by Alina Adams
"Mr. Ben-Golan" — Ho assumed the mantle of Solomon — "you do seem to have the superseding claim here. You may take the infant with you."
"Thank you, Officer." Ben-Golan's face betrayed no expression. But Bex did notice his hands shaking ever so slightly as he reached for his son. She handed Omri over, careful not to wake him. "And thank you, Bex," he said.
"You're welcome. He's adorable."
"Wait a damn minute — " Ralph began, only to be interrupted by Coop's by now familiar, "But what if the baby is mine?"
Obviously expecting the protest, Ho went right into, "And here's what both of you gentlemen can do if you're unhappy with my decision. Go to Family Court, file a petition for custody. One for each of you. Let a judge decide where that boy belongs."
Ho had barely completed his invective before Idan had gathered up Omri's car seat and was headed for the door. He didn't say good-bye or even indicate that anything had happened. He simply strapped in his son and walked out.
"Son of a bitch," Ralph swore.
"It isn't fair," Coop stomped.
Neither made any attempt to leave. They just stood there, as if waiting for further instructions.
Eventually Ho took pity and gave them some. "You're free to go," he said. "Mr. Adler, we have your identification of Allison's body. Thank you very much, sir, for your cooperation. And Mr. Devaney, someone will contact you if the police have any further questions about your relationship with Miss Adler."
"I loved her," Coop said.
"That's nice," Ho said. "Now you two are both free to go"
Bex noticed he didn't ask her to do the same.
She waited until Ralph and Coop had taken their leave. Allison's father shuffled out as if kicking Coop had been his last attempt at actually lifting a leg and now he was magnetically tethered to the floor. He put on his baseball cap, straightened his coat, and tucked the shirt that had gotten loose during one scuffle or another into his pants. He hitched up his belt with his thumbs, stuck the remaining fingers in the loops, and looked around the room again, as if afraid he'd forgotten something. He had forgotten nothing, because he'd come in already having lost everything.
Coop followed a few steps behind. He didn't shuffle, his shoulders didn't sag, his jaw remained set. He was too athletic to be anything but graceful. But his hands told the story. Coop peeled off his gloves as if it were the first time he'd done such a thing. Each gesture was suddenly new and unfamiliar. He acted as if he were being directed, step by step, in how to complete the task by someone speaking a different language. His hands no longer belonged to him, his fingers no longer obeyed him, because he was no longer the same person he'd been when he came in.
Once out the door. Coop and Ralph headed in different directions — not because either had a reason for going that way, but simply because they were desperate to get away from each other.
Bex wanted to feel sorry for them, but there were too many loose, unanswered questions to this story. And Bex had long ago made a point of refusing to feel sorry for anyone until she'd gotten — and confirmed — the whole story. She'd made the mistake of feeling sympathy for, and thus trusting, the wrong people before.
"Close the door, would you, please, Bex?" Officer Ho asked, and she obeyed.
He sat down on the couch previously occupied by Omri's car seat and gestured for Bex to do the same. Once she was settled across from him, Ho sighed, exhausted, and rubbed his eyes. He said, "I hate domestic issues. They're always the worst."
"Is it true more policemen are killed responding to domestic calls than any other kind of crime?" Bex asked. Because that, alas, was what she did in stressful situations. She spouted facts.
Ho seemed surprised by her inquiry.
Bex shrugged and apologized. "I'm a researcher. I make my living learning useless trivia on the off chance it might be useful one day."
"Sounds a lot like being a cop."
Bex was going to quip, "But with less bloodshed" until she recalled her last few months on the job and realized that wasn't exactly true.
"But yes," Ho said, "domestic disputes are the most dangerous for police officers. Everyone's emotions are so raw." He asked, "What did you think of what we saw here today? You know the players better than I do."
Bex said, "It's hard to say. I've certainly heard of coaches seducing their students — and students younger than eighteen, believe me. So it's not like Idan's version is out of the question. On the other hand, I worked Nationals last year, and Coop and Allie were certainly acting like a couple of kids in love. I mean, they sat together in the stands, they held hands walking around the arena, he came to all her practices, she came to his…"
"Is that the figure skating equivalent of going steady?"
"More or less."
"What about the dad?"
"He's pretty standard issue, too. I can believe that he didn't know Allison was cheating on Coop with Idan, and I can believe that he knew it damn well and looked the other way because Idan was going to turn his baby into a champion."
"So the kid could be anyone's?"
"I suppose... but does it really matter?" Bex tread carefully now, realizing that one wrong move could get her locked out of the information cycle for good. She had thought that Ho was on her side, even slipping her advance information. But what if that was a misinterpretation on her part? She couldn't presume to know anything. "If Allison committed suicide" — Bex chose each word as if the fate of her job depended on it — "what difference does the identity of her baby's father make to the police?"
Ho finished rubbing his eyes and looked Bex right in hers, so there could be no misunderstanding between them. He said, "Allison Adler didn't commit suicide. She was murdered. And in that case, the identity of her baby's father matters a hell of a lot."
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Murdered?" Bex repeated. She wasn't all that surprised. Ho had insinuated as much earlier. All she really wanted to know was, "How can you be certain?"
"Well, the final autopsy report hasn't come in yet, obviously. But I've done this before. I know the signs." Ho explained, "If a person hangs himself — or herself, as the case may be — the knot of the loop will rise upward in direct opposition to gravity, so the marks will appear high up on the neck in a rising fashion. On the other hand, if a person is, let's say, strangled first, then strung up to make it look like they hung themselves, the marks will be more level or even straight across because most likely the killer is pushing down with balanced force, either with his bare hands or some kind of ligature."
"And the marks on Allison's neck…."
"Like they were made by a ruler."
Bex sighed. "So you think she was strangled, then hung."
"I'd testify to it in court."
"Let's hope you get the chance to."
"And there was one more thing. Allison was wearing a black turtleneck sweater, one of those fluffy things that's like a sheep gone bad. My daughter loves them, but they attract all sorts of garbage — hair, lint, bits of food; like flypaper. When I brought Allison down, there were bright red fibers practically ground into her neck, plus a couple pressed under her left armpit and on her opposite hip. She put up a fight."
"Against someone wearing red."
"Yeah..."
Bex took a wild guess, but she had the feeling Ho had been leading her there all along. "Was it the same texture and shade of red as the gloves Coop Devaney wears?"
Ho tipped his head at her ability to follow his lead. She suspected he might even have smiled, except where he had led her was too depressing. "Yup."
"Well, that sucks, doesn't it?"
"Yup."
"Those gloves were part of the official World Team uniform this season. Half the arena has identical pairs."
"Yup," Ho agreed.
Bex asked, "Why are you telling me this?"
She'd been meaning to inquire since he'd first allowed her to sit in on Harris Knox's statement, not to mention Idan, Ralph, and Coop's respective outburst
s. Most police officers would have long ago asked her politely to leave; then, when she dawdled (Bex never flat out refused, but she'd perfected the act of obeying very slowly down to a fine art), thrown her out. But Ho was different. And Bex doubted that her reputation for solving other skating-related messes had preceded her.
"Because," he said, "I'd like to ask for your help."
"I'll tell you everything I know."
"No. More than that. The fact is, yes, I have a forensics team in the costume room right now, but I don't hold out much hope for them finding anything. How many people go through that room in a single day? Tens? Dozens?"
"Could be hundreds."
"So any DNA or fingerprint evidence we might find is useless. As for Allie's autopsy, it will determine the cause of death was strangulation. They'll take out the red threads and analyze them. But, like you said, half the arena is wearing those gloves — skaters, coaches, officials, even fans probably, since those same gloves are sold on the USFSA website, right?"
Bex said, "You've done your homework."
"I'm a thorough guy. Because I never expect to get lucky. Especially here. Even if, by some divine providence, the ME is able to extract a skin cell or two from the red threads that we then match to an actual person — God only knows how, I hardly have the authority to ask everyone who happened to be on the premises to submit to a DNA test — any semi-competent attorney could point out that there were a million ways those threads might have gotten on Allie. The most obvious one being, she'd been gone from skating for a long time. The minute an old friend saw her, he gave her a big hug. End of story."
"You said 'he,"' Bex noted. "You think Allie was killed by a man?"
"Suffocation is a pretty grueling way to kill someone. You need to be relatively strong, especially if the victim is fighting back." Ho reasoned. "But, why? Do you think there's a woman I should be questioning?"
"Lian Reilly is the only one I can think of with a motive. She's Coop's current girlfriend. She might not have been too happy to find out his ex had given birth to his baby. This is Lian's first relationship, and she's not the most mature specimen around. I wouldn't put it past her to snap."
"Coop claims he didn't know anything about the kid — or Allie, for that matter."
"In my business," Bex said, "people lie to me all the time. How about yours?"
Ho grinned and conceded, "Once in a while."
"Furthermore, Coop's not knowing doesn't mean Lian didn't. The skating grapevine is a terrifying thing in its efficiency. Lian could have heard from someone else and acted completely on her own. She could have called Allie and lured her to the rink, led her to the costume room, and killed her. That's one way to make sure your guy doesn't go back to his ex. Baby or no baby."
"It's not the worst motive I've ever heard."
"Except for one thing."
"What's that?"
"Lian Reilly is a tiny little thing. She's about a head shorter than Allison. I don't really see her overpowering Allie, element of surprise or not."
"So why the jealous girlfriend scenario?"
"Because Lian's mother isn't tiny at all."
"She was dating Devaney, too?"
"No. But she lives for Lian's happiness. And there's one more thing. Amanda Reilly would love for her daughter to quit skating and live a normal life. Coop was the closest Lian had ever come to that. What if Amanda was more concerned about Lian losing her boyfriend to his son and ex than Lian was?"
"So her mother knocked off the competition?"
Bex blushed. "Is that the worst motive you've ever heard?"
"Nope," Ho said.
Emboldened and downright giddy at being listened to, Bex volunteered, "There's also Pandora Westby, Idan Ben- Golan's wife."
"We're moving on to Daddy Candidate Number Two?"
"Pandora could not have been happy about Allie and Idan. And she didn't have to do the dirty work herself. She's loaded. She could have hired someone to do it."
"She hired someone who just happened to be wearing USFSA gloves?"
"Maybe our killer does his homework, too. And has access to the Internet."
Ho chuckled. "Touché."
"And what's to say she didn't hire a member of the World Team? Pandora has sponsored a lot of athletes over the years. Maybe she finally called in a favor." That didn't involve a bare-chested boy following her around adoringly.
"Who are some of her protégées?"
"Well, Coop, for one. Sebastian Vama, Allie's old partner, for another."
"So we could be looking at some group effort here. Sounds like a lot of people wanted this poor kid dead."
"What about her dad?" Bex asked. "You interviewed him. Did he have an alibi for the time Allison was killed?"
"Home. Sleeping. It was five a.m. Hard to argue with that."
"It's just the way he kept talking about how much money Allie's skating cost him. Like that loss was more important than she was."
"Killing her wouldn't have gotten him his money back."
"No. But it might have made him feel better about the whole thing. And it would give him custody of her baby — or so he thought, anyway, until Idan stepped up. Maybe he saw Allie's son as a second chance. And he was willing to sacrifice her for it."
"Except Mr. Ben-Golan threw a monkey wrench into those plans."
"Ralph Adler sounded positive that Coop was the father. Allie might have even told him that."
"Why? Assuming Ralph knew about the pregnancy, why lie to her dad?"
“To keep Idan from finding out?" Bex guessed.
"His name is on the birth certificate."
"But we don't know how it got there. Allie might have been meaning to keep the baby a secret from him, but he found out somehow — again, don't underestimate skating's grapevine — and coerced her into admitting he was the father and putting his name on the birth certificate. You saw how crazy Idan acted when he burst in here the first time. This isn't some guy unhappy to be a father. He wanted that boy. What if Allie knew just how badly Idan wanted him, and was afraid he would try to take Omri away from her?"
"Why go to court when you can just kill the mother?" Ho articulated what they were both thinking.
"Idan is certainly big enough and strong enough to overpower Allie. And he's got a set of those gloves, too, I'm sure of it."
"So we're right back where we started from."
Bex bit down on her thumbnail. "Sorry. I guess I wasn't much help."
"That's all right," Ho said. "This wasn't what I was talking about, anyway."
"It's not?" Bex wondered what else he could possibly ask of her.
"No. When I said I needed your help, I meant 24/7's."
"Oh." Suddenly Bex felt a lot less important than her previous several minutes of conversation had suggested. Her swelled head shrunk like a snail curling into itself.
"Here's the thing: I have permission from my department to go public with details about Allie's murder. We have so little to go on, we need to ask anyone who might have seen something suspicious this morning to step forward and let us know. And we'd like 24/7 to announce that on the air. Who knows? Someone who may have come here just to watch the practices with no intention of coming back might hear about it and offer a tip. Heck, maybe even someone with no connection to skating but just driving by the arena on their way to work has something we could use."
So Ho only wanted Bex for her television connections. Oh, well, what else was new? Here she'd actually thought someone had realized that her research might be a key element to solving a crime; but no, he was just buttering her up for the big request.
"Uhm, I could ask." Bex resolved to sound professional, even if that snail of her ego was now as shriveled as after a salt shower. "But, to be honest, I think my producer, Gil Cahill, will hate the idea."
“I love the idea!" Gil thundered.
At this particular championship, he'd set up his office in the twenty-foot-long, five-foot-wide production trailer parked in a lot right n
ext to the arena. Which meant that Bex was attempting to have this conversation while, all around them, sound technicians were checking audio levels, technical directors were monitoring camera placement in the arena, and the four assistant directors were assisting the director by furiously scribbling notes around hasty pen-and-ink diagrams of every skater's program.
Bex could barely hear what she herself was asking, much less feel certain about Gil's answer.
"Really?" she shouted while, at the same time, ducking a crew member walking by with a camera on his shoulder, right at Bex's nose level. "But I thought you hated giving away 24/7 airtime for any cause. Remember when those former Olympians put on a benefit show for their old coach who had lung cancer and couldn't afford the treatment? Gary Gold wanted to mention the American Cancer Society and how people could donate on the air, and you told him he could do good on his own time, 24/7 wasn't a nonprofit."
"This isn't do-gooding," Gil explained. "This is good business. The viewers will tune in to get all the latest salacious details — even people who otherwise never watch a skating show. We could even do a call-in poll about who they think did it. Like one of those reality programs. This is great. Tell your cops 24/7 is at their service."
"Uhm... okay," Bex said and turned to leave, knowing that she should feel like she'd won, but having a tough time summoning the motivation.
"Except, Bex?"
"Yes?"
"One little thing."
"Okay. What?"
"We can't have Coop Devaney being guilty."
Bex just stared at Gil, unable to think of a single thing to say. Did Gil think this was a script Bex was writing? Or did he expect her to cover up evidence? Tamper with forensic results? Did he expect her to will the results he wanted into being?
"Come to the parking lot with me, Bex," Gil said.
