Negative Image

by Vicki Delany

  She could only hope Meredith didn’t put a picture of Molly Smith, flat on her butt on the sidewalk, face covered with blood, all over the front page of the paper. If so, they’d be putting Lucky into a bed beside Andy’s.

  Larry Iverson was at the front desk, demanding to see his client. Jim Denton nodded and typed at his computer. John Winters came through the doors, having taken down names and numbers of people to talk to later about the incident.

  “You’ll have to wait until Mrs. Steiner has been processed. I’d suggest you come back in half an hour.”

  “To whom am I speaking?” Iverson asked.

  “Sergeant John Winters.”

  Iverson introduced himself and said, “You have no reason to hold her, Sergeant Winters. Mrs. Steiner has suffered an enormous shock at the murder of her husband and…” His eyes narrowed as the penny dropped. “Winters. Oh, yes. Your wife is a suspect in that case, I believe. This is outrageous. I demand Mrs. Steiner be released immediately. Clearly, you’re not going to be impartial in any matter regarding the wife of your wife’s…friend.”

  Winters walked away. He passed Smith, his face set into angry lines.

  Iverson pulled out his Blackberry. “I have some calls to make,” he told Denton. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  “I’ve no doubt about that,” Denton said to Smith. He studied her face. “Doesn’t look too bad.”

  “I’m going to have a long soak in a tub of steaming bleach. God, what a couple of harridans.”

  “I can hear the lawyer now—grief does that to a woman.”

  “Being a mean bitch does that to a woman,” Smith said. “I’m going downstairs, see if Dave needs a hand. They’re probably trying to get his pants off even as we speak.”

  ***

  John Winters logged onto his computer. His eyes felt like sandpaper and his head was stuffed with cotton wool. Despite what he’d told Barb, the couch in the interview room was not at all comfortable. He intended to keep both Steiner and Barton in jail until they could get to court. One of them had hit Molly Smith, and assaulting a police officer was not a charge Winters took lightly. Never mind causing a major disturbance in the center of town and requiring three officers to subdue them.

  But the ink was scarcely dry on their fingers before the Chief Constable came running down the stairs to the cells. Iverson had wasted no time in telling him that Mrs. Steiner, the grieving widow, had been arrested two days after her husband’s murder. How would that look? he asked. Winters couldn’t care less how it looked. Iverson had, with more subtlety than his foul-mouthed client, threatened to go to the papers to point out that one of the arresting officers was personally involved in her late husband’s case.

  And that, the Chief Constable agreed, would not look good.

  Therefore Josie Steiner was released into her lawyer’s care with orders not to leave town and to appear in court when demanded to do so.

  They could hardly hold Barton, faced with lesser charges, having released the woman with money and a good lawyer. Perhaps it was time to retire, Winters thought, rubbing the back of his neck. He and Eliza could…Eliza. He couldn’t ignore her forever. His initial anger, his pure white wrath, at her involvement with Steiner had ebbed. Now he just wanted to go home and find out what the hell was going on.

  But he couldn’t do that.

  Keller had suggested he take some vacation; Winters reminded him they had a spate of high-profile B&Es going on, and department resources were strained with the Steiner investigation. Keller agreed, reluctantly.

  “We can’t afford any more suggestions that this department isn’t completely impartial in the way we enforce the law,” he said.

  Winters assured him he’d run a mile if he saw Josie Steiner coming his way.

  He touched his chest. The picture was still in his pocket. Madison hadn’t said anything about it, which meant Eliza hadn’t told him. Why? Because it didn’t matter? Or because it was so incriminating it mattered a lot?

  Winters had only seen Steiner either curled up over a toilet with the back of his head missing or lying on the coroner’s stretcher before the sheet was placed over his face. Not the most flattering of circumstances, but the man didn’t look like he’d have much appeal to Eliza. Unhealthily thin, flabby flesh indicating he’d lost a lot of weight too fast, balding, bulbous red nose. Why would she have been in his hotel room for a tête-à-tête over Moët et Chandon and a cheese plate?

  Was he threatening to blackmail her over the picture? Did she think she had to give in because if her husband saw that picture he’d react…exactly the way he did react?

  Or, did she decide not to give in to the blackmailer’s demands and sort the problem out another way?

  Impossible. Calm, rational, level-headed Eliza coming up behind a man and blowing his brains out? Impossible.

  If he loved Eliza and believed in her love for him, he had to trust her enough to let her tell him what had happened between her and the dead man.

  He wanted to go home. To curl up in bed with the woman he loved and forget all about Rudy Steiner and Dick Madison.

  But as long as Madison remained in town, Eliza under suspicion, that was not going to happen. He wondered if it was time Eliza found herself a lawyer.

  His e-mail program beeped. Incoming. Doctor Shirley Lee, the pathologist.

  The results of the Steiner autopsy.

  No one had thought to tell Dr. Lee Winters had been ordered to stay away from anything to do with the case. Dr. Lee was all business, all the time, and would be unlikely to ask Madison and Lopez, who’d attended the autopsy, where he was. Madison, for whom the term taciturn had been invented, might not have mentioned it, and Lopez, in a rage over the insult to his boss, wouldn’t have.

  As always, Dr. Lee had copied Winters with her results.

  He opened the file and skimmed the report.

  The subject, an underweight Caucasian male in his mid-fifties, had died of a single gunshot wound to the head. Time of death…blah, blah, blah…description of injury…blah, blah, blah…last meal…blah, blah, blah…Existing conditions…Winters went back and read that part again.

  The shooter had merely hastened Rudolph Steiner toward his appointment with death. He had a brain tumor, a sizable one, inoperable. Three months to live—tops—was Doctor Lee’s opinion.

  Winters leaned back in his chair. On the window sill, Lopez’s carefully tended African violets stood in a neat green and purple row, the only touch of color in the view. Gray clouds hung low over the mountains, hiding the glacier. One window in the office building across the street was open, trying to let in an early touch of spring air. Lace curtains fluttered in the breeze.

  Steiner had to have known he wasn’t long for this world. What did people do when they knew they were dying? Theoretically, they tried to make amends, to make up to people they’d fallen out with. Was that why Steiner had contacted Eliza after all these years?

  What else did dying people do? They made or adjusted their will. Perhaps someone didn’t want Steiner to change his will. Mrs. Steiner? No need to wonder if she was capable of violence. The evidence was written on Molly Smith’s face.

  He’d get a warrant to take a peek at Steiner’s will.

  No, he reminded himself. He wouldn’t do anything. If he even suggested Madison open the will, he’d be accused of interfering.

  He’d have to trust that the IHIT team could do their jobs.

  His phone rang, and he answered.

  “John, what on earth is going on over there?”

  “Hi, Rose. I’m well, how are you?”

  “This call isn’t about me. Eliza. There’s a story going around saying Eliza’s involved in a homicide investigation.”

  “Sadly true,” he said. “She knew the guy, that’s all. The story in the paper is wildly exaggerated.”

  Inspector Rose Benoit had been Winters’ partner when he first made detective. She was still with the Vancouver Police Department, but had an office job now, investigatin
g serious fraud cases. Her solve rate was impressive, and she seemed to be thriving behind a desk, buried in numbers. Winters and Eliza had dinner with Rose and her husband, Claude, whenever they got a chance. Claude was a well-known, and highly controversial, sculptor, a match ridiculed almost as much as cop and model. Perhaps that was why they’d stayed friends.

  “That’s good then,” she said. “The idea’s preposterous. Do you have a leak in your department?”

  “A bad one. Heads are going to roll. Providing they catch whoever it is.”

  “That’s not the least of your problems. I hear you’ve arrested a lady by the name of Josephine Steiner for assaulting a police officer.”

  “How the hell do you know that, Rose? The revolving door is hitting her on the ass right about now.”

  “I have a flag set for anything to do with her maiden name.”

  “Which is?”

  “Marais.”

  “Oh, I thought you were going to say something that means something.”

  “It means something to me. Guy Marais runs a well connected organization. Very well connected to our friends in New York, if you take my meaning. He’s been moving into the lower mainland over the last year, slowly but surely. All low key stuff, money laundering, extortion, a bit of protection. His daughter, his only daughter, Josephine, aged twenty-one, wanted to be a model but no matter how much pressure her father could bring to bear she was thwarted in that ambition. So she did the next best thing and married a glamorous fashion photographer who goes by the made-up name of Rudolph Steiner.”

  “Not so glamorous any more. I’ve seen his autopsy photos. Which I’m not supposed to have access to, so keep that under your hat.”

  “Kept.”

  “Have you heard of a lawyer name of Larry Iverson?”

  Benoit whistled. “Ooh, yeah.”

  “Probably not because he can be counted on to side with the police and defend the downtrodden, eh?”

  “Iverson is Marais’ west coast lawyer.”

  “He’s in Trafalgar, running interference for the daughter.”

  “Understandable. Marais is not going to be happy that his dear Josephine is caught up in the police spotlight. Not happy at all.”

  “She turned that spotlight directly on herself by getting involved in a punch up in the street in broad daylight and assaulting an officer.”

  “She’s the apple of her daddy’s eye. He has four sons, all involved in the family business, but like the old-fashioned crime families, he keeps his females out of it. He might feel the need to come to your town to check up on her. I’ll keep you posted, John.”

  “Unofficially.”

  “Right. Can I call Eliza, say hi? Is she at home?”

  “I don’t know, Rose. I haven’t spoken to her since this broke.”

  “That,” she said, “is probably a mistake. I’ll get Claude to phone her.” She hung up.

  ***

  Sergeant Madison was not happy. He stormed into the constables’ office as Smith prepared to go home.

  “You,” he said. “Could have told me.”

  “Told you what?”

  “That Mrs. Steiner had been arrested.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “I didn’t think you needed to know.”

  “I told you I had an appointment with her.”

  “I apologize, sir, but I was rather busy.”

  “Learn to multi-task,” he snapped, “if you want to get anywhere in this job.”

  She bit her tongue and pushed her chair away from the desk.

  “You said you’ve never met Mrs. Winters,” he said. “Is that correct?”

  “If I said it, then it is correct.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, Constable.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “What’s your impression of Sergeant Winters and his marriage?”

  “What kind of a question is that? I have no impression of Sergeant Winters’ marriage whatsoever. I’ve never been inside his house, never met his wife, never seen his holiday snapshots. I don’t even know if he has a cat.”

  She might not have spoken.

  “Would you suggest his marriage is a happy one?”

  “I wouldn’t suggest it is or it isn’t. I don’t know. Why are you asking me these questions?”

  “In a long-time marriage, I’ve found, if one party is playing away from home, the other usually is as well.”

  She stared at him as understanding dawned. She stood up, and spoke before thinking. “Just because your wife screwed around on you, doesn’t mean everyone else’s wife is doing the same. Don’t try to drag me into your nasty insinuations.”

  “Am I making insinuations, Constable?”

  “Fuck you, buddy.” She grabbed her jacket off the rack. The sleeve stuck on the hook and she struggled to get it off, anger making her clumsy. Finally it came free and she half-ran out the door. When she looked back over her shoulder, she suspected Madison was smiling.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ray Lopez was not a happy man. This had to be the worst case he’d ever worked on. Not only was his boss’ wife a suspect, and his boss removed from the case, but the IHIT Sergeant was a single-minded idiot. Madison seemed to have settled on Eliza Winters as the killer, and all he cared about now was gathering evidence to support his assumption.

  Some people, Lopez thought, watched too many movies. No way could the gentle, soft-spoken Eliza kill someone.

  He looked at the list of names in front of him. Almost finished interviewing the hotel employees. To his disappointment, no one had noticed anyone on the second floor at the time in question. No one but the room service waiter, that is. Other than the one man who thought that, maybe, he heard a noise that might have been a gunshot over the sound of his TV, no one heard anything either.

  But someone had been on the second floor—someone had shoved Steiner’s face into the toilet and shot out the back of his head. Someone, Lopez suspected, who’d taken care not to be observed.

  He glanced at his watch. Almost seven. His second daughter, Amanda, went to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She was home for a couple of days before heading to Europe for three weeks, and then starting her summer job planting seedlings in the northern forests of Ontario. Lopez had met her boyfriend once and hadn’t liked the sullen young man one bit. He wasn’t happy Amanda was going to Europe with this guy, or that the reason she wanted to spend the summer in Ontario was because her boyfriend had gotten them the jobs. Amanda was smart and had big plans for her future. He didn’t want to see that messed up by some lazy lowlife who kept all his brains in his pants. He needed to spend some time with her, find out how serious she was about this guy, and remind her, without appearing to do so, that she had the whole world ahead of her. She left tomorrow, and he’d been so tied up with this case he scarcely had time to say “hi”. One more call to make, and he’d be able to get off home. Take Amanda out for a drink and a nice father-daughter chat.

  Winters had the GIS van, but Lopez didn’t bother to call for a ride as his destination wasn’t far from the hotel. He set off at a trot toward town. The police radio had been busy with the bust-up between Josie Steiner and Diane Barton. Both women taken into the station, charged, released. He wouldn’t say he was surprised. If Lopez had to lay bets on the cause of Rudy Steiner’s demise, his money would go on the widow. She was about the same age as Amanda, and a nastier piece of work he’d rarely come across. It was raining and he ducked under storefront awnings and dodged puddles as he made his way down the street.

  Trafalgar Thai was busy on a Thursday night, and a cluster of people were standing inside the door, shaking off rain and waiting for tables. Lopez excused himself and pushed his way to the front. The phone beside the cash register rang as he reached the desk, and a pretty young woman dressed in black skirt and white blouse snatched it up. She lifted one finger to the detective, telling him to wait. She pulled a pencil out from the knot of hair in the back of her head, and began to write. I
t was a take-out order, a long one, with much discussion about what went with what and how many people each dish would feed. Lopez adjusted the collar of his jacket to get the wet part away from his neck, shifted on tired feet, and studied the room. The scent of hot food and potent spices mingled with wet wool and tramped-in mud. He stepped aside to allow a large group, Mom, Dad, Grandma, about ten kids, leave.

  “Wanting a table, Mr. Lopez?” The waitress asked. “Be about fifteen minutes.”

  “Not tonight, thanks, Lynne,” he said. The girl was a friend of his third daughter, Marlene. “I need a couple of minutes of your time.”

  She pushed back a lock of hair, and exhaled. “We’re really busy.”

  “Won’t take long. Were you working Monday night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’d like to speak to you.”

  “Okay. Let me seat these people first.” She picked up menus, put on a smile, and told the cluster of people standing in the doorway their table was ready. She was back a minute later, wiping her hands on the sides of her skirt. “Do you want Mr. Chen too?”

  “Yes, please.”

  She led the way into the back, sticking her head into the kitchen as she passed. A man joined them, carried along on a wave of spicy steam and cooks’ chatter. He was small with black hair slicked back and nicely dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and grey tie. “Police?” He looked alarmed.

  Lopez gave what he thought was a reassuring smile. They went into an alcove beside the kitchen. The room was piled high with all the detritus of running a food business, leaving barely enough space for the three people to stand.

  “Monday night,” Lopez said. “Around eight-thirty. I’m wondering if you noticed a woman. She would have been alone, ordered shrimp rolls, pad Thai, couple of beer.” Mr. Chen looked blank.

  “Woman,” Lynne said as she mimed someone eating. Her boss smiled and nodded energetically. Lopez doubted he was nodding because he recognized the feeble description.

  “She was in her early twenties. Five-eight, hundred and thirty pounds, round about. Short dark hair, little or no makeup. Probably wearing glasses. Jeans and a blue sweater. Oh, and a silver ring on every finger.”