At the Scene of the Crime (13 page)

“Nanette, how can you possibly believe—”

“Only,” said Tess, “We don’t think it happened that way.”

Odabashian crossed his arms, nearly hugging himself. “Just better and better.”

Tess looked toward the widow as she ticked off the facts on her fingers. “First, you’re twenty years younger than your husband, and you didn’t like the prospect of spending your prime and his money as a nomad in the camper. Second, your stepson, not you, voluntered the capital gains information to Lieutenant Hayes.”

“Steven’s an accountant. Of course he’d bring it up.”

“Third, you were pretty quick just now to dump the ‘hulking man’ theory in favor of your stepson as the killer.”

“This is—”

“Fourth, you were alone with your husband in this house before he died, and you found the body all by yourself. Fifth, you were a nurse’s aide, so you’d know about the I/M-Print procedure. Sixth, the hospital your husband was born in burned down, so there’d be no record of his I/M-Print, meaning we’d never be able to identify the print. A nice little piece of misdirection.”

Tess watched Nanette Zederberg’s complexion drain of color. “Seventh, you wanted the decedent cremated, despite him being terrified of fire all his life, and his son’s desire to see his father buried.”

Hayes said, “When we found your husband’s body, the soles of his feet were bloody. Nothing more is going to happen at the funeral home before Cassidy here can take prints of his big toes.”

Tess watched the son’s features crumble in doubled grief as Nanette Zederberg began to curse and cry at the same time.

I WAS TRYING TO GET THE DAMN FLUE OPEN ON MY
condo fireplace when the doorbell rang. I stepped back from the fireplace, wiped my black-stained hands with a soiled rag, and went to the front door. I spared a glance out the picture window, which offered a nice view of the Atlantic Ocean and a very empty beach. It being the middle of January, the empty beach made sense, but a visitor to my second-story condo didn’t.

I opened the door and a woman in her late thirties stood there, a hesitant smile on her face. Her brown hair was trimmed short, just above her collar, and she had brown eyes and a faint scar on her chin. She wore a long black winter coat with tan slacks, and over her shoulder was a leather case. She looked at me expectantly and I said, “Detective Diane Woods. Would you like to come in?”

“Please, if I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Just trying to figure out how to open the flue of this damn fireplace, that’s all, without breaking the lever or my hand.”

She followed me into the living room, past the cardboard boxes that had yet to be unpacked. In the living room she took a couch and I took the solitary chair and I waited.

She looked around. “Still getting unpacked.”

“Yes.”

She shook her head, smiled. “Still find it hard to believe you came all the way east, after spending so much time in the desert. Must be a shock to the system, especially New Hampshire in January.”

I tilted my head just a bit as I replied. “We have snow up in the mountains. And the desert can be very cold at night, cold enough to kill people. About the only change is the view of the ocean. And that doesn’t take too long to get used to.”

“I’m sure.”

There were a few seconds of silence, and I said, “Detective?”

“Yes?”

“You’re here because you want me to assist you. Correct?”

She looked slightly embarrassed. “It’s very irregular, I know. And you’re retired and you’re from a different law enforcement jurisdiction. It’s just that . . . well, when I met you a few weeks ago, when I found out that you had moved to our town, we had a nice conversation and you didn’t seem opposed to lending a hand if the opportunity ever presented itself, and—”

“Detective,” I said.

She stopped talking. Another pause. “Okay, then.”

“Look. You had me when you opened the door. Any longer, I might say no. So now I’ll say yes, I’ll look at your case, and we’ll go from there. Is that acceptable?”

The detective stood up. “Very acceptable. Can I show you the crime scene?”

I looked around at the crowded room. “Detective, it’s either that or stay here and try to open the flue, or unpack some more boxes, or hang a print or two on these walls, or go through my insect collection to see what got damaged during the move. Looking at a crime scene suddenly sounds very attractive. Is it far?”

“Not far at all.”

“Good. Let me get my coat.”

 

Ten minutes later, I was in the front seat of her unmarked police cruiser, a dark blue Ford LTD with a whip antenna and lots of radio gear. There was no radar gun mounted on the dashboard. Detectives don’t care who speeds and who doesn’t. They are after much more important things.

We were parked on a large fishing dock that jutted into an expanse of water called Tyler Harbor. To the left was a channel that led out to the Atlantic Ocean. A small drawbridge spanned the channel, leading into New Hampshire’s southernmost community on its ridiculously short shoreline, called Falconer. Before us, at the end of the dock, was a two-story wooden structure with a sign hanging over double doors. The sign was white, with painted blue lettering that spelled out Tyler Harbor Fishing Cooperative. There were four small hoists set in a row to the right of the building. The lot was plowed and surrounded by mounds of snow. Fishing craft of various sizes bobbed at their moorings as the wind whipped up little spurts of whitecaps.

“Where’s the crime scene?” I asked.

“You’re looking at it.”

“Where?”

“Right in front of you. The fishing co-op building.”

I looked again. The building seemed deserted. The doors were unattended. The parking lot behind us was empty. I sighed.

“Take me home, then,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“Take me home. We’re going to be wasting each other’s time. This place isn’t sealed. It isn’t secure. This entire crime scene has been compromised, hasn’t been protected, and anything I’ll do here will be a waste of time and won’t be useful to you.”

Her face seemed to flush. “You can determine that it’s a waste of time or not. But no matter what you think, the site’s secure, it’s been professionally examined, over and over again, and we’re now at a dead end. We’ve had the best from our department, from the state police major crimes unit, and the county coroner’s office. We’ve gotten squat.”

“Which is why you’ve asked me,” I said.

“Yes.”

I stared out the windshield of the cruiser, examined the exterior of the building, and said, “Do you have the case file with you?”

“Yes,” she said, reaching into the leather bag. “Do you want to read it?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet. Give me the particulars, will you? Before we go into the building.”

“Sure.”

From the leather case she took out a manila folder. She started talking without opening it. I was impressed. She obviously knew this case cold, and obviously wanted to show off.

“Our suspect is one Samuel Kosten. Age twenty-nine, resident of Tyler Beach. Lobster fisherman. Part of the Tyler Harbor Fishing Cooperative. High school dropout.”

“Any previous record?”

“Some speeding tickets. One operating under the influence. Two assaults from bar fights, years ago. Nothing else.”

“Victim?”

“Victim is Cassandra Malone. Also known as Cassie. Had been dating Samuel for nearly a year. A rocky relationship, according to friends and family. Usual fights and threats. Lately she told some close friends that she was determined to dump Samuel once and for all, but she was afraid of his temper.”

“Aren’t they all,” I said. “What else?”

“A local. Employed by Public Service of New Hampshire at the Falconer Nuclear Power Plant, over there on the left.”

I followed her lead. The power plant was easy to spot. Concrete containment dome, cube concrete buildings, large high-tension power lines issuing out from one of the main buildings. It looked to be a couple of miles away, across the harbor and low salt marsh and fields.

“Time of death?”

“We believe it was about two weeks ago,” she said.

“Long time ago, detective.”

“Sure is.”

“How and where did it happen?”

“Where it happened . . . we’re positive it happened in there, in the co-op
building. We have a witness who places both Samuel and Cassie in the building. Same witness says Samuel left on his own, a couple of hours after they arrived and went in. Since that night, Cassie has been missing. Never reported to work, never returned phone calls from her mom and friends, and her apartment is neat and tidy. Clothes left behind, luggage left behind, no activity from credit cards, bank accounts untouched.”

“I see.” I looked around the parking lot. It looked cold. It had to be very cold indeed. “Do you know how it happened?”

“No. We have no body, and no usable trace evidence. Not a damn thing. He took her into that building, and only he came out.”

I gently said, “That’s impossible. There’s always trace evidence of some kind at a crime scene. Always.”

She sighed. “I know. I’ve always thought that, too. But this . . . this is unique. Look, let’s get inside and I’ll show you. That’ll be easier than trying to describe it.”

“Sounds fine.”

I stepped out and the wind seemed to shoot right through me. It was cold, but it was a cold that was nothing like the cold out west. Out where I once lived and worked, it was a dry, achy cold, something that seemed to want to suck the moisture right out of your skin and bones. Here, it was a damp, cutting cold, coming right off the ocean, like it wanted to moisten you first, to make it easier to freeze you.

I made sure my coat was buttoned and followed Woods to the fishing co-op building. As we got closer I felt a bit better, and a bit guilty, at having earlier chastised the detective on the sanctity of the crime scene. There was a bright orange sticker covering the part of the door and adjacent wall, with her name and signature, so that was a good start. But still. Two weeks after the supposed murder. The first forty-eight hours in a homicide investigation are always key, before witnesses forget or change their stories, before evidence is removed or destroyed, before alibis are rehearsed and rehearsed so that they sound as true as gold. Two weeks. . . .

A very long time.

Detective Woods sliced through the orange sticker with a key but before she opened up the door, I said, “Hold on.”

“Okay.”

I turned and looked out across the lot. A bleak view indeed, with only the cruiser lending any sort of color. It was gray and white and black. A gate led to Atlantic Avenue. I’m sure that in the middle of summer, traffic was heavy on that particular stretch of road, but not today, not in January. I waited and waited and not a single car drove by.

“You said you had a witness.”

“That’s right.”

“A witness who was here, two weeks ago, at night, and saw Samuel enter this building with Cassie and depart some hours later, alone.”

“Yes.”

I turned to her. “Detective, what kind of witness do you have? It’s frigid out here. At night it must be even worse. You’re telling me that you had a witness out here, at night in January, who saw your suspect and victim enter this building?”

“That’s right.”

“A defense attorney would say that’s pretty convenient. Who’s your witness?”

She unlocked the door. “Another problem, I’m afraid. Our witness is the resident harbor drunk. Never mind convenience. Any defense attorney will be having a day at the circus over his reliability.”

“I’m sure.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll tell you more about our witness later.”

“That’ll be fine.”

She opened the door and we stepped into the Tyler Harbor Fishing Cooperative. Before us was a small function room with tile floor, folding chairs and some tables, and a raised stage at one end, flanked by an American flag and the dull dark blue flag of the State of New Hampshire. It looked like the kind of place where bingo contests were held, or Saturday night ham and bean suppers, or maybe just a place to smoke and drink and trade fishing stories.

“Tell me about the cooperative,” I said.

“Set up a couple of years ago with seed money from the state. Used to be, each fisherman out here was on his own when it came to his catch. He or she would come in with a day or two of work, and there’d be brokers here from Boston, undercutting each and every one of them, trying to get the best price. Here, the co-op helps set its own price, and there’s even a facility here for initial processing that allows the catch to get from here to Boston restaurants in just a couple of hours.”

“Business okay?”

“Fishermen never have a good fishing day, but they’re doing all right. Ready to see our problem?”

“Sure.”

“Right this way.”

To the left was a set of heavy metal doors, with rubber trim around the bottom and tops that made it hard to push in. But Detective Woods put her shoulder to it and we went into a much larger, cooler room, and I instantly saw what the problem was.

“Well, this is certainly something,” I said.

“It certainly is,” she said wistfully.

The room was two stories tall, with a concrete floor with drains set in about every eight feet or so, illuminated by banks upon banks of fluorescent lights from the metal framework of the ceiling. Along the walls were waist-high stainless steel tables and adjoining sinks, and in the center was a work area that looked like it belonged in a restaurant, with a collection of knives, cleavers, and sharpening tools set on stands. There were two large refrigerators and some sort of machinery set up in the center, next to four stainless steel sinks. Diane walked over to the center, where the machinery was located. I followed, our footsteps sounding loud in the enclosed space. Near the sinks were overhead hose systems, like those of dishwashing stations in restaurants.