At the Scene of the Crime (20 page)

Catt sat up straighter. “If she’s a nurse and was only pretty sure he was dead—”

“I know,” Loman said. “I’m just summarizing her statement. She admitted she was rattled.”

“Why? She’d seen dead bodies before, in her job.”

“It wasn’t what she was looking at,” Miles said, “it was whom.”

Catt nodded her acknowledgement and approval, maybe of his grammar. She much admired good grammar, even if she didn’t bother using it herself. “Starstruck, huh?”

“Mitt almost made it into the Hall of Fame,” Loman said.

“Caught two no-hitters,” Miles said.

“Two-forty lifetime batting average,” Catt said. “Hit seventeen home runs one decade.”

Miles grinned. Nothing and no one awed Catt.

“Killer leave anything at the scene?” he asked Loman. “Other than that very partial footprint?”

“Not a hair, not a thread, fingerprint, useful footprint, or any suggestion of any kind of body fluid,” Loman said. “Mitt jogged that same path regular like clockwork. The intersection at the northwest corner of the park’s a busy one, and there are cameras set up to catch speeders so we can get their license plate numbers and ticket them later. One of them’s aimed north, down Sallab Road along the edge of the park. The tape’s marked with time and date. The interesting thing about the camcorder is it coincidentally takes in the park’s only vehicular traffic entrance and exit. If the killer used his car to get in and out, we’ve got it on tape.”

“Too far away to read the plate numbers?” Miles asked.

“’Fraid so. We aren’t that lucky.”

“Let us work on the tape,” Catt said. “Maybe we can enhance it.”

“Will do.” Loman began swiveling back and forth in his desk chair. “The camera also caught a traffic cop handing out a ticket near the park entrance. Date and time stamped on the image. Seven-sixteen a.m.”

“In the time frame,” Catt said.

“Cop said he saw nothing suspicious along that edge of the park, and the speeding ticket went to an eighteen-year-old kid doing twelve miles an hour over the limit.”

“Crime scene still cordoned off with tape?” Miles asked.

“It is. I saw that the scene was kept undisturbed.”

“Knowing you were gonna call us,” Catt said.

“Well,” Loman said. “Suspecting.”

“Speaking of suspects,” Miles said. “Are there any?”

“Not per se,” Loman said.

“Very good,” Catt said, beaming.

“Then I presume no motive,” Miles said.

“One possible,” Loman said.

“Who we talking about?” Miles asked.

“The husband or lover of the woman Mitt was seeing behind his wife’s back.”

“How do we know there was such a woman?” Miles asked.

“Mitt’s wife told him,” Catt said, before Loman could answer.

Loman shook his head in mock admiration. “Women’s intuition. I marvel.”

“Give us some names,” Catt said. “Friends, business associates, neighbors, fellow joggers. Everybody but the killer. That would take all the fun out of it.”

 

After a look at the crime scene that was every bit as unrevealing as Loman had described, Miles and Catt went into interview phase with Mitt’s extramarital interest.

“I’ve already told all this to the police,” said Nora Cross.

Catt said, “You don’t know how many times we’ve heard that.”

They were in Nora’s third-floor condo. It was small but in a smart neighborhood, not far from Speeders Park. The furnishings were traditional and tasteful, lots of dark wood and mocha-colored leather, plush beige carpeting, wooden window treatments of the sort that used to be called venetian blinds. Catt and Miles sat on a sofa opposite Nora, who was posed prettily in a leather wing chair. The sofa faced the wide window. Catt decided she liked the bars of sunlight lancing in through the blind slats, even the illuminated swarming dust motes.

Nora, who should have dusted more often, was a starved looking blonde woman about thirty with haunted gray eyes. She looked like a smaller, younger Lauren Bacall. Thirty made her considerably younger than Mitt. She worked for a diamond retailer that had an account with Mitt’s company. She explained how a year or so ago, for her and Mitt, business had become pleasure.

“It sneaked up and surprised both of us,” she said, not sounding at all credible.

“Were you aware Mitt’s wife knew about you two?” Miles asked.

“Yes. Mitt was, too. It was the kind of thing none of us talked about. No one among the three of us wanted to upset the balance. Life wasn’t working quite right for any of us, but it was working.” Her eyes misted up and a tear
tracked down her cheek, but she didn’t wipe it away, didn’t even blink. Ignoring the tear might make it cease to exist. This was a woman who didn’t cry easily.

“Any idea who might have killed Mitt?” Catt asked bluntly.

“It wasn’t his wife. Linda wouldn’t hurt anyone. Well, maybe me, but who could blame her?”

“You have a very charitable attitude toward your lover’s wife,” Miles said.

Nora shrugged. “Love happens.”

So do trophy wives, Catt thought.

“Did Mitt seem upset about anything lately?” she asked. “Did he give any indication he might have known his life was in danger?”

Nora hesitated. “I didn’t tell the police this, because I don’t like stating anything other than what I know is fact. Mitt didn’t confide in me, but I got the impression something was very wrong at work.”

“What gave you that impression?”

Nora gave a slight but eloquent shrug. “Mitt might have been a big league catcher, but I knew the signs.”

“Was he worried about losing his job?” Miles asked.

“Nothing like that. More like he didn’t know what to do about whatever he thought was wrong.”

“You said ‘thought was wrong’,” Catt pointed out.

“Yes, I got the feeling Mitt wasn’t sure anything was wrong. That’s why I hesitated giving the police the name Mitt mentioned.”

Miles would have sworn he felt his ears prick up.

Catt arched an eyebrow. “Name?”

“Kerrington,” Nora said. “I heard Mitt mutter it one day when he was deep in thought. I think the man’s first name is Roger. I can’t be positive of that. Mitt and I had been drinking. We weren’t drunk, but liquor tended to loosen Mitt’s tongue.”

Catt wrote the name down in her leather-bound notepad. “What did he tell you about Kerrington?”

“Not much, really. But I gathered he was the fellow employee causing
Mitt’s concern, and it might have had something to do with stealing from the company.”

Motive, Catt and Miles thought simultaneously. Kerrington might have killed Mitt to keep him from telling anyone about misdirected money or diamonds.

Nora stretched her lithe body and leaned back in her chair. The solitary tear that had tracked down her cheek was no longer visible. “That’s really all I can tell you, unless you insist on the sordid details of our affair. You’ll be disappointed to learn that sex was pretty normal.”

“We’re not into sordid yet,” Miles said, smiling. He thanked Nora and stood up.

Catt slipped her notepad into her purse and stood up also. “I’m curious,” she said.

“I noticed,” Nora said with a faint smile.

“Why did you tell this to us and not to the police?”

Nora shrugged again. She really was good at it. You could almost see what might have been bothering her running down off her shoulders. “You know how water dripping on stone will finally wear it away?”

Catt nodded.

“You were the last drip,” Nora said.

 

Miles was about to pull the car away from in front of Nora’s condo when his cell phone vibrated. He did more listening than talking before breaking the connection and sliding the phone back in his pocket. “Loman’s got a witness who said he passed Mitt on the jogging trail at seven-twelve the morning of Mitt’s death.”

“And the nine-one-one call came in at seven-twenty,” Catt said. “That pretty much brackets the time of death. Mitt must not have been dead long when his body was discovered.”

“Progress,” Miles said. Though he wasn’t exactly sure how they were any closer to the killer.

“If we can believe the witness,” Catt said, more realistically.

Miles pulled away from the curb and drove toward the address of Roger Kerrington.

“We gonna call and see if Kerrington’s home?” Catt asked.

“It’s Sunday,” Miles said. “He should be there.”

“Or in church,” Catt said. “Maybe confessing.”

 

Roger Kerrington was home. His wife insisted on being present when he talked with Miles and Catt. The couple was childless and lived in a neat, well-furnished suburban house in keeping with Kerrington’s salary at Diamond Square. If he was stealing, he wasn’t using the proceeds to live large. Or maybe he was smart enough to salt it away until he had enough to live the luxurious life he imagined. Contrary to popular belief, some thieves did know when to quit.

Kerrington was a short, squat man about forty, well-muscled, with a square jaw and square-rimmed glasses. Squared away, Catt thought. He was wearing khaki walking shorts, a brown knit pullover with a collar, and white jogging shoes. Catt wondered if their soles would show traces of Mitt’s blood.

It didn’t take long to get to the meat of the interview.

“You say Mitt was killed around seven-fifteen?” Kerrington asked.

“Near as we can tell,” Miles said.

Kerrington rubbed his square jaw, looking like a man pretending to think. “I was feeling ill that morning. Some kind of bug. I went in to work late.”

“He didn’t get out of bed until after eight o’clock,” his wife said. Her name was Belinda and she was a smaller version of Kerrington only without the square glasses. “I know because I was in bed with him.”

“Asleep?” Catt asked.

“Reading a good mystery. My husband’s snoring was keeping me awake.” She smiled woman to woman at Catt. “You know how it is.”

“No,” Catt said. “I wouldn’t put up with snoring.”

Throughout the interview, Miles and Catt didn’t mention Nora’s belief that Mitt thought Kerrington was doing something detrimental to
Diamond Square, Inc. Probably something illegal that provided a motive for murder.

When they left the suburban ranch house, Catt said, “He’s got a solid alibi, even if Belinda’s lying.”

“Was she lying?” Miles asked. He knew Catt had an uncanny ability to read body language.

“Like a rug,” Catt said.

 

After leaving the Kerringtons, they talked to the witness who’d seen Mitt jogging at seven-twelve the morning of his death. His name was Jack Ozman, and he was an insurance agent who ran in the park every morning. He had not a single hair on his head and sparse blond eyebrows. His smile was as expansive as his waistline, and he pumped Catt’s hand, then Miles’s, as if trying to draw water from wells. Catt thought somebody should tell him that after being shaken like that, the prospective customer’s hand might be too sore to hold a pen and sign on the dotted line.

“How did you know the exact time you saw Mitt?” Miles asked Ozman.

“I’d just checked my watch to make sure my run was on schedule, and when I looked up, there he was. We nodded at each other as we passed, like we do—did most mornings.”

“Do you know any other people who jog or walk regularly in the park about that time?”

“Lots of them,” Ozman said. “We’re all mostly from the neighborhood around the park. I’ve tried to sell most of them insurance.”

Catt made a low grumbling sound, not a purr.

“Then you know names?” Miles asked.

“Like any good salesman, I know their names.”

Miles and Catt exchanged glances.

“Eureka,” Catt said.

“Kerrington?” Miles said.

Ozman beamed. “Sure, Roger Kerrington. I see him most mornings. He’s underinsured and doesn’t know it. But I didn’t see him the morning Mitt was killed.”

“You’re sure about that?” Catt asked.

Ozman looked insulted. “Hey, it’s the kind of thing a salesman remembers. Names and faces.”

When they’d left Ozman, Catt said, “The salesman will be able to sell to a jury. The guy’ll make a great witness.”

“For Kerrington,” Miles said. “Maybe Belinda Kerrington was telling the truth and her husband actually wasn’t in the park that morning.”

“She was lying,” Catt said with her usual certainty.

They drove silently for a while. They knew what they needed, but they also knew there wasn’t enough evidence to obtain a search warrant for the Kerrington residence.

“What we could use are a few reliable witnesses who saw Kerrington in the park the morning of Mitt’s murder,” Catt said.

“It should be possible,” Miles said. “Assuming he was there.”

Catt wasn’t so sure, having little faith in the reliability, or believability, of eyewitnesses.

At the next stop sign, she said, “I’d sure like to get my hands on Kerrington’s shoes.”

Miles said, “Forget the shoes for now. Kerrington doesn’t live within easy walking distance of the park. Let’s find out what kind of car he drives.”

“If there’s blood on the shoes,” Catt said with a grin, “there’s a good chance for blood in the car.”

“Mitt’s blood.”

“It’d be great if we could get enough on Kerrington to hold him overnight,” Catt said.

“Why’s that?”

“See if he snores.”

 

Miles and Catt were just finishing a late lunch at a steakhouse not far from Speeders Park when Loman phoned Miles’s cell phone from police headquarters. Loman seemed upset.

“Somebody in the department’s leaking to the media,” he said. “We’re
gonna get some terrible press ’cause of that traffic cop writing a ticket nearby almost at the precise time Mitt was murdered.”

“That seems to be the case,” Miles said. “But so what? The cop wasn’t a mind reader with X-ray vision.”