Murder 101: A Decker/Lazarus Novel (Decker/Lazarus Novels Book 22)

by Kellerman, Faye

  Decker picked up his miniburger and managed not to eat the entire thing in one bite. “You’re right. There is work I can do here and an extra day wouldn’t hurt. I’ll call Mike. I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Decker said. “But let me tell you something, woman. If there’s a cat in a tree that doesn’t make it because Tyler’s too lazy, I’m going to put the blame squarely on your shoulders.”

  AFTER SEEING RINA off, Decker made several phone calls while sitting on a park bench. Temperatures had climbed to the high thirties with no wind: practically spring climate compared to the icy conditions and gray skies in Greenbury. The fresh air felt bracing on his face and woke him from his usual afternoon torpor.

  His aim was to narrow the playing field by crossing off as many members of the Sobel family as he could. First to go were the distant relatives who had professed ignorance about the family mausoleum in Greenbury. Next, he spoke to those who did know of the mausoleum’s existence but had never stepped foot in the town. All their claims were verified by quick calls to Ken Sobel. Then he called up Katy Mendel—the jewelry buyer for Max Stewart. She also seemed to be a straight arrow. His leads were disappearing as he checked off each name on his list.

  He’d been sitting for over an hour and the chill was starting to get to him. He walked back to his car, cranked up the heat, and spoke from his office on wheels, ignoring the honks and the pleading eyes of motorists aching for his parking spot.

  The most interesting group was close family members: those who had been at the funeral last summer and probably knew about the expensive glass panels inside the vault. On the surface, they seemed like poor candidates for hands-on criminal enterprise. Most of them appeared to have the trappings of wealth: good jobs, stable marriages, and tony addresses. When questioned, they seemed appalled by the thefts and even more outraged that he was looking at them with a detective’s eye.

  Between phone calls and interviews with the family, the Met and Emanu-El were perfect places to visit with Rina. The museum was open until six. The temple was open tomorrow between ten and four and visitors were welcome without an appointment. Then it was off to Philadelphia to see Cindy, Koby, and the kids.

  It was close to six in the evening when Decker headed back to Brooklyn for the family dinner. He was also starved so he hoped that wherever Rachel and Sammy had chosen, the place believed in large portions. The minihamburgers had long been digested, leaving a raw ache inside his stomach. At this point it was all about quantity rather than quality. As he drove, he started thinking about the theft, wondering if McAdams had dug up anything since the last time they spoke.

  Arriving in Brooklyn at the kids’ apartment, he was tired and grumpy, but the baby’s smile cheered him up. Soon the space began to shrink as the crowd grew. It was wonderful to see everyone. There were hugs, kisses, and lots of laughter and that was before dinner. Finally, everybody was assembled and Rachel had finished giving the babysitter last-minute instructions. The brood stepped out into the cold night air, Decker’s children walking ahead, catching up with one another’s lives. They talked about movies, songs, and television series that left Decker in the dark.

  “Do you know what they’re talking about?” he asked Rina.

  “Kinda. You know, we do have Netflix. You can stream a lot of series. That means you watch them all at once.”

  “I know what streaming is, Ms. Flipphone.”

  “It serves me perfectly well. All I do is make calls and text. Why should I get a new one, especially in a small town where we don’t need an app to know every single gas station or movie theater within a thirty-mile radius.”

  Decker felt his own smartphone vibrate. Without checking the caller, he let the call go to voice mail. He watched his kids joke around with each other. “We did something right. They all seem to get along.” His phone vibrated again. He took it out of his coat pocket and checked the prefix. “It’s the police station. Probably McAdams. I should probably take this.”

  “Why are they calling so late in the evening?”

  “Yeah, that ain’t good.” He slowed his walk. “Go on with the kids. I’ll meet up with you.”

  “Do you know where the restaurant is?”

  “Actually, I have no idea.” He dithered so long that the call went to voice mail again. He debated whether or not to call back. “Whatever it is, I suppose it can wait until I get fed.”

  “That certainly is a change in your previous attitude.”

  “Yeah, the difference between being the person in charge and being a peon. Besides, how can I help? I’m three hours away.” They were almost at the entrance of the restaurant when the phone buzzed a third time.

  Rina said, “It must be important.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Go in with the family. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.” He pressed the button. “Hey, Harvard, what do you have for me?”

  “It’s not McAdams, Pete, it’s Mike Radar.”

  Decker had asked the captain for another day in Manhattan so he had expected to hear back. But not at eight in the evening. And not with the tone of voice he was using: all business.

  Mike said, “How soon can you get back here?”

  “How soon do you need?”

  “Ten minutes ago.”

  “What is it?”

  “Homicide. First real one we’ve had in twenty years and it’s nasty. It should make you feel right at home.”

  DECKER WENT BACK to Sammy’s place and grabbed the car, insisting that Rina stay in Brooklyn and visit Cindy, Koby, and the boys tomorrow. They’d be disappointed if no one made the trip, and he’d most likely be very busy for the next twenty-four hours.

  He made it back to Greenbury in two hours and fifteen minutes.

  He was famished, although he barely noticed his pangs because as soon as he pulled up in front of the apartment building, his heart began to beat in full throttle. The “crime scene” was a mess and teaming with people who didn’t belong. Nothing was taped off so everyone was tromping around the complex, destroying things like possible shoe prints and tire tracks and trace evidence.

  The neighbors were out in droves. Greenbury PD was small. Often, the guys and gals took turns doing uniform duties and detective work. So in a very short time, Decker knew the entire force by name. Stacy Steven, bundled in outerwear to protect her from the frigid temperatures, was guarding the doorway to the building. She was very young and seemed relieved when she spotted Decker. “The captain’s inside. Unit 14.”

  “Anyone else here besides you?”

  “Yeah, everyone from the department is here. Mike put me in front and told me not to let anyone in or out.”

  “When was it reported? The homicide.”

  “I don’t know. Mike called all of us down about two hours ago.” She jumped up and down and rubbed her hands together.

  “You’ve been out here for two hours?” When she nodded, Decker said, “Let’s see if we can get a change of guard. Actually we should have a few people out here, shooing away the neighbors and putting up some crime scene tape.” No response. “You do have crime scene tape.”

  “Honestly, I have no idea.” She paused. “We have traffic cones somewhere.”

  “That’ll work. Hang in, Stacy. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes with some help.” He quickly made his way up to the apartment unit, the living room stuffed with police personnel. The windows were wide open letting in the cold night air.

  Kevin Butterfield, a ten-year veteran of Greenbury, came up to him. “The body’s in the bedroom. Young and female. Probably a student at the colleges.”

  “Is this considered campus housing?”

  “It’s a little distant from the main campus, but the colleges have spread out so much over the past ten years, I really don’t know.”

  “Anyone from campus police her
e?”

  “Maybe Mike called someone down.”

  “I didn’t see any wagon outside. Has anyone from the coroner’s office been here?”

  “Mike would know.” He pointed in the direction of an open door. “There’s where all the action is.” Kevin shook his head. “This must be one hell of a welcome for you.”

  “Maybe it’s me, Kevin. I just bring sunshine and good cheer wherever I go.”

  “ANGELINE MOREAU, TWENTY-TWO, a student at Littleton.” Mike ran his hands through his hair and looked up. “That’s according to the school ID that we found in her desk. It’s kind of hard to make a definite ID because the face is distorted. We may need dental or DNA.”

  Decker was looking at the surroundings as the captain spoke. It was a brutal scene. “Did you find a purse and a cell phone?”

  “Nope . . . we looked. That immediately brings to mind a robbery, except that she had cash and jewelry in her desk. Maybe he was looking around when she surprised him by walking inside her apartment and all hell broke loose. He took her phone and her purse and made a beeline for the door.”

  Decker nodded. “Do you know if the body has been moved?”

  “I was here when the manager opened the door and I haven’t left except for a piss. Believe me, no one has touched her. Since it’s a homicide, I’m waiting for a city coroner with homicide experience, not the local doctor who certifies death.”

  “Good idea.” Decker’s eyes were on the walls: blood spatter was everywhere. There was ripped bedding and upended furniture—a battle had taken place. “Has anyone started interviewing the neighbors to find out what they heard or saw?”

  “I put Jack and Carol on it.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Mike, look at this place. It’s a war zone. There had to be plenty of bumps and thumps. We got nosy neighbors in this town. Someone must have parted their blinds.”

  “The problem is that the apartment is mostly student rented even though it’s off-campus. It’s a noisy environment—lots of parties with music blasting all the time.”

  Decker was still dubious, but he kept it to himself. He didn’t know how the captain would react to being challenged. “This is a huge mess. Do we have tech people who know forensics?”

  “We’re working on that as well.” Mike was troubled. “I want to do justice to this girl, Pete. No one wants this screwed up.”

  “We all want the same thing.” Decker stared down at the heap that once was a human being. She was already deep in a state of decomposition. “How were you notified? Did someone complain about the smell?”

  “Yep.”

  “Who opened the windows?”

  “I did. It must have been a hundred degrees inside when I got here.”

  “Okay.” Decker paused. “Someone cranked up the heat to help the body rot. Did you happen to notice the exact temperature before you opened the windows? If you take into consideration the stage of decomposition and the temperature, it might give us an idea of when she was murdered.”

  Mike looked pained. “No, I didn’t. This is what I mean by screwing things up. Can I be frank with you?”

  “Always.”

  “I can work a homicide. Ben can work a homicide. Kevin can work a homicide. But none of us has done it in years. I’m thinking about calling in reinforcements.”

  “Up to you.”

  “But then I start thinking, this is my town. I don’t want hotshots walking all over us and telling me how to handle my people. You, on the other hand, are fresh from the trenches. So if you’re up to leading, I think we should give it a go. What do you think?”

  “If this were LAPD, I’d say no problem. I could do the whole thing solo. But I am new here . . . neighbors don’t know me well . . . and we’re not exactly high tech.” Decker shrugged. “Give me twenty-four to forty-eight hours to feel everything out and I’ll let you know.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Right now, we need a police photographer.”

  “Jenny photographed every inch of the body that we can see. Like I said, we haven’t moved her.”

  “Just make sure that we have doubles and triples of everything and from every angle. It might help us down the line. How long do you think it’ll be before someone from the coroner’s office gets here, Mike?”

  “No idea. We’re in New York so it should be them. But we’re closer to Boston. I called both cities. Let’s see who shows up. And I also called CSI and Forensics. If you can think of anything else, I’m listening. Want me to close the windows?”

  “No. Keep them open. It’ll slow down the decay.” Decker thought a moment. “She was a student at Littleton—that’s the fine arts college, right?”

  “Yes, it is: arts, theater, and acting. You’re thinking about a connection to the cemetery theft?”

  “Someone was making phony stained glass. Even if it has nothing to do with the theft, we need to get a team out there to start questioning friends, teachers . . . her classmates. Find out more about who Angeline Moreau was.”

  Mike raised an eyebrow. “This is going to be an issue, Pete. It’s not that I don’t have faith in my staff. I think we’ve got a great bunch of guys and gals here. And if this was a homicide that had to do with a bar fight or a domestic or even burglary, I’d feel good about assigning any one of our people.

  “Problem is, handling the colleges is a delicate situation. We need a seasoned guy. I know you can’t be two places at once, but I can supervise the techs once they get here. I can talk to the coroner. Maybe you should do the interviewing.”

  “That’s fine. Just give me a few minutes to think. Do you have a tablet?”

  “You mean like an iPad? Not on me, but I suppose I can authorize the money.”

  “I was thinking low tech: a notebook and something I can write with.”

  Mike smiled and handed him his pad and a pencil. Decker took it and squatted next to the body.

  Angeline Moreau was fully clothed and wasn’t positioned sexually: Her pants hadn’t been pulled off and although her top had flipped up, Decker could see that her bra was clasped. There was nothing to suggest sexual assault, but a rape kit would be ordered anyway. Sometimes the killer orders the victim to put her clothing back on. Or maybe she had recent, consensual sex and that could be a lead.

  Since it was wintertime and the windows had been closed tight, there was no insect activity. No flies, no maggots, and no way to date the body using the critters. The flesh hadn’t been eaten up by external factors, but the body gases were exploding from the inside out. She had a bloated, eggplant-colored face that was shedding skin. Eyeballs had sunk into her sockets. Because of the swelling, it was hard to decipher things like ligature marks and bruises. Even things like knife wounds close up with the swelling. But Decker could discern dried blood that had leaked from the nose and a split lip. As he examined the face further, he noticed dark spots that could have been bruises.

  “Looks like she might have been punched hard in the face.” Decker stood up. He ripped out a few blank papers of the tablet and started scribbling. “This is your department and your call. But this is what I’d suggest.”

  “Please.”

  “First of all, Stacy is freezing out there. Rotate a couple of people every two hours outside so no one gets frostbite. Second, let’s cordon off the area. If you don’t have crime tape, have someone get some traffic cones and we’ll tie string around them. We need to keep whatever we have left intact. Third, get everyone out of the apartment except a few of your select chosen. Put all the rest on canvass duty. Assign them to talk to every single neighbor within a couple of blocks. If this is mostly a student apartment, the kids aren’t going to feel loyal to Greenbury so we may hit a wall of silence. There’s a dead girl here and we need to push. I’m not saying we run roughshod over the kids, but we need them to know that
we’re not going to go away. So if they know something, they’d better come forward now. No one wants to feel idiotic. Last . . .”

  He sighed and shook his head.

  “We’ve got to do a notification. It’s the proper thing to do, and maybe talking to her relatives will give us a direction.”

  Mike nodded. “I’m sure the school has the name of her parents.”

  “I know you didn’t find a cell phone. Did you find bills in her desk?”

  Mike walked over to the desk drawer and pulled it open with a gloved hand. Inside was a massive pile of paperwork. “Be my guest.”

  Decker gloved up and took out the stack. He found what he was looking for and held it up. “Her phone bill from last month . . .” Scanning down the list. “You know, let me go to the station house and I’ll start calling some of these numbers. I could use some help with that.” He looked around. “Uh, where’s McAdams?”

  “He was looking green around the gills so I sent him home.”

  “He went home?” Decker felt his fury rise. “What the hell is wrong with him?”

  “Pete, he didn’t come to the department through usual channels. The mayor put him with us as a favor to his father. He didn’t sign up for this shit, and frankly I don’t want flak from the town biggies. I told him he could leave.”

  “You are way too nice.”

  “If you need him, I’ll call him back.”

  “I don’t need him, but he needs to be here. I’ll make the call.” Decker pulled out his cell phone. “Because if I don’t see his sorry ass down at the station in fifteen minutes, he’ll have a lot more to worry about than losing his lunch.”

  CHAPTER 9

  WHILE WAITING FOR McAdams to make an appearance, Decker downloaded the photographs from Jenny’s camera to the station-house computer. She’d done a thorough job, taking dozens of pictures from all different perspectives. It gave Decker a chance to really study the body without distraction and noise since the place was basically deserted. Then he started going down the phone numbers. He picked out a few with out-of-town prefixes that were frequently called.