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

by Kellerman, Faye

  “How’s the investigation going?”

  “Step by step.” Decker chose his words carefully. “Rina, I love our decision to move east. I love living in a clean environment. I love being close to the kids, and I don’t even mind the cold. I hope the homicide is a weird thing and I return to recovering stolen iPads and rescuing cats from trees. I don’t need the thrill of the case to be happy.”

  “But what you’re doing right now feels natural, right?”

  “I guess it takes time to decompress.”

  “This case is basically feeding crack to an addict.”

  Decker laughed. “I’m slipping into all my old bad habits. No sleep and too much coffee.”

  “At least you don’t smoke anymore. How’s the kid working out? Or is he even in the picture?”

  “Better than I thought . . . once we jumped a couple of hurdles.”

  “I heard that,” McAdams said.

  Decker covered his phone. “We’re talking about the Summer Olympics. Hurdles are my favorite event.” He returned to the phone. “Give Cindy, Koby, and the boys my love. Tell them I promise I’ll visit real soon.”

  “Do you really want to tell them that you promise?”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Melancholy slipped into Decker’s voice. “Maybe just give them my love and we’ll leave it at that.”

  “I’VE MADE OUT a schedule for Lance Terry so we can check out his alibis.” Decker pushed the list across the desk over to McAdams. “Make a few copies. It shouldn’t take too long to verify everything.”

  “Do you want me to check out the alibi first or to talk to the administration when it opens?”

  “Maybe, neither. Maybe one of the other guys can do it.”

  “Still don’t trust me?”

  “I might need you for something else.”

  “Like?”

  Decker handed him a phone number on a scrap of paper. “This is the only number that I could find for John Jeffrey Latham in the Boston area. Give him a call.”

  “Sure.” McAdams did. “Voice mail. Should I leave a message?”

  “Give it here.” Decker waited for the beep and then pressed the hash mark to go past the instructions. “This is Peter Decker of Greenbury Police Department. Can you please call me back as soon as possible? It’s important.” He left his cell number, the station number, and then he hung up. “It’s seven in the morning. Where could he be without his cell?”

  “Sleeping in bed.”

  “You of the information highway generation have your cell phones glued to your hands. The call should have woken him up. Try again in five minutes. Leave your cell number. Then he’ll have two numbers to not call.”

  Five minutes later, on the dot, McAdams called and left his own voice mail. Decker was scribbling out his thoughts. “Can I have Angeline’s phone bill from last month?”

  “Sure.” McAdams slid it across the desk.

  Decker’s eyes scanned the list. He gave it back to McAdams. “Do you see Latham’s number anywhere?”

  “Uh . . . no, I do not.”

  “Do you see any 617 area code numbers?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “What are the other Massachusetts area codes?”

  “If my memory is still intact, which I can’t promise after being up for almost twenty-four hours, it has 857 and 781 . . . uh, why don’t I just look it up?”

  “Before you do, what’s the point I am making?”

  “That she made no calls to the Boston area.”

  “Which means?”

  “Either Latham and Boston are dead ends or she had another cell phone.”

  “And why would it make sense for her to have another cell phone?”

  “If she was doing something illegal, she wouldn’t want a paper record of it.”

  “So what’s our next step?”

  “Search her place and see if we can find the other cell phone, which we won’t find. Because if she was doing something illegal, she was using a disposable phone.”

  “Which means?”

  “We won’t be able to recover either a phone bill or a phone number.”

  “So what’s our next step?”

  McAdams sat back in his chair. “She had to buy the disposable phones somewhere. We need to hit the local phone stores.”

  “Tyler, you are truly worthy of your Harvard B.A.”

  “How about my two-hundred-thousand-dollar-plus tuition?”

  Before Decker could answer, Mike Radar stepped into the station house. Clearly it had been a long time since the captain had worked through the night. Fatigue was etched into his face, sorrow in his eyes. “What’s up?”

  Decker said, “We’re making a little headway. Did you get a coroner?”

  “A CI came down from Boston. It’s hard to find an exact time of death because of the decomp of the body. Remember, the room was very hot. His best guess is that Angeline probably died sometime on Sunday night. There were ligature marks on her throat—also marks on her feet and wrists. Most likely it was strangulation, but we won’t know for sure until the autopsy is done. The doc couldn’t see any petechiae on her face because it was too bloated.”

  “Could she tell if the hyoid was broken?”

  “No, but the CI thinks she saw cigarette burns on the body. She couldn’t tell if that was done before or after she died. Her name is Bonnie McFee.” Radar handed him a card. “In case you want to talk to her directly.”

  “What’s a CI?” McAdams asked.

  “Coroner’s investigator,” Decker said. “They are usually laypeople with some medical experience, like an EMT or a nurse. In big cities, they’re the ones called out to take care of the bodies and get them to someone who’s qualified to do an autopsy. Police can’t touch the bodies until they’ve been seen by someone from the coroner’s office.” To Radar. “What about forensics?”

  “Boston’s Crime Laboratory Unit came in about an hour ago. Ben and Kevin are holding the fort. Feel free to talk to whoever you want.”

  Decker’s phone buzzed. He looked down at the text. “It’s Angeline’s parents. They’re in southern Maryland, checked into a motel last night. They’ll be here around eleven.” He thought a moment. “Give me a minute to text them back.” When Decker was done, he turned back to Radar. “Has the body already gone north?”

  “Yes. They took it back to Boston. And with the city’s murder rate, it might sit in the morgue for a couple of days. Now it’s your turn. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Decker gave him the story with as much detail as he could remember. The captain digested the information. Then he said, “So Lance Terry was stalking her?”

  “I’m not sure if it was stalking or more like boredom. The next step is checking out Lance’s timeline. If he was where he said he was, he was alibied pretty much all weekend.”

  “So he’s out of the picture once we verify his alibi.”

  “More or less. Can Kevin do the verification? I can fill him in on everything.”

  “Any reason why you don’t want to do it yourself?”

  “I want to track down John Latham. I haven’t reached him and that makes me feel uneasy.”

  “We called him twice,” McAdams said. “Once Decker left a message and then I made a follow-up call. He’s not answering his cell.”

  Decker looked at his watch. “Boston’s about an hour and a half from here by car?”

  “Probably two hours in this traffic.”

  “What about the train?” Decker asked.

  “You have to go to Islewhite.”

  Decker’s mind was whirling. “Let me see if I . . .” He dialed the cell number associated with his most recent text. A woman answered the phone. “Hi, this is Peter Decker of Greenbury Police.”

  “It’s Karen Bronson, Detective. I’m sorry we’re so late
. . . we just had to crash last night . . . it was too long a drive and we were both so exhausted.”

  “No, no, no, you did the right thing.” Decker cleared his throat. “So you’re planning on being here around eleven?”

  “More like twelve . . . twelve-thirty. We’re getting a late start.”

  “Okay.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No, it’s perfectly fine. We’ve been talking to a few of Angeline’s friends and I do have a couple of questions for you. Could I ask them now?”

  A sigh. “Go ahead.” A pause. “Of course.”

  “Are you familiar with the name John Latham?” Silence. “Does it ring any bells?”

  A pause. “I don’t know the name . . . hold on, I’ll ask Jim.” Muffled voices and then she came back on the line. “Neither of us knows him. Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. He came up in conjunction with Angeline. I was just wondering if she mentioned him to you.”

  “No, she didn’t. Is he important?”

  “Anyone associated with Angeline is important. I think he may live in a suburb outside of Boston. Did your daughter make weekend trips to Boston?”

  “I have no idea. She kept in touch with us, but she rarely spoke about her private life and I . . . didn’t pry. I probably should have.”

  Decker heard the sorrow in her voice. “She was a legal adult. You couldn’t have stopped her anyway.” No response. “Okay, if he becomes important, I’ll let you know. A few more questions. I found out from Julia Kramer that Angeline was studying eighteenth-century textiles. She was writing her thesis on the subject.”

  “That’s correct. Textiles are her first love. In high school, she did a lot of textile design on her own. She painted material by hand. She taught herself batik and laser print. She experimented with lots of different materials.”

  “Is that why she chose Littleton College?”

  “Yes, of course. They have a wonderful art department. And she got a great scholarship. She deserved every penny they gave her. She’s a one of a kind, very gifted . . .” There was a sob. “She was, very, very talented.”

  “I’d like to hear more about that. It helps me get a feel for who she was. Did she focus on textile design? Or was she talented at other things: drawing, painting—”

  “Of course she could draw and paint. But she was excited by . . . how did she phrase it? She liked elevating crafts into works of art. Like her textile designs. She used to call it wearable art.”

  “What other crafts did she like?”

  “I don’t think Angeline ever met a craft she didn’t like: weaving, macramé, papier-mâché, stained glass, pottery, glass blowing—”

  “Stained glass?”

  “Yes, she was very good at it. She started at around fourteen. I didn’t relish the idea of her using knives and working with shards of glass, but she was careful. I think she only cut herself a couple of times.”

  “It’s an unusual hobby.”

  “With Angeline, the more unusual the better.”

  “Any idea why she took up stained glass?”

  “Like I said, she loved anything artistic and unusual. She was influenced by a woman named Clara Driscoll who worked at Louis Comfort Tiffany Studio—the lamp guy. She told me that the best designs were actually done by her and not by Tiffany even though he put his name on them. That appealed to her as an artist and a woman. Why are you asking about her art?”

  “Just trying to get a feel for your daughter. It may be significant down the road.”

  “Whatever I can do to help.” Her voice cracked. “Ask your questions, Detective.”

  Decker said, “Mrs. Bronson—”

  “Karen, please.”

  “Karen then. I wouldn’t bring this up unless I thought it was important, so please forgive me in advance.”

  “What . . .” Anguish in her voice. “Was she pregnant?”

  “Did she intimate that to you?”

  “No . . . I mean just the way you’re talking . . . was she pregnant?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I haven’t gotten the report back.”

  Her voice grew very soft. “How did she die?”

  “I won’t know anything definite until I get the report.”

  “Do you have any ideas?”

  “Nothing I want to talk about over the phone. I do have another question for you. Please don’t take it personally. Before she was murdered, Angeline had acquired a collection of expensive handbags and designer shoes. Would you know anything about that?”

  “No.” A long pause. “How expensive?”

  “Bags over a thousand dollars and exclusive designer boots.”

  “Oh my Lord . . . I . . . no, I don’t know anything about it.”

  “That’s all I wanted to know. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “She couldn’t afford . . . maybe Lance Terry bought her gifts. He comes from money.”

  “We asked him. He didn’t buy them. He did tell me that they broke up a year ago.”

  “They did, but I thought they remained friends.”

  That jibed with what Emily and Julia had said about Lance, that he had made booty calls to Angeline. “Any idea how she might have acquired those items?”

  “No idea at all. She didn’t have that kind of money. Did . . . did she have an older man paying for these items? Is that who this Latham character is?”

  “The Latham I’m investigating is in his thirties and appears too poor to afford those kinds of accessories. I’m not even sure what his relationship is to your daughter. He isn’t answering his phone, so I’d like to pay him a visit.”

  “Is there a problem with that?”

  “Latham lives in the Boston area, which is about an hour and a half from Greenbury without traffic. If I go visit him, I might not make it back before you get here. Would you like me to wait for you? There are other things I could do in the meantime.”

  “How important is this Latham?”

  “I feel he’s very important. And there are things I need to do in Boston. We’re too small to handle the lab work. The captain wanted it done correctly, so Boston sent out a team.”

  She cleared her throat, but her voice choked up. “Where is . . . the body?”

  “In Boston.”

  There was a long pause. “Shouldn’t we meet you in Boston? After all, you’re not certain that it’s her, right?”

  “Karen, we can do the identification with a simple cheek swab.”

  “But I want to say good-bye!” Anger in her voice. “I need to say good-bye!”

  “Karen, please give it a few days. Then you can give her a proper burial.”

  Her voice was a whisper. “You don’t want me to see the body.”

  “It isn’t necessary to put you through that anguish. I’ll be back down by late afternoon. We’ll get a DNA profile. And I’ll tell you everything I know.” There was a long silence. “Karen, are you still with me?”

  “Go to Boston, Detective. Don’t let us stop you from doing your job.”

  “I’ll try to make it back as soon as I can.”

  “We’ll wait. We’ll wait as long as it takes. As long as it takes for you to get back and as long as it takes to get some answers.”

  CHAPTER 14

  MCADAMS SIPPED COFFEE from a paper cup while staring out the passenger window. Decker was behind the wheel. It was in the high twenties outside, but the skies were clear. It made for easy driving even with arid heat blasting in their faces.

  “Any specific reason why you asked me to come with you?” the kid said.

  “Why do you think?”

  “You know you always answer my questions with another question.”

  “It’s effective in getting people to talk. So why did I ask you to come?”

  “I’ve be
en mulling several options in my head.” He ticked them off. “I’m keeping you awake so you don’t fall asleep at the wheel, I can drive home in case you do get too sleepy, you want me close so I don’t fuck something up in your absence, or maybe, just maybe, I may actually be of some use to the investigation and you value my opinions.”

  “Bang on the money, Harvard.”

  “Admit it, Old Man. I’m growing on you.”

  “Mea culpa.”

  “Yeah, I’m kind of like lutefisk: strictly an acquired taste.” McAdams put the coffee cup in the holder and rubbed his hands together. “I could tell by your conversation with the mom that Angeline did stained glass. So that makes her a strong candidate for the Tiffany forgeries. The thefts must have something to do with her murder.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are you just being cagey or is that a sincere maybe.”

  “This is what I think. The thefts weren’t what caused her problems . . . it was you and me uncovering the thefts. Someone wanted to silence her. But do I really believe that someone would murder over a few Tiffany panels? Doubtful. We’re dealing with something bigger . . . no offense to Tiffany . . . or Clara Driscoll.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Karen Bronson, Angeline’s mother, told me that Angeline like stained glass because Clara Driscoll, a woman who worked for Tiffany, actually made a lot of the designs.”

  “Hold on, let me look her up.” McAdams took out his iPhone. “It may take a minute. I think we’re in a dead zone.” He looked up. “For the phone, I mean. My brain, that’s another story . . . what’s it going on without sleep? Like thirty hours? How do you think, let alone stay awake?”

  “That’s why I brought you here, Harvard.”

  “I’m a fancified alarm clock. Okay, here we go. Wikipedia at its finest.” McAdams paused while he read. “Clara Driscoll was indeed the head designer for Tiffany and worked there for twenty years. She chose the colors and the type of glass and designed some of his most famous lamps. Before her, the designs were more symmetrical and static. Her first design was the Daffodil, but she is also known for the Wisteria, the Dragonfly, and the Peony. She was given her just due when the New York Historical Society gave her an exhibition in 2006 entitled ‘A New Light on Tiffany.’ ”