Two Parts Bloody Murder

by Jen J. Danna

  “And eventually the cops realized that.”

  “Eventually. And then suddenly none of that mattered anymore because I was accused of being a murderer. And I found out I threw my life away for nothing when my woman took off and took my kids with her.”

  “You must be pretty angry about that.”

  “I may be in here, but I’m still their father.” Bitterness etched his words like acid. “I’ve never even seen my youngest.” His gaze skittered away, but not before she glimpsed the depth of the pain and loneliness there.

  Leigh gave him a moment to collect himself before pushing on. “Okay, let’s back up a bit further so I have the whole picture. What about the home invasion you did time for?”

  “What about it?”

  “Did you do it?”

  Cabrera’s head drooped. “Yeah.”

  “How much time did you do?”

  “Five years. I was a minor when it happened. Young and invincible. And fucking stupid. I went in at seventeen and got out at twenty-two. I tried to get my life back on track, but no one wanted to hire me. And then everything else happened.”

  “Your prints matched those found at the scene.”

  Cabrera leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, defiance flashing in his eyes. “Not me.”

  “You were never there.”

  “Never.”

  “But you couldn’t prove it,” Leigh pointed out.

  “Where were you four years ago today? Do you remember what you were doing during two hours in an afternoon that long ago?”

  Four years ago she’d been burying her father, but she had to admit that if it came down to a specific day, she wouldn’t be able to itemize her actions either. “Probably not. Okay, a different angle. The gun—it wasn’t yours?”

  “A Walther PPK?” he spit out scornfully. “A gentleman’s gun, I’m sure, but too small to be considered a real threat.”

  “Clearly it was a threat to Mrs. Kain.”

  “Maybe, but if I’d carried one of those things around, I’d have been laughed out of the neighborhood. Back then it was a .44 Magnum or nothing. That’s a man’s gun.”

  “So that’s what you had?”

  “An ex-con on probation? I had nothing.” He scowled and glanced sideways before looking back at Leigh. “Okay, I carried a blade because sometimes at night things could get dicey, but not a gun. I was trying to stay straight, stay outside so I could raise my kids. And then they were insisting my prints were on this stolen gun I’d never own in the first place. So I got firearms charges piled on too. And it was all bullshit!” A vein started to throb in his temple and his face flushed with color. “I’ve been saying for years that I was set up, but no one’s ever believed me.”

  “You have my attention.” Leigh leaned forward, purposely closing the space between them to imply intimacy. “Prove it to me.”

  “I can’t goddamn prove it to you!” His fist crashed down on the table again. “If I could, I’d have been out thirty years ago. But no one wants another dirty Spic out on the streets. No one came forward to help me. How am I supposed to prove I’ve been framed when no one will support my innocence?”

  “Then who hated you enough to frame you?” It was the first time Matt had spoken during the whole interview. When Leigh whipped around to face him, he held up a finger. “I know, I’m supposed to stay quiet and just listen, but the scientist in me wants to see the proof as much as you do. And ‘when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ ” He made air quotes around the phrase. “Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Four.”

  Leigh gave him a nonplussed stare. “You’re flying your geek flag again.”

  “Proudly. But Holmes has a point. Let me play devil’s advocate here. Suppose Cabrera didn’t do it. Suppose, like he says, he’s been framed. There’s an easy way to prove it.”

  “How?”

  “We have the reports and the crime scene photos. The entire case hangs on linking his prints to those found in the house and on the gun. So let’s run them again.”

  It was so entirely simple that Leigh’s jaw sagged open in amazement at her own stupidity.

  But Cabrera missed her reaction because he was staring at Matt. “You could take my prints and run them again?”

  “Sure. The prints they collected are smudged and not great. Maybe it wasn’t a good match. Maybe a second pair of eyes will see something else, or software could match them through current databases to someone else.”

  Leigh turned back to Cabrera. “Did your lawyer ever demand a second opinion on those prints? Did he supply his own expert?”

  “I had a public defender. I didn’t have the money for that kind of lawyer.”

  Leigh swiveled sideways in her chair to face Matt. “Off the books, I can call in a favor and have the prints re-analyzed.”

  “Why would you do that?” Cabrera’s tone was suspicious, clearly the reaction of someone who had learned the hard way not to trust. “Why would you help me?”

  Leigh leaned forward so he wouldn’t doubt her sincerity. “Because it’s the right thing to do. But let me make myself clear. If the prints match a second time, you’re in here to stay. And I’ll walk away without a second glance.”

  Cabrera leaned forward, challenge radiating from both his voice and posture. For the first time since he’d walked into the room, the hatred and despair in his eyes was tinged with hope. “Bring it on. They won’t match.” He drilled an index finger in Leigh’s direction. “And that’s going to be my proof.”

  Thursday, 5:12 p.m.

  Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center

  Shirley, Massachusetts

  “Do you realize what this means?” Leigh pulled her collar up higher against the chilly wind as they stepped from the prison out into the gathering gloom of dusk. She suspiciously eyed the dark clouds gathering on the horizon; they almost looked like snow clouds.

  “If the prints don’t match, you mean?” Matt stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “It means he didn’t do it.”

  “More than that, it means it’s an unsolved case. God almighty, I thought solving a case from eighty years ago was going to be bad. I think I have a good handle on that one, even if I’m a little hazy on the specifics. But this one—almost forty years ago and truly zero leads. They couldn’t solve it four years out, let alone forty.”

  “If it turns out Cabrera’s unconnected, are you going to hand this one off to someone else? You have a pretty full caseload right now.”

  “No way. Anna Kain is mine now. And so, in a way, is Cabrera. If he’s innocent, that man lost his life. We all made mistakes as teenagers, although I admit his was worse than most. But it sounds like he was trying to go straight, trying to be a good father. And he lost it all. Most of his adult years, his lover, and, worst of all, his kids. If he’s been wrongly accused, it’s my responsibility to correct it.”

  “Yours?” He stared down at her, a frown playing around his lips at her use of the singular pronoun. “You think I’d be willing to stand by and watch an innocent man remain in jail for a crime he didn’t commit? When I can use my knowledge to go back through the evidence and the reports and maybe find something that was missed? Or something that could be discovered using modern tests?”

  “That doesn’t sound like you at all.” She slid her arm through his, her fingers closing over his forearm under the slick leather. “Okay, ‘ours.’ Because I just can’t seem to do a damned thing these days without my team.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: LEAD POISONING

  * * *

  Lead poisoning: caused by lead acetate (a.k.a. “lead sugar”) leached during distillation from many Prohibition-era stills constructed using lead coils or solder.

  Friday, 10:17 a.m.

  Ward Summer Residence

  Lynn, Massachusetts

  Leigh pushed the door open with a latex-gloved hand and stepped into the dim house. Inside, sunlight slipped between heavy
curtains to tumble over dull wood floors, dust motes dancing in small slivers of brightness before sinking once more into the gloom. White-draped furniture in the front rooms gave the house a shadowed, ghostly appearance. Goosebumps puckered the skin on her forearms, but she scolded herself that it was simply the chilly caress of the ocean breeze winding through the open door.

  “See anything?” Brad Riley stood behind her on the front step, craning his neck to look through the doorway.

  “Nothing from here.” Leigh stepped aside to let him pass and then moved to close the door. She paused briefly, one hand resting on the heavy wood, staring out across Lynn Shore Drive to the churning waves of Nahant Bay. In the distance, Egg Rock Island—once a lighthouse station, now a bird sanctuary—lay at the mouth of the bay where it spilled into the Atlantic. A gust of November wind sent a shiver whispering down her spine, so she pushed the door closed, shutting out the cries of gulls soaring along the beach.

  “Split up like we did at Holt’s place?” Riley stood in the doorway to the dining room, surveying the ghostly shapes inside. “You take the downstairs, I’ll take the upstairs?”

  “Sure.” Leigh looked past the multi-tiered foyer chandelier shrouded in plastic to the long, curving staircase beyond. It was darker upstairs than on the main floor, even though it was only mid-morning. “You have your flashlight, just in case?” Riley nodded and patted the pocket of his trench coat. Leigh moved to the door of the living room, studying the shrouded shapes. “If this place doesn’t pan out as the kill site, I’m not sure where to look next.”

  Riley drew a pair of gloves from his pocket, pulling them on. “Not his own house, not his workplace, not the girlfriend’s. But he certainly died somewhere.”

  “If his mother hadn’t mentioned this place a few days ago, it would have taken property searches to find it.” She spun back toward the foyer, feeling a touch of sadness for the house—clearly once a glorious family home, now only a shabby, forgotten relic. “No one’s lived here in years, but this was the Ward family home. While Ward was doing business in Boston in the early to mid-nineteen-thirties, his wife and daughter lived here. But the Holts haven’t been here for years. As you can see from the ‘For Sale’ sign on the grass out front, Evelyn is obviously hoping to sell it.”

  “She may have some difficulties with that if her son died here,” Riley muttered. He found a light switch on the wall at the bottom of the stairs and flipped it on, but the upstairs hallway remained shrouded in darkness. “If I was her, I’d definitely want to get rid of this place before it falls down from neglect. I’m heading up. Yell if you find something.” He slowly climbed the stairs, his eyes already scanning for signs of violence as the treads groaned in protest beneath his feet.

  Leigh turned back into the living room, moving to one of the windows. She pushed back the heavy velvet curtain, the nap crumbling beneath her fingers. Sunlight spilled through the panes, chasing away the gloom. The room was centered around the fireplace, framed by a heavy, wooden mantel. A faded area rug covered the dark wood floor, partially obscured by furniture and the trailing ends of the drapes. The mantel was starkly bare, yet another sign of emptiness. Not a home. Merely a house. She did a slow tour of the room, examining pale walls and even paler sheets, but there was no sign of blood or any evidence that the room had been disturbed in years. Bending, she pulled the sheet from the couch opposite the cold fireplace, revealing dark curved legs and curled arms. The paisley upholstery was now dull and faded, having long ago lost its sheen. She examined the two draped chairs flanking the fireplace before uncovering one. The chair was in a similar style to the couch, but covered in dark, flocked swirls. She dropped the sheet, returning another ghost to the room.

  Leigh moved methodically through the room, uncovering and examining each piece of furniture, hope slowly dwindling as each item was eliminated. Not here. With a sigh, she turned toward the open door at the rear of the room, already contemplating their next move if this house turned up nothing. Her phone rang, a shrill peal in the silent room, pulling her from her thoughts. “Abbott.”

  “It’s me.” Matt’s voice was upbeat, a stark contrast to her own darkening mood. “I have the DNA information you wanted.”

  Leigh stopped at the doorway to the hall. “The cigarettes?”

  There was a beat of silence, then Matt’s voice returned, decidedly less enthusiastic than before. “Uh, no. We’re good, but not that good. Give us another couple of days on that. I’m talking about the autopsy sample from Peter Holt and the recovered tissue from Evelyn Holt. It’s confirmed—the remains behind the wall in the speakeasy are those of Charles Ward.”

  “Funny you’d call and tell me this now. I’m standing in his house in Lynn. The one he left on the morning when he died at the speakeasy.”

  “What are you doing there?”

  Leigh continued down the hall and into the kitchen, which ran the length of the back of the house. “We’re still looking for where Peter Holt was killed to see if there’s any evidence to link to his killer. We’ve checked out all the obvious places—his home, work, his girlfriend’s—but there’s no trace of any of them being the location of his death. We canvassed neighbors around the girlfriend’s home. They knew exactly who he was, saw him on a fairly regular basis, but no one had seen him there in the week leading up to his death. He was seen leaving work the night before and security has no record of him re-entering the building after hours.”

  “There’d be a record of that?”

  A floorboard creaked overhead and she glanced upwards. Riley was making his way toward the back of the house. “Key card access after-hours, so, yes. We’ve gone over his home with a fine-toothed comb, but there’s no evidence of blood or a cleanup following a killing.”

  “We’re a week past his murder,” Matt stated. “If the murder had been somewhere public, someone would have stumbled over a puddle of blood by now.”

  “You would think.” She quickly scanned the room, taking in the high, airy upper reaches, the tall glassed-in cabinetry, the expanse of dark ceramic tile, and the semicircular windows letting in light from near the ceiling. “Anyway, back to DNA. You have a positive match on the skeletal remains?”

  “Yes. The remains match both Holts’, although the match is stronger to Evelyn, as you’d imagine being only one generation removed. But Peter is definitely his grandson.”

  “Brownie points to Rowe for calling that one ten seconds after seeing that ring.”

  “The man knows his stuff. Now, this makes the ID official, but it doesn’t really clarify anything for us. We know Ward owned the Blue Ruin. We know he was killed by Samuel Kain.”

  “Suspect,” Leigh said. “We don’t know that for sure.” She crouched down in the middle of the room, scanning the dark floor for signs of blood. The tile was brick-red, perfect for hiding bloodstains in plain sight. She made a mental note to come back with the crime scene guys to have them scan for trace evidence if they came up empty.

  “But your gut says he did it,” Matt insisted.

  “Yes.”

  “Since I’ve learned to respect your gut, that’s good enough for me. So I know and you suspect Ward was killed by Kain. We know Kain’s wife, Anna, was murdered but now we don’t know who killed her. We know Peter Holt was killed somewhere, and his body was moved to the site of the speakeasy.”

  “Since we’ve given up on coincidences for this case, that had to be on purpose.”

  “So that in itself begs the question: Who knew the speakeasy was there?”

  “Kain did. He sent me there in the first place. And by that line of reasoning, so did every member of his family who heard his story about the body.”

  “But no one actually knew the body was there for sure. No one but Kain. And his own family didn’t believe him, which is why it took so long for them to report it. They thought he was just a crazy old man.”

  “Mostly crazy. But not always, clearly. So the rest of the family is a possibility. But we can’t stop ther
e. He likely told the nursing staff, or other visitors. And a lot of people used to go to that speakeasy. Who else might still know about it?”

  “Maybe Rowe can find out some specific information. And there’s someone on campus, an expert in nineteenth-and twentieth-century history who might at least know of other resources we could try.”

  “Abbott!” The bellow came from upstairs, making Leigh jerk to her feet.

  “Riley?”

  “I’ve got it. Get up here.”

  “Matt, hold on.” Leigh tore out of the kitchen and back up the hallway, hooking one hand over the newel post to slingshot herself around the corner, taking the stairs two at a time. “Where are you?” she called.

  “Here.” Riley’s voice came from her right as she rounded the corner of the stairs.

  Leigh caught a quick glimpse of a shadowed bedroom and a bathroom in shades of white and turquoise as she sprinted by. Riley stood in a doorway at the end of the hall. She slid to a stop at the doorway and he stepped aside, letting her see into the bedroom.

  Heart pounding in her ears as she leaned on the door frame, she scanned the room: Bloodstained wood floor. Blood spatter on dusty sheets and faded walls. A single ragged hole in the plaster. The end of a brass cartridge case peeping out from under the tangled folds of a drape.

  The tinny sound of her name brought her back and she stared down at the phone clenched in her white-knuckled fist, finally remembering it was there. “Sorry, Matt.” She had to pause to pull in a breath. “We’ve got it. Riley found the kill site. It’s here in the house.” She turned to the younger officer and clapped him on the shoulder. “Nice work, Riley.”

  Riley flushed up to the roots of his neatly cut strawberry blond hair as he grinned back.

  “I knew something was going on,” Matt said. “Damn, I wish I was with you instead of only being along for the ride. Tell me what’s there. Let me see it through your eyes.”