Closer Than Blood

by Gregg Olsen

  Under the covers in the old mahogany bed, Lainie scrolled through her e-mail messages. Her eyes were as tired as they’d ever been. Some messages—too many of them, really—were related to the job she was doing as a content provider for Media, Ink. Her production contact wanted to know if she’d be able to file an extra forty blurbs on Mexican vacation hot spots for a new site the company had recently launched. She fast-forwarded to the end of the message. She hated what her journalism experience had been reduced to.

  The last message was from Adam Canfield.

  Hey Lainie! You know how I feel about your sister, so don’t say hi from me. I know this must be a rough time for her, but I don’t care about her. Hope you’re doing OK!!! Been lots of talk about Tori around here. Anyway, hope your sister is fat now. Call me when you can. Here’s a link to an article about what happened.

  She clicked on it.

  It was from KING-TV, the NBC affiliate in Seattle. It linked to a video that didn’t want to download on her phone’s media player. She scrolled through the article.

  “. . . The intruder or intruders circumvented the security system by cutting the wires to the power source. . . .”

  Lainie wondered why her sister had lied to her about the security system, saying that it had only been switched off.

  Accidentally.

  She gleaned one more bit of information from the story. Alex had a son from a previous marriage. The piece didn’t say specifically where the boy lived, but Lainie figured it was with his mother somewhere. She made a mental note to ask about that, too.

  As she drifted off to sleep, Lainie knew that her sister had a knack for misstating the truth. Lying convincingly had always been one of Tori’s specialties.

  The truth was Tori had so many gifts. Some good, some evil. Sometimes it was hard to tell exactly which.

  Lainie O’Neal got off the phone and sat still on the edge of the bed. She could scarcely believe the conversation she’d had with Anne Connelly Childers, the sister of the brother-in-law she’d never met. It was unbelievable in its content, brevity, and overall awkwardness.

  “My brother didn’t trust her, so, that’s what he got. Dead.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You know. I know.”

  “My sister never would have—”

  “Really? That’s interesting. Ask her about the life insurance. If the money goes to her and not his son, then you know what kind of a woman she is.”

  “She wasn’t even all that beautiful, if you ask me. I told him that she thought she was God’s gift to men, but I bet she was a plain, if not ugly, little harlot when the makeup came off.”

  Still playing the conversation in her head, Lainie went downstairs and found Tori in the living room. As she watched her walk to the cherry cabinet that held an elaborate media system, Lainie couldn’t help but think that her sister was using the moment to conjure up something appropriate to say. She put on Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, a plodding piece of piano that seemed to fill the room with more sadness than the moment really required.

  Tori pulled her robe closer around her voluptuous torso as if the air was cool.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  Something was off, but it was hard to figure. Lainie studied the room. An enormous flatscreen TV over the mantel dominated the space. Antiques that were too good to be reproductions were positioned tastefully. In fact, all of it was tasteful, with the exception of the cottage painting that hung behind them. All of it expensive.

  “I talked to your sister-in-law just now.”

  Lainie feigned interest. “Really? How was she?”

  “She hates you. But that wasn’t the biggest revelation. You’ve made a habit of pissing off people, haven’t you?”

  Tori said nothing.

  “You neglected to tell me that you’re a mother,” Lainie said.

  Tori looked hard at her sister as she stood clad in another filmy Old Hollywood robe, pink as a flamingo’s feathers. Tori led them to the kitchen, where coffee was brewing into some expensive Italian carafe—not an espresso machine. That would require too much work. Tori liked to sit back and have things happen for her.

  “You mean Parker?” She finally answered.

  Lainie stood across the expansive soapstone island. “If that’s his name.”

  Tori pretended not to hear. “Want something to eat? I’m not a meal person, but I seem to recall you were.”

  “I’m fine, Tori.” Lainie knew that was one of Tori’s old tricks, a way to point out that she was two pounds heavier than she. Two freaking pounds!

  Tori poured them both a cup. “Look, he’s the stepson from hell and I try to forget about him. Blamed me for everything—the breakup of his parents’ marriage, the fact his father was a workaholic. I don’t know anything and everything. But yes, and Parker has a mother, too. They live in Fircrest.”

  The town’s name caught Lainie off guard.

  “That’s so close by,” she said.

  Tori shrugged. “Yes.”

  “Aren’t you going to call him? Call his mother?”

  “Taken care of, Lainie. I asked the police to handle it.”

  Lainie let the comment pass without another remark. Her sister had a way of sifting out responsibilities and leaving the hard things behind for others to do.

  “Sugar?”

  “No. I’m trying to lose some weight,” Lainie said, lying.

  “Good idea,” Tori said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tacoma

  The lobby area of the Tacoma Police Department was a mini-museum to all the men and women who donned a uniform to serve and protect the people of Grit City. Kendall sipped a mocha she bought in the Mug Shot Café by the front door and perused the uniform and badge exhibits in the clean, brightly lit space of a big-city station. It was a far cry from the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office.

  “Detective Stark?” a man’s voice said.

  She turned around.

  “I’m Eddie Kaminski,” he said.

  Kaminski was a handsome man, dressed in a gray suit and silver-and-blue tie that would have made Josh Anderson envious.

  “I didn’t know I’d be so fascinated by this, but I am,” she said, indicating the history display.

  “Lots of great history on these walls. We joke around the office that one day there’ll be pictures of us up here.”

  “I’m sure there will,” she said.

  “How are things in Kitsap?” he said, motioning for her to follow him to the elevator. He swiped his badge and they got inside for the quick ride to the second floor. “Nice area. My in-laws, or rather my ex-in-laws, have a place on Beach Drive.”

  “As small towns go, pretty good place to live and raise a family.”

  “Your hometown? Tori Connelly’s hometown?” he said.

  “Right on both counts.”

  Kendall followed the detective to a spacious conference room that was most notable for an entire wall of photographs of police officers, most in uniform.

  “Every commissioned officer and then some,” he said. “I’m somewhere in the middle, but don’t point me out. That photo was twenty pounds ago and I’m vain enough to admit that I don’t like looking at it.”

  Kaminski picked up a Mountain Dew he’d been drinking before she arrived.

  “Tori Connelly is that well known in South Kitsap?” he asked.

  “You could say that, yes. Unforgettable, absolutely. She’s one of those people we know will always pop up. Not often. But always in a big way when they do.”

  “You’ve heard we’ve got a person of interest in the shooting, and it isn’t her.”

  Kendall slid a plastic straw into the cup and drank. “Right. The neighbor.”

  “You have kept up on it,” he said.

  “Sure, Detective,” she said. “Like I said, Tori is kind of a legend in around here. I’m friends with her sister.”

  “She’s the stuff of legend? How so?”

  Kendall
sat down. “She’s never had it easy, and she’s never responded to a situation in a way that was predictable. You probably know that she’s had some family and personal tragedies.”

  “Her mom? Her boyfriend in high school?”

  “Those, yes. But also her first husband. Died in Hawaii in an accident. She’s had more heartache than just about anyone I’ve ever known.”

  Kaminski retrieved a notepad and started writing.

  “What about that first husband?”

  “Accident. I didn’t investigate it, but the Honolulu police were thorough.”

  “Right. Thorough,” he said. “What about the dead kid in high school?”

  “Jason Reed was his name. He was seventeen. Tori and her sister Lainie were involved in a car crash. Jason died at the scene.”

  “Sounds tragic. But an accident, no?”

  Kendall shrugged slightly. “Not sure. It was a long time ago. There are some irregularities and we’re working it.”

  They talked a little longer and agreed to keep the lines of communication open. He gave her copies of the Connelly autopsy and the police reports as a show of good faith for their promise to work together.

  “Keep me in mind,” he said, “if anything shakes loose with the Reed case.”

  Jason Reed’s death indicated a potential homicide and Alex Connelly’s was the clearest example of a homicide—a bullet in the head. They were years apart, miles away in time and space, but were connected by a woman named Tori Connelly.

  Josh Anderson noticed the Tacoma PD documents on Kendall’s desk later that day.

  “Anything of interest there?”

  Kendall shook her head. “Not really. I don’t know what I was hoping to find. Thought maybe there would be something in the tox screen that would indicate Alex had been drugged.”

  Josh sat down. He smelled of cigarette smoke, but Kendall didn’t say anything. If he was going to quit smoking, he’d have to do it on his own. She was a mother to Cody, but not to Josh Anderson. That was Mrs. Anderson’s substantial cross to bear.

  “You’re thinking that a woman would have poisoned him.”

  “Most do. Women rarely use a gun.”

  Josh flipped through the report. “You’ve been reading up.”

  “Like a crime junkie,” she said.

  “Why are you assuming that she’s involved?”

  She bristled a little at the question. “I’m not assuming anything. I want to know what happened to Jason more than I want to know what happened in Tacoma. I knew Jason. We all did. He was a good kid. Birdy thinks it is highly likely his hyoid was crushed intentionally, Josh.”

  “I get that, but that’s not enough to do anything with. If she’d been charged with the Tacoma case, then you’d have the nexus to make your case that there is something worth piling on some resources. Remember, we are a little light on funding these days.”

  “Don’t remind me. I could use a raise.”

  Josh continued to run through the pages of the printout. “Tell me about it. My Bimmer is in need of a tune-up, big time, but it’ll cost me seven hundred. I might just go to Grease Monkey and get it done.”

  Kendall suppressed a smile. Josh had an uncanny knack for bringing his BMW into every conversation.

  “So he had the snip,” he said. “Just wanted the one kid. I did that, too. Sure regretted it. If I’d have had more than one, I’d have better shot of someone giving a shit about me when I’m ready for the rest home.”

  Kendall leaned forward and reached for the report.

  “Hey, I’m still reading that,” he said.

  “Sorry. You say he had a vasectomy?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “There are plenty of other explanations, of course. But Lainie told Adam that there was a condom wrapper in the guest bedroom at the Connelly place.”

  “So?”

  “A couple of things, Josh. Think about it. Wouldn’t the Tacoma criminalist collect that?”

  “LAPD missed OJ’s glove.”

  “Okay. But why would there be a condom wrapper in the house? Alex Connelly had a vasectomy.”

  “Maybe he had an STD.”

  “Blood’s clean.”

  “Maybe she did?”

  Kendall closed the folder. “Doubt that,” she said. “Lainie told Adam that Tori didn’t want to have kids because she didn’t want to ruin her body or something along those lines. Something typical for Tori.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Tacoma

  It was after four in the afternoon when Lainie heard the doorbell buzz. She waited for her sister—painful stitches in her thigh or not—to come down the staircase to answer it.

  “Tori?” she called from the foyer.

  No answer.

  Tori had been holed up in her bedroom all afternoon Skyping, or e-mailing, or surfing the Web. Lainie wasn’t sure. It wasn’t funeral arrangements. No services, as far as Lainie could tell, were in the offing. They planned to go to lunch at the restaurant in the Hotel Murano before Lainie met with her lawyer that afternoon. She hadn’t been charged with a crime, but the rumblings were out there.

  Earlier that morning, Lainie heard Tori talking on the phone in her bedroom.

  “Don’t you get it? What part of this don’t you understand? Is it the combination of ‘do’ and ‘not’?”

  Lainie hadn’t been sure if the call was to her lawyer or a confidant. It dawned on her as she moved past Tori’s bedroom door that she still knew next to nothing about the dead husband or Tori’s life after she left Port Orchard. Questions were not answered; they were brushed aside like crumbs on a dining table.

  Lainie saw the figure of a man through the leaded-glass sidelight and turned the knob. It was Eddie Kaminski.

  “This spring’s colder than a witch’s—” he said, not finishing the line. “You know, really cold.”

  She nodded as the unseasonably cold marine air from Commencement Bay scratched her face and neck.

  “You look like you’re feeling better,” he said.

  Lainie had never seen this man before. This was one of those moments she hadn’t experienced in a very long time. The man on the front porch thought she was Tori.

  “I’m Lainie,” she said. “Tori’s my twin.”

  Kaminski shook his head. “You really are a ringer. Gals at the hospital said you were, you know, coming to lend a hand.”

  “Are you a friend of hers?” Lainie asked.

  “Not exactly.” He pulled out his ID and showed it to her. Lainie’s eyes lingered on it longer than it took for her to read. She was thinking.

  “I’m Detective Kaminski. I’m working your brother-in-law’s murder and your sister’s assault.”

  “Tori’s upstairs, but she’s not feeling well. She’s tired.” Lainie started to close the door.

  The detective took a step forward. “I’m not here to talk to her. I want to talk to you.”

  Lainie shrugged slightly and the space in the doorway tightened. “I don’t know anything.”

  Kaminski ran his eyes along the vertical space that offered a glimpse of the young woman behind the door. She was slender, pretty. She wore dark blue jeans and a rust-colored sweater over a light cream blouse. As she gripped the door, he could see she wore no rings.

  “Don’t you want to help your sister? Help her find out who killed her husband?”

  “A stranger killed her husband. And of course I—we—want to help.”

  “Really. Are you really sure?”

  Lainie didn’t like the detective’s accusatory tone. “Please let go of the door now,” she said, pulling the door closed.

  “Are you so sure?”

  She had one more shot. “She told me so.” The words could not have been emptier, but Lainie found herself in an old, decidedly defensive mode. It was not an unheard-of place for her. In fact, when it came to her sister she’d been there many, many times.

  “Ask her if she was having an affair, why don’t you?”

  Lainie shut the d
oor and turned the deadbolt. She looked up, and Tori was standing at the top of the stairs.

  “What did he want?” Tori asked.

  “Didn’t you hear him? It seems to me you were always good at eavesdropping.”

  Tori started down the steps. She wore four-inch heels, a purple dress, and a coil of black pearls around her neck. She’d done her makeup with a heavier hand than a late lunch necessitated. She was beautiful. And she looked worried. Not in pain, as her injury seemed to take a backseat to the heels and the need to look good. Yet, there was no mistaking it. She was troubled.

  “All right,” she said. “You know I’ve never been perfect.”

  “Were you cheating on Alex?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean? Not exactly?”

  “What happened might be my fault.”

  Kendall was making a coffee run at the Kitsap County Administration Building for herself and Josh—because he’d actually done the deed the day before—when Eddie Kaminski called to check in.

  “Tori Connelly is a tough nut,” he said. “All you women in Kitsap are that hard, are you?”

  Kendall laughed. “We’re the daughters of lumberjacks, you know. Hang on a sec.” She put a tip in the coffee girl’s tip jar and moved to a table overlooking Sinclair Inlet and the Bremerton shipyard. She set down the cups, wishing she’d wrapped them in paper sleeves. Her fingers stung.

  “How’s the case?” she asked.

  “Case is fine,” Kaminski said. “I’m wondering how things are going in Kitsap.”

  She opened the lid of Josh’s cup and added two packets of sugar. “Exhumation on the Reed boy is scheduled.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “I don’t know what we’ll find. But Dr. Waterman says the films indicate an irregularity that could use a relook.”

  “Court ordered?”

  “Yes, but we didn’t do it without getting permission from the family.”

  “Tough and nice.”