Swimming With the Dead (3 page)

It was almost midnight when Mack dropped me off back at my car at Jenny’s office.  God, I could use a massage now. 

A layer of snow blanketed the streets, muffling sound.  A dusty glow encircled streetlights.  I loved this time of night after a snow.  Tonight though, the streets felt ghostly, haunted.

Once I would have headed straight to one of the singles bars to shake off the emptiness and numb the anger.  Try to fill the hollow spot that Jake had left with alcohol and sex. 

It never worked.  Sleeping or awake, numbed by gin or a good lay, the vision remained.  I saw Jake sinking into the icy water of Marston Reservoir.  In dreams, I swam after him, reached out, trying to grasp his outstretched hand.  He just kept going down, down into the murky depth, then faded into the void.

With time, the vision had blurred.  I’d eventually learned to like being alone.  I’m one of those people who can be.  Sometimes I worry about it—see that I’m isolated.  That’s when I turn to my dog.  She greeted me as I walked in my front door.

“Sweet Sadie,” I said, scratching her ears.  “Sorry I’m late.”  She couldn’t decide whether she was more anxious to be petted, fed, or let outside to pee.  She opted for a quick pat, then bounded out into the snow.

Sadie is an Irish setter–golden Lab mix with the temperament of a teddy bear.  At three she has finally advanced from the sheer recklessness and irresponsibility of a child to a more subdued adolescent.  No longer does she rifle through my bedroom for anything soft and cuddly, strewing pillows across the floor and chewing my slippers to shreds.  Now, like any respectable teenager, she sleeps late, lounges on her overstuffed pillow, snacks all day and generally considers the whole place hers. 

I live in a carriage house behind a towering Victorian near the Denver Zoo and the Museum of Natural History.  It’s a perfect place for Sadie and me, a one-bedroom, with a sunny kitchen and living room.  The ceilings slant in all directions, somehow still managing to come to a point in the middle.  I’d furnished it in overstuffed, used.

I let Sadie in and rummaged through the fridge looking for the leftover lasagna that I’d made the night before.  I’m no chef, but I like sitting down to a decent meal after a day of eating on the run at one of Mack’s favorite greasy spoons.  Even at midnight, I needed to sit in front of good food and shift gears.  I filled Sadie’s dish, poured a glass of cabernet, and thumbed through my mail as I ate.

I found myself thinking about Duvall.  The guy seemed kind of distracted, not really in touch with the destruction in his office or the dead woman in the corner.  People say there’s nothing worse than losing a child.  By the looks of Duvall, I’d guess it was true.

But there wasn’t anything I could do about his loss.  The only thing I could do was track down Greta’s killer.  It seemed pretty straightforward.  I should have known better.

Chapter 2

Sadie recognized the signs.  I’d spent ten minutes layering—snow pants and down jacket, over wool sweater and leggings, over long underwear, and earmuffs over my baseball cap.  I took her leash off a nearby hook, her final clue.  She went ballistic.  For Sadie, heaven was Saturday morning in the park.

We’d almost made it out the door when the damn phone rang.  I considered ignoring it.  Probably a phone solicitor.  I hate having my privacy invaded by an alien voice telling me I have just won an all-expense-paid visit someplace like Aspen or Steamboat Springs.  All I’d have to do is take the two-hour tour and have enough money to buy a condo.  Didn’t they know I lived on a cop’s salary?  Worse yet, now computers do the talking, so you can’t even cuss out a real person.  Somehow swearing at a computer doesn’t provide the same satisfaction, though I’ve done it plenty of times. 

But it could be the office.  Maybe someone had found a motive for Greta’s murder.

“Hello.”  I tried not to sound as irritable as I felt.

“Hannah, it’s Tom Kane.”

“Tom, hi.”  Tom Kane calling on Saturday?  Worse than a phone solicitor.  I was scrambling to come up with an excuse to hang up before he did something stupid like ask me out again.  “I was just on my way out.”

“Sorry to bother you at home.  I’m calling for George Duvall.  He’s pretty upset about Greta and the break-in yesterday.  I suggested he speak with you.  Can you come by his house late this afternoon, say around five o’clock?  He apologizes for asking but says it’s important.”

By now sweat was pooling under my arms and dripping down my sides.  Sadie was about to have a nervous breakdown.   

“Okay, Tom. Where’s the house?”

“314 Clover. Just go down Colorado and—”

“I know the area,” I interrupted, eager to end the conversation and get out into the cold.  “I’ll be there at five.”

Sadie and I spent the morning in the park.  The day had turned out as promised—crisp, sunny, and frigid.  The snow sparkled like sugar crystals in the light.  Sadie darted through the powdery stuff and caught the flimsy snowballs I tossed her. 

When we returned, she went directly to her pillow in the sunny spot in the kitchen to lick the ice from between her paws.  I hit the shower, then headed to the office, leaving a contented dog chasing imaginary rabbits in her sleep.

I spent the next couple of hours going over the reports of the break-in and Greta’s murder.  At this point, there wasn’t much.  Fingerprints were still being run through the computer.  Greta’s autopsy was scheduled for later in the day.  Rodriguez and Brown were out canvassing the shelters trying to track down the bag lady and would be trying to locate anyone who might have been in the building at the time of the murder. 

There had been no forced entry into Duvall’s office.  The door had been unlocked and the murderer had simply slipped in.  When Greta walked out from the file room, the intruder had fired.  No questions, no hesitation.  This was a cold-blooded, ruthless killer.  There had been no struggle, no attempt to subdue her.  I was sure that Greta had not been the target.  The killer had been after something in the office.  When Greta got in his way, he had eliminated her, removing an obstacle that kept him from achieving his goal.  This was the worst kind of killer.  Those that killed out of passion or hate always made mistakes.  This killer murdered as a matter of course, as a practical solution to an annoying problem.  As simple as swatting a mosquito that is buzzing around your ear.

By four thirty I was on my way to the Duvalls’.  They lived in an upscale part of town, a section called Cherry Creek.  The street was lined with brick and stone mansions, the cheap ones in the $500,000 category.  Rolling lawns ended at sidewalks canopied under elm and magnolia trees.  Now blanketed with snow, in the summer this neighborhood would be bursting with color, lawns finely manicured, gardens filled with exotic mixes of shrubs and flowers.

I wondered why Duvall wanted to see me.  He couldn’t possibly have discovered anything missing from the disaster in the office.  And why call me rather than report it to the department?  I’d thought about calling Mack but decided to leave him in peace on his day off.  He and Sue were probably out in the middle of a frozen lake with fishing lines dropped in a hole. 

The Duvalls’ house was one of understated elegance, no colonnades or pillars, just big and well designed with bay windows and dormers placed to let in light yet preserve privacy.  A woman opened the door as I was about to knock.  She was elegant, even in jeans and a turtleneck.  Her silver hair was worn short and soft around her face, and a touch of color brightened her lips.  Her eyes told a different story though.  Same look as Duvall’s.

“Hello, you must be Ms. Sampson,” she said.  “I’m Caroline Duvall.”

“Please, call me Hannah,” I said, as I walked into a foyer the size of my living room. 

“George is in the den.  He has a fire going,” she said, taking my coat.

I followed her back.  The place oozed money, original oils under subtle lights, velvet chairs, and a crystal chandelier.  But it felt as comfortable as my own.  I knew it had to do with Caroline Duvall.  I immediately liked her. 

“Ms. Sampson,” Duvall said, moving toward me with hand extended.  “Thank you for coming.  I’m sure that there are other things you’d rather be doing on a Saturday evening.”

Right, I thought, like watching an old Bogart movie while devouring pizza.  “It’s Hannah.  And it’s not a problem.  Tom made it sound kind of urgent.”

“I hope I’m not overreacting,” he said. “I was awake most of the night thinking about it.  When Tom suggested asking for your help, it seemed like the right thing to do.  He has a lot of respect for your work.  I’ve been back and forth about it all day, telling myself I’m just reacting to grief.  But Caroline agrees that we can’t simply let it go.

“I’m sorry, please sit,” he said, indicating a leather chair near the fire.  This room, like the others, was elegant but lived in.  Pictures of children and grandchildren graced the mantel and tables around the room.  “Can I offer you a drink?  A Chardonnay or Merlot, perhaps a beer, tea?  Caroline and I are having martinis.”

“A cup of tea would be great.”  I was a sucker for a good Chardonnay, but I knew I had to return to icy roads. 

“I don’t know where to begin,” he said.

“I take it this has to do with your son?” I said.  “Maybe you can start there.”

“Yes.” He tried to mask the pain that crossed his face.  “Michael was the youngest of the three boys.  He would have been twenty-seven next month.  He was filled with life.  We’d worried about him more than the others.  He had been so undirected in high school.  In college, he’d flitted from one thing to the next—music, psychology, anthropology, art, physics.  He excelled in everything he tried.  But nothing held his interest for long.  And he was very busy having a good time, up all night partying.” 

“Things changed?” I asked.

“Yes,” Duvall said. “During his junior year, he took a marine biology class of all things.  It was one of those classes that every student wants to take, an off-campus three-week interim course in Jamaica.  Fun in the sun for credit was the way Michael looked at it.  We weren’t about to pay for all the extra expense, so he used his summer earnings to go.”

Duvall put another log on the fire, took a sip of his martini and continued.  “Michael came home hooked.  It had not been fun in the sun but three intense weeks, up every morning for class at seven o’clock, all afternoon in the water with the professor and his assistant, identifying coral, sponges, fish, and invertebrates, in the lab or studying late into the evening.  When he returned home, he became a certified scuba diver and then a master diver and rescue diver.”

I knew the routine.  I’d had the same training and more.  I headed up the police department’s scuba team.  We were called in to do underwater retrieval and investigation.  The calls were sporadic and easily managed along with my duties in Homicide.  I’d signed up for the team because it meant a little extra money and because no one else would.  After two years, I was promoted to team leader.  I was the one who seemed to remain the most stoic under the horrible conditions that were inherent in the job.  Really, I was just expert at stuffing emotion into the recesses of my skull.

“Michael wanted to spend the rest of his life near the water and in it whenever possible,” Duvall said.  “He ended up getting a biology degree, with a focus on environmental science.  He spent the summers in one internship or another.  One year he studied crabs on an atoll out in the middle of the Pacific.  Another he studied coral bleaching patterns in the Bahamas.”

“What was he doing in the Caribbean?” I asked.

“He was in the British Virgin Islands working on his dissertation, looking at the effects of boating activity on the marine environment.  Michael was passionate.  He talked to anyone who would listen about the fragile environment in tropical waters and about how devastating an imbalance can be.  Human activity has transformed parts of the world’s reef into algae-covered rubble.  To think that our grandchildren may never be able to experience such wonder.”

I didn’t bother to mention to the Duvalls that I had never experienced any of that wonder myself.  In fact, no one on the Denver team had ever done a recreational dive.  Diving was business.  One of my team members had been diving for twenty years and had never dived in the ocean.  Diving was about retrieving evidence and solving crimes.  We did not encounter beauty in the muck—just death and debris. 

“How did Michael die?” I prodded.  I really wasn’t interested in a bunch of dead coral—just rocks as far as I could tell.  Seemed redundant anyway.  I was pretty sure all rocks were dead, even those pet rocks that were such a marketing coup a few decades ago.

“He was diving,” Duvall said. “Drowned.  They found him in one of the wrecks, leg wedged under a heavy piece of equipment.  He couldn’t get out, ran out of air.  A local fisherman noticed his boat tied to the mooring when he went out in the morning to check his nets.  He didn’t think anything of it.  Michael was always out early and most of the fishermen knew him.  But when he headed in that evening the boat was still there.  He stopped to check—no one on board.  He notified the police.  The next morning they went out with divers and found him.  They said that Michael should not have been out there by himself.”

I could see how hard it was for the Duvalls to think about their son, gasping for air, trapped in this steel tomb, dying so alone and desperate.

“Michael took safety very seriously,” Caroline said, trying to regain her composure.  “He used to get angry just talking about some of the divers he’d encountered, out trying to prove how macho they were.  They’d talk about shark dives, carry all sorts of gear, pick up conch or starfish and leave them on the deck to die, touch when they should be just looking.  They paid little attention to their dive buddy.  They’d wander too far away and would never be able to assist another diver in trouble at a hundred feet.”                        

“Michael had enormous respect for the ocean,” Duvall said.  “He usually dove with James, a local dive-shop operator.  If James couldn’t go, he would find someone else to fill in.  When I went down to take care of his affairs, I spoke with James.  He was extremely upset and could not understand why Michael had not been in touch with him.  He usually called the night before or stopped by the dive shop.”