Once Nancy wrestled the phone back from Saul, she said, “I was thinking maybe you could make a vacation out of it, come see the family. It’s been a long time since you were here last.”
He parked in his assigned space and turned off the car, picking up his phone as the Bluetooth connection was severed. “I’d rather not.”
She didn’t respond right away, because she knew why Levi hated going back to New Jersey. It stirred up memories they all tried hard to forget. Plus, he didn’t like being around his sister; Abby had never said outright to his face that he was to blame for the assault, but she’d heavily insinuated it in the months afterward. The damage that had done to their relationship was irreparable.
“You and Dad could come out here instead,” he said, feeling guilty. He did miss them. “Once it cools off, I mean. Maybe after the High Holy Days?”
“That would be nice.” Her voice perked up. “And it would give us a chance to meet that new young man of yours. I bet he’s what’s got you so distracted.”
“Oh my God,” said Levi, who hadn’t thought through the implications of his invitation.
“Well, I’ll let you go—I’m sure you’re tired. We love you, bubbeleh. Stay safe.”
“Love you too.” Levi hung up, stowed his phone in his pocket, and grabbed his bag.
In his apartment, he showered off the stress of the day and changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt. He hadn’t slept much the night before, he was exhausted, and he knew it would be another long day tomorrow. Still, instead of going to bed like he should, he found himself drawn to the dining area and the armoire that hid his work on the Seven of Spades.
He opened the double doors, recalling the gut-wrenching moment when he’d caught Dominic standing here with a look of utter horror on his face. Levi had seen himself through Dominic’s eyes then—a morbid freak obsessed with a serial killer everyone believed to be dead—and he’d recoiled from that image of himself. He’d been so sure that Dominic would be disgusted; he’d frozen inside and out, prepared to reject Dominic first if necessary.
But Dominic had only given him empathy and support. He’d expressed concern, yes, but he’d also offered his help. Levi could spit on that kindness by wrecking himself staying up half the night indulging his obsession, or he could respect it by taking care of himself and getting a full night’s sleep.
“Not tonight, Satan,” Levi said to the armoire. He closed the doors, shutting away the blood-soaked images and frantically scribbled notes.
“It’s no wonder Hensley was murdered,” Martine said the next morning, looking up from her stack of papers. “I’d kind of like to go back in time and kill him myself.”
“You’re not kidding,” Levi muttered. They’d spent the last two hours absorbed in printouts of every email and text message Hensley had sent and received over the past six months, and just reading this stuff made him feel the urgent need to shower.
Clarissa Northridge had undersold what a horrible man her husband had been. She’d used the words “abrasive” and “challenging”; Levi would have gone more with “vicious, hateful son of a bitch.” His conversations with everyone he knew, from colleagues to students to family members, were bitter and rancorous, peppered with vile profanity and aggressive insults that crossed the line into straight-up verbal abuse. Though electronic communication with his wife was sparse, what little existed was so disrespectful Levi couldn’t believe she’d never sought a divorce. And the guy’s poor son was probably going to be in therapy for the rest of his life.
Sitting back in his chair, Levi said, “This isn’t going to help us with motive. I wouldn’t be surprised if a whole group of people got together to cook up a conspiracy to kill this guy.”
“Hmm. Did you see this, though? Look at the way he communicates with Dr. Kapoor.”
Martine pushed a pile of papers toward him. He flipped through them and then shook his head, giving her a questioning glance.
“He’s way less gross with her than he is with everyone else.” She tapped the top page. “He rarely curses, and he never insults her intelligence or competency, which is his go-to with all the other people in his life.”
Levi took a second look at the printouts. Martine had a point—Hensley’s texts and emails to Kapoor were still obnoxious, and nothing Levi would tolerate himself, but they were markedly different from his other conversations.
“They were research partners. Maybe it went against his best interests to be nasty to her.” He caught the look on Martine’s face and said, “You think they were sleeping together?”
“Why not?”
“Because . . .” Levi struggled to explain why the idea triggered such a deep aversion in him. “He may have been less terrible with her, but this is still not the way you treat another human being. I don’t understand why anyone would sleep with a man like this unless they were being paid for it.”
“There’s no accounting for taste.” Martine shrugged. “Is Dr. Kapoor married?”
Levi closed his eyes, thinking back to their brief meeting in the interview room. Kapoor had been wearing a wedding ring, a simple platinum band with no stones. “Yeah.”
“So there’s a number of possible motives. She got tired of him screwing around with call girls and decided to put a stop to it. Or she tried to end things, and he threatened to tell her husband. Or he tried to end it, and she wasn’t having that.”
“Normally, I’d be on board,” Levi said, “but I don’t think it was her. She’s one of the few people who has a strong alibi—surveillance cameras have her well-documented all over the casino floor until almost three. Technically within the window for Hensley’s time of death, but not smart if she was planning to frame a woman who left two hours earlier. And there’s no way she could have slipped out of sight long enough before that to kill Hensley without it being noticeable in the security footage.”
Martine pursed her lips. “That’s probably true. Still, it won’t hurt to ask her about it when you meet her later. It might rattle something else loose.”
“Valcourt, Abrams!”
Levi and Martine looked up as their immediate superior, Sergeant James Wen, strode into the bullpen from his office. Wen had the military bearing of an ex-Marine, and he was always impeccably dressed and clean-shaven no matter the time of day or night.
“Got a new case for you,” he said, stopping at their adjoining desks. “Homicide at a home in Copper Crest.”
Levi exchanged a puzzled glance with Martine. They weren’t next in the rotation, which meant—
“There’s a possible connection to the Hensley murder.”
“How so, sir?” Martine asked.
“The victim was working the front desk at the Mirage the night Hensley was killed,” Wen said.
The crime scene was an attractive Southwestern ranch in a suburban housing tract northwest of the Strip. Levi made note of the Mercedes parked in the driveway as he and Martine walked up.
Hanna Ostrowski, the responding officer, met them at the front door. “Victim’s name is Alan Walsh,” she said while they put on their protective equipment. “Twenty-four. His girlfriend found him this morning—he hadn’t been answering her texts all night, and she came over to confront him. Thought he might be cheating.”
“Yeah, that’s going around,” Levi said under his breath.
Ostrowski blinked but didn’t comment. Leading them deeper into the house, she said, “The coroner investigator isn’t here yet, but the cause of death is pretty obvious.”
Walsh lay awkwardly crumpled on his back near the desk in his living room, one arm flung out to the side. He was a short, chubby white man—literally white now, because he’d died of massive blood loss. No visible lividity at all.
“I know this guy,” Martine said. “I talked to him on Sunday when I was questioning the hotel staff who’d worked the night of Hensley’s death.” She whistled as she circled around the body. “One direct stab to the carotid artery. From behind, judging by the blood spatter a
nd the way the body fell. Either the killer got in a lucky hit or they knew exactly where to aim.”
“Like a doctor would?” Levi said grimly.
No attempt had been made to conceal the murder weapon, a steak knife with a fancy engraved pewter handle. It had been left on the floor next to Walsh’s body, still caked with blood. Walsh had a scratch across his forehead, though no bleeding or bruising—he must have sustained the injury after he’d been stabbed. Rigor mortis had fully set in, so he’d been dead for at least twelve hours unless there were complicating factors at work.
The Chopard watch on Walsh’s wrist caught Levi’s eye, and he frowned. “You’re sure his girlfriend didn’t live here with him?” he asked Ostrowski.
“Positive. He lived alone.”
“This is a nice house.” Levi gestured around the room. “Expensive furniture, top-of-the-line electronics, a Mercedes out front . . . how much do hotel desk clerks make?”
“Not enough to afford this lifestyle alone,” said Martine. “Family money?”
“Detectives, I’ve got something here,” one of the CSIs said. She was crouched a few feet away, passing a handheld forensic light source over the floor. When Levi and Martine joined her, she pointed to a fluorescing stain on the carpet. “Traces of recent vomit. Someone tried to clean it up, but they didn’t do a thorough job. There may be enough for useable DNA.”
Martine made a face and backed away. Levi had once seen her help a gunshot victim hold in his intestines with her bare hands, but she couldn’t stand even the discussion of vomit.
“Has to be the killer’s,” Levi said. “That’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
“I don’t disagree, but why would the killer throw up?”
Levi moved to the far side of the room and took in the scene as a whole, envisioning the sequence of events. Walsh had been standing right in front of the desk—looking at something on the surface, or maybe using the computer—and the killer had taken him by surprise from behind, jamming the knife into his carotid artery and quickly withdrawing it and stepping away.
Walsh would have instinctively grabbed for his throat, though it wouldn’t have done any good. He may have managed to stay on his feet for a few seconds, but then he’d fallen to his knees, banging his forehead on the edge of the desk, and collapsed backward with his legs still tangled up underneath him. His death had been almost immediate.
Then . . . what? The killer had dropped the knife, stumbled away, and vomited.
“They weren’t prepared for the way it felt,” Levi said. “If this is the same person who killed Hensley . . . poisoning is totally different from stabbing. Using a knife is one of the most personal, visceral ways to murder a person. The killer was disgusted by it.”
“This definitely wasn’t your usual passionate stabbing, that’s for sure,” Martine said, examining the body more closely. “Just the singular wound, no other incisions or serious damage to the body. The murder weapon must have been a matter of necessity rather than personal preference. Why, though? There must be a stronger connection between Walsh and Hensley than just being at the Mirage on the same night, but what?”
Neither of them had an answer for that question, so they split up. Levi rifled through the desk while Martine went to search the bedroom—both good potential hiding spots for any secrets Walsh may have had. He inspected the papers littering the surface, careful not to disturb the body as he moved, but it was just bills and junk mail. His jaw dropped when he saw the charges on Walsh’s MasterCard. Either Walsh had been living far beyond his means and was deeply in debt, or he had some other source of income.
The computer was silent, the monitor dark, so Levi had assumed it was turned off. When he crouched to search the desk’s bottom drawers, however, he came face-to-face with the dim orange light on the computer tower. It was just in sleep mode.
Straightening up, he nudged the mouse with the tip of his gloved finger. As the computer stirred back to life, he sent up a short prayer that it wouldn’t require a password.
For once, luck was on his side. The computer simply returned to the previous session in progress on the desktop. A folder had been left open, full of dozens of subfolders that were all named with strings of numbers in no obvious pattern.
He opened the first subfolder, trying to handle the mouse as little as possible. It contained a bunch of JPEG files with blank thumbnails, similarly titled with numbers. He clicked the slideshow button.
The first image popped up on the screen, and he sucked in a breath.
Though the lighting was dim, he recognized the interior design of the hallways at the Mirage. An older woman dressed to the nines and dripping in precious jewels was wrapped around a gorgeous man who couldn’t have been older than twenty, kissing him fervidly. The slideshow continued, displaying a series of photographs documenting their groping, borderline obscene progress down the hallway until they disappeared into a room.
Levi navigated back to the original folder and repeated the process with the second subfolder. This time, the pictures had been taken in one of the Mirage’s lounges. A man in a killer Balenciaga suit discreetly accepted a small baggie of pills from another man and passed him a wad of folded bills in return.
“Holy shit,” Levi said, and then shouted, “Martine!”
She emerged from the bedroom with a small lockbox under one arm. “Look what I found under Walsh’s bed—whoa. What’s that?”
“Being a front desk clerk may not pay well, but blackmail sure as hell does.” He showed her the first folder. “Walsh has been spying on the Mirage’s wealthy guests and blackmailing them with their indiscretions; that’s how he pays for all this. There are files here going back a couple of years. I bet when we run his financials we find a history of suspicious deposits for the same time period.”
Her eyes wide, she said, “He knew who killed Hensley.”
“And tried to leverage that information for a price. I’m thinking the same thing.”
“What kind of idiot tries to blackmail someone who’s already proven they’re willing to commit murder? Dumbass.” Martine looked at Walsh’s body, winced, and crossed herself. “Ah, no disrespect.”
“Walsh was standing at the desk with this folder open on the computer when he was killed. There’s no signs of forced entry or struggle; he invited the killer inside.”
“Yeah, to show them whatever evidence he had,” she said. “I would have done the same thing—asked to see it in person so I would be able to get rid of it once Walsh was dead.”
“Even if the files we want have been deleted, which seems likely, Carmen may be able to recover them.” Levi pointed to the box Martine was carrying. “What’ve you got?”
“No idea. Let’s find out.”
One quick snip with a pair of bolt cutters, and they got the lockbox open. Its only contents were a portable hard drive.
Levi and Martine’s eyes met as they let out simultaneous noises of triumph. “Let’s hope Walsh had the sense to back up his files before letting a murderer into his house,” he said.
Dominic’s phone rang during the drive to Dr. Tran’s office. He pressed the Answer button on his dashboard and said, “Hey, Jasmine.”
“Hey, Dom. My dad just texted me about the cookout this weekend—he wants to know if Levi keeps kosher.”
“Not completely. He doesn’t eat pork or shellfish, but those are the only dietary rules he usually follows. He doesn’t need separate cooking utensils or anything.”
“It wouldn’t be a problem if he did,” said Jasmine. “You know how my family is. We’re like the freaking United Nations.”
Dominic chuckled. Jasmine was multiracial—her father was black and her mother half white, half Paiute Tribe—so her extended family was diverse in itself. But in addition to Jasmine and her two biological siblings, her parents had fostered more than twenty kids over the past two decades, all just as much a part of the family as those who had been born or married into it. As a whole, her family inclu
ded more than a dozen ethnicities and national origins, five different major religions, and seven spoken languages.
“Anyway,” she continued, “we’re really glad Levi can come. My parents are looking forward to meeting him.”
“It was nice of them to invite him.”
Her smile was audible when she said, “I told them I’ve never seen you like this with any other guy.”
“Levi’s special,” Dominic said absently, concentrating more on merging into the exit lane than the conversation.
Her soft laugh crackled over the speakers. “I know. Well, I’ve gotta run, but I’ll talk to you later.”
They said their goodbyes, and Dominic arrived at his destination a few minutes later.
Dr. Angela Tran’s psychiatry practice was west of the city, on a street where various professionals’ offices were clustered together in buildings that looked like attractive residential townhouses. Dominic had been here once before while searching for leads on the Seven of Spades; there was a private mailbox franchise less than a quarter mile away that the killer had used in their plot to frame Keith Chapman.
This time, he had left Rebel at home. He parallel parked his truck at the curb and mounted the steps to the front door, where he pressed a buzzer to be allowed inside.
The waiting room was what he’d expected—calm and quiet, furnished like a comfortable living room with the exception of the thick glass enclosing the receptionist’s desk. Bland landscapes hung on the wall next to poster advertisements for various psychotropic drugs.
Seasonal Affective Disorder got you down? read one with a picture of a beaming woman cuddling a dog in a meadow. Ask your doctor about Hybitram today! A Solantia product.
Nobody was waiting in the seating arrangement of a few plush loveseats clustered around a coffee table, which had been spruced up with some potted flowers and a little Zen garden. An end table held a pile of magazines along with a display of drug pamphlets. One quick scan proved they were all manufactured by Solantia Pharmaceuticals.
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