Kansas City Cover-Up

by Julie Miller

  The sun in the east was warm, peeking between the tall buildings of downtown Kansas City. The newly planted dogwood trees in front of the limestone building that served as both Fourth Precinct and administrative headquarters were budding out. Her tummy was full of Grandpa Seamus’s good cooking. Her dad had tolerated her questions about Dani Reese’s murder—even though any mention of Gabe Knight still seemed to get him hot under the collar. The irksome conflicts that had messed up yesterday for her were just that—yesterday’s business. She was nothing if not resilient. Feeling stronger and smarter and more sure of herself this morning, Olivia looked forward to seeing friends and getting some solid investigative work done.

  The building’s public facade was feeling more familiar, too, with several months of construction and reinstallation and upgrades to the security system finally complete. The entryway at the top of the gray granite steps had been rebuilt after a tornado the previous summer had toppled stately pine trees and tossed a vehicle through the front doors. There were new benches out front, new shine to the steel framing the double doors, manufacturer stickers still stuck to the glass that had recently been replaced. But despite the torn-up landscaping, shattered windows and damaged antennae and satellite dishes on the roof that had been repaired or replaced, the concrete-and-steel heart of the ninety-year-old building remained intact.

  Olivia wished the officer she’d been chatting with a good day and took a detour to one of the benches. Another departmental fixture that hadn’t changed much was Max Krolikowski. Olivia grinned at the burly blond detective in the black leather blazer reclining against the back of the bench, with one foot propped up on the opposite knee and a Churchill-style cigar pinched between his lips. The uniform had changed as he’d moved from assignment to assignment, but now that the two were both working in the cold case unit, she’d learned that the former army sergeant wasn’t as antisocial and bad for the department’s public image as he’d like most people to believe.

  He muttered a curse that made her smile when he saw her approach, sat up straight and pulled the flattened tip of the cigar from his mouth. “Here it comes,” he growled.

  Olivia sat on the bench beside him. “I thought you gave up smoking.”

  Although he wasn’t any older than her brother Duff, Max had his grumpy-old-man shtick down to an art form. “Do you see a match or lighter on me?”

  “Well, I can’t imagine eating that stogie is any better for you.” She eyed the trash can beside him. “Why don’t you just throw it away?”

  “Mind your own business, Liv.” He flicked the cigar into the trash, then pulled two more wrapped smokes from his chest pocket to show her how ornery he could be. “I’m not one of your brothers. You don’t have to take care of me.”

  Uh-huh. That’s why there was a stain from breakfast, or maybe even last night’s dinner, peeking from behind the badge hanging at the front of his shirt.

  Olivia checked her watch and stood. “You know I only nag because I care about you.”

  “Bite me.”

  Olivia laughed. “Come on. Roll call is about to start. Then we have our briefing with Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor. I’ve got a six-year-old murder case I want to take another look at.”

  He tucked the cigars inside the front of his jacket and dropped his work-booted foot to the pavement. “Sounds like reason enough to start my day.”

  A shadow fell over Olivia and she shivered. But that rush of anticipation at the idea of butting heads with Gabriel Knight again quickly died when she faced familiar cocoa-brown eyes that had once made her heart skip a beat. Marcus Brower’s perfect white smile lit up his face with a grin. “Hey, look, it’s Beauty and the Beast.”

  Her heart still skipped a beat. But it was a jolt of surprise, of not being prepared to fend off the inevitable suspicion and remembered humiliation pounding through her veins. Even if the pain wasn’t as intense as it had once been, it took Olivia a deep breath and a needless adjusting of the zippers on her teal leather jacket to paste a wry smile on her own face and answer. “Good morning, Marcus.”

  He winked. “Morning, babe.”

  What Max Krolikowski lacked in manners, he made up for in loyalty. While Olivia bristled at the endearment, her grousing coworker stood up beside her. “We were just leaving.”

  But Marcus’s hand on her arm stopped her. “Hey, Liv. We see each other every day, but we never talk. Can we? Are you free for lunch?”

  “No.”

  “Dinner?”

  She shook her head. “I’m busy.”

  “Don’t blow me off. I know you’re not seeing anyone.”

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t have a life.” She jerked her arm from his grasp. “I’ve got plans.” And by dinner tonight, she hoped that pathetic little lie would be the truth.

  “Okay, so you’re not purposely avoiding me.” A dimple appeared at the corner of his mouth as the charming smile reappeared. “Morning, noon or night—you tell me when, and I’ll be there. I don’t like the way we left things.”

  An image of a naked Marcus rolling around on their bed with the receptionist from his dentist’s office or the gym or wherever he’d picked up that latest conquest blipped through her mind. Olivia resolutely slammed the door on that memory and backed up a step to follow Max. “There’s nothing more to say. You made your choice.”

  He caught the tips of her fingers with his, lightly hanging on. “We were good friends—partners—before I screwed up. I miss the way we used to be. I made a mistake. I want to fix that.”

  Max leveled his icy gaze over Olivia’s shoulder. “We’ve got meetings to get to, sunshine. So do you.”

  The charm bled from Marcus’s tone. “Was I talking to you, Krolikowski? Bug off.”

  Olivia extricated her fingers from Marcus’s pseudograsp and pushed Max on up the stairs before a real argument with an unwanted audience could start. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m not giving up on this, Liv,” Marcus called after her. “I was a better person when I was with you. I owe you an explanation.”

  A spurt of her own temper rose like bile in her throat. The explanation was simple. Marcus was a player. His ability to say no to any flirtatious come-on when they’d been together wasn’t any stronger than his ability to grasp the meaning of the word right now. Yes, she’d been good for him—but the reverse wasn’t true. She didn’t need a private heart-to-heart to understand that.

  She spun around to let Marcus know exactly when she’d be willing to listen to any excuse he had to say. Never. “You don’t owe me any...”

  But the snarky rebuttal died on her lips. Her new partner, Jim Parker, had come up behind Marcus. “Is there a problem here?”

  “No.” Great. Just what she needed—her new partner discovering what a naive idiot she’d been with her old one. Olivia quickly excused herself, pushing past Max to shove open the front door. “I’m going to work, even if no one else is.”

  A look from Max and Jim wisely kept Marcus from joining them on the elevator up to the third floor. Olivia pushed the button and pretended the number three lighting up was the most interesting thing in the world. Max snorted and drifted to the back of the elevator to lean against the railing. “Does anything ever come out of that guy’s mouth that isn’t loaded with lies?”

  When she didn’t respond, Jim turned to Max. “Is there an issue with Detective Brower I should know about?”

  “Liv used to be his partner over in Vice until Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor recruited her for the Cold Case Squad.”

  Olivia was only partially aware of being the topic of conversation as she pulled her hand away from the panel. She curled her fingers into her palm, caught off guard by a remembered touch. But it wasn’t that cutesy little coupling of fingertips outside when Marcus had stopped her—or even the brush of his lover’s hand across her body months earlier. She was rememb
ering a firmer touch—a handshake, of all things—with Gabriel Knight. An unapologetic stamp of skin on skin. Strong. Warm. Lingering.

  She trembled with a curious awareness that felt as vivid now as it had last night at the hospital.

  “Is there bad blood between you two?” Jim asked.

  Instead of answering, Olivia flattened her palm against the cool leather of her jacket and rubbed the back of her knuckles as if her right hand had somehow betrayed her. Oh, man. She was in trouble. Despite the stress Gabe Knight had caused, he’d somehow awakened hormones she thought had been in a permanent coma after tossing Marcus out of her life. She was totally screwed with both her family and her coworkers if she even hinted that she might be attracted to the reporter.

  And Max was already feeling too chatty about her last relationship disaster to risk getting razzed about Gabriel Knight. “That’s right.” Max snapped his fingers at Jim. “You were working with the bureau task force for a while there. You’re out of the loop. Brower and Liv used to be an item. For a few months. Pretty hot and heavy before she transferred.”

  “Shut up, Max.”

  But she couldn’t get the hint through Max’s thick skull. “I’m glad she wised up and ended it. You know, for a while there, I thought I was going to have to rent a monkey suit and go to a wedding.”

  She turned and glared.

  Max had the good sense to raise a placating hand in apology as the elevator slowed. “Shutting up now.” But not really. He leaned his head confidentially toward Jim. “You know, people think I’m the one you have to watch out for on our squad since I’ve been around so long and I’ve seen everything. Or they worry about Dixon because he’s got that big, bad tough-guy thing going on.” Max pointed a finger at her. “She’s the one who’ll break you in two if you cross her. I recommend staying on her good side.”

  “Good to know.” Jim gave a hesitant agreement, looking from one detective to the other.

  Olivia turned away, rubbing at the seed of a headache throbbing in her temple. “Take your own advice, Max.”

  The burly detective chuckled. “You know I love ya, Liv.”

  The elevator bell dinged, announcing their arrival on the third floor. “Thank God.”

  Olivia dashed out, leaving the gossip and that uncomfortable fascination with Gabe Knight behind her. She headed straight for a cup of coffee in the break room, hoping to claim a few minutes of peace and quiet, but she couldn’t shake Max and Jim, their questions or teasing until the roll call meeting was called to order.

  After the half-hour meeting to discuss cases of department-wide concern, announce BOLOs and sign-ups for the upcoming annual baseball game against the fire department, Olivia, Jim, Max and Trent Dixon, the fourth detective assigned to their unit, filed into Ginny Rafferty-Taylor’s office. Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor had recently been promoted from her work as a homicide detective. But the petite blonde had slipped right into command of the cold case unit with an intelligence and air of authority that Olivia not only respected, but aspired to in her own law-enforcement career.

  In contrast to the senior officer’s professional, no-nonsense demeanor, Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor’s office was decorated with framed artwork painted by her kids. A trifold picture frame on the shelf behind her showed a photo of her and her husband, Brett, a big, beefy man whose hair was as dark as hers was silvery-blonde, along with individual pictures of their daughter and son, who were carbon copies of their mother and father, respectively.

  Somehow the lieutenant had found that equanimity between being a decorated career officer and being a woman with a life outside of work. Olivia had yet to figure out that balance for herself. And after her foolish affair with Marcus, she had a feeling she was further than ever from finding that happily ever after. So she concentrated on the part of her life that she knew she was good at—being an investigator who could ferret out the truth when others around her could not.

  After listening to updates on other cases the team was working, Olivia briefed the team on the events of yesterday afternoon surrounding Ron Kober’s murder.

  “Wait a minute.” Max’s partner, Trent Dixon, a former college football player, picked up the newspaper he’d set aside and unfolded it on top of the small conference table. He tapped the article he’d been looking for and Olivia leaned over to read it. “Gabe Knight’s column says that Ron Kober was subpoenaed to testify before the State Senate Ethics Commission regarding potential campaign fraud during Senator McCoy’s last run for election. Do we think his killer wanted to shut him up?”

  Information Specialist Katie Rinaldi sat at the end of the table with her laptop, going back and forth between typing notes and the ongoing project of inputting updates on the unsolved case records she was transferring from paper files into the computer database. She tucked the shoulder-length strands of her chestnut hair behind her ears. “Should I be copying Detectives Kincaid and Hendricks on our discussion if they’re working Mr. Kober’s murder?”

  “Not yet.” Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor sat at the opposite end of the table. “If we find anything substantive, we will. But until then, Kober isn’t our case. Jim, I see you pulled the file on the Danielle Reese murder from six years back. Did we get a new lead there?”

  “That was my request, ma’am,” Olivia answered. “I’ve got a lead that suggests Ron Kober had a connection to the story Dani Reese was writing at the time of her murder. I can’t say that he’s her killer, but I’d like to follow up on it.”

  “Katie, is Ms. Reese’s file in the system yet?” Ginny asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Pull it up.” Ginny typed a note on her own laptop before raising her gaze. “What’s your lead?”

  Olivia picked up the folded newspaper and pointed to the byline. “Gabriel Knight. He claims that Dani was getting inside information about a link between Leland Asher and Senator McCoy’s election for an article she was writing. Kober was McCoy’s campaign manager at the time of her murder. If anyone had inside information on a crime boss’s support of a candidate, it’d be Kober.”

  “And how does Mr. Knight know this?”

  “Well, he suspects.” Olivia left out the fiancée part and stuck to the more important facts. “Dani Reese was a junior reporter at the Kansas City Journal. He was mentoring her, and read some of her notes on the story before she died.”

  Max sat forward in his chair across the table, looking dubious about the reporter’s cooperation. “Can we get those notes?”

  “I hope so. I know Mr. Knight isn’t a fan of the department, but this case is important to him. I intend to ask him.”

  Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor nodded, approving the reopening of the case. “I’m all for anything we can pin on Asher to put him away. And some good press from Mr. Knight can’t hurt any of us. Let’s talk it out.”

  Katie’s work on entering data on cold cases dating back to the 1800s made it easier to cross-reference information from different investigations. She’d started, of course, with the most recent cases, so everything the department had on Danielle Reese’s murder was there to access. But she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and frowned as she skimmed the screen. “There’s not much here. The ME’s report. Witness statements from the men who found her. According to the ballistics, the gun used to kill her was a .25 caliber semiautomatic. But no murder weapon was ever recovered.”

  Jim skimmed the same information in the paper file he’d picked up yesterday. “No wonder the UNSUB had to shoot her three times. A little gun like that doesn’t carry a big punch. Unless he wanted her to suffer.”

  “Maybe she knew her killer,” Trent suggested. “And he didn’t want her to die fast.”

  Max leaned back in his chair. “Or Asher told his man to stage the scene so it wouldn’t look like a hit. Maybe Senator McCoy hired someone to silence her.”

  The lieut
enant reminded them of the original investigation. “In that part of town, it very well could have been a robbery. If she struggled with her assailant, he might have panicked. But these are all just theories. I won’t go to the DA unless we have a viable suspect and real proof.”

  Katie raised her eyebrows. “Yeah, Uncle Dwight is a stickler for that kind of thing,” she added as her fingers flew over the keyboard, referring to the man who had saved her life when she was a teenager and become her legal guardian after marrying Katie’s aunt.

  Olivia agreed that any of the three scenarios was plausible, yet unprovable at this point. “Do we still have anything in evidence?”

  Katie read the short list off the screen. “Crime scene photos. Bullets the ME removed. The victim’s clothes, purse and a few items from her glove compartment. The officers on the scene said the insurance cards, registration and other paperwork were missing—maybe to delay identifying the victim, maybe as part of the carjacking—or else they just blew away. The notes here say there was a thunderstorm the night of her death. She wasn’t found until the next day, and the doors, trunk and glove box were all open.”

  Max muttered a curse. “The wind and rain probably compromised the majority of any circumstantial evidence that was there.”

  “Do we still have Ms. Reese’s car?” Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor asked.

  Katie nodded. “It’s in Impound.”

  “Wait a sec. Go back. We have her purse in evidence?” Olivia looked at the young single mom turned computer wiz. “Why would KCPD investigate her death as a robbery if her purse was still there? What else was missing?”

  “Her wallet and phone weren’t in her bag or pockets. The investigator’s report says she wasn’t wearing any jewelry, but she had pierced ears. Marks from a ring and watch that were gone, too. They assumed the jewelry was stolen. No notation that any of it was ever recovered.” Katie looked up from the screen, her blue eyes wide with curiosity. “Hey, Liv. Is this your dad’s signature on the file?”