The First Law dh-8

by John Lescroart

  He'd been wrong about the CSI team hardly getting a jump before it was time to call Gerson. They were getting close to finished. Already they wanted to remove the bodies, but much as it sickened him to refuse, that's exactly what he did. After a long while working here, someone had opened both the back windows and the front door and the temperature in the apartment now barely made it into the forties, although it felt like one hundred degrees to Thieu.

  He knew it was time to call Gerson, but he checked his watch anyway and made sure. Turning around, he resolved to go outside for a moment-he wanted to get out of this room-and patch into the detail from one of the squad cars, or maybe the coroner's van. He stepped carefully to avoid the blood, tried again without much success to avert his eyes from the horrific tableau.

  But before he'd made it out of the room, Lennard Faro stopped him. Faro was the crime scene specialist. Thin and intense, he had recently begun sporting a soul patch under his lip which he called his bug. Both of his ears were pierced, the right one twice. He wasn't yet thirty years old, yet in his profession believed that he had seen everything. Even the almost unfathomably grisly scene here today failed to elicit any response, and Thieu found himself wondering if it was all simply a defense. He knew that he, himself, came across as very professional, and knew the reality behind that guise. Maybe Faro was simply better at it than he was-but even if it was your job, Thieu didn't think most humans could handle the butchery they had here without reacting viscerally.

  But Faro seemed to be holding up. Certainly better than Thieu was. He and Thieu had both spent the previous night crawling around the driveway where Matt Creed had been shot, so when the specialist had first arrived, he greeted Thieu with the old, "We've got to stop meeting like this." But that was before he'd seen the bodies.

  Now, having seen them, his voice held a suitable gravity, but no real sign of personal revulsion. Suddenly Thieu realized what it was-Lennard Faro wasn't spooked. And it was hard not to be. "So we got a refrigerator here, Paul. You still wanna leave 'em where they be?"

  "I do," Thieu said. "I'm going out to call Gerson on it right now. Couple more hours isn't going to hurt them, I don't suppose."

  Faro cast an unfeeling eye back at the room. "No. They'll keep. But the team's going to want to wrap it up, and-" Seeing Thieu's expression-anger and resolve-he stopped. "I'm just saying it's two nights in a row now. People get tired they don't do as good. We got the place sealed off. We come back early, say. Or bring out the day team to tag and bag. What do you say?"

  Thieu knew that he could appear peremptory. He forced a smile, pointed to the front door. "Let's go out a minute, get some air, okay?" By the time they had reached the front door, finally out of sight of the bedroom, Thieu found he could control himself much more easily.

  Turning back to Faro, he spoke with an easy assurance, even sympathy. "I hear what you're saying, Len, but I think in this case, it'd be helpful if your team stayed around just awhile longer, at least till the lieutenant's here to let you go."

  "You think Gerson's gonna be coming down here?" Faro, clearly, didn't envision that possibility. "That would be a first, wouldn't it?"

  Thieu didn't comment on that. "What I think is that whether or not he comes down himself, it's very likely he's going to assign this case to Cuneo and Russell, which is what he did with Creed last night." Faro's hand went to his bug as he processed this. "I'd bet you anything that this one's part of that, which is part of Silverman. So if you don't mind, I think it'd be helpful if you guys were around to answer questions when the new guys get here. Probably in fifteen minutes or less. Plus," he added, "they need to see it."

  Faro's face suddenly went slack. "Nobody needs to see that," he said.

  Thieu felt a wash of something like relief. He decided to speak. "You know, Len, I'm glad to hear you say that. I thought it rolled right off you."

  Faro pulled at his bug, shook his head slowly side to side. "Nope," he said.

  When Thieu reached Gerson on the phone, the lieutenant as expected wasn't enthusiastic about coming down and checking out the murder scene himself, but he wasted no time at all with his administrative duties. Upon learning that the victims were Clint Terry and Randy Wills, the two chief suspects in both the Creed and Silverman homicides, he told Thieu-again, if he didn't mind and with other suitable disclaimers-that it sounded like efficiency would be better served if Cuneo and Russell were assigned to this homicide as well as the other two. He told Thieu that the two inspectors were running a little late getting into the office this morning since they were stopping at the lab for some ballistics results before reporting in. But Gerson would call dispatch and send them directly to the crime scene just as soon as he got off the phone with Thieu.

  Which he did shortly, leaving Thieu and Faro standing out in the street by the coroner's van. But when Thieu started explaining Gerson's decision about Cuneo and Russell to Faro, the crime scene specialist stopped him before he'd gotten very far. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You want to run that by me again? You're telling me those guys in there, they were suspects in the Creed thing?"

  Thieu nodded. "Yeah, and them plus a third guy named Holiday for Silverman."

  Faro pulled at his bug. "So the theory is what?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, you just told Gerson this homicide was related to Creed and Silverman, so he's sending over Russell and Cuneo, right?"

  "Right."

  "So what's the relation?"

  "The relation is that they're suspects in both those murders."

  But Faro was shaking his head. "They killed Silverman. Then they killed Creed. Now they're both dead. And this guy Holiday, he's the only one left?"

  "Yeah, looks like. Which makes him…" Thieu cocked his head. "What's the problem, Len?"

  Faro took a long beat deciding what he'd say. Finally, he said, "This might be a hell of a coincidence, okay, and we're trained to hate and mistrust them, but they happen. My take is that this isn't any of that-Silverman and Creed, I mean. It's completely unrelated."

  "It can't be. These are the same guys."

  "Be that as it may, I've seen a half a dozen of these."

  "Like this? Not like this." Thieu motioned toward the apartment. "Like that?"

  Faro's head bobbed down, then up. "Spittin' image, or close enough. This is a pickup gone bad. I'd bet my badge on it. Which might close Silverman and even Creed, okay, except maybe for this other guy, Holiday, but these stiffs here, this case-they ought to stay with you."

  "With me? In what way with me?"

  "Your case. They've got nothing to do with Cuneo and Russell's other work."

  Thieu rubbed his hands together against the cold. "They do if.. ."

  "Nope. Not unless you think Holiday did this, which I'm betting he didn't. You're thinking he did?"

  "I didn't know. I just assumed he must be in it somehow. He fits."

  "A falling out among thieves, something like that?"

  "Something like."

  Suddenly Faro shivered. "Jesus, it's cold. I'm going to go tell the team we're hanging fire another hour or so. Send 'em out for coffee." He fished in his pockets, brought out his keys, pointed. "That's my car over there, the brown one." He flipped the keys to Thieu. "Get the heat going, would you? Have a seat. I'll be right back."

  Thieu was still pondering the pickup gone bad theory when Faro opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. "So where were we?"

  "This should stay my case."

  "That's it. And hey, no offense to Dan and Lincoln, nothing personal. It's just that their theory don't hold."

  Thieu crossed his arms, hugging himself. It hadn't warmed up much. "So what's yours?"

  "What happened? Easy. The two vies in there went out to party last night and found some guy who wanted to play, so they brought him back here. You see some of that powder on the bureau? Ten to one it's coke, maybe heroin or crank, one of those. So they're getting a lot high and a little kinky, maybe one of 'em's already na
ked-I'm thinkin' the big guy…"

  "That's Terry. Why him first?"

  "We'll get to that. But see if this don't play. So Terry's tied up in the chair just like he is now, maybe they're playin' a little with him and the two other guys-well, the guy they picked up and the one he thinks is the girl…"

  "Wills."

  "Yeah, whatever, so those two start to get it on. Then the pickup guy reaches down and-whoops!-gets a handful of surprise."

  "Wills isn't a woman."

  "He sure isn't. Not even a little. So the perp goes ballistic-the coroner will tell us exactly what he did next, but my guess is he strangled Wills, maybe knocked him around a little first. But he's still flying on whatever drug they're doing and completely out of his mind now with being fooled. His masculinity, if you want to call it that, is all fucked up. Except he really knew all along. Plus he's just killed Wills with Terry tied up sitting there watching him. What's he gonna do? He's in a rage and completely freaked. He's got to get out of there, but first there's business. So maybe he's gone to the bathroom since he's been there, seen the straight razor Wills shaved his whole body with. He goes back in there…"

  "I think I get it from there," Thieu said. He might have been a hard-boiled six-year veteran inspector of homicide, but he was shaking now not with the cold, but with the recitation. He didn't think he could bear to listen to Faro's certain-to-be-vivid clinical description of how the throats of both of them had been slit, or the individual steps as Randy Wills was undressed, trussed, and finally castrated.

  Faro needed a moment to extract himself from his imagination. At last, he turned to Thieu. "Anyway, my point is that whatever happened here, this was separate. Nothing to do with Creed or Silverman or anything else. This was its own thing and the case ought to belong to you if you want it."

  *****

  John Holiday loved Clint Terry-he really did-but he was going to have to fire the irresponsible son of a bitch. He was thinking this as he pulled the chairs off the tables that he'd put on them when he'd closed the place last night at two o'clock. Why did he bother? He set the last chair in its place and checked his watch. Noon. He'd closed the place up a mere ten hours ago, and thank God he'd come by just on a random check to find the door closed and nobody behind the bar. This was his only source of income and it had to be open for him to actually make some money, stay solvent and not be forced to sell cheap.

  He still believed he could get a lucky streak going, maybe at poker. Lucky streaks weren't out of the question. Look at him and Michelle. With just a few solid months and a bit of luck, he could make the Ark presentable, and then maybe sell at a profit, go back into something more legitimate.

  What was the matter with people? he wondered. A gay ex-convict like Clint with a questionable reputation and no real skills, where was he going to get another job as good as this one? With a laid-back boss, flexible hours, decent pay. What, if anything, was he thinking as he undoubtedly slept in this morning, making it two days in a row, knowing he was blowing the job off? All Holiday asked, essentially, was that the big galoot show up, and especially- especially!-when Holiday had pulled the night shift the day before. But first yesterday, then today. Enough was enough.

  He was going to have to do it. That was all there was to it.

  Fortunately, when he'd closed last night, he'd prepped the back bar and cleaned up every bit of the glass and mess-good guy and great employer that he was-so that Clint could have it easy when he opened. Now, at least, he was close to ready, albeit two hours late, as he unlocked the front door and flicked on the open sign.

  As sometimes happened, a man was waiting just outside and pushed open the door while Holiday went around the bar. The man, a wiry Asian of some kind, was seated by the time the two men were face to face, a cocktail napkin down on the bar between them. "Morning," Holiday said. "What can I get you?"

  "How about a beer?"

  "Bottled? Draft? We got Sam Adams and Anchor Steam."

  "Which one's colder?"

  "Anchor," Holiday said, naming the city's own brew. "It's lived here longer so it's had more time to chill. But you sure you want cold today? There's plenty of that outside."

  But the play had run out. "Anchor's good," the customer said.

  Holiday turned and grabbed a glass from the refrigerator, tipped it up against the Anchor spigot and drew off the pint. Coming back to the bar, he noticed a twenty dollar bill in the gutter, the man's wallet out on the pitted wood. the change.

  He put the beer down carefully. "I told the guys who came by yesterday that I wasn't talking to you without my lawyer here. I'm still not. You want me to call him?"

  "I'm off duty and I've got the world's simplest question, I promise. Whatever answer you give me, I drink my beer and go home and get some sleep."

  For some reason-Clint's absence, or this man's easy manner, or even his own fatigue at having his guard up all the time-Holiday called him on it. "Okay. What the hell? One," he said.

  "Where were you last night at midnight?"

  Holiday actually laughed out loud. "That's it? That's the one question? We could play this all day. I was here, and by here I mean right here"-he tapped the bar twice- "tending this twenty-two feet of antiquated glulam with dedication and some might even say panache."

  "So you had customers? People you knew?"

  "Six or eight at least. But I just gave you another question."

  "Two actually," Thieu said. He lifted his glass and, closing his eyes, drained half of it. "Great beer," he said. Then, "Thank you."

  He picked up his wallet, got off his stool, and walked to the door, where he stopped and turned again. "Keep the change."

  *****

  The evidence bonanza that was the Terry/Wills apartment was almost enough to overcome the revulsion felt by both Cuneo and Russell when they had first arrived and taken in the appalling scene. Thieu had still been there with them, of course. They didn't know it, but Gerson had overruled his request, based on Faro's theory of the case, that on reflection he should remain the inspector of record. Thieu didn't argue with the lieutenant, but simply hung around until all three inspectors signed off on the release of the bodies to the medical examiner's with a great sense of relief.

  Once the overwhelming presence of the corpses was removed, and Thieu had gone, Faro and the other members of the CSI unit began walking the two new inspectors through the masses of evidence they'd acquired and bagged in plastic. Cuneo and Russell were both tightly focused and slightly flushed with the successful results of the ballistics test they had finally shepherded through the crime lab. That test, performed on two remarkably undamaged slugs, had conclusively shown that Sam Silverman and Matt Creed had been shot with the same. 38 caliber weapon.

  And now, among other items, they were looking at just such a gun, a Smith amp; Wesson revolver with its serial number filed off, found under a pile of socks in the bureau drawer in the bedroom. Two empty bullet casings remained in the cylinder with four live rounds. Additionally, the same drawer yielded a box of. 38 ammunition minus eight shells, a stack of bills of various denominations-$2440 in all- each one marked with a small red dot in the upper right-hand corner. Wade Panos and Sadie Silverman, both and separately in their respective interviews, had mentioned this habit of Silverman's, red-dotting the bills he'd be depositing.

  When they had nearly finished-Faro had already gone home for the day without burdening the new inspectors with his theory of the case-Cuneo had an idea and went to the bedroom closet. The CSI team had already looked inside it and found nothing, then had reclosed the door. Of course, the clothes the two victims had been wearing were already bagged and tagged, but Cuneo had read Thieu's report on the Creed crime scene and had something specific in mind. He wasn't a minute looking before he stopped humming "Bolero" and turned back to the room. "Lincoln, get me another bag, would you? Good-sized."

  He came out holding a pair of large shoes. They were nicely made, expensive-looking loafers of light brown braided leather wi
th a tassle. The soles were worn smooth, but there was some gunk-still tacky-stuck where the heel started, a little more around the edge, on the right one. "If this is what I think it is," Cuneo said, "we got this thing wrapped up."

  As it turned out, they didn't need the analysis of the garbage effluent. This time the two inspectors of record didn't email the lab and request that someone drive up to the Hall and pick up their new evidence. They had the gun- the probable murder weapon-and, since they hadn't been back to the Hall to return the earlier slugs to the evidence locker, they had possession of them, too. So they had another hamburger lunch at Dago Mary's while the lab fired the gun and compared this new bullet to the earlier rounds.

  By one o'clock, they were back uptown talking to Gerson in his office. Ten minutes after that, they appeared in the chambers of Judge Oscar Thomasino, a venerable presence on the bench, who was on his lunch break from the trial over which he was presiding. This was his week as duty judge, which meant he was the person responsible for approving search warrants, and he was already well disposed to both Cuneo and Russell. The DNA evidence that had led to the arrest of the alleged rapist and murderer Shawon Ellerson last week had come from a search conducted by these two inspectors at the suspect's apartment, and Thomasino had signed off on the warrant for that search.

  He got up from his desk and the paperwork on it and ushered the two men over to a small seating area by the room's one window. "You boys are having yourselves quite a week," he said.

  Russell nodded soberly. It never did to gloat. "We're getting a few breaks, your honor. That's true."

  "It's funny how breaks come to the good cops. I've noticed a definite correlation."