Heart Break: An Isabel Swift Novel (The Isabel Swift Detective Series Book 1)

by MF Moskwik

  “His classmates, Mr. Lennox. Now they’re twenty-five year veterans of the force just like your son would have been. They have wives and husbands and children and grandchildren just like your son would have had,” counters Izzy.

  The man mutters something under his breath.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Izzy asks.

  Mr. Lennox sneers and leans toward her. “I said, Officer, that it serves them right.” The old man’s eyes glitter with anger. “Those bastards left Aaron alone when he fell down on that damned run, and no one helped him. No one. They were supposed to be his friends, his brothers on the line, but he lay there, dying, for an hour, the doctor said. Someone could have helped him, but no one did. And Susan, when she tried to apply for the widow’s benefit, they denied her—her and her two-year-old son!” Lennox perches on the edge of his chair and points an accusatory finger at Swift. “But then you know all about that, don’t you. You’re with them—the police.”

  “I looked at his file, Mr. Lennox. There’s not much there, so I have a lot of questions about who he was, what happened to him. What it did say was that Cadet Lennox was stubborn and refused to ask for help when he needed it.” Izzy leans forward. “So the one thing that I want to know? The one thing I want to make sure I ask?”

  Izzy pauses, waiting until curiosity forces Mr. Lennox to give her his attention.

  “What I want to know is . . .” Izzy leans close to the old man across the table. “Was he always a failure, or was that something he learned from watching you?”

  Mr. Lennox’s eyes widen—the question catches him off guard.

  “Liar! Liar! My son was a hero. A hero.”

  “That’s not what was in the file, Mr. Lennox,” says Izzy. She leans back and crosses her arms behind her head. “The file said that he always came in last in the training runs. That he was slow. That he couldn’t ask for help. To me, that says he was too proud, or too stupid, to know what his limits were.”

  “Lies. Lies! My son was perfect. He was beautiful. He would have been a hero, but he died because of you, because of your selfish, stupid cadets. He would have served, he would have been a cop if those stupid, selfish cadets hadn’t left him behind,” he exclaims.

  “His heart didn’t work, Mr. Lennox. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. An inherited condition. Which means that either you gave your son this condition, or your wife did.” Izzy pauses. “Where is your wife, Mr. Lennox?”

  Mr. Lennox narrows his eyes until they are narrow amber slits. “You leave my dead wife out of this,” he growls.

  “Where were you Sunday night?” she growls back at him.

  “What?” asks Mr. Lennox.

  Izzy stands at her full height. Though she is short, she towers over the sitting man. “A piece of classified equipment was stolen from a government laboratory Sunday night. Where were you, Mr. Lennox?”

  “At home! Alone, in my chair, watching TV by myself. Like I am every Sunday night. No wife. No son. No family. Is that what you want? An old man to die alone ’cause you cops took all my family away?”

  “No alibi. Convenient. That wound on your arm—how did you get it?”

  The old man looks at the cut on his arm. Seeing the bandage, Mr. Lennox snarls, his lips pursing into a derogatory smirk. “I fell,” he spits with contempt.

  “And the college textbooks in your house? What are you doing with those?”

  “They’re not mine,” he says.

  “They were in your house,” she counters.

  “Then maybe I’m learning how to fix my computer, Officer,” he snarls at her.

  Izzy gathers herself and paces the room. She turns once more to face the man at the table. “I’m going to ask you this question one last time, and then you’re going to sit here, or in a jail cell, waiting for your lawyer. And then you’re going to be charged with firing a weapon at a police officer. A charge that carries with it time in jail, time that we both know that you don’t have.”

  She leans over the table to look at him. “We believe someone connected to your son’s death is responsible for the deaths of police officers. Someone is hurting other people, and they have a connection to your son. Do you know anyone that would want to harm your son’s classmates, who would know about computer technology, who may be connected to these crimes?”

  Mr. Lennox’s mouth tightens into a grimace full of spite and hurt. “No, I don’t. And even if I did, if someone wants to rough up a few cops, then I got no beef with them, Officer Swift.” He leans back and laces his hands behind his head and grins. “So what are you going to do now? You going to pin whatever crime you’re investigating on me?” He sneers at Izzy. “You have to be pretty hard up for a suspect if you’re going to pin a crime on a 75-year old man. But I’d expect nothing less from you jokers.”

  Izzy waits a long, silent minute to answer. When she does, her voice is quiet and intense, just above a whisper. “To you, Aaron Lennox is a son, husband, and father. To us, Mr. Lennox, your son was a failure, someone who couldn’t make the cut. Right now, someone connected to your son is killing cops on his behalf. If your son was really the hero you say he was, the cop you think he could have been, he would want these deaths to stop. He would want to protect innocent people from getting hurt.”

  Mr. Lennox looks at her with surprise, as if what she is saying hadn’t occurred to him.

  Izzy continues. “If you really don’t know who’s involved in these deaths? Then fine. But if you do know something and you’re not telling us? Then when we find out—and we will find out, Mr. Lennox—then the only thing that anyone’s ever going to remember about your family, about your son, is that a dozen innocent people died in his name, and you didn’t do a thing to stop it. And that’s the way the record’s gonna stay about your family, forever, unless someone can tell us the truth.”

  Izzy stands for a few seconds in front of Mr. Lennox. She is waiting for some sign—a chink in his armor, a change in expression, or a movement of becoming unstuck—that would give away a desire to share his story. Seeing nothing, Izzy turns to leave the room.

  She makes it as far as opening the door when Mr. Lennox stops her.

  “Officer.”

  Izzy turns.

  “If anyone asks you, you tell ’em I did it for my family.”

  “Excuse me?” she asks.

  “My son. My wife. My daughter-in-law and her baby boy. I did what I did because I had to. Because of what was done to my son. Because I want his name and the name of his family to be clear. You understand me?”

  Mr. Lennox closes his eyes and, for half a minute, he is silent. When he opens his eyes, they are red and full of emotion. “It was me, Officer. It was my fault. All of this is my fault, and I’m ready to tell my story.”

  ***

  In the end, it was simple. Too simple, Izzy thinks.

  For the next half hour, she takes Mr. Lennox’s confession. He confesses to the killing of cops, the theft of the devices, and to the plan to use the wireless to commit mass murder. When he is done, he submits to the cheek swab, which will allow the police to sequence his DNA.

  When all is finished, Izzy asks him to sign the confession, and it is with a steady hand that the senior Mr. Lennox autographs his statement.

  With a quick twist of the door handle, Izzy is out of the room and back inside with Jameson and Williams.

  “Good job getting the confession, Swift,” observes Captain Williams.

  “Indeed, a most skillful handling of a recalcitrant witness’s testimony,” mirrors Jameson.

  “Thanks, guys,” replies Izzy. “But I don’t think he’s our murderer.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jameson explodes with anger and surprise. “He knows about the theft of the device! He knows about the deaths of the police!”

  Captain Williams nods. “He has information about the case, Iz, that nobody but the perpetrator would have. The mercury fulminate. The glass.”

  “But there’s no evidence tying him to the sce
ne. Right now, we have no prints, no DNA, no fiber. We have a theory based on information, a confession under duress, and no hard data.”

  Captain Williams takes in this information. He looks at Mr. Lennox through the glass, thoughtfully. “This is a high-profile case, Swift. If we don’t get this right—”

  “Captain, if we arrest this guy, and he’s the wrong guy, it’ll be our asses,” Izzy says.

  “And if we don’t arrest this guy, and he’s our perp, then it’ll be our heads,” counters Williams.

  Izzy holds her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I’m asking for 24 hours, Captain, before we process him. Give CSI time to process the prints and DNA from the crime scene, Larry’s house, and today. Get the evidence we need to make the case.”

  “But how would Mr. Lennox have known about the crimes of which we are accusing him?” asks Jameson. “I cannot believe. . . If it is not him, Officer Swift, then how would he know about the crimes that have been perpetrated? That will be perpetrated.”

  “I don’t have that answer, Jameson. I do know that if the evidence is not there, then he didn’t do it. If, instead, he is an accessory to the crime, if we stop with him, we’ll never catch the guy who really did this.”

  “Officer Swift, if we let him go, he will have ample opportunity either to commit additional crimes or to flee from the reach of our jurisdiction,” Jameson protests.

  “Which is exactly what we’ll be doing for the real murderer if we charge Mr. Lennox with a crime he didn’t commit!” Izzy counters.

  “Captain. Please,” interjects Jameson.

  “Captain!” Izzy protests.

  Someone knocks on the interrogation room door, and a young woman walks into the room. “Captain?”

  “Chang!” exclaims Williams. He breathes a sigh of relief. “What is it?”

  “This just came in,” she says as she hands him a note.

  Captain Williams nods and reads the paper. “Thank you.” As Chang leaves, Williams flicks the paper back and forth in his hands. “I’m sorry, Iz. We’re not letting him go.”

  “Captain!” she protests.

  He shakes his head. “First of all, we’ve got him for resisting arrest and for assault of a police officer,” Captain Williams reminds them. “Second, this,” he says as he hands the note to Izzy. “I am sorry, Iz.”

  “Pardon?” asks Jameson.

  Williams nods his head at Izzy, who reads the note. “While we were out, prints at the scene came in. There’s a match with prints they just pulled from Mr. Lennox’s house.” She looks up and hands the paper to Jameson. “But, sir, they might not be his.”

  “Nope. Once we charge him, we’ll get his prints and then run the comparison. But the matching set, Iz . . .”

  “Means that he may be involved?” asks Jameson.

  Captain Williams nods in agreement. “Izzy, please take Mr. Lennox down to holding and get him processed. Get him printed. Find him a cell by himself. God knows we don’t want a senior inmate with a possible health condition to die on our watch. No matter what he has done. Or hasn’t done,” he says with a conciliatory glance at Izzy. And with that final admonition, Williams leaves.

  Izzy looks at the man in the interrogation room, and a feeling of unease disturbs her. Though his invective is full of hate, in the person of Mr. Saul Lennox, Izzy sees only the naked, unresolved pain of a still-grieving father.

  He’s not the murderer.

  Jameson moves to the door of the interrogation anteroom and opens it. “Officer Swift? Shall we?”

  Izzy turns to Jameson, pleading with her eyes: He’s not the murderer! When Jameson doesn’t reply, Izzy sighs. “I’m ready. Let’s get him down to booking.”

  ***

  During the booking process, Izzy’s partner is strangely restrained, making no comment or move without her express request or consent. She uses that obedience to ensure restraint and compassion are shown to Mr. Lennox, even though he swears and spits and struggles to free himself from his bindings.

  Seeing that his invective has no effect on Izzy, Mr. Lennox finally turns his bile toward Jameson as they put him in the cell.

  “You married, detective?”

  “No, Mr. Lennox. Not at the current time,” is Jameson’s reply.

  “Got any kids?” he asks as he walks through the metal bars into his cell.

  “I have no living offspring, Mr. Lennox.”

  “Then I guess you don’t know then, do you? What it’s like to watch your flesh and blood suffer. To know they are hurting and you can’t do anything to help.”

  Mr. Lennox sits down on the bench in his cell, looks down at his handcuffed hands, and shakes his head. “A man’s supposed to protect his family. Take care of them. If someone threatens them? You take care of it.” When he looks up at him again, it is with equal parts anger and supplication. “You’ll see. Someday, it’ll happen to you. Someone’s going to come after your family—your wife, your kids. Then you’ll see—you’re no better than me. If you’re any kind of man, you’ll do what you have to do to protect your family.”

  As the doors of the cell slam shut, Jameson replies coolly. “I can assure you, Mr. Lennox, that we are in no way alike.”

  For a few seconds, Mr. Lennox stares at him through the bars. “I can see that now. Coward.” And with a last spasm of vile, Mr. Lennox rattles the bars of his cage at Jameson and his partner. He tries to spit at them again, but only a thin foam of saliva appears between his lips. “You disgust me.”

  For a moment, Jameson is frozen in place, a look of shock on his face from the vehemence of Mr. Lennox’s outburst. When Jameson turns, Izzy’s only response to their exchange is a look of sorrow and compassion for both of the men in the room.

  ***

  Later, Izzy finds Jameson standing at the curb in front of the police station. Evening has come, and the sky is painted blue-black with the shades of falling night.

  Izzy walks to him with quiet feet and clears her throat to get his attention.

  “Yes?” he asks.

  She pauses and considers him. “You want a ride back to your hotel?” is the question upon which she settles. “It’s on my way home, and anyway, it’ll save you twenty bucks on the cab.”

  “Thank you, Officer Swift, but I am capable of finding my own conveyance while I am in this town.”

  “Fine, fine. I’m just saying, if you could use a ride . . .”

  He shakes his head again, but in the tight set of his lips, she sees that his patience—for her, the case, or their small suburban town—is wearing thin.

  “Look, if Lennox is our guy, and they find the tech . . . ” she offers.

  “Then the case is closed, and I may return to the city and to my normal duties as Consulting Detective for the state,” finishes Jameson.

  “But if you don’t find the device?” asks Izzy.

  “Then my mission is a failure, no doubt terminating my position with the state and facilitating my return to the UK. An event, no doubt, in which you will rejoice.”

  “Harsh. But I deserve it. I haven’t exactly rolled out the welcome wagon.” She pauses. “We’ll keep looking, Jameson. If he is our guy, we’ll find the device. In his house or on his property . . .”

  “You say we, Officer Swift. For you, is not the case concluded with the arrest of the perpetrator? You have caught our ‘bad guy,’ and no other deaths will occur. You may feel certain that your community is made safe once more.”

  The bite of Jameson’s tone betrays his anger, simmering just underneath the surface of their conversation. “He got to you, didn’t he?” Izzy asks.

  “Who?”

  “Lennox. Back there in the cell. He said something, and, well . . . something happened. You want to tell me what it was?”

  He stands in silence, ambivalence written in his expression. In his face, she reads both annoyance at her impudence and relief at the possibility of sharing his burden with someone.

  Before he can choose from these options, a cab pulls up
to the curb.

  He walks to the cab. As he opens the door, he pauses to speak. “It is the end of the case, Officer Swift, or near it. Barring tomorrow’s final administrative duties, soon I will be able to return to my home.”

  “And where would that be, Jameson?” asks Izzy quietly.

  He shakes his head and gives her a guarded look. “It has been . . . interesting getting to know you, Isabel Swift.”

  Izzy considers him. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jameson.”

  Without another word, he gets into the cab and leaves her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Officer Isabel Swift sits in her chair at the precinct. In front of her, on her desk, sits a clock with red numbers, and the colon separating the day’s minutes from its hours blinks with relentless efficiency.

  11:21 a.m.

  She spent the morning waiting for lab results, for a call back from the state, and for her partner—who left her on the curb last night—to make his return to the sheriff’s station. While she waited, she checked alibis, filed her backed up paperwork, cleaned her gun, and reorganized her desk three times, leaving a row of a dozen perfectly sharpened pencils on the upper right hand corner of her desk.

  11:25 a.m.

  Izzy likes to be doing things—interviewing suspects, chasing down leads, driving to crime scenes. She hates waiting.

  This job is 20% doing and 80% waiting, Izzy. You gotta put in the sweat, sure, but there will be times when one step, one word, one look made too soon will be a mistake, and like that, your case disappears.

  Patience was a virtue that Carter had tried, but failed, to instill in her.

  11:30 a.m.

  Izzy snaps her twelfth and final pencil of the morning. With a glance at the clock, and then her watch, she stands to go to the captain’s office when her desk phone rings.

  “Swift. Jenkins? What’s the story on the DNA?” A pause. “But the prints?” Another pause. “They match, but they’re not his? What the hell does that mean?” Another pause. “Shit, Jenkins. Thanks for the update, though.”