Body Of Truth

by Deirdre Savoy

  Feeling Mari’s assessing gaze on him, he glanced at her. “What?”

  After a moment, she said, “So, Stonewall, what’s up?”

  He slid another glance at her. She rarely referred to him by that nickname, the one other cops had given him but very few ever called him to his face. She only used it when she thought he was stepping on her toes or keeping something from her, neither of which happened very often. She lifted her eyebrows and stared back at him in challenge, leaving him to wonder which of the two offenses she believed him to be guilty of.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I’d think you might be a little jazzed seeing this guy. You know, man threatens woman. Woman ends up dead. Man makes full confession. Film at eleven. That’s what we do this for, isn’t it?”

  True, and finding out who killed Pierce sooner than later would make both their lives easier. When Shea heard about Sheffield’s existence he was ready to announce to the police commissioner and the media that they had a suspect in the case, when all they really had was a guy who liked to write letters.

  He didn’t think Mari was any more certain than he was that Sheffield was the guy. From what they knew about whoever murdered Amanda Pierce, he fit what law enforcement called an organized killer. Both the crime scene and the body were clean, save for the miniscule piece of fabric embedded in her skin. The killer had obviously moved the body from wherever the murder had occurred. Such a killer was usually highly intelligent, socially and sexually competent—one of the last people you’d suspect had violence on their minds.

  Sheffield’s letters, aside from their colorful salutations, showed a greater facility with language than his job would require, suggesting an underemployed innate intelligence. To some degree, whoever killed Pierce must have planned it since they made arrangements to pick her up—unless her killer and the person offering her a ride were not the same person.

  The rest of it they would have to see, especially since one thing about the crime didn’t fit the profile. Strangulation often suggested a crime of passion or at least some sort of sexual overtone. As far as the Medical Examiner could tell, Pierce hadn’t been raped or sexualized in any way. Not only that, if, as he suspected after speaking with Dana Molloy, the killer had strangled her with her own scarf, that suggested an impulsivity not consistent with an organized killer. Most of these bastards planned ahead.

  In either event, they’d found yet another Roché scarf in Pierce’s apartment and given it to the lab to compare fibers. Only time would tell about that, too.

  But he also knew that Mari was referring not to his enthusiasm, but his focus. Truthfully, he’d zoned out during the ride, his mind not on the case but instead replaying his conversation with April last night, trying to figure out what about it bothered him so much.

  April had answered the phone and said a sleepy, “Hello.”

  Since he hadn’t thought up anything more clever to say, he just said, “It’s me.”

  “Jon?”

  The incredulousness in her voice prompted him. “I know I haven’t called in a while.”

  “Why did you call now?”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  “Tonight?”

  He hadn’t thought that far ahead, but, yes, he did want to see her tonight for reasons that had nothing to do with sex. With his case going nowhere and after his misstep with Tyree, he needed . . . something. He resisted putting a name to it, fearing what he’d come up with. But his coming over this late or later had never been an issue before, especially since April refused to set foot in the South Bronx. “Is that so unreasonable?”

  He heard her long-suffering sigh. “I know you’re married to your job, Jon. I get that. But I told you from the beginning that I wasn’t going to sit around waiting for you to get horny or lonely or however it is you get before you start thinking about me.”

  In other words, she’d done a better job of understanding him than he’d done of her. And the weariness in her voice told him she was tired of making the effort. “That’s it, then?”

  “Look, Jon, I’m in bed right now and I’m not alone. You figure it out.”

  She’d hung up and he’d cursed himself a couple of dozen ways for being a fool. He’d deserved every thing she’d said and probably a few things she hadn’t. She’d been good to him and he hadn’t returned the favor. Now, he wished he felt something more than a vague disappointment, but any stronger emotion eluded him.

  As they emerged on the New Jersey side of the tunnel, he pushed thoughts of April from his mind. He had more important concerns than his love life, chief among them watching the road. Hoboken’s one square mile boasted a number of stoplights, but no stop signs. Drivers sped through intersections as if getting there first was some sort of prize.

  Beside him, Mari crooned, “My kind of town, Hoboken is,” parodying one of Sinatra’s songs.

  The woman would never make it as a singer, but at least she didn’t seem to be upset with him anymore.

  Sheffield was bent over a patch of flowers when they pulled up in front of his house. As they approached, he turned to squint at them over the rims of his glasses.

  “Barry Sheffield?” Jonathan asked.

  Sheffield rose to his feet. Six feet tall and almost bald except for a rim of salt-and-pepper hair that ran between his ears, Sheffield wore a short-sleeved plaid shirt that stretched over a broad chest and strained even further over a protruding belly, but his arms were still muscular from a lifetime of physical labor. It was only nine o’clock in the morning, but perspiration stains darkened the fabric beneath his armpits and at the center of his chest.

  Sheffield gave each of them a once over, then wiped his arm across his damp forehead. “I figured you people would show up sooner or later.”

  “Why is that, Mr. Sheffield?”

  He cast them a look as if they had the intelligence of newborn ants. “Because of the letters I wrote her.”

  He cast a look at Mari. At least they were all on the same page. “Is there somewhere that we can talk?”

  With a flick of his arm, Sheffield gestured toward the house. “We can go inside if you want, but don’t expect no air conditioning.” He led the way up the white stone path.

  Inside the house looked like something out of an old-time Sears Roebuck catalog—old home furniture and lots of it—and all of it neat as a pin.

  Sheffield settled on the sofa. Jonathan sat in the wing chair facing him, while Mari prowled around, looking at the furnishings. A photograph of Old Blue Eyes in his heyday hung on the wall above Sheffield’s head. It was the only picture in the room.

  “Why did you write those letters, Mr. Sheffield?”

  “Why shouldn’t I have written them? She was a vulture that one, but she didn’t even wait until the bones were clean to pick them. She got rich, made herself famous, trashing the lives of people she didn’t deserve to be on the same planet with.”

  Jonathan nodded toward the portrait. “Like Sinatra.”

  Sheffield’s fair complexion became mottled with red around his eyes and throat. “Damn right. The man was a musical genius, a philanthropist. He was a good man who didn’t deserve what she or that other one did to him. He was practically on his death bed when she wrote that.” Sheffield’s voice rose in volume and pitch. He brought his fist down on the arm of the sofa. “Who did she ever help but herself? What did she ever do but try to ruin other people’s lives?”

  “So someone needed to end hers?”

  Sheffield lowered his gaze, and the emotion seemed to drain out of him, as well as the color. “Someone, yes, but not me.”

  “Where were you last Friday morning?”

  “Where I always am. My wife, she’s at her sister’s now, she gets dialysis three times a week. You can check with the hospital.”

  “We will.” Jonathan took down information on where he could reach Sheffield’s wife and her doctor. It didn’t take them long to reach either of them and confirm Sheffield’s story. Both he and his wife
were at the hospital from six o’clock that morning.

  As they walked to the car in the hospital parking lot, Mari said, “You know what gets to me. That poor bastard probably feels guilty for not killing her.”

  Jonathan had sensed it, too—Sheffield’s rage, not completely directed at Amanda Pierce but also at himself for his own impotence to do what he felt needed to be done.

  He’d leave it to the shrinks to analyze the Sheffields of the world. All he knew was that the man’s innocence closed off one more area of investigation. Once again, they were back to square one.

  “Frankly, Father, I’m going a little stir crazy.”

  Father Mike, still dressed in shorts and a T-shirt from his morning run, chuckled. He’d claimed to have stopped by simply because he’d passed her house on his run, but she didn’t believe him. He was checking up on her. As much as she hated it, she made the decision to let all those busy bees in her life have their way, since none of them seemed capable of taking no for an answer. Joanna was due to visit in another half hour. If she could withstand Joanna’s mothering she could survive anything.

  Father Mike had shown up fifteen minutes ago, and after commenting on the continuing heat of the weather, he’d asked her how she was coping. The comment on going nuts had been her answer.

  “Don’t they say doctors and nurses make the worst patients?”

  “That’s because we know all the things than can possibly go wrong once you put that hospital gown on. Sometimes the injury or ailment that caused you to seek treatment is the least of your worries.”

  He regarded her for a long moment in a way that left her clueless as to what he was thinking. “You’ve seen a lot, haven’t you,” he said finally.

  Yes, she’d seen her share of misery. If she wanted to shock him, she could share some of it with him. But she didn’t. Instead she offered him a rueful smile. “I suppose you have too, Father.”

  He offered back the same rueful smile, then shook his head. “Actually, I did have a purpose in stopping by. I spoke to Ms. Evans as you asked me to.”

  “How is she?”

  “As well as can be expected under the circumstances, I guess. She asked me to apologize to you for hanging up on you the way she did. She thought you’d be angry with her considering that you were almost killed because of her grandson.”

  Dana shook her head. It had never occurred to her to blame Nadine for what happened. “She should know me better than that.”

  Father Mike shrugged, a gesture of helplessness to explain the workings of another’s mind. “I helped her make the arrangements for the burial tomorrow morning. We can go together if you like.”

  Considering that she was in no shape to drive an automobile, that sounded fine. “Thank you, Father.”

  He stood. “I’ll come by at seven-thirty to pick you up.”

  She walked him to the door. “Thanks again.”

  He winked at her. “That’s what I’m here for.” He jogged down the stairs and headed south toward the school.

  The sound of a car door slamming alerted her to the blue and yellow taxi parked across the street. Joanna was making her way from it toward the house, but her gaze was focused in the direction Father Mike had taken.

  The minute Joanna hit the bottom step, she asked, “And who was that I just saw leaving and awfully early in the morning, at that?”

  Dana almost laughed. She should have known what Joanna would read into the situation finding any man leaving her house, much less one who looked like Father Mike. “It’s not like that, Joanna.”

  “Well, why not? You aren’t getting any younger, you know.” Joanna passed her on the way toward the back of the house.

  Dana shut the door behind her. No kidding. Who was? “There’s always the racial divide,” Dana said, more to goad Joanna than anything else.

  Joanna stopped and turned to face her. “Is this the twenty-first century or the Stone Age? You’d really let that stop you?”

  “No, but the fact that he’s a priest would.”

  Joanna sucked her teeth in disgust. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” She continued on to the kitchen at the left. She lowered herself into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “Damn. It’s bad enough that half the decent looking fellas are either gay, on something, or in jail. Couldn’t God just take the ugly ones?”

  Dana laughed. “Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. Those who are called must answer.”

  “Listen to you, Ms. Agnostic. I thought you didn’t believe in any of that stuff.”

  “I don’t, but sending Tim to Catholic school for four years I had to pick up something.”

  “Yeah, too bad it couldn’t have been him.”

  Slumping into the chair beside Joanna, Dana made a disgusted sound in her throat.

  “Don’t give me that. You know I worry about you. You act like you don’t need a man, like you don’t need anybody. But, girl, you’re just as human as the rest of us. We all need. Tell me, how long has it been since you let any man get even a little bit under your skin?”

  Unbidden, her mind traveled back to the day before, when he’d been here. There had been a moment there when she’d looked at him, seen the weariness in his face and wished she could smooth it away. It must be that nurse thing in her, some defect of her genetic make-up that . . .

  “Well?” Joanna prompted.

  “Too long.” Especially if the first man who came to her mind was Jonathan Stone.

  Hanratty’s on East 163rd had taken over where the spot on 161st had left off as a cop bar and hangout. When Jonathan had worked in the 44, Moretti had been a regular at the bar almost every night of the week. Tonight was no exception.

  Hanratty’s didn’t look much different than any other Irish bar in the city: lots of wood, lots of smoke, lots of guys losing the day’s frustrations in a bottle of their favorite booze. Jonathan spotted Moretti at the bar the moment he walked in the door. But there were also plenty of cops he knew from his days working among them. There were hands to shake, jokes to be made at his expense, new faces to be introduced to. All the while, Jonathan could feel Moretti’s gaze on him as he made his way to the bar.

  Finally someone got to the question they’d all been wondering. “Hey Stone, to what do we owe the honor?”

  “Yeah, what brings you here, Stone?” Moretti smiled back, but the belligerence in his gaze belied any friendliness in his tone.

  Jonathan took a step toward him. “You got a minute for me?”

  “As long as you’re buying.”

  Moretti turned back to his drink. He lifted his empty glass and said to the bartender. “I’ll have another one of these.” He turned to Jonathan as he slid onto the stool beside him. “Now what does a big-time homicide detective want with little old me?”

  Jonathan ordered a beer from the waiting bartender before answering. “I hear you caught the Wesley Evans case, the shooting on Highland Avenue.”

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  “How’s it going?”

  Moretti downed a gulp from his glass. “It’s going. Don’t you have enough to do with your celebrity cases without worrying about mine?”

  “Dana Molloy, the woman who was shot with Evans, is a friend of mine.”

  That perked Moretti up. He tilted his head to one side, his eyes narrowing. “You want to ride my ass ’cause your squeeze almost got popped. Maybe you should tell her to meet her connection inside next time.”

  Jonathan ignored Moretti’s comment because to acknowledge it would mean putting his fist in the other man’s face. “Actually, I was hoping for a little professional courtesy, but that would require you to be both professional and courteous.”

  “Fuck you, Stone. I don’t owe you a damn thing.”

  No, Moretti didn’t owe him anything, especially not the hostility that radiated from the man. Jonathan tried to think of anything he’d done to Moretti to warrant his level of anger and came up with nothing. Then again, Moretti resented anyone smart
er, more capable or harder working than he was, as if the other person had stolen those qualities from him in order to possess them.

  Whatever the case, Jonathan knew he wasn’t going to get anything from this man tonight, probably not ever. “How about you just do your damn job, then.” He left his untouched beer and enough money to pay for both their drinks on the bar and headed for the door.

  Out on the street he heard a familiar voice calling his name. He turned to find one of the older guys jogging up behind him. The guy, an instructor at the police academy, had earned the name T.J. after T.J. Hooker, a TV cop with the same profession. Jonathan couldn’t recall what the man’s real name was, if he ever knew it. The two of them had never been friends, so the fact that T.J. had followed him outside surprised him. “What’s up?”

  “Hey, man, what you want with Moretti?”

  “A witness in one of his cases is a friend of mine. Why?”

  “That kid who got shot?”

  Jonathan nodded.

  “Wonder why he’s working that case alone? No one else will touch him. IAB’s on his back big time.”

  “What for?”

  “Shaking down dealers, taking payoffs. Anything that you can get into that’s dirty, he’s there.”

  Jonathan exhaled heavily. That didn’t bode well for Dana’s case or for Dana herself. A dirty cop on the way down might try to pin his misdeeds on the handiest person, to take anyone down with him that he could.

  Moretti had already hinted he believed Dana had been with Wesley for reasons having nothing to do with his grandmother. Moretti could try to make that accusation against her just to spite him. Moretti wouldn’t even have to bring such a charge to his superiors. A news tip from an anonymous police source to the newspaper of his choice would suit Moretti’s purposes just fine.

  A nurse purchasing drugs from one of her clients would make an interesting story. No charges would ever be brought, but in the meantime she might lose her job and her reputation could be ruined.

  T.J. chucked him on the shoulder. “You look out for yourself.”