koche Toolworks?” Hannah said sharply.
“Yeah, that’s it! Funny, doesn’t start with an M now that I think about it.”
Hannah was already standing up. “Thank you, Mr. Bowler,” she said. “You’ve been very helpful.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lance Koche sat in the interrogation room, trying to look tough, his lawyer by his side. Hannah could sense he wasn’t as calm as he wanted them to believe. A guy like Koche, you talked to him in his office, and he thought that he was untouchable. Protected in his seat of power, like a king.
But come to his home, arrest him, drag him to the station? The king realizes he has lost his throne. And when a king loses his throne, he often loses his head soon after. She watched him through the one-way glass, his eyes constantly shifting, his left foot jerking nervously as his lawyer talked to him in a hushed tone.
