Cut and Run (2 page)

“True—but it's awfully clinical, isn't it? It wasn't even on his person. And the ‘seen' part is clearly referencing his being shot in the eye—almost as if trying to explain it.”

“I know,” said Calleigh. “If he hadn't been shot at close range, I'd say this scene was staged. But how do you fake a crime scene a thousand feet in the air in broad daylight?”

“I don't know,” said Horatio. “But while Timothy Breakwash may have seen enough, we're just getting started…”

Calleigh finished processing the basket and sent everything she had collected to the lab. What she
didn't
find was a gun; from the look of the gunshot wound she'd guess it would prove to be something small, a .38 or maybe a .22. And, more than likely, it had tumbled to the ground an instant after Breakwash had pulled the trigger.

If
he pulled the trigger.

Which meant it was most likely somewhere in the Everglades—anywhere from the top of a mangrove tree to the bottom of a pool of quicksand. It could even be in the belly of an alligator by now—they'd been known to eat all sorts of strange things.

Unless this is a murder,
she thought,
and not a suicide.

It wasn't as impossible as it seemed. Breakwash could have been shot while still on the ground. He
had
been shot in the basket, that much she was sure of; there were no indications of the body's having been moved after being shot—well, other than drifting a few miles though the air—and the pattern of bloodstains seemed to confirm it. So unless he'd been attacked in midair by sky pirates…she shook her head and grinned.

“Something funny?” Horatio asked.

“Just the image of sword-wielding brigands bearing down on the balloon in a zeppelin flying the Jolly Roger.”

Horatio grinned back. “That seems…unlikely.”

“Hey, you asked. Anyway, turns out the balloon was only flying a few hundred feet up on a clear day—somebody could have seen something through binoculars or a telescope. What do you think?”

“I'm thinking,” said Horatio, looking at the line of cars still inching past the crime scene, “that sometimes rubberneckers can prove useful.”

“Well, they're already lined up. Might as well ask them a few questions as they go through.”

“I already have a uniformed officer doing exactly that. If anyone on the road saw something, she'll let us know—in the meantime, I think I'll start with the first person on the scene.”

 

Natalia finished bagging the blood swabs from the living room and joined Frank in the study, where he was searching through each and every book.

“You done?” he asked.

“Yes, I think so. I'm pretty sure the laptop was on the couch when the murder happened—there's ghosting of just the right size. That's not all, though—I found this under the couch.” She held up a small digital recorder.

“You think our murder was recorded?”

“Don't know—battery's dead. Could be because it was running for the last few hours—I'll have Cooper take a look at it and see what he thinks. How about you—find anything odd?”

“Thought I'd check for backup files. So far, no luck.”

“Used to be a computer disk was fairly easy to spot. These days, though…” A sudden thought struck her. She glanced around the room but didn't see what she was looking for. “Just a second, Frank.”

Natalia returned to the living room and walked over to the stereo. An upright CD rack made of wire stood beside it; she ran her finger down the titles until she came to one that looked handwritten. “Ima Novella—Greatest Hits,” she said aloud. She pulled it out, revealing a gold CD in a clear plastic case. Scrawled across the front in Magic Marker were the words,
DEATHLESS PROSE
.

“Funny,” she murmured. “But not exactly accurate…”

Frank walked up behind her. “CD-ROM?”

“Yeah. I'm guessing this is a backup copy that he hid in plain sight. Sort of.”

“Ima Novella. Yeah, that sounds like Davey.”

“I'll take it back to the lab. I hope it isn't encrypted.”

Frank shook his head. “Knowing Davey, it might just be a collection of traveling salesmen jokes.”

“Guess we'll know soon enough.” Natalia slipped the CD into an evidence folder. “And if this doesn't give us anything relevant, I guess the joke's on
him.
”

 

“My name's Joel Greer,” the driver of the white van told Horatio. “I crew for Mister Breakwash.”

Horatio studied the young man with the unkempt hair who wouldn't meet his eyes. The death of his boss had definitely upset Joel, but Horatio could tell there was more to it than that. “I see,” he said. “And what, exactly, does crewing a hot-air balloon entail?”

“I don't fly with him,” said Joel. He crossed his arms. “I just help get the balloon inflated and then pack it up again at the other end. And I drive the support vehicle.”

“So you were present when Mister Breakwash launched?”

“Yeah, of course. And when he…” Joel swallowed. “Came down again.”

“Was there anyone else there?”

“No, it was just us.”

“What about during the flight?”

“I followed him at a distance in the van. He was over the 'Glades, so I couldn't exactly pace him, but he was in sight the whole time. I followed the highway until—well, he was supposed to meet me over here.” Joel pulled a battered map out of his back pocket and unfolded it. “Right here in this field. We've done it lots of times. But this time—this time he just kept going.”

“Did you try to contact him?”

“Yeah, we have a set of walkie-talkies for that. He didn't answer. I just followed him the best I could after that, until he finally—” Joel broke off and looked away.

“Did you see anything unusual during the flight? Did anything approach the balloon or leave it?”

“I didn't notice anything—but it was pretty far away, and I had to keep my eyes on the road. I called the FAA as soon as I knew something was wrong.”

“Yes, I imagine their investigator will want to talk to you, too.”

“I didn't do anything wrong, did I? I mean, this isn't my fault, right?”

Horatio eyed Joel calmly for a second. “I don't think so, no,” he said. “But we've just started our investigation. Would you mind holding out your hands? There's a test I need to perform.”

 

Natalia took the CD-ROM back to the lab, where she popped it into her computer and discovered it wasn't encrypted—nor was it full of traveling salesman jokes. What it did contain was the outline of a novel, along with a large file labeled
NOTES
and another called
INTERVIEWS
. She was halfway through them when Cooper stuck his head in the door. He wore a lab coat over a bright orange T-shirt with the word
POW!
on the chest.

“Hey,” he said. “I've been looking at that digital recorder you gave me.”

“And?”

“Step into my parlor and listen for yourself.”

She followed him back to the AV lab. “Okay,” he said. “Here's what was on it.” He hit a key and a voice she assumed was Hiram Davey's said, “Maybe move the bit with the flamingo until the end of the chapter? I dunno…”

A knock sounded in the background. “Dammit—just a sec—” There was a crashing noise—then nothing.

“Sounds like he was making notes for a book,” said Cooper. “And got attacked halfway through.”

“That doesn't quite line up,” said Natalia. “The killer didn't force his way in, so that crash had to have been part of the struggle. There were no voices, either. It's like part of the tape was edited out—but why bother? Easier for the killer to erase the whole thing or just take it with him.”

“I think I can explain the sequence of sounds. He was dictating notes, then hit pause when he heard the knock on the door. If he'd been using an analog recorder, there would've been a noticeable click. I had to analyze the signal digitally, but I found an interrupt signature.”

“And the crash?”

“Something or somebody hit the pause button again. Probably happened by accident—maybe the vic dropped it when he was attacked.”

She nodded. “I found it under the couch—it might have been dropped then kicked there during the struggle. Did you pull anything interesting from the recording?”

Cooper shook his head. “Sorry. It must have been activated after the vic was already dead—there's no sound of a struggle or any voices. You can hear some very faint breathing after the pause—the killer must have gotten closer to the recorder for a few seconds.”

“Probably when he bent down to grab the laptop. Nothing else?”

“Sound of the door closing a minute later. The person who discovered the body must have shown up after the battery had run down—there wasn't anything else on it.”

“Thanks, Cooper.”

 

Frank Tripp glared at the man on the other side of the desk. The man—editor Jeremiah Burkitt—glared back. Burkitt was short and paunchy, with a graying beard and jet-black hair that looked as if it had been polished with shoeshine.

“I did what I had to,” growled Burkitt.

“You left the scene of a murder,” Tripp growled back. “You know what that looks like?”

“You're the cop. You tell me.”

Tripp leaned forward in his chair. “You are getting on my last nerve, Mister Burkitt. I have some questions, and you're going to answer them. Or I will haul you down to the station in handcuffs and stick you in a room with no air-conditioning while I take my own sweet time deciding just what I'm going to charge you with.”

“Ask away.”

“Why were you at Hiram Davey's home at six in the morning?”

“I told you. He owed me a column and I was there to collect. He wasn't answering his phone, so I went to see him in person.”

“And when there was no answer you just walked in?”

Burkitt snorted. “When one of my writers misses a deadline, they know there's no place to hide. If the door had been locked I would've broken it down.”

“Tell me exactly what you saw when you entered the house.”

“I saw Davey's body, lying in a pool of blood in the living room. It looked like there had been a fight. I didn't touch a damn thing.”

“You didn't check him for a pulse, see if he was still breathing?”

Burkitt's eyes narrowed. “I've seen my share of corpses, Detective. I knew Davey was dead the second I laid eyes on him, and I know enough to not disturb a crime scene.”

“Right. Are we gonna find your prints on anything in that house other than the doorknob?”

“Sure. I've been there before. Check the whisky glasses in the rolltop desk he used as a bar—I doubt he ever washed them.”

“Any idea who would want Davey dead?”

Burkitt grimaced. “Six months ago I would have sworn the man didn't have an enemy in the world—and that's a rare thing to say about a journalist. Hi was good at making people laugh, and people loved him for it. He got more mail than anyone else at the paper, and it was all positive.”

“So what happened six months ago?”

“He signed a book deal. Some kind of crime novel, with a really loopy cast of characters. I thought it was going to be typical Davey stuff, but then I found out he was doing a ton of research and interviews. He wanted people to take his writing more seriously, so he thought he'd ground the book in reality, base it on actual people and events.”

“You think some of the people he was planning on using in the book weren't too happy with him?”

“That's what Davey said. He claimed his life had been threatened more than once.”

“By who?”

Burkitt shrugged. “No idea. He was being real secretive about the book, wouldn't give me any details. You want to know who was in it, you'll have to read it for yourself.”

“I'll do that,” said Tripp.

 

Many drivers reported seeing the balloon drifting over the highway, but none of them had noticed anything fall out of the basket. A few people had spotted the craft earlier over the Everglades, but nobody saw anyone leave it either.

Calleigh talked briefly to the FAA investigator, a thin, harried-looking man named Pinlon who'd driven up along the shoulder, bypassing the crawling line and getting more than a few angry honks in response.

“Gunshot?” Pinlon said, shaking his head and entering data in a PDA. “That's a new one. Better than what I usually get, though. Most balloon fatalities happen when they hit power lines. Pow, zap, game over.”