Elegy in Scarlet

by BV Lawson

  “Was there much blood spatter?”

  “By falling away from his killer—and the deep wounds—it minimized the blood spatter. Which could explain why she didn’t have any on her clothing.” Halabi grunted. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be questioning you.”

  Drayco ignored the jab. “What was she wearing? A raincoat, boots? It was raining hard that night.”

  “Neither, but maybe she changed her clothes.”

  “Did you find any bloody clothing?”

  Halabi didn’t answer, but his silence said it for him. Drayco said, “You didn’t find bloody clothing. And why was she still holding the knife? Doesn’t this lend credence to her story?”

  “Okay, she killed him, had time to get rid of the clothes, and then stabbed him one more time.”

  Drayco drummed his fingers some more. “Again, why?”

  “To make it look like she did just the one stabbing wound after he was dead. How else do you explain that crazy story of hers?”

  “So, there weren’t any other prints on the knife?”

  “Look, I’ve been patient with you so far—”

  “If just her prints were on the knife, it could have been washed clean.”

  Halabi narrowed his eyes. “You saw that in the file. Yeah, we found minute traces of blood in the sink, but that could’ve been her washing blood off her clothes. And the only prints in the place were Jerold Zamorra’s and Maura McCune’s.”

  “Yet you said she was found standing over the body. Why go to the sink, wash her hands and clothes, then go back to the body to stab him? Seems kind of elaborate and time-consuming to wash the knife and then use it again to stab the victim—just to make it appear he was already dead. Why not simply leave and take the knife with her?”

  “You know as well as I do criminals aren’t always in the sanest frame of mind.”

  “Motives?”

  “She left a heated message on his cellphone. Didn’t say what she was angry about.”

  “You didn’t say she had a phone on her. Did you track the number?”

  Halabi grimaced. “We didn’t find a phone. And we can’t trace back her phone number, probably a burner. A warrant will fix that.”

  The detective’s grimace and clenched teeth made Drayco speed up his staccato questioning. He didn’t have much time before Halabi threw him out on his ass. “Was Jerold alone? What about a wife or girlfriend?”

  “Jerold’s wife, Ophelia, died a year ago. She was murdered, too. Before you make anything out of it, Jerold and his wife had already been divorced for a year. And the Falls Church police arrested two young toughs. Random robbery at a bank ATM. Poor woman was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Halabi returned the file to the drawer. “Look, I know this is difficult for you. But your mother admits she stabbed him, she didn’t feel threatened, and she isn’t insane. It doesn’t look good for her.”

  Drayco sat studying Halabi’s framed documents on the wall. They were in a nice, orderly progression, from high school through college, to the academy, and then the commendations. An unbroken timeline of experience with no gaps, no signs he’d considered any other life or career. Some would say that was enviable. “Who called you, detective?”

  Halabi furrowed his brow. “What?”

  “Someone had to alert the police there was a murder in progress for them to get there so soon. Did the victim scream? Was there a witness?”

  “We got an anonymous tip.”

  “Anonymous?”

  “The voice on the dispatch records sounded disguised.”

  “Disguised? What, like an actor? Or mechanical?”

  “We’re analyzing it further. Probably just one of the illegals who live nearby who doesn’t want to get involved further. Look, I know I’m dealing with two big-shot FBI agents—well, former agents—with lots of important connections.”

  The detective’s jaw was clenched so tightly, it was a miracle he could open it to speak. “One of my superiors worked with you before and said to cut you a little slack. I know I should tread lightly. But I’ve got a job to do. This is my investigation, and I’m not going to let any Draycos get in my way. Let us handle it.”

  Halabi stood up and walked to the door, which he held open. “We’ll keep you posted on any major developments. Until then, you might take a page from your father’s book. He seems completely uninterested in this case.” He frowned at the still-seated Drayco as he added, “Not that he’d be objective.”

  “You’re probably right.” Drayco thrust himself out of his chair and headed down the corridor toward the front lobby. He neglected to mention the meeting Benny Baskin had arranged for Drayco starting in an hour—a visit to the Arlington Detention Center next door to talk to one Maura McCune.

  Chapter 6

  The woman sitting across from him beyond the glass barrier was like a phantom image from a dream that fades when you awaken, then returns as pieces of fractured memories. As he stared at her, he tried to match her appearance to his attic photos.

  She didn’t look all that different, except for the orange jumpsuit. No laugh lines, no frown lines on the fifty-seven-year-old woman. Did she not feel any emotions that would be expressed on her face? No heart, no soul, no empathy?

  There were few identifying marks of any kind, save for a scar on the side of her neck. Had she always had it? He couldn’t remember. It was hard to tell if this really was her or an imposter as Benny had suggested.

  “Hello, Scotty.” Her voice, with the same auburn-flecked sparklers that matched her hair, brought the reality of her presence to his conscious mind at last. He might forget a face, but he never forgot a voice. He didn’t need DNA results. This was really her.

  She leaned on the edge of the wooden table bolted to the floor. “I almost forgot how blue your eyes are. Even when you were a wee bairn, they were so bright and intense. You got those from my kin.”

  Her accent was hybridized, mostly “American,” but her Scottish upbringing peeked through, at times. “Not your dark hair. You can thank your father’s Navajo grandma for that.” She tilted her head. “Dark hair, violet-blue eyes. Bet you’re a hit with the ladies. I imagined you’d be hitched by now.”

  “Engaged, once. She wanted a pianist for a husband, not an FBI agent.”

  Maura McCune clasped her hands in front of her and picked at her thumbnails. Like Drayco, she couldn’t seem to keep her fingers still. “The carjacking injury, when you were twenty. I ... I heard about it at the time.”

  She’d kept tabs on him? Not that it mattered since she hadn’t bothered to contact him. “It’s ancient history.”

  She looked at his hands. “Can you still play the piano? With your arm crippled and all. I mean—”

  “I play. For myself and occasionally friends. The arm works, it just cramps up when I use it too much.”

  She kept staring at his hands as if afraid to look at him in the face for too long. “You took to Bach right away. Bach’s always been my favorite. You said his fugues were rainbow-colored circles within circles.”

  “It’s how I experience them. It’s called synesthesia, feeling sounds as colors, shapes, textures.”

  “You got that from my father, who played the fiddle beautifully. The way he described it, it was a world of intense sensations in his head. I imagined it as a rainbow of counterpoint.”

  Images from Drayco’s childhood flipped across his mind, at the piano with his mother next to him on the bench, a musical cheerleader who encouraged him from the sidelines. She was the one who’d set him up with piano lessons against Brock’s wishes.

  “You probably shouldn’t expect a visit from Brock.”

  “You call him Brock? Not Dad or Father?”

  He bit his tongue. She would have known that had she been around. Or maybe if she’d been around, he wouldn’t call his father Brock nor have such a distant relationship.

  He wasn’t ready for this, wasn’t ready to pick at the old scabs, to listen to her excuses or
lies. He reminded himself he was in the presence of an accused murderer and sat up straighter. “What was your relationship to the victim?”

  She’d unclasped her hands, and they were now in constant motion—rubbing her fingers together, fiddling with her sleeve. “We were good friends.”

  “Lovers?”

  She jutted out her chin. “Like I told the detectives, that’s all I’m going to say on the subject.”

  “Did you know he was a TSA agent?”

  “Ex-agent. And Jerold was the one who called me, wanting me to come see him the night he was killed. He didn’t sound angry, maybe a little strained.”

  “What were his exact words?”

  “I didn’t understand them, then or now. He said, ‘I need you to come over right away. It’s about that trip we’re going to take to Nevada. It’s important.’”

  Drayco frowned at that. “What trip to Nevada?”

  “That’s just it, I don’t know of any such trip. I think I once said I’d always wanted to go to Reno—that’s where they shot Melvin and Howard, isn’t it? That’s my favorite movie. Or maybe Jerold had a craving for some slot machines. It’s as good an explanation as any.”

  “Let me get the timeline straight. You went to his condo, you were angry, and you admitted to the police you stabbed him. But you said he was already dead?”

  She took a deep breath. “When I got there, he was lying on the floor. I could tell he was dead—his eyes were open, staring.”

  “And then you just decided to stab him?”

  “It sounds crazy, and maybe it is, a little. I’d been so upset with him, but here he was robbing me of my chance to tell him off. I wasn’t thinking straight, Scotty, I admit it. I would have wiped my prints and just left, but the police arrived first. How did they know to come?”

  “An anonymous tip to the police.”

  “But it was raining and dark. No one would have seen me.” Her eyes grew thoughtful, calculating. “The killer was watching. I was set up, don’t you see? I didn’t kill Jerold but whoever did wants you to think so.”

  Drayco leaned back in his seat. If she were lying, she was good. Then again, she’d somehow managed to disappear off the grid for thirty years, so she was likely a practiced evader and manipulator. On the other hand, a convenient witness who disguised his voice when calling the police—what were the chances of that?

  Her eyes were hazel, not true blue, and the way the fluorescent lights hit them right now, they looked more greenish-gold. There were hints of pleading in those eyes, but also traces of something he’d seen in other suspects. An almost-imperceptible shifting. He made a leap of intuition and asked, “Who are you protecting?”

  She hesitated just a few seconds too long. “Why would you think that, Scotty?”

  The way she called him by the long-ago nickname, the lying, the anger bubbling up inside—he needed to get away from her, to catch his breath. He also knew, as the warden came to signal that his twenty minutes were up, he was going to disappoint both Detective Halabi and Brock.

  There was no way in hell he could walk away from this case. It was truth time. And just like with his board hearing, any and all consequences be damned.

  Chapter 7

  Benny Baskin might be the “world’s most diminutive attorney,” as one prosecutor labeled him, but he seemed to delight in making everything in his office tall. The bookshelves went all the way up the fifteen-foot ceilings, the lowest rung on a corner coat rack was at Drayco’s eye level, and even the table and chairs were two inches higher than standard-issue.

  Benny was heading for a bookshelf when Drayco walked in but stopped as soon as he saw his visitor. “Oh goody. My human ladder is here. Get that green book on the third shelf for me, would you?” Baskin’s voice was twice as deep as his stature, sounding a bit like a bull terrier. Or to Drayco’s ears, a salmon-colored tumbleweed.

  Drayco didn’t have to stretch, his six-four frame reaching the book easily. As he handed it over, Benny said, “After I got your call an hour ago, I made some calls of my own. I’m deeply disturbed your mother talked to the police sans attorney. But she waived her rights, God knows why.”

  “The full autopsy might help. If it shows a knife wound after the victim was dead, verifying her claims, that is.”

  “Her kooky behavior is helping an insanity defense, for sure.”

  “And we’ve got the oh-so-coincidental anonymous witness.”

  “About that. I got a friend at the Arlington PD. I called him up and asked him what he knew. Told me the report says Mr. Anonymous heard a scream, yet none of his condo neighbors heard a thing.” Benny lifted his eyepatch and rubbed the scar underneath, grunting as he did. “You really looking into this?”

  Drayco nodded and plopped down on the Sangria-colored leather chair next to Benny’s desk. He loved that chair. It was suspiciously present whenever Benny knew Drayco was coming, and mysteriously absent when he made a surprise appearance.

  “Well, boy-o, if you’re hoping to prove her innocence, you’ll be alone on this one. The police are confident she’s guilty. I think your dad is secretly rooting to see her executed. And I anticipate only half-hearted attempts at a defense from her court-appointed attorney.”

  “What if I can prove she’s innocent of the murder charge? Legally speaking.”

  Benny crossed his arms. “She’s still not out of the woods. Could be charged with desecration of a corpse. Or not. Insanity and all.”

  “Did you get any additional information about Jerold Zamorra?”

  “More your bailiwick than mine. You said on the phone your mother refuses to say what their relationship was other than ‘good friends’?”

  “And that worries me. A lot. Maybe they were lovers, or maybe they were partners in crime. I know as little about him as I do about her.”

  Benny perched on the edge of his desk next to Drayco, the only way he could gaze down at him. “You’re taking this remarkably well. Mother showing up after all these years. After taking off without so much as a how d’ya do. Or whatever.” He kicked one leg against the desk, rhythmically. “You never talk about her.”

  “Why should I?”

  Benny stopped kicking. “You going to ask her? Why she left?”

  Drayco gazed out the plate glass window as a nearby church bell chimed twelve times. In the distance, the silhouette of the Capitol rose like a domed magnet drawing power, greed and corruption toward it.

  They sat in silence for a few moments, until Benny piped up, “If there’s anything I can do—”

  “There is. Represent her. You know I’m good for it.”

  Benny knew as well as Drayco that Benny’s fees would drain a lot of people’s bank accounts, let alone Drayco’s. And he certainly couldn’t count on any financial help from Brock.

  Benny cleared his throat. “It’s not the kinda case I’d ordinarily—”

  “It might ruin your perfect record. I know. I’ll do everything I can to keep it from going to trial.”

  “By proving her innocent.” Benny’s bluntness was always something Drayco could count on, one reason they worked so well together. “Ordinarily, I’d take your instincts and bet ’em all on the sixty-to-one nag. But this time, you’re from that horse’s stable. Your objectivity is manure.”

  Drayco relaxed into the chair. “You’ll take the case?”

  Benny glared at him. “Of course I’ll take the case. Goddamn you. I’ll have to make like The Flash if the arraignment is this afternoon.” Benny grabbed the phone on his desk, but paused to add, “Look, you’re a big boy,” and as Drayco stood, Benny added, “a very big boy. But this thing could get ugly. The kinda ugly that wounds worse than bullets.”

  Drayco grabbed his coat from the coat rack. “Shall I use the usual update method?”

  “None of that texting crap. And put the evidentiary hearing on your calendar. Don’t forget I’m already defending one Drayco. Better tell your father I said he can’t run any red lights.”

  Aft
er Drayco closed the door, he briefly considered opening it again to see if the comfy chair was still there, then thought better of it. That was one mystery best left unsolved. Outside the building, he took the stairs one at a time instead of the usual two. It was nice to know he had at least one person in his camp.

  He pulled out a keychain from his pocket and rubbed a thumb over it. Large capital letters spelled out RANGER, with smaller text beside that read BROTHER. The giver of the keychain came to him for help a few months ago when his daughter was in danger. Perhaps it was time to return the favor.

  Their relationship was on better footing these days, if not quite terra firma, but he wasn’t sure what reaction he’d get. He stuffed the keychain back in his pocket. He hated asking for favors. Oh, well ... One down, one to go.

  Chapter 8

  After checking his cellphone for the fourth time for new messages, Drayco was beginning to believe he’d been stood up. The hushed voices and clicking of women’s high heels in the hotel lobby reflected off the gold panels and marble floors, bouncing up to the vaulted ceilings. The sound created a stormy echo chamber of teal hailstones raining down on Drayco. It was giving him a headache.

  He eyed the restaurant and strode inside to order coffee, savoring each sip as he kept checking his watch. Five minutes passed, then ten, fifteen. Just as he was going to signal the waiter to pay for his coffee, a familiar figure in standard FBI attire walked in—although Drayco’s former partner Mark “Sarg” Sargosian didn’t so much walk as stalk into a room. Once an Army Ranger, always a Ranger.

  Sarg slid into a chair at Drayco’s table. Unlike the lobby noise, the gold-green sine waves of Sarg’s baritone massaged Drayco into relaxation. “Thought you might like to meet here, since I had to be at HQ today. Walked the mile from there to here, but there was some kinda protest thingie on Pennsylvania. The usual daily D.C. parade. Boom-de-ya-da.”

  “And here I suspected you’d fallen into one of the District’s manholes and that’s why you didn’t send a text.”