Right to Die

by Jeff Mariotte

  “I’ll just bet you do, Little Willy,” Horatio said.

  “Can you put your hands on some of that video?”

  Outside the interview room, Frank looked abashed. “You think we should kick him?”

  “You might want to wait until you see the video,” Horatio said. “But my guess is that he really was at that break-in rave. And from what I’ve seen here, he doesn’t match up to the physical evidence we took from the scene. Besides, if the shooting was gang-related, do you honestly think the shooter would have taken shell casings and left the drugs behind?”

  “Probably not,” Frank admitted. “I guess we’re back to square one, then.”

  “Maybe not, Frank,” Horatio said. “Maybe we’re getting somewhere after all…”

  26

  HORATIO DIDN’T REALLY spend two-thirds of his time behind the wheel of the Hummer, but there were days it felt like he did. This was one of them. With Eric riding shotgun, he drove up North Miami Avenue again. Back toward Overtown and the Castaneda house.

  Sitting in on Frank’s interrogation of Little Willy had been helpful in two ways, he decided.

  Potentially helpful, at any rate. He wouldn’t know for sure if that potential would be realized until he checked some things out. The lot of a police officer—evidence led to making mental connections that might answer the problem, and then the answer arrived at had to be confirmed with yet more evidence.

  Much like doing science, he thought.

  He opened his phone, steering one-handed, punched up Ryan’s number. The call was answered on the second ring. “What’s up, Horatio?”

  “I need you to do something for me, Ryan. You won’t like it.”

  “So what’s new?”

  “Ryan, I need you to go into my office. In the wastebasket by my desk, you’ll find a used tissue. There should only be the one. I need you to collect and process it. By the book, please—it may be evidence.”

  “Today’s not April Fool’s Day, is it?” Ryan asked.

  “No, Mister Wolfe, it’s not, and this is not a joke.”

  “And it’s got to be me.”

  “I would like it to be you, Ryan.”

  “Got it, H. One used tissue, coming up. Am I looking for anything in particular?”

  “I’d rather not predispose you in any special direction,” Horatio said. “Just let me know what you find out. And right away, please.”

  When he put the phone away, Eric was looking at him with a big grin on his face. “Something’s funny?”

  “Making Ryan go fishing for used tissues. Might as well ask him to jump in a sewer.”

  “I’m sure the day will come,” Horatio said. CSIs weren’t easily disgusted, and Ryan had done, he believed, an admirable job of not letting his OCD get in the way of his duties.

  “I want to be there when it does. With a camera.”

  “There’s almost always one around,” Horatio pointed out. “That was a good job, bringing in Lyall Douglas, Eric.”

  “It was mostly Calleigh.”

  “I understand that.” He had heard the whole story, from both of them, and it matched up in all the details that both knew. He hadn’t been happy about Douglas getting the drop on Eric, but Eric knew what he’d done wrong, and he was a man who learned quickly from his mistakes. “Still, you brought him in. We’ve got his fingerprints on the car’s steering wheel and inside the trunk. We’ve got a weapon that will probably turn out to be the murder weapon. When we get back the DNA, we may even find out that he’s the one who got Wendy pregnant.”

  “Right,” Eric said. “But we probably have a better case if it turns out it was the other guy.”

  “Tony Aldicott. That’s true. Jealousy can be a powerful motive. And juries get it.”

  “Well, Calleigh’s going to interview Douglas. He likes to play the hard case, but I got a feeling when he sees what all we’ve got on him, he’ll cave.”

  “Let’s hope so, Eric,” Horatio said.

  Ryan went into Horatio’s office wearing latex gloves and carrying a sheet of plastic and an evidence envelope. In the breast pocket of his lab coat he had a pair of forceps. He wasn’t taking any chances.

  Spreading the plastic sheet on the floor, he lifted Horatio’s wire mesh wastebasket and dumped the contents onto it. Then, with the forceps, he rummaged through it. Miami-Dade County had been on a big kick about recycling, so there wasn’t much paper in the trash—not much of anything, really; Horatio seemed from this evidence to be a pretty careful, thrifty guy. Ryan found a wrapper from an energy bar, the plastic wrap off a new printer cartridge, a couple of used paper cups, a pencil stub that wouldn’t fit into a sharpener anymore, and the tissue H had sent him after. Still using the forceps, Ryan lifted the tissue, dropped it into the envelope, then set that on Horatio’s desk and made a cone of the plastic sheet to dump the rest of the trash back into the basket.

  He carried the envelope straight into the trace lab. Aaron Peters looked at him quizzically. “What’s up, Ryan?”

  “This,” Ryan said, holding out the envelope.

  Aaron looked into it. “It’s a tissue.”

  “A used tissue,” Ryan corrected. “The LT wants you to drop everything else and get to work on it.”

  “Looking for what?”

  “I have no idea. Whatever you find.”

  “You want to wait?”

  “I have some other stuff going on,” Ryan said.

  “But maybe if it’ll be quick.”

  “I guess that depends on what I find,” Aaron said. “My guess would be mucus. But I’ll jump on it right now if Horatio needs it in a hurry.”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “You want me to preserve some for DNA?”

  “I think H knows who it’s from,” Ryan said. “But it wouldn’t hurt.”

  Aaron dumped the tissue out of the envelope onto a sterile surface. There, he applied a swab to the mucus, which was still a little tacky on the tissue’s surface, and dissolved it in a solution of water and methanol. A drop of this solvent went into a tube, which he inserted into an automated syringe, to shoot the stuff into the high-performance liquid chromatograph.

  “This’ll take a few minutes,” he cautioned. “I’ve got to purify it in the liquid chromatograph. Then, since you’ve got no idea what we’re looking for, I’m going to have to run mass spec.”

  “I know,” Ryan said curtly. He didn’t like being told what he was already fully aware of, and would rather do it himself than be lectured about it. Everyone had their own job to do at the crime lab, and just because he knew how to run HPLC and MS tests didn’t mean he should push Aaron out of the way and take over. The dissolved mucus solution, called the analyte, would be forced through a tube of tiny round particles with a known chemical content, and the speed with which they eluded, or emerged from the tube’s end, would separate them. From there the purified, separated samples would be run through a mass spectrometer, which involved converting the liquid to a gas through nanospray ionization, then using the mass spectrometer to generate a mass spectrum, which would show the mass “fingerprints” of the various compounds. The lab had a library of mass spectra to compare the sample’s spectrum to, but if it turned out to be something truly uncommon, a mass spectrometrist would have to tell what the sample was by the fragments in the spectrum. “You’re right, I don’t have time to wait. All I know is that Horatio wanted it in a hurry. Page me when you’re done.”

  “No problem,” Aaron said. He was always willing to help, and Ryan felt bad for being short with him. He needed to work on patience. Civilians thought this stuff could be done in seconds—stick the questioned substance in a test tube, spin it around in a centrifuge, and the results would be spit from a printer by the time you could say “high-pressure liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry.” Ryan knew that it took as long as it took, but when he wanted answers now instead of later, it was hard to allow the process time to work.

  He had other things he could be doing,
though. He took a portion of the used tissue in another sterile envelope, in case Horatio wanted Valera to run a DNA test, and left Aaron and his equipment behind.

  “When do I get out of here?”

  Calleigh sat down across the interview table from Lyall Douglas. He still wore the same clothes he had at his cabin, a blue T-shirt and a pair of jeans with the knees ripped out. He reeked of sour sweat, but his posture was casually defiant, his muscular arms crossed over his deep chest, and he studied Calleigh through brown eyes barely more than slits beneath folds of flesh. “I’m sorry,” she replied. “Apparently you fail to understand the seriousness of this. You shot at a CSI today. Even if you weren’t being charged with the murder of Wendy Greenfield, you wouldn’t be going anywhere for a long time.”

  His drooping mustache twitched. “I don’t know who that is.”

  “You don’t know who Wendy Greenfield is?”

  “That’s right. Who is she?”

  “She’s the woman whose throat you sliced in her convertible. After you pretended to carjack her.”

  Douglas chuckled. “Sounds like you got this all worked out already. Too bad it’s a fairy tale.”

  “It’s no fairy tale, Mister Douglas,” Calleigh said.

  “And we can prove every bit of it.”

  “How? You got witnesses?”

  “Honestly? I don’t like witnesses very much. Witnesses make mistakes. Evidence doesn’t.”

  He put his hands flat on the table and leaned toward her. “I don’t know how evidence can prove something that didn’t happen.”

  “In this case, Mister Douglas, it will only prove what did happen.”

  “I already told you, I don’t know this Wendy person.”

  Calleigh took a deep breath, making sure she didn’t lose her composure. She had hoped that Douglas would cave easily. She didn’t really need him to cave at all—the evidence they had amassed was telling enough, and she was sure a jury would comprehend it. But if he copped a plea, it would save the taxpayers the cost of a jury trial, and spare Sidney Greenfield some of the pain that would necessarily accompany one. Douglas had been read his Miranda rights, and so far had not insisted on a lawyer, so that was a good sign.

  “And we can show that you do,” she said. “We have prison logs showing that she visited you in jail. We have video showing you getting into her car. We have your fingerprints on that car, and on weapons found in the trunk of the car.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “It is possible. Beyond that, we have a Ford pickup truck registered to you that matches the wheelbase of the vehicle that was parked beside where you abandoned Wendy and her car. We have a hair found in your bed that I believe will turn out to be Wendy’s. In your cabin, we found a red fiber. One hundred percent nylon, super-plush, Mitsubishi calls it—a perfect match to the carpeting in her car. Have you ever heard of Locard’s Exchange Principle, Mister Douglas?”

  “Is Locard a friend of this Wendy chick?”

  “Doctor Edmond Locard is often called the father of forensics,” Calleigh replied. “He was a French police scientist, and his principle states that any contact a person makes with any other person, place, or object includes the transference of physical materials. By touching Wendy, by having her over to your house, and certainly by killing her, you left behind traces of yourself and you picked up traces of her. We’ve already found enough to put you away for twenty-five to life. I would guess life, given how hard it’ll be to find a jury in Florida that doesn’t follow golf. Sidney Greenfield is a well-known man around here, and the murderer of his wife will not be looked upon kindly.”

  “Why would I do all this?” he demanded. His casual demeanor was gone now, his expression closed off, guarded.

  “That’s something you can answer better than me,” Calleigh said. She was losing patience with the man. And she considered herself a very patient woman, so it took a lot to get to her. “But we also know that you both are acquainted with an inmate named Tony Aldicott, who was serving on a roadwork detail not far from where you killed Wendy. We know that Wendy was pregnant. We found clothing in the trunk that we’ve ascertained would fit Tony, and we think you both planned to break Tony out at the work site. You changed your mind, planted a car along the route, and walked back to the Quick Spree, which is why you were sweating so hard when you got there. Then you went ahead with the plan, except with your own little twist of pulling over en route and cutting Wendy’s throat.”

  She paused for a breath, and to open a manila folder and take out a photograph. She slid it across the smooth tabletop. “You might recognize this,” she said. “It’s a knife we took from your cabin. It was used to kill Wendy Greenfield. It has blood on it that is being DNA tested right now.” Unlike stab wounds, slicing or cutting wounds didn’t reveal much about the specific weapon used, unfortunately, so matching the blade to the gash in her throat was unlikely. But the blood on the blade would tell the tale.

  “Anybody could have put that knife in the cabin,” he protested. His defense was weak, and he knew it; he offered it without enthusiasm.

  “Looked to me like you guarded the place pretty closely,” she said.

  He tried on another smile, but it faded fast. “This looks bad, don’t it?”

  “It looks bad,” she agreed.

  “It was the bitch’s own fault,” he said. He could not have chosen a worse way to gain Calleigh’s sympathy. “She shouldn’t have got knocked up. Especially by Tony. Guy like that is supposed to be the goofy-ass best friend, not nail the chick, right? Hell, if I hadn’t of done it, Sidney probably would have when he found out.”

  Calleigh ignored the outburst and pushed a legal pad and a pen toward him, picking up the knife picture and putting it back in the folder. “You want to write out what happened? Tell it in your own words? Things might go easier on you if you do.”

  Douglas hesitated, then picked up the pen. “This could take a while,” he said. “I don’t write too fast.”

  “Take your time,” Calleigh told him. It’s the one thing you have plenty of, she thought. But she was a polite Southern lady, so she didn’t say it.

  27

  HORATIO PARKED on the street in front of the Castaneda house, and he and Eric walked briskly to the front door. Horatio knocked, and a few seconds passed before Silvio’s little sister, Faustina, opened it. She had on baggy black pants, a black T-shirt, and fuzzy socks—her standard uniform, it seemed.

  “My papa’s asleep,” she said. “He been working nights, so you got to come back some other time.”

  “Actually, Faustina,” Horatio said, “we came to see you.”

  “I got nothing to say to you,” she said. “So looks like you wasted a trip.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She started to close the door. Horatio put his foot, salesmanlike, in its path. From behind her, Joe Castaneda’s sleepy voice sounded. “Who is it, Faustina?”

  “It’s nothing,” she answered.

  “It’s Horatio Caine from the crime lab, sir,” Horatio called. Faustina shot him a glare that could have killed.

  “Let ’em in, baby,” Joe said. “I’ll be right there, Officer, soon as I get some pants on.”

  “All right,” Horatio said. He met Faustina’s gaze with an inquiring expression. She relented and let go of the door. She turned and walked away, and Horatio had to catch her arm before she disappeared down the hallway to the back of the house.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I still need to talk to you.”

  “I already told you,” she said, trying on an abused pout. “Let me go.”

  “I’m sorry, Faustina, but I’m trying to find out who killed your brother. I would think you’d want to help with that.”

  “I don’t know jack,” she said. “If I did know, I’d deal with it myself. Or Los Danger Boys would.”

  “I know you believe that,” Horatio said. “But in this case, it’s much better to let the police handle it than your friends.”


  “They ain’t my friends, they’re my family. Silvio’s too.”

  “Silvio is your family. So’s your father. If you want to do right by them, you’ll come into the living room for a minute.”

  Joe emerged from a bedroom. He had put on a clean white undershirt and a pair of khaki shorts, but he was barefoot and his hair was mussed and his eyes were thick with sleep. “What’s going on?”

  “I need some information from Faustina,” Horatio explained.

  “Help him out, baby.”

  “I don’t trust no freakin’ cops,” Faustina protested.

  Joe shot her an angry frown. “I said give him what he wants. For Silvio.”

  She spun out of Horatio’s grip and plopped down into a chair, arms folded angrily over her chest. She stared at the far wall of the room.

  “What are you looking for?” Joe asked.

  “Actually, I’d like to know how tall Faustina is.”

  “What are you, about five feet?” Joe asked his daughter.

  “Not even,” she replied glumly. “Four ten.”

  “Four feet, ten inches.” Horatio made a mental note of it. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to look in Faustina’s room for a minute. And perhaps in Silvio’s too.”

  “No!” Faustina barked. “See do they got a warrant, Papa!”

  “I don’t have a warrant, sir. I can get one, but I’d rather get this done quickly and quietly.”

  “This will help find out what happened to Silvio?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe that it would,” Horatio assured him.

  “Then you can look in her room all you want. We got nothing to hide.”

  “Papa—”

  “Do you, Faustina? You have anything in there you don’t want me to know about?”

  “No, Papa. It’s just—”

  “I’m sorry to invade your privacy, Faustina,” Horatio said. “It’ll only take a few minutes, and then I think we’ll have some answers.”