Chasing The Dead (An Alex Stone Thriller)

by Joel Goldman

  “Proving it was his car isn’t the same as proving he was driving it.”

  “Why, did you see something on the airport video makes you think it wasn’t him?”

  “Nothing conclusive. Whoever was behind the wheel was careful not to look at any of the cameras,” Rossi said, summarizing what was on the video. “Look at Norris sitting in there, picking his nose and scratching his nuts, and tell me he’s smart enough to pull off that disappearing act.”

  “Man could be putting on the dummy act.”

  “Let’s go find out.”

  Norris was slouched in his chair but bolted upright when Rossi and Wheeler breezed into the interrogation room.

  “Did you talk to Richie? Is everything cool with him? ’Cause if it isn’t, I’ll turn state’s evidence on his ass and you guys can put me in witness relocation.”

  “It’s called witness protection and I couldn’t tell you,” Rossi said.

  Norris came out of his chair. “Whaddaya mean?”

  “Sit down.” Rossi stayed on his feet, glaring at him until Norris did what he was told. “We haven’t talked to Richie.”

  Norris started to get up again but caught himself. “Why not? What the hell have you been doing all this time?”

  Rossi and Wheeler took their seats.

  “Taking a look at your car.”

  “My car? You found my car? Damn! That’s great!”

  Norris thumped his hand on the table and sat back, grinning.

  “Actually,” Wheeler said, “not so great, at least not for you. The damage to the front end of your car fits like a jigsaw puzzle to the damage on the back of your ex-wife’s car.”

  “Hey, I told you what happened in that parking lot. I wasn’t paying attention and she stopped short.”

  Rossi said, “We’re not talking about the parking lot.”

  “Then what are you . . .” Norris’s voice trailed off and his eyes bugged out as he realized what they meant. He raised his hands. “Hey, no way, man! No fucking way did I run Robin off that road!”

  “Where were you between ten p.m. and midnight last Tuesday night?”

  Norris’s eyes fluttered, his mouth hanging half open. “Uh, uh . . . I was home.”

  “Anybody with you?”

  Norris shuddered. “No, man. I was alone, but c’mon, you gotta be kidding if you think I’d do that.”

  Wheeler started to say something, but Rossi put his hand out, stopping him. He wanted to see how far Norris would go and how real it would look. Norris pulled his chair back to the table, propping his head on his fist, eyes closed, pinching the bridge of his nose, staying like that for a moment, until he took a deep breath and slumped in his chair.

  “Look, she and I, we had our share of fights over the years, but she was my kids’ mother. I’d never do something like that. You got to believe me.”

  “No, you look, Ted,” Rossi said, ticking the evidence off. “She got a restraining order against you during the divorce because you threatened her, and she got another one last week after what happened in the parking lot. You were out of a job and so broke you borrowed money you couldn’t pay back from a loan shark. You asked Robin for money and she turned you down. Now you’re totally fucked because Richie the Vig is going to take your car and break your legs, so you call Robin, beg her to bring money to you at your apartment. She shows up and tells you no means no. You have a fight. She runs out of the apartment and jumps in her car. You go after her in your car. She doesn’t know her way around your neighborhood and she’s so scared she turns the wrong way on Barry Road and ends up out in the country. By now, you’re so pissed you can’t see straight, and when you catch up to her, it’s full speed ahead and bam. So, yeah, I think you could do something like that and I think you did.”

  Norris gripped the edge of the table with both hands. “No, I’m telling you, man. It wasn’t me. Yeah, I asked her for the money and she said no just like she’d always done, but that was all over the phone. And she wouldn’t set foot in my apartment on a bet. No way, no how.”

  “Then who stole your car, ran Robin off the road, and dumped your car at the airport?”

  Norris let go of the table. “The airport? That where you found my car?”

  “Yeah. Economy Lot B. Ever since 9/11, the airport’s been blanketed with cameras. You can’t fart without it being recorded. We’ve got you on videotape, Ted, parking the car, getting out, and taking the shuttle bus to the terminal.”

  Norris sat back, arms folded against his chest. “Okay, you don’t believe me, then show me the fucking video, because there’s no fucking way that’s me.”

  “The camera doesn’t lie.”

  “Yeah, but cops do, and you aren’t gonna scare me into admitting something I didn’t do, so take your fucking videotape and shove it up your ass.”

  Rossi stood, lunging toward Norris, who scooted backward, his chair toppling over, leaving him sprawled on the floor. Wheeler grabbed Rossi’s arm, but Rossi shook him off and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Norris got to his knees, keeping his chair in front of him.

  “What the fuck is the matter with that guy?”

  Wheeler said, “I’m sorry about that. He gets wound up. You’re lucky it wasn’t just the two of you in here.”

  “I oughta file a complaint against the son of a bitch.”

  Wheeler nodded. “That’s your right. I can give you the number for the Office of Community Complaints or the website where you can download the complaint form and e-mail it in. There’ll be an investigation and you’ll have to provide a formal statement. After that, there’ll be a mediation and conciliation process.”

  Norris rubbed his chin. “You let me outta here and I’ll forget the whole thing.”

  “You’re going to have to help me before I can do that.”

  “What do you want from me? I didn’t do it and I don’t know who did.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might want to harm Robin?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding? The woman was a saint. Her only sin was marrying me.”

  “You only get to be a saint after you’re dead. What about someone she’d defended who wasn’t happy with the job she did?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve been divorced a long time and we didn’t talk much. When we did, it wasn’t about her job. It was mostly about me fucking something up.”

  “What about Robin’s social life? Was she seeing anyone?”

  “Maybe. My youngest, Kimmy—she’s the only one that talks to me—a few months back she told me her mom had a new boyfriend but she was keeping it a secret.”

  “How did Kim find out about it?”

  “I don’t know, but Kimmy’s smart—scary smart. Not much gets past that girl. If she says Robin was seeing someone, you can bet on it.”

  “Did she say who it was?”

  “When I asked her, she said she didn’t know, but I got the feeling she did but didn’t want to tell me, so I didn’t push. I wasn’t looking to stir anything up, and if Robin had something going on, then good for her.”

  Wheeler had asked Robin’s children whether she was seeing anyone and they’d said that their mother dated occasionally but hadn’t had a boyfriend in a long time. Except for Kim. She hadn’t commented. Wheeler didn’t think much of it at the time since Kim had said very little in response to any of his questions. He attributed her sullen demeanor and dismissive body language to a combination of angry grief and teenage angst.

  Wheeler tried a different tack. “Did you have a spare key to your car?”

  Norris brightened. “Yeah. I kept it in one of those magnetic hide-a-key things inside the wheel well, driver’s side, rear.”

  “Who knew that?”

  Norris threw his hands up. “Hell, I don’t know. It’s not like I advertised it. Wait a second. I told Richie so he wouldn’t break a window if he repossessed the car.”

  “Anybody else?”

  Norris thought for a moment. “Just Robin. She was
always forgetting where she left her keys, so she hid a key like that. She got me to do it in case she needed the key to my car. After we split up, I kept doing it. Habit, you know.”

  Wheeler got up. “Okay. Sit tight. I’ll see what I can do about getting you out of here.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  ROSSI WAS WAITING FOR HIM outside the interrogation room. They retreated to a safe distance to make certain Norris couldn’t overhear them.

  “Did you catch all of that?” Wheeler asked.

  “Yeah. I thought you were going to help him fill out the complaint.”

  “Don’t worry. My good cop isn’t that good. But your bad cop was so good I thought Norris was going to piss himself. You want to let him take a look at the airport video?”

  “Not until I get the video from the shuttle stops outside the terminal and the airport police tell me if they found any discarded clothes or the duffel bag.”

  “What do you want to do with him in the meantime?”

  “We can hold him for twenty-four hours without charging him, so let’s make good use of the time. Robin Norris had a reason to be up north. If she wasn’t meeting her ex-husband, she was meeting someone else. Since she wasn’t familiar with the area, she probably took I-29 north from downtown to the Barry Road exit. There are plenty of restaurants that would have still been open that time of night. Send some uniforms up there with pictures of Robin and have them canvass the area, see if anyone remembers seeing her.”

  “So you think Norris may be telling the truth, that somebody really did steal his car and is setting him up for Robin’s murder?”

  “Since we know the killer used his car, it’s the only other possible explanation.” Rossi looked away for a moment, brow furrowed. “In the video from the Economy parking lot, the driver of the Camry stayed in the car until the shuttle bus got close. When he got out of the car, he bent down like he’d dropped something, which took him outside the camera’s view. If he used the spare key to steal the car, he could have been putting it back.”

  Wheeler grinned. “So it would look like the driver had used Norris’s key, not the spare. I’ll check the Camry to see if the spare is still there and if there are any prints we can use.”

  “And check Robin’s car to see if she kept a spare in the wheel well too.”

  “That would confirm one part of Norris’s story.”

  “It might be more important than that. If Norris is innocent, the killer had to know about his spare key. Who would have known that?”

  “Norris said he told Richie the Vig.”

  “Yeah, but Richie had no reason to kill Robin.”

  Wheeler thought for a moment. “Norris said he and Robin had always hidden a key in the wheel wells of their cars, so it makes sense that their kids would have known, but I didn’t pick up anything that would make me suspicious of them.”

  “Except for the daughter, Kim. The other night when we were at their house, she was the only one who didn’t cry when I told them their mother had been murdered.”

  “Now that you mention it, she was more angry than anything else. In fact, she hit me as more angry that she was stuck there with us than that her mom was dead.”

  “Norris said she’s the only one of the kids that still talked to him. He called her ‘my little Kimmy.’ He didn’t talk about the other kids like that.”

  “You had to stop him from smacking Donny.”

  “And Kim was the only one who looked like her father. The other four were all Robin.”

  “Kim sided with her dad after the divorce but she’s forced to live with her mom and four siblings that take her side,” Wheeler said.

  “She doesn’t just side with him; she looks like him, and her brothers and sisters look like their mom. Which leaves her alone, outnumbered, and on the losing side. That’ll buy you a whole lot of anger.”

  Wheeler nodded. “Kim knew her mom was seeing someone on the sly. Maybe Kim found out who it was and that was all she could take.”

  “Kids have killed their parents for less. Talk to Sonia Steele. Robin may have confided in her about the affair and any problems she was having with Kim.”

  “I don’t know. A sixteen-year-old kid, a girl. You think she could do something like that? Lure her mother someplace and kill her? Then cool as cool can be, drop the car at the airport and make it back home?”

  “You’re right. That’s a lot for any sixteen-year-old girl, unless she had help. Get a warrant for her e-mail and texts. We need to find out who her friends are.”

  “You want to talk to Kim?”

  Rossi shook his head. “Not until we know more about her relationship with Robin. Did you recover any hair or fibers from the Camry?”

  “CSI is handling that. Maybe we’ll find something that ties to Kim and one of her buddies. What’s next for you?”

  Rossi checked his watch. “I’m meeting someone at five.”

  “That’s in twenty minutes. Is it on this case?”

  “No. Something else.”

  Wheeler raised his eyebrows. “That thing with Alex Stone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re like a dog with a bone.”

  “And I’m about to finish gnawing on it.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  ROSSI PULLED INTO THE DRIVEWAY at Alex and Bonnie’s house, sitting in his car for a moment wondering what Bonnie had in mind. Instead of telling him what he wanted to know, she might have some crazy idea of putting him in a room with Alex, demanding that they make peace, like a parent mediating between warring kids. Or maybe Bonnie had convinced Alex to confess and Bonnie was going to be there for moral support. Or maybe they were going to offer him a glass of elderberry wine laced with poison like the spinster aunts in Arsenic and Old Lace, a movie he’d fallen asleep watching the night before after downing a bottle of wine. He got out of the car, chuckling and jazzed at the prospect of proving he was right about Alex all along.

  Bonnie greeted him at the door, apologizing for her dog, which kept rising on his hind legs, planting his front paws on Rossi.

  “Quincy! Down! I’m sorry. He’s trained to stop jumping up on people as soon as he’s too tired.”

  Rossi ruffled the dog’s fur. “I don’t mind.”

  They stood in the entry hall, Bonnie in taupe slacks and a navy blouse, alternately clasping her hands and letting her arms dangle at her sides, Rossi waiting for his cue.

  “Well,” Bonnie said. “You’re here, aren’t you? Thanks for coming.”

  “Thanks for asking, but I’m still not clear on why you did.”

  She cleared her throat and wiped her palms on her thighs. “This isn’t easy for me.”

  He smiled. “Then take your time. Maybe we should sit down somewhere.”

  “Of course. The kitchen. We can sit in the kitchen.”

  He followed her through the house, admiring a photographed portrait of Bonnie, Alex, and their dog, struck by the joy in their faces. He glanced at the den, noting the matching easy chairs with crocheted throws on the ottomans and the stack of books and magazines on a table between the chairs.

  Though the kitchen blinds were drawn, the room was still bright and cheery, with artsy knickknacks adorning shelves, painted plates mounted on the walls, wineglasses hung from a rack above an island, and a red-framed sign handwritten in shades of red and blue on one wall that read:

  WELCOME

  If your shoes are real dirty—

  Please remove them.

  If your socks are real dirty—

  Please take them off.

  If your feet are real dirty—

  Please leave.

  Rossi sat at the table, pointing to the sign. “I like that.”

  “So do we.”

  Bonnie sat across from him, forearms on the table, rubbing her hands together. Quincy trotted to Rossi, sniffed, turned around, and lay down at Bonnie’s feet. Rossi waited for Bonnie to take the lead, but she didn’t.

  “Why am I here, Dr. Long?”

&n
bsp; Bonnie took a deep breath, letting it out. “I want you to leave us alone.”

  Rossi cocked his head to one side. “I’m sorry?”

  Bonnie straightened, shoulders back. “I want you to leave us alone. I want you to quit coming to the hospital to ask me about Alex. I want you to quit harassing Alex, trying to make her out to be some kind of criminal when all she was doing was protecting herself and me.” She paused, drew another breath. “I want you out of our lives forever.”

  Rossi sat back in his chair. Bonnie had set him up, only not in the way he had imagined, taking advantage of his cockiness, letting him think this was going to be his big breakthrough. But she had to know he wasn’t going to go away, which meant he still had a play to make.

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  Bonnie smacked her hand on the table. “Why not? Alex told me she can’t be retried even if she were guilty.”

  “Then what do either of you have to be afraid of? Why not just tell me the truth?”

  Bonnie paused, nodding. “What if we told you that you were right? What then? What would you do?”

  It was a question Rossi had asked himself many times. The answer varied. Sometimes it was that he’d take it to the U.S. attorney’s office and the Missouri Bar Ethics Commission and let them sort it out. Other times, he wasn’t so certain, thinking just knowing he’d been right would be enough. That was before he suspected that something was going on between Alex and Judge West, raising the possibility that Alex could go to jail for obstruction of justice if nothing else.

  “That depends on how much both of you tell me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know what Alex has told you, but she may have done more than kill Dwayne Reed. She may have also obstructed justice in order to get acquitted. And, if she did, she can go to jail for that even if she can’t go to jail for murder.”