Dead Past dffi-4

by Beverly Connor

  “That’s a very good description,” said Garnett.

  “I want to help. When I looked out the window, I made note of what he looked like. As I said, his voice didn’t sound right to me.”

  “Could you recognize an accent?” asked Diane.

  Jere thought for a moment. “His voice wasn’t that clear. I had the impression he wasn’t from the South, but I could be completely wrong on that.”

  “Did you hear anything that happened in the apartment?” asked Diane.

  “No. When I came back from calling the police he wasn’t at her door anymore, and it was closed. I listened, but I couldn’t hear anything. But as I said, these apartments are really very soundproof once the doors are closed.” She sighed and her eyes watered up again. “I should have gone over and knocked.”

  “No, Mrs. Bowden,” said Garnett, “you should not have. You did the right thing. I’m just sorry it took so long for the police to get here.”

  “I’ll keep trying to remember anything else,” she said. “However, I have to tell you that she also has an ex-husband who was trying to get back with her. He’s loud, but I don’t think he’s ever been violent with her. But you don’t really know what goes on behind closed doors. It wasn’t him that was at the door today, I do know that.”

  “What’s his name?” asked Garnett.

  “Gil Cipriano. He’s in the History Department at Bartram. He’s a student there getting his Ph.D.”

  Garnett handed her a card. “Call us, please, if you remember anything else.”

  She looked at the card. “I will.”

  Diane and Garnett left and walked back to the crime scene. The body was being removed just as they got there.

  “Everyone’s been working on this meth lab explosion, trying to find out if there’s anyone behind it besides whatever unlucky bastard was doing the cooking. I suppose that’s why they didn’t take her call as urgent. You take the conversation on its face, it didn’t sound urgent.”

  It seemed to Diane that Garnett was making excuses for the policeman who delayed sending out officers to check on Joana Cipriano-especially when it was clear that their presence might have saved her.

  Diane slipped on fresh head and shoe coverings and walked inside. David was still working the living room. She went to the bedroom and stood in the doorway, surveying the room. The walls were a dusty rose color. The comforter was white with roses that matched the color of the wall. There was a bench at the foot of the bed with a rose-colored throw draped over it. The furniture and the carpet were white. It was a pretty feminine room and in perfect order except for the books thrown around. What is he looking for? she wondered.

  Diane began at the door and examined the carpet first, making herself a path around the room. She found nothing but books on the carpet. Later when she finished she would vacuum and see if that picked up anything her eyes failed to see.

  Diane dusted all the surfaces as well as the books for fingerprints. She found many. Most would probably be Joana’s, but they might get lucky. The key was in the books, she felt, but what was it about the books? Most of those in the bedroom were bestsellers from the book-of-the-month club. None seemed to hold any secrets.

  “What kind of books are in the living room?” Diane called to David.

  “Music history, biographies, poetry…,” he called back.

  It seemed like a normal selection for a faculty member in music history. What they needed to know was, what books were missing?

  Diane’s thoughts were interrupted by a commotion at the front door.

  Chapter 22

  “What’s going on? Where’s my wife? What’s happened?”

  It must be Gil Cipriano, thought Diane. She walked into the living room and stood beside David, who was dusting a CD player for prints. A young man was at the door trying to come in and was being blocked by Garnett and two policemen.

  “Just calm down,” said Garnett.

  “Calm down. If you come home and find this, are you going to be calm?” he said.

  “I was under the impression you and Mrs. Cipriano were divorced,” said Garnett.

  “Yes, we were… we are, but we’re getting back together.”

  Diane scrutinized him. Gil Cipriano had dark good looks-jet black hair, black eyes, olive skin. He looked to be in his late twenties and of Italian descent. He also looked distressed, but looks can fool you. However, at this distance, she didn’t see any marks on his knuckles.

  “Where is Joana?” he said. “Has something happened?” He caught sight of the blood pooled on the floor where Joana’s head had lain. “Oh, God, is that from her? Damn it, where is she?” He pushed on Garnett, and the two policemen restrained him.

  “Calm down, Mr. Cipriano,” said Garnett.

  “You keep saying calm down, but you won’t tell me anything and I find this in my living room. Tell me what happened to Joana, damn it.”

  “Where have you been all day?” asked Garnett.

  “At school. I’m working on my dissertation.” He stopped. “I’ve been in the library all day. People know me there. Now tell me what happened. Is Joana all right? Is she in the hospital?”

  “No, son, she isn’t in the hospital,” said Garnett. “She has been murdered.”

  Cipriano stared at him.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Garnett added.

  “Sorry for my loss? Are you trying to say that Joana’s dead? She can’t be dead. We’re getting back together. She has a recital in two days. We have plans.” He looked at Diane and David as if just noticing them. “Who are you? What happened with Joana’s books? She doesn’t like people messing with her things.”

  Diane picked her way though a safe path toward the door. As she passed near David she asked him, “Is there a clear area where we can question him?”

  David nodded over his shoulder. “The breakfast nook has been cleared.”

  “Why don’t we bring him inside,” Diane said to Garnett. “Bring him this way.”

  Garnett nodded. He escorted Cipriano to a small alcove opposite the kitchen where he sat down at an oak breakfast table and put his head down on his arms.

  “We need to find out if he has any way of knowing if any of her books are missing,” said Diane, as she and Garnett sat opposite Cipriano.

  “Gil, can I call you Gil?” asked Garnett.

  “It’s my name.” He raised his head. “How did she… die? Did she suffer?”

  Probably, thought Diane, remembering her face. But right now, they couldn’t tell him that. Garnett just said there was a struggle and she apparently fell and hit her head on the coffee table, which was right.

  He was silent for a moment. “What’s she saying about books?” he asked, nodding toward Diane.

  “Would you be able to tell me if any of hers are missing?”

  He stared at the two of them. “You’re kidding, right? Who keeps a list of the books they have?”

  “Are there any special books she had, any rare books, any books that were actually safes?” asked Diane.

  “Rare? No. Joana reads mainly those book-of-the-month things. And poetry. She likes that. We both do. What do you mean, books that are safes?”

  “You know,” said Garnett. “It looks like a book, but inside it’s really a box to keep money and jewels in.”

  “Jewels? Joana doesn’t have jewels. If she did, she’d keep them in a safe deposit box, not in a book.”

  “There are a lot of music, history, and biography books in the living room. Are some of them yours?”

  “The history and biography are mine. Why all these questions about books? We don’t have any particularly valuable books. They’re just books.”

  “Has anyone asked you about them before?” asked Diane.

  “No. I keep telling you, they are just books. What’s this about? Are you saying someone hurt Joana over a book? Like an overdue book or something? I know graduate students get desperate, but…” Gil looked from one to the other as though they were nuts.
>
  Maybe the guy didn’t say book, thought Diane. Maybe Jere Bowden heard wrong. What sounds like book? Box-maybe. Look. Took. Rook-chess? Nook-place? Hook-weapon? Cook-meth lab? Could it be about the meth lab explosion?

  While Diane was lost in her thoughts, Garnett was trying to nail down Gil’s alibi. The library is a hard alibi to deal with. Sure, lots of people see you, but it’s easy to come and go.

  “Was Joana involved in drugs?” asked Diane.

  “Drugs? No, of course not. She hates drugs.”

  “Did she know anyone who was killed in the explosion?”

  “I think maybe one of her students. She called to tell me about it. I can’t remember his name. Bobby something.”

  “Did she know anyone who lived in the apartment house that blew up?” asked Diane.

  “No, not that I know of. Look, I don’t understand any of these questions.”

  “Just things we need to know,” said Garnett. “Like, do you know if she had any enemies?”

  “Joana? No. She doesn’t have any enemies. All her students like her. So do her fellow faculty members.”

  “How about socially?” asked Garnett.

  “Social enemies? Like jealous wives and lovers? Joana isn’t that kind of person. She’s pretty, but she doesn’t inspire jealousy in people. She’s nice. Everyone likes her. Look, we’re just normal people. She teaches music, I’m getting my doctorate in history. No one would have reason to kill her.”

  “How about you? Do you know anyone who might want to get even with you for some reason?”

  “Me? No. I tell you. I’m just a student. No, there’s no one I know who would do something like this.”

  “Why did you and she get a divorce?” asked Garnett.

  He shrugged. “She thought I had an affair.”

  “Did you?” asked Garnett.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Affairs are like pregnancies,” said Garnett. “You either are or you aren’t. Did you have an affair?”

  “I didn’t call it that. It was all over the computer. We didn’t even meet in person. It was in a chat room. Look, I don’t have to go into this now, do I?” He cast a quick glance at Diane.

  “I need to know the name of the woman you chatted with,” said Garnett.

  “Do you have to? I mean… I don’t really know her name. She called herself Justforkicks. And that’s all it was. Besides, it’s over now.”

  “I see,” said Garnett. “Doing any more online dating?”

  He shrugged again. “Occasionally. Nothing serious. It’s like safe sex. It’s all cartoons, anyway.”

  “Cartoons?” asked Garnett. Diane didn’t know what he meant, either.

  “Webcam. It’ll make you look like a cartoon character. It’s the software. Like anime-the Japanese stuff.”

  Diane was completely lost and she suspected that Garnett was, too.

  “I tell you what,” said Garnett. “Will you let us have a look at your computer?”

  “I don’t know. This is just personal stuff. I don’t even leave my room. I don’t meet anyone.”

  “Someone might have taken you seriously and thought your wife was competition to get rid of.”

  “That’s crazy. It’s just…” He looked at Diane again. “It’s nothing more than what it is. The people I talk to don’t even know who I am.”

  “What’s your screen name?” asked Diane.

  “Do I really have to say?” he asked Garnett.

  “Where are you staying?” asked Garnett.

  “I have an apartment on Applewood Street, four seventy-two. I room with two other students. They just went home after exams.”

  “You staying in town during the break?”

  “Yes.”

  “We may want to talk with you again,” said Garnett.

  “Where is she?” Gil asked. “Can I see her?”

  “She’s with the medical examiner,” said Garnett. “We need for you to make a positive ID. I can have a police officer take you there.”

  He nodded, the realization of what he was being asked to do suddenly reflected in his face.

  Garnett released Gil Cipriano to one of the officers at the scene to be driven to the morgue. Diane and Garnett watched out the window of the breakfast nook as he walked down the sidewalk in the direction of the patrol car, his shoulders slumped, his hands in his pockets, his head bent down.

  “What do you think?” asked Garnett.

  “He always speaks of her in the present tense,” said Diane.

  “Yes. I noticed that,” he said.

  “His knuckles were clean and unmarked,” she said.

  “I noticed that, too,” he said. “What were all those drug questions? Did you find something to link her to the meth lab explosion?”

  “No, not really, just a chain of thoughts.” Diane explained her results on finding words that rhyme with book. “Thin thread, I know, but worth a shot at asking.”

  Garnett gave a slight laugh. “Slim, indeed. But you’re right. Mrs. Bowden could have heard wrong.”

  Garnett’s phone rang. Diane stood up to go back to helping David finish processing the crime scene. Garnett put a hand on her arm.

  “She’s been here at this crime scene for several hours,” he said. Garnett listened for several moments. “Yes, I can. I’ve been here, too.” Pause. “I understand. We have other staff who can come.” He paused again.

  Diane wished she could hear the other side of the conversation. She was beginning to feel that she was the she he was talking about.

  “Of course it won’t be compromised.” He paused for several seconds.

  Diane could hear someone on the other end but couldn’t make out the words. She could tell they were excited.

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what she wants.” Garnett snapped the phone shut and turned toward Diane. “Things just keep getting worse.”

  “I know I shouldn’t ask, but how have they gotten worse?”

  “Someone just murdered Blake Stanton, the kid who tried to jack your car the other night. The mother thinks it was you.”

  Chapter 23

  “That kid? Someone killed him?”

  Blake Stanton wasn’t her favorite person, but he was still just a kid who had a great many decades ahead of him.

  “What happened?” She asked Garnett.

  “I don’t know yet. The commissioner didn’t give any details.” Garnett shook his head at some unspoken thought and stood up. “I’ve got to go on this one. I’ll take Jin and Neva. They can process the scene. I can’t have you anywhere near it.”

  “I understand that. David and I will finish up here. After that, I’m going home and turning off my telephones.”

  “I hear you there.”

  Diane refocused her attention on the Joana Cipriano crime scene. David had finished the living room and kitchenette and was now working on the bathroom. It wasn’t a big apartment-one bedroom, bath, living room, kitchenette with the small nook for a table. It was probably one of the less expensive apartments in the Applewood complex.

  She and David went over all the surfaces in detail. They checked for fingerprints on the walls, the door-jambs, the bathroom fixtures, inside, outside, and the underside of everything that might have been touched. Thankfully, it was not a cluttered apartment. They vacuumed the entire house, using a new bag for each grid they had laid out on the floors. When they finished, Diane was confident they had all the evidence the scene would yield. They packed up the books and took them to the lab where they would be examined for any clue as to the motive for Joana Cipriano’s murder or who had murdered her.

  It was the early hours of the morning when Diane arrived back at her apartment. She could get perhaps four hours’ sleep if she went to bed now. Jin and Neva probably wouldn’t get any sleep.

  Blake Stanton. What was that about? The meth lab explosion? Was someone afraid he would make a deal with the DA for a lighter sentence on the carjacking, so they killed him to shut him up?

  Diane
tried to put the whole thing out of her mind when she crawled into bed. Before she fell asleep, her last thought was the hope that she would be awakened only by her clock. Before she even dozed off completely, her phone rang. For a whole second she gave serious consideration to not answering it.

  “Fallon here.”

  “Don’t think you are going to get away with what you did. I will never let you go. For the rest of your miserable life I intend to haunt your every waking moment. You will never get another minute of peace, you hear? Are you listening to me?”

  Diane hung up the phone. Great, now Patrice Stanton had become her stalker. The phone rang again. This time Diane looked at the caller ID. Unknown. She unplugged the phone from the wall and went to sleep.

  The clock went off too soon, awakening her from a dream in which she was plummeting toward earth with no parachute. It can’t possibly be four hours since I went to sleep, thought Diane as she struggled out of bed. She looked at her unplugged telephone and decided not to plug it in. She dragged herself to the shower and turned it on cooler than her usual setting.

  “Shit!” she screamed when the cold water hit her.

  Diane finished her shower and dried off, shivering the entire time. It would be warmer to lie naked in the snow, she thought as she slipped on her clothes. Well, at least she was wide-awake.

  She forced herself to eat a bowl of cereal before she dashed out the door to the museum. When she got to the curb where the museum loaner was parked she stopped cold. Someone had spray-painted in bright red letters the words MURDERER, KILLER, BITCH, and assorted obscenities all over the white Crown Victoria. Diane could guess who it was. The car was left driveable, she noticed. Diane took out her cell and dialed Andie.

  “Andie,” she said to the perky voice that answered. Andie was always perky in the morning. Diane bet she didn’t have to take a cold shower to get that way. “Are you at the museum or are you en route?”