At the Scene of the Crime (6 page)

He was referring to the position Raines strove for: Certified Latent Print Examiner. In the state of Iowa, only a dozen people, including Hawkins, held that certification, and only a couple of hundred nationwide had attained the status conferred by the International Association for Identification.

The price for a single error was indeed the loss of certification. Every member of the small fraternity knew the price of a mistake, and it wasn’t just their job at stake. Their screwup could mean an innocent person went to prison, or in some states, on a homicide, to death—chiefly based on an ident they’d made.

“You left some of that out of your recruitment pitch,” Raines said as they crossed the garage, their footsteps echoing off cement walls.

Hawkins grinned at her. “Maybe I’m just teaching you not to accept anything at face value.”

They got to the elevators and Raines touched the UP button. They had to wait for only a moment before the doors whispered open. The pair got in with their gear and Hawkins hit 25.

“The penthouse?” she asked.

“One of them,” Hawkins said. “My understanding is there’s four, two on each of the top two floors.”

“That must cost a pretty penny.”

“A lot of them—those pads are a cool one-point-five million a piece.”

“Money’s always a good murder motive,” Raines said.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Hawkins said.

The twenty-fifth floor bustled with people and noise. The small foyer shared by the two apartments was jammed with two uniformed officers, two EMTs, a guy from the coroner’s office, two civilians, a man and woman who might be neighbors, and Detective Ron Stark, a short, skinny guy with longish, dark hair parted on the left. In his early thirties, Stark wore a dark suit too big for him and had inquisitive gray eyes and a straight, thin nose that bisected his face like a sun dial.

“Been a while, Hawk,” Stark said, his voice quiet but friendly.

Hawkins nodded. “What was it, the gang thing over by Drake in April?”

“Yeah,” Stark said, and shook his head. “That was a rough one.” He looked to Raines. “Hey, Krysti, how’s the new job treating you?”

She smiled at the detective. “We’ll find out.”

Hawkins asked, “So what’s up, Ron?”

Stark nodded toward the open door on the right. “You might as well just ask Yack. Ain’t no point in you hearing the same spiel twice.”

“Yack’s here?” Hawkins asked. “Middle of the night?”

Stark nodded. “High-profile crime, high-profile detective. These rich people start killing each other, you just know Chief Anderson’s going to demand his best man. And you also know Yack can’t hardly wait to tell you CSAs how he’s already solved the case.”

Yack—Phil Yackowski—was, by his own admission, Des Moines’ top crime-solving detective. He had the stats and the scrapbooks to prove it. Hawkins had known Yackowski for the better part of twenty years and, unlike the general public, knew the detective had made his bones by stealing the credit on a murder case from a beat cop who had turned up the vital clue.

Gesturing vaguely toward the man and woman huddled in front of the door at left, Stark said, “Roger and Angela Triplett. They’re the tenants across the hall.”

Hawkins, who made the husband and wife as both in their early forties,
was struck by the incongruity of their attire. Mrs. Triplett, an auburn-haired beauty with piercing green eyes in a heart-shaped face, wore a gold evening gown cut just low enough to create an interest in what lay beneath the flimsy fabric.

Husband Roger, his dark hair cut in a flattop, wore jeans, a white Polo, and tennis shoes, expensive ones, but tennis shoes nonetheless. His brown eyes seemed dazed by the crowd and the activity. He kept a protective arm around his wife’s shoulders and Hawkins noticed a tiny burn on the man’s forearm.

“What’s their story?” Hawkins asked. He was content to get this from Stark, not Yack.

“Mrs. Triplett was downstairs,” Stark said. “She was hosting a charity function in the second floor ballroom. Her husband said he wasn’t feeling well, so he’s been up in their apartment all night. He heard the shots, called us.”

“Can I talk to Mr. Triplett for a second?”

“Sure.”

They approached the couple and Stark made the introductions.

“Mr. Triplett,” Hawkins said, after they had shaken hands. “You said you heard the shots?”

“Yeah.”

“I would think these apartments would be well soundproofed.”

“Yeah,” Triplett said, “they really are. The sound was very faint, but I do know a gunshot when I hear one. I served in Iraq.”

Given the man’s age, Hawkins was a little surprised.

“Not this time,” Triplett said, reading Hawkins. “Desert Storm, back in ninety-one. No matter how muffled, I know gunshots when I hear them.”

Hawkins nodded. “Mrs. Triplett, you weren’t around when your husband heard the gunfire?”

The woman seemed to shrink further into her husband’s embrace at the mention of her name.

“No, I was downstairs until Roger called my cell,” she said, a quaver in her voice, “and told me.”

Hawkins wondered where she kept a cell phone on that dress, but for now didn’t push it.

“What about your neighbors?”

“The Hoffs?” Triplett asked.

Before Hawkins could respond, Mrs. Triplett spoke up, surprising him.

“I knew Carl had a vindictive streak,” she said, “but I never imagined he was capable of anything like this.”

“So, the Hoffs were having trouble?”

“They were separated,” Triplett said. “Caroline was living here, Carl spent most of his time away on business.”

“What kind of business?”

“He’s a commercial real estate developer. He had deals going on all over the country.”

“Did he have any history of violence that you know of?”

Triplett shook his head. “I had no idea either of them even had a gun.”

“Thank you,” Hawkins said. “I’m sure Detective Stark explained that we might have more questions later.”

They both nodded.

As Hawkins and Raines moved away, Hawkins turned his attention to Stark.

“Yack’s already inside?” Hawkins asked.

Stark nodded. “You and Raines better get in there before Yack decides it was a double suicide and sends everybody home.”

Hawkins moved toward the open door of the other apartment, Raines just behind him. They stopped outside the doorway long enough to don latex gloves and plastic shoe covers with the word “POLICE” stenciled in the bottom, so they could tell their own footprints from any they lifted. One thing Hawkins knew for sure: unless the perp was Superman and flew in and out of the crime scene, he’d have left footprints.

The living room was bigger than any two rooms in Hawkins’s house. The floor was a light-hued hardwood. The wall opposite the door was at least nine feet high and all glass, letting in the night and the lights of the city.

Raines said, “That’s a lot of windows. Could we have a witness in another building?”

“This is the tallest structure in Des Moines,” Hawkins said. “Short of having somebody passing by in a low-flying plane, I don’t think we’re gonna have an eyewitness.”

The right-hand wall was mostly bookshelves that ran floor to ceiling, filled with leather-bound books that looked shelved more for their appearance than their content. A large cut-out center section held a big-screen plasma television. The surrounding living room was furnished with a long, wide sofa, two huge chairs with ottomans, and a glass coffee table on a white area rug. The furniture was white leather. At the near end of the shelves, a dark corridor led back to what Hawkins assumed would be bedrooms and the bathroom.

On the left the large room was bisected by a stone wall that contained a gas-driven fireplace. Hawkins estimated the large openings on either side of the fireplace wall were about eight feet wide, figuring the far opening led to the kitchen while the near one revealed a full bar (and another uniformed cop, who waved).

Before Hawkins could say or do anything, Raines stepped up. “C.J., what’s up?”

“Hey, Krysti,” the uniform said. He was a tall, broad-shouldered kid with a blond crew cut and an easy smile.

“Jacobsen,” a voice growled from the adjacent room. Hawkins recognized the cantankerous tone of Phil Yackowski.

The blond uniform turned away from them.

“Does you opening your mouth mean the crime scene crew is finally here?”

Hawkins chuckled to himself. What a jackass. He stepped forward and peered around the stone fireplace to see Yackowski standing next to a white piano, directly between two bodies sprawled on the floor, one male, one female, a small puddle of blood near the man, relatively little blood around the woman.

The female wore only a revealing negligee, her breasts clearly visible through the gauzy material. She lay on her back, a small, neat entry wound in her forehead. The male victim lay on his stomach at almost a ninety degree angle from the woman, his head resting on the left cheek, his eyes open, staring at nothing. He wore a tan Polo shirt, khakis, and expensive brown loafers with no socks. A nine millimeter automatic lay on the floor near his right hand. He had an entrance wound on the right side of his head.

“Yackowski,” Hawkins said easily. “What brings you out in the dark?”

The detective was a muscle-bound weightlifter whose biceps bulged beneath the polyester of his navy blue suit jacket. His florid face included a nose that had been broken at least twice and a forehead wide enough to serve as a solar panel.

“Hawk,” the detective said noncommitally. Then he grinned and added, “What can I say? The chief wanted the best on this one.”

“Where’s Dearden, then?”

“What’s that, a dig? Dearden didn’t get the call, did he?”

“What call? The one advising the detective in charge to tromp through a crime scene before my team had a chance to process it?”

Yackowski’s already ruddy face turned crimson as he looked down to see where he was standing. “I took care, damn it. I was studying the evidence.”

“You were contaminating the evidence, Yack. You think you can get out of there without messing it up any more than you already have?”

The detective fumed, but carefully walked over until he was in front of Hawkins, the BCI supervisor at least three inches taller than the detective.

“Don’t make no nevermind, anyhow,” Yackowski said. “This fucker’s open and shut.”

“Always nice to hear a professional opinion,” Hawkins said. “Care to tell me how you arrived at it?”

“The woman,” Yackowski said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the female victim, “Caroline Hoff—this is her place.”

“Well-off lady,” Hawkins said.

“Not so much. She was married to decedent number two, Carl Hoff. Rich guy with a pretty little trophy wife. Problem was, they fought all the time, and maybe Caroline ran around on him some. So he was divorcing her, only the prenup gave her the condo—she could hump the doorman and the UPS guy and still wind up with the fancy digs. Seems Carl had second thoughts, about losing the apartment anyway, so he comes over, they argue, one thing leads to another, bing, bang, boom, murder-suicide.”

“You must have witnesses,” Hawkins said, “to have it all laid out like this.”

“Just the neighbor across the hall, who heard the shots. He was the one that called it in. Besides, what do you care? Who needs witnesses? It’s all about the evidence, right, Hawk?”

Hawkins moved closer to the two bodies. Squatting next to the male victim, he examined the entrance wound in the man’s head, near the back of his right ear. There was a small, neat hole, not unlike the woman’s wound, with a smear of blood around the wound.

“Yack, nothing would give me more pleasure than to let you go to Chief Anderson with your half-assed theory. . . .”

“Half-assed how?” Yackowski bellowed.

“This is a double murder.”

Yackowski wanted to argue, but he hesitated. “Not a murder-suicide?”

“If he shot himself, where are the powder burns around the wound? There’d probably be a starburst wound from a contact or near contact wound, too. That’s not here, either. And to top it off, unless Hoff was double-jointed, I’m not sure how he shot himself from this angle. The wound was delivered from almost behind him. Tough shot if you’re holding the gun yourself.”

Yackowski just stood there.

“Only person shooting himself tonight, Yack,” Hawkins said, “will be you, in the foot, if you take this to Anderson.”

“All right, all right,” Yackowski said. “I get it. You do the crime scene, then we’ll go talk to the neighbor again. Maybe he heard more than shots. He might have heard the killer.”

“Good. And we’ll start with you taking off your shoes and giving them to CSA Raines.”

“What the hell?”

“You don’t have on shoe covers. You want us to be able to tell your prints from the killer’s, or would you just like to give a statement as to your whereabouts at the time of the crime?”

Grumbling the entire time, Yackowski slipped off his shoes and handed them to Raines, who bagged them and somehow managed not to smile.

Yackowski shuffled out on the hardwood floor in his stocking feet, grumbling the whole way, Jacobsen trailing him as far as the door.

When the others were out of earshot, Raines said, “You two have a nice rapport.”

“See, already you’re analyzing.”

“Thanks,” Raines said. “Where do you want to start?”

“You do the bodies and the immediate scene. I’m going to poke around a little. Want to make sure we can rule out robbery as a motive.”

The rookie looked hesitant. “Are you sure you don’t want to do the bodies yourself?”

Hawkins took a couple of steps toward her. “You’re going to have to do it sooner or later. Sooner’s better.”

“This is an important murder—”