Dust Up: A Thriller (9 page)

They were drunker than I was. Everything was funnier.

They laughed their way through another bottle of wine over dinner, and afterward, I brought the laptop into the bedroom and researched Energene, the drought in Haiti, allergenicity issues with genetically modified food, and which federal agencies could be responsible for whatever vague crime might be related to Ron Hartwell’s murder.

When I turned the light out at midnight, Nola and Laura were still laughing in the living room. I was glad Nola was having so much fun, but I wondered if she was going to pay for it in the morning.

25

When I left for work, Nola was snoring hard, and so was Laura in the guest room. When I kissed Nola’s forehead, her brows furrowed. She was still asleep, but I was pretty sure her hangover had already gone for a run, showered, and had a full breakfast.

I was feeling almost self-righteous, but as I approached the station, I felt the beginnings of a tiny headache of my own. It grew as I walked into the squad room.

It felt a lot like a hangover, but I hadn’t had much to drink. I realized it wasn’t from the alcohol. It was from the assholes.

“You’re late,” Royce said, sitting in my chair, looking at his watch. “Suarez said you’re supposed to be in at nine.”

Divock was leaning against my desk. He was playing with one of my pencils, wiggling it between his fingers, making it look like it was made of rubber.

I thought briefly about shooting them both. Instead, I turned and walked into Suarez’s office. I didn’t knock. He was on the phone, but instead of waving me off, he said, “I gotta go.”

He put down the phone and motioned for me to close the door behind me.

“What the—”

“I know, I know,” he said. “Serious assholes. Maybe even worse than you.”

“I can’t spend another whole day with them. And I don’t know if Warren told you about this, but Miriam Hartwell said she thought there was something going on at Energene.”

He shook his head. “Warren thinks that’s bullshit.”

“He thinks it’s bullshit?”

He shrugged. “Evidence points at Hartwell. He likes her for the murder, thinks she’s feeding you a line. And it’s his investigation.”

“Oh, come on—”

“Look, Carrick,” he said, cutting me off, pointing at his door, at Royce and Divock waiting outside it. “I know this is bullshit with these two. I don’t like it either, but these guys are connected out the wazoo. I got a memo from the chief—‘Energene Corporation is to be afforded our absolute cooperation’—saying how much the mayor and the fucking governor appreciate our assistance. I told him two days, yesterday and today. That’s it.”

I sat back. “It’s bullshit.”

“You could just shoot them.”

“Thought about it.”

He shrugged. “With your background, it wouldn’t be so out of character. I could get a dozen officers to testify it was temporary insanity. Or just regular insanity.”

“Fuck you.”

His face hardened. “Watch it, Carrick. I’m still your lieutenant. And I still don’t like you. Sorry all this landed on your doorstep, but neither us would be stuck dealing with these pricks if you’d left the case alone.” He laughed and sat back. “Think about that, huh? If you’d done what you were told for once, Mike Warren would be stuck with those assholes. You could be out doing police work.”

*   *   *

Royce’s list of people he wanted to interview didn’t include anyone from Energene. I had been hoping to have another look around, but I guess they didn’t need my help to talk to those people.

We started the day in ballistics, Bernie Lawrence looking at me cockeyed as I explained the situation. But he shrugged and answered Royce’s questions, repeating everything he had told me the day before, even though it was all in his report.

Royce nodded solemnly and said, “So the gun found in Miriam Hartwell’s laundry room is an
exact
match for the bullets that killed Ron Hartwell?”

Bernie looked at me again. “That’s what I just said.”

Royce sounded like a bad trial lawyer laying out a case, and I looked behind me, half expecting to see someone else standing there that he might be trying to impress. There wasn’t.

He turned to me. “And the prints on the gun are definitely Miriam Hartwell’s?”

“That’s what forensics says.”

Royce looked at Divock, and they both nodded this time. Doubly solemn.

Bernie watched us as we left, and I made a mental note to talk to him later and explain why I was bringing these mugs around.

The next stop was the apartment building. Gonzalez, the building super, answered the buzzer with double the exasperation of my previous visit. I told him Royce and Divock were collaborating on the investigation and they wanted to see the laundry room, as well. He gave me this look like, “Really?”

I shrugged and nodded apologetically.

Royce cleared his throat. “Is there a problem?”

Gonzalez looked at me and shook his head, annoyed and disappointed, like he never actually liked me, but he’d thought I at least understood how busy he was.

He led us to the laundry room, fidgeting impatiently by the door while Royce and Divock took turns looking under the change machine.

“And this is where the gun was found, is that it?” Royce asked, pointing.

“Yes.”

Royce nodded at that. “And did Miriam Hartwell use these facilities here on a regular basis?”

Gonzalez looked back and forth between the three of us, like he was trying to figure out how this worked. “Well, yeah. I mean, she did her laundry.” He looked at his watch.

I was wondering if he was going to ask if she used fabric softener, but we left after that and headed over to my neighborhood to recanvass for witnesses. The first round of interviews hadn’t turned up anything, and this round was equally unenlightening—a few people heard the banging on the door. A few more heard the gunshots. No one saw anything.

Several neighbors asked if Nola and I were okay, which was nice. A few asked if we knew who’d done it. The first time, Royce said the victim’s wife was the main suspect. After that, I made sure I answered first, saying we didn’t know and couldn’t comment.

I didn’t blame Royce and Divock for wanting to double-check Warren’s investigation, but I wasn’t crazy about the way they did it—pissing people off, making insinuations about Ron’s and Miriam’s characters.

I don’t think they learned anything new. But I did.

I confirmed that they weren’t serious investigators, not even on a par with Mike Warren. It made me wonder what they were really after.

They seemed like they were putting on a show, trying to convince me, or even themselves, that Miriam Hartwell was guilty.

They might also have been trying to gain deeper insights into me, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen. Not until the last stop of the day.

I felt bad about inconveniencing Bernie Lawrence and Gonzalez, even the people who lived on my block. But Dorothy Hartwell had lost her son—and possibly her daughter-in-law, as well. She was hurting. I didn’t want to let them hurt her anymore or trick her into saying anything that might make things worse for her or her family.

When she answered the door, I said, “Hello, Mrs. Hartwell. Sorry to bother you, but these gentlemen are from Energene. They think Ron and Miriam may have been engaged in industrial espionage, or spying, and they’d like to ask you a few questions as part of their company’s investigation.”

Royce, Divock, and Hartwell all dropped their jaws.

Hartwell recovered first. “What do you mean?”

“They think it’s possible Ron and Miriam may have been selling company secrets. I am here as a courtesy to them, but the police are not investigating this. It is strictly a private investigation, and you are under no obligation to answer their questions.”

Divock’s mouth continued to hang open, but Royce’s slammed shut, his jaws grinding as he glared at me.

I smiled. “I just wanted to make sure there was no confusion.”

Dorothy Hartwell looked at Royce, her expression turning stormy.

He seemed to realize he was on the spot. “We’re sorry for your loss, Mrs. Hartwell.”

She folded her arms. “Thank you. What would you like to know?”

Royce took out his notebook, keeping his eyes on it and away from her. “Um … did Ron or Miriam show any signs of sudden wealth or money concerns in the weeks before Ron’s death?”

“No.”

“Were they stressed out or otherwise behaving strangely?”

“No.”

“Had they expressed any negative feelings about Energene?”

“No.”

“Had they made any comments or statements that might lead you to believe they were planning on leaving town anytime soon?”

“No.”

“Did their marriage seem in any way troubled?”

“No.” Her eye twitched and started to water. “They were both normal, happy, in love, and in no way suspicious until Ron was murdered.”

Royce nodded and went quiet. I wondered if he had run out of questions.

“Will that be all?” she asked.

“Um … actually, we’d like to talk to your son Brian. Is he available?”

She stared at Royce with such intensity I wondered if she was trying to make his head explode. I took a step away, just in case, but she briefly gave me the same look, letting me know she blamed me for bringing him here.

“He’s out of town until late tonight, but he doesn’t live here, anyway,” she said. “Detective Carrick can give you his contact information.”

“Okay. Thank you,” he said without looking up. “We appreciate your—”

The door slammed in his face.

To his credit, Royce didn’t flinch. But as he turned to walk back to the car, he looked at me and muttered, “Asshole.”

“Sorry,” I said as we got in the car. “If I’d known you were intending on impersonating a police officer, I would have kept quiet.”

“Fuck you, Carrick. You’re supposed to be helping us. You didn’t have to turn her against us like that.”

It was a fun drive back to the Roundhouse. When I saw my car parked on the street, I looked at my watch. It was five o’clock.

“You can let me out here,” I said, overwhelmed by the compulsion to get away from them and relief that my two days with them were over.

“Suit yourself,” Royce said, pulling over. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

I paused, halfway out of the car. “What do you mean?” Suarez had said yesterday and today.

“We need you tomorrow morning, too, when we talk to the brother. Kind of suspicious that he leaves town immediately after the murder, so we want to see him in person. I texted Suarez. He okayed it. We’ll pick you up here at nine.”

I was stunned and angry. “I’ll meet you out there.” I wasn’t going to get any more information out of them, and I couldn’t bear the thought of riding with them again.

Royce turned in his seat, his mouth open as if he was going to argue. But I guess he didn’t want to spend any more time with me, either. “All right, whatever. We also need the case file. Warren said we could borrow it tomorrow morning.”

“He did?” Cooperation was one thing, but this was a little extreme.

“He did.”

Whatever. I opened the door to get out. “I’ll bring it.”

“Fine. What’s Brian Hartwell’s address?”

I gave him the address, and as I closed the door, Royce said, “See you there at nine thirty.”

As I watched them drive away, my anger slowly cooled. My car was right there, and I was looking forward to getting home—houseguest or not. But I knew I’d regret having to make a special trip in the morning. I turned away from my car and walked up the block, toward the Roundhouse.

Mike Warren was leaning against his desk talking football at Darryl Purcell, who was typing at his computer. Purcell and I didn’t know each other well, but he looked up at me, his eyes almost pleading me to distract Warren so he could get his work done.

Through an open door, I could see Myerson, Warren’s lieutenant, in his office, looking like he was trying to concentrate on something other than Warren’s bullshit. He got up from behind his desk to close the door.

Warren looked up at me and laughed, like he was about to say something funny, but then he didn’t have anything, so he just said, “Carrick.”

“You told Royce he could borrow the Hartwell case file?” I asked Warren loudly.

Warren shrugged. “The brass said cooperate.”

I didn’t want to spend any longer with him than I had to, so I didn’t tell him how ridiculous it was. “Royce asked me to pick it up for him,” I said. “I’m meeting them in the morning, and they want me to bring it.”

I was waiting for him to give me shit about bringing the case file home so I could blister him for lending it out to someone who could conceivably be a suspect. But he didn’t.

“If you say so.” He found it on his desk and handed it over. “Don’t lose it.”

No surprise, it was kind of thin.

26

The house was quieter than the night before. Nola and Laura were in the kitchen stripping kale and cooking rice. There was a package of tofu on the counter. I don’t think they were still in pain, but the memory of the morning was obviously fresh.

Dinner was quiet and healthy and not at all hilarious. I didn’t eat much, or at least I didn’t feel like I’d eaten much when I was done. Afterward, Nola said there was a documentary on PBS she wanted to watch. Laura said, “That sounds interesting.”

It was like we were all on some sort of punishment.

I was more in the mood for a brainless comedy, so I poured myself a scotch and took Mike Warren’s case file into the bedroom. Useless, careless, unimaginative. Warren’s handwritten notes looked and read like they were written by a child. He had several pages of notes from interviewing me about Miriam Hartwell’s flight to avoid prosecution but little about the case itself except for forensics and ballistics. It made me feel even better about holding back on what Miriam had told me.

Around nine thirty, I heard Nola saying good night to Laura. She came to bed, looking exhausted and screwing her face up at my Scotch like she planned on never touching alcohol again.

“How’s it going?” I asked her.