Chasing The Dead (An Alex Stone Thriller)

by Joel Goldman

  Rossi grabbed his cell phone, holding it to his ear, pretending to be talking to someone on the other end, one finger in the air signaling to Fowler that he’d be there in a minute. No one was on the other end, but he couldn’t resist pimping Fowler. He watched Fowler from the corner of his eye, waiting until Fowler’s face blossomed red before he pocketed his phone, slow walking to Fowler’s office. By the time he got there, Fowler was behind his desk, thumping a pencil against his belly. There were two chairs on the visitor’s side of the desk, one of them occupied.

  “Hey, Rossi,” Charlie Wheeler said. “How’s it hangin’?”

  Wheeler was Rossi’s first partner when he joined the homicide unit. His parents were wealthy physicians who sent him to Pembroke Hill, Kansas City’s private prep school, and to Princeton, where he got an engineering degree. He’d disappointed them when he enrolled in the academy the day after he graduated, telling Rossi he never grew out of playing cops and robbers. Rossi nicknamed him Mr. Mayor since he shared the name of a popular former holder of the office.

  He was black, which would have given him a leg up with the brothers on the east side if they trusted the cops and if they couldn’t sense his upper-class, Ivy League background a mile away. Despite the badge, he was an engineer at heart, more pen-and-paper problem solver than throw-down motherfucker.

  One day they chased a suspect into an abandoned house, Wheeler taking the front, Rossi going in the back. The suspect put a bullet in Wheeler’s left leg before Rossi took him out. His wife, Lorraine, reminding him that their two kids needed their father, convinced him that it was time he stopped chasing bad guys and used his engineering degree. Wheeler didn’t want to quit the force, so they compromised and he transferred to the traffic investigation unit and started reconstructing accidents.

  Rossi occasionally used him as a sounding board, appreciating how Wheeler could deconstruct a case, finding the flaws and pointing him in the right direction. Rossi bought him a beer after Alex Stone was acquitted, running the case past him. Wheeler told Rossi he agreed with him but since Alex had been acquitted, he had no choice but to let it go. Rossi said he couldn’t, and Wheeler said that was the difference between an engineer and a homicide cop.

  Rossi shook his hand. “Free and easy, Mr. Mayor. How’s the leg?”

  Wheeler patted his thigh. “Still got a limp, but Lorraine says it’s not enough to get me out of mowing the lawn.”

  Rossi laughed. “I hear that. What brings you over here?”

  Wheeler pointed at a file on Fowler’s desk. “Like I told the commander, I’ve got a case I’d like you to take a look at. My boss said your boss would have to okay you doing that.”

  Rossi turned to Fowler, whose perpetual scowl notched another downturn. “He said take a look, not take it over. Are we clear?”

  “Clear as ever, boss,” Rossi said. “Follow me,” he said to Wheeler.

  Rossi pulled a chair next to his desk, motioning to Wheeler to take a seat, Wheeler sighing as he did, rubbing and stretching out his left leg.

  “Just a limp? Looks like it feels worse than that,” Rossi said.

  “Depends on the day. Sometimes I get pins and needles that won’t quit. Sometimes it gives out on me and sometimes I can mow the lawn.” He patted his stomach. “But it’s a good excuse for packing on the weight.”

  Rossi grinned. “And what’s your excuse for the bald head and glasses? You didn’t have those the last time I saw you.”

  Wheeler smiled and nodded. “That, my friend, is just me getting where we’re both going, only I’m getting there first. But it makes me glad you killed the prick that shot me so he could get there ahead of both of us.”

  “Makes me glad too. What’s with your case?”

  Wheeler spread his file on Rossi’s desk, separating the photographs from the accident report and a diagram of the scene. “One-car accident last night north of the river, way west on Barry Road. Westbound car goes around a curve where the road turns to the south, driver loses control, goes down an embankment, and smacks into a tree. The driver is dead at the scene due to massive head trauma.”

  “So? Happens all the time. What do you need me for? Maybe she fell asleep at the wheel or maybe it was suicide.”

  “Maybe, but she didn’t leave a note and the family says no way. She was happy, wasn’t in debt, wasn’t on drugs, and as far as anyone knows, wasn’t in any kind of trouble. And, there’s one more detail.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The accident location. According to her oldest son, who’s a senior in college at UMKC, his mother never went north of the river unless she was going to the airport, and this location is a long way from KCI. He had no explanation for why she was where she was.”

  Rossi took sip of cold coffee. “Which leaves you where?”

  “Suspicious. I won’t know more until we get an autopsy report to rule out drugs and alcohol and until I get a chance to flyspeck the vehicle and do a complete reconstruction of the accident.”

  Rossi nodded. “Okay, you’ve got a case with a lot of questions. I still don’t get why you want me to look at it.”

  “The victim was Robin Norris. Ring a bell?”

  Rossi’s eyes popped. “The Robin Norris who runs the public defender’s office?”

  “Yeah. That Robin Norris. We found her cell phone on the floor in the front of her car. We pulled her phone records. She made a call just before the accident.”

  “Who’d she call?”

  “Alex Stone.”

  Rossi sat up. “How ’bout that.”

  “Yeah, how about that. I was going to pay her a visit and ask what they were talking about, but I thought you might like to come along.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  GRACE CANFIELD KNOCKED on the open door to Alex’s office. “You wanted to see me?”

  “We’ve got a new case for a guy named Jared Bell. He’s charged with forcible rape and first-degree murder and his initial appearance is Friday morning at nine,” she said, holding up Jared’s file.

  “And you’ve already got the file? How many times has that happened?”

  “Zero, but we can’t say that anymore. Make a copy for yourself and bring it back to me. Then start digging. I want to know everything there is to know about him—family, friends, priors—whatever you can find. He was in the service, so we’ll need those records too. And I’d like to have as much as you can pull together before court.”

  “Why the rush? Nothing ever happens at the initial hearing except for the judge setting bail our clients can never post.”

  “You’re right, but there’s something about this guy that’s off and I need to figure out what it is.”

  “All of our clients are off one way or the other or they wouldn’t be our clients,” Grace said.

  Alex raised a hand, telling Grace to stop. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that. But when I was talking to Jared . . .”

  “Wait a minute. You’ve already talked to him? At the jail?”

  “Yes. Already. At the jail.”

  “He’s that high profile?”

  “No. Near as I can tell, he doesn’t even have a profile. He’s a homeless vet who confessed to murder but not rape who says he’s never getting out because he’s been heading to jail for a long time. Calvin, my buddy at the jail, says he wakes up in the middle of the night screaming to someone named Ali that he’s sorry. We don’t have an ID on the victim yet, so look for anyone by that name because we’re gonna need that if we’re gonna have a shot at putting this on someone else.”

  Grace cocked her head, a glint of worry in her narrowed eyes. “Girl, you got that look I haven’t seen in a while.”

  “What look is that?”

  “It’s your I-Am-Sasha-Fierce-and-I’m-gonna-save-the-world-one-poor-soul-at-a-time look.”

  Alex smiled. “Something wrong with that?”

  “Just one thing. That look works for Beyoncé when she’s onstage shaking her booty, b
ut, girl, you lost that look for a reason,” Grace said, leaving with the file.

  Grace was right. She’d lost that look because she’d lost hope that she could make a difference. Even on the rare occasions when she won, all she did was send her clients back to the same lousy world that had raised them to be criminals and where that was the only job skill they had. She’d learned to live with that, convincing herself that she was defending the Constitution as much as any client, making certain that their rights were protected regardless of their guilt or innocence.

  But her ideals had been no match for Dwayne Reed. They hadn’t been strong enough to protect the people he killed or to stop her from killing him. If Grace had seen that look in her today, maybe she could feel that hope again and turn Jared Bell from someone’s fall guy into her salvation, if she could find a way around Judge West.

  Five minutes later, Meg Adler rapped on her door.

  “I ran into a couple of people in the lobby that need to talk to you.”

  Alex looked up from her desk. “I didn’t get a call from the receptionist.”

  “I told her that wouldn’t be necessary.”

  Alex furrowed her brow, staring at Meg. “Why?”

  Charlie Wheeler stepped from behind Meg and into Alex’s office. “Because I asked her not to. I’m Detective Wheeler,” he said, showing her his badge.

  “And,” Meg said, “I believe you know Detective Rossi. I’ll leave you to your business.”

  Rossi followed Wheeler, the two detectives fronting Alex’s desk, looking down at her. Alex tensed, angry that Meg had let them ambush her, depriving her of a chance to figure out why they wanted to talk with her and how she would handle them. That Meg was new and they didn’t know each other was no excuse. Protect your people was the first rule for any boss, and Meg had served her up, letting them catch her wide-eyed and openmouthed. If it had just been Wheeler, she might have given Meg a pass. But nobody got a pass when it came to Rossi.

  Rossi led off. “Sorry for barging in.”

  “No, you’re not,” Alex said. “It’s what you do. The question is why?”

  “We need to talk to you.”

  “I gathered that. What happened? Did you lose your phones? Forget how to make an appointment? Or were you just in the neighborhood and decided to drop by?”

  Wheeler started to sit in one of the two chairs in front of Alex’s desk but she cut him off.

  “Don’t bother. Whatever you want, you won’t be here long enough to sit.”

  “Why the hostility?” Rossi asked.

  “I’m busy. Next time I show up at your work uninvited you’ll understand.”

  Rossi shrugged. “I spend my day getting interrupted. No reason to come out swinging.”

  Alex leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. “Fine. What do you want?”

  Rossi looked at Wheeler. “It’s your case, Mr. Mayor.”

  “I’m in the traffic investigation unit,” Wheeler said. “I’m investigating Robin Norris’s accident.”

  Alex clenched her jaw, Wheeler’s statement breathing life into the unformed dread she’d felt since learning that Robin was dead. There could be only one reason Wheeler and Rossi were in her office. Robin’s accident wasn’t an accident. If they had information, she wanted to hear it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, motioning them to sit. “It’s been a shitty day.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Wheeler said.

  “Thanks. What makes you think Robin’s case is a homicide?”

  “What makes you ask that?”

  “Because if it was an accident, he wouldn’t be here,” Alex said, pointing to Rossi. “So what’s going on?”

  Wheeler deflected her question. “When was the last time you saw Ms. Norris?”

  Alex turned her head to the side, thinking for a moment. “I’m not sure. I probably saw her in the office yesterday or the day before.”

  “When was the last time you spoke with her?”

  “Like I said, yesterday or the day before.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Just hi and how are you, in the hall, that sort of thing.”

  “Nothing more substantive, maybe something about one of your cases or something going on outside the office?”

  “No. Robin was always under the gun. She didn’t have a lot of time for chitchat and there was nothing going on in any of my cases that we needed to discuss.”

  “What’s your cell phone number?”

  Alex frowned. “My cell phone number? Why do you ask?”

  “Please, Ms. Stone, your number?”

  “Don’t worry,” Rossi said, “he’s not going to call and ask you out.”

  “Maybe you should give him yours. He might ask you, and the change would do you good,” Alex said.

  Wheeler coughed into his fist, unable to hide his smirk. “Your number, Ms. Stone.”

  “Fine, if it will get this over with faster. It’s 816-555-1331. Now it’s your turn. Why do you need my number?”

  “We recovered Ms. Norris’s cell phone at the scene. Her last call was to you.”

  Alex grimaced. “Really? If you knew that, why did you ask for my number?”

  “Just confirming that we had the right one.”

  “Well, I didn’t get a call or a message from Robin.”

  “Do you have your phone?” Rossi said.

  Alex didn’t like that she was the only one answering questions, though she knew that was a standard cop interrogation technique. Although she had nothing to hide, she couldn’t stop her pulse from racing as she retrieved her phone from her pants pocket.

  “Right here,” she said, holding it up.

  “Can I have a look at it?” Rossi said.

  “After I do.” Alex unlocked the phone, her mouth dropping open when she saw that she had a message. “That’s weird. I’ve got a message, but I don’t remember getting a call.” She clicked through to the voice message screen. “The caller ID says it was from Robin.”

  “Put the phone on speaker and play the message,” Rossi said.

  Alex hesitated, hating that she had to share the message with anyone, especially Rossi. Robin had intended the message for her, not them. What could be more intimate, more private, than a friend’s last words?

  “Play it, Counselor,” Rossi said.

  She nodded, realizing she didn’t have a choice, tapping the touch screen, taking a quick breath when she heard Robin’s voice.

  “Alex! I’ve got to talk to you! Oh, my God!”

  The message ended with a garbled mix of Robin’s scream and the crunch of collapsing steel.

  The three of them sat in silence, staring at Alex’s phone, each of them hard-bitten enough to think they’d heard it all only to find out in that moment how wrong they were.

  “We’re going to need your phone,” Rossi said, his voice surprisingly soft and gentle. Alex nodded and turned away, clutching her middle. “You can get a new phone with the same number.”

  “What about saving Robin’s message? Won’t I lose it when I change phones?”

  “I’ve been down this road before,” Rossi said. “Your voice mail is saved on your carrier’s server. Do you have any idea what she needed to talk to you about?”

  Alex shook her head. Robin rarely called her after hours, respecting her employees’ needs for a private life. So the call had to have been some kind of emergency, and the only one she could think of was Jared Bell’s case. And that wasn’t something she wanted to discuss with Rossi. “None.”

  “The accident happened north of the river, way west on Barry Road. Can you think of any reason she was in that area?” Rossi asked.

  Alex was glad for a question she could answer with a clear conscience. “No idea.”

  “What time was the call?” Wheeler asked.

  Alex examined her phone. “Last night. Ten fifteen.”

  “Where were you when the call came in?”

  Alex straightened, feeling a little less vulnerable f
or the moment. “At a bar. I’d turned my phone off. That’s why I didn’t hear it ring.”

  Wheeler took Alex’s cell phone and dropped it into an evidence bag.

  “Were you with anyone? Can anyone vouch for you?”

  Alex nodded. “Yeah. Him,” she said, pointing at Rossi. “Your partner and I were having a beer.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  WHEELER AND ROSSI WAITED until they were out on the street before discussing their meeting with Alex.

  “So what’s your take?” Wheeler said.

  “Other than that Alex is lying about not knowing what Robin Norris wanted to talk with her about?”

  “What makes you think she was lying?”

  “The way her face fell when you asked her the question. She couldn’t even look at you. I’ve seen that face a thousand times. It’s the what-who-me-couldn’t-be special. Never fails and never works.”

  “You sure you’re not reading too much into that given your history with her? She’s got a solid explanation for why she didn’t get the phone call, since the two of you were kicking back a few brews. And by the way, what were you doing going drinking with her?”

  Rossi crunched his brow, staring at Wheeler. “I didn’t go drinking with her. I was at the Zoo drinking by myself. She came in. I sat down next to her. End of story.”

  “No, it’s the same old story. You didn’t have to sit down next to her. You’re never going to leave it alone, are you? What did you think was going to happen? You’d get her drunk and she’d confess? And even if she did, so what? She was acquitted. And that is the end of the story.”

  “Not for me. And don’t forget, you invited me to this party after her name popped up, so quit telling me to let it go.”

  “Look, I get it. We’ve all got at least one case that will eat our ass until the day we die.”

  “Even in traffic?”

  Wheeler stepped back. “Fuck you, Rossi!”

  Rossi put up his hands. “Sorry, Mayor. That was out of line.”

  “Damn straight it was. I know why you can’t let this one go.”

  “And now you’re gonna tell me even though I’m not going to ask.”