Body Of Truth (8 page)
Authors: Deirdre Savoy
Damn. He'd screwed up big time. He hoped that when Tyree cooled down, he'd be back, but he wasn't counting on it. Sometimes one shot was all you got with these kids.
Jonathan gathered up his belongings and went inside. For some reason unfathomable to himself he picked up the phone and dialed April's number.
Six
It didn't take any advanced police work to find the author of Amanda Pierce's mash notes. Barry Sheffield had filled out every section of his AOL profile, including his ageâ62âhis former occupation, school custodian, and the fact that he lived in Hoboken, New Jersey. A quick trip to the phone book produced his street address and current phone number.
Once upon a time, Hoboken had been a solidly working class New Jersey town where every bar and restaurant hung the obligatory portrait of Frank Sinatra, local boy who made good. In the '80s, when the average yuppie started not being able to afford their Manhattan apartments, towns across the river, like Hoboken and Jersey City, suddenly found themselves in need of gentrification. New bistros and markets catering to the go-go crowd sprang up replacing older establishments.
The landscape of the town changed again after 9/11. Many of the businesses displaced by the loss of the towers set up shop here, giving workers a bird's eye view of lower Manhattan and the site that could have cost them their lives.
During the drive through the midtown tunnel that connected New York and New Jersey, Mari said, “How much do you want to bet Pierce got on this guy's hit list because she was less than kind to Francis Albert?”
Jonathan shrugged. None of the e-mail Sheffield sent to Pierce mentioned any reason more specific for his vitriol, only generalized threats and complaints about her work and none of them dated back to the time the Sinatra book had been written. Even so, he agreed with Mari. “That's probably what started him off.” But not what set him off. If Sheffield had done this, something pushed him from simply writing letters to committing murder. Pierce's last book had come out six months agoâa stinging portrait of some actress he didn't know except from the dust jacket. If that's what sent him over the edge, why'd he wait so long to seek retribution?
Feeling Mari's assessing gaze on him, he glanced at her. “What?”
After a moment, she said, “So, Stonewall, what's up?”
He slid another glance at her. She rarely referred to him by that nickname, the one other cops had given him but very few ever called him to his face. She only used it when she thought he was stepping on her toes or keeping something from her, neither of which happened very often. She lifted her eyebrows and stared back at him in challenge, leaving him to wonder which of the two offenses she believed him to be guilty of.
“Why do you ask?”
“I'd think you might be a little jazzed seeing this guy. You know, man threatens woman. Woman ends up dead. Man makes full confession. Film at eleven. That's what we do this for, isn't it?”
True, and finding out who killed Pierce sooner than later would make both their lives easier. When Shea heard about Sheffield's existence he was ready to announce to the police commissioner and the media that they had a suspect in the case, when all they really had was a guy who liked to write letters.
He didn't think Mari was any more certain than he was that Sheffield was the guy. From what they knew about whoever murdered Amanda Pierce, he fit what law enforcement called an organized killer. Both the crime scene and the body were clean, save for the miniscule piece of fabric embedded in her skin. The killer had obviously moved the body from wherever the murder had occurred. Such a killer was usually highly intelligent, socially and sexually competentâone of the last people you'd suspect had violence on their minds.
Sheffield's letters, aside from their colorful salutations, showed a greater facility with language than his job would require, suggesting an underemployed innate intelligence. To some degree, whoever killed Pierce must have planned it since they made arrangements to pick her upâunless her killer and the person offering her a ride were not the same person.
The rest of it they would have to see, especially since one thing about the crime didn't fit the profile. Strangulation often suggested a crime of passion or at least some sort of sexual overtone. As far as the Medical Examiner could tell, Pierce hadn't been raped or sexualized in any way. Not only that, if, as he suspected after speaking with Dana Molloy, the killer had strangled her with her own scarf, that suggested an impulsivity not consistent with an organized killer. Most of these bastards planned ahead.
In either event, they'd found yet another Roché scarf in Pierce's apartment and given it to the lab to compare fibers. Only time would tell about that, too.
But he also knew that Mari was referring not to his enthusiasm, but his focus. Truthfully, he'd zoned out during the ride, his mind not on the case but instead replaying his conversation with April last night, trying to figure out what about it bothered him so much.
April had answered the phone and said a sleepy, “Hello.”
Since he hadn't thought up anything more clever to say, he just said, “It's me.”
“Jon?”
The incredulousness in her voice prompted him. “I know I haven't called in a while.”
“Why did you call now?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“Tonight?”
He hadn't thought that far ahead, but, yes, he did want to see her tonight for reasons that had nothing to do with sex. With his case going nowhere and after his misstep with Tyree, he needed . . . something. He resisted putting a name to it, fearing what he'd come up with. But his coming over this late or later had never been an issue before, especially since April refused to set foot in the South Bronx. “Is that so unreasonable?”
He heard her long-suffering sigh. “I know you're married to your job, Jon. I get that. But I told you from the beginning that I wasn't going to sit around waiting for you to get horny or lonely or however it is you get before you start thinking about me.”
In other words, she'd done a better job of understanding him than he'd done of her. And the weariness in her voice told him she was tired of making the effort. “That's it, then?”
“Look, Jon, I'm in bed right now and I'm not alone. You figure it out.”
She'd hung up and he'd cursed himself a couple of dozen ways for being a fool. He'd deserved every thing she'd said and probably a few things she hadn't. She'd been good to him and he hadn't returned the favor. Now, he wished he felt something more than a vague disappointment, but any stronger emotion eluded him.
As they emerged on the New Jersey side of the tunnel, he pushed thoughts of April from his mind. He had more important concerns than his love life, chief among them watching the road. Hoboken's one square mile boasted a number of stoplights, but no stop signs. Drivers sped through intersections as if getting there first was some sort of prize.
Beside him, Mari crooned, “My kind of town, Hoboken is,” parodying one of Sinatra's songs.
The woman would never make it as a singer, but at least she didn't seem to be upset with him anymore.
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Sheffield was bent over a patch of flowers when they pulled up in front of his house. As they approached, he turned to squint at them over the rims of his glasses.
“Barry Sheffield?” Jonathan asked.
Sheffield rose to his feet. Six feet tall and almost bald except for a rim of salt-and-pepper hair that ran between his ears, Sheffield wore a short-sleeved plaid shirt that stretched over a broad chest and strained even further over a protruding belly, but his arms were still muscular from a lifetime of physical labor. It was only nine o'clock in the morning, but perspiration stains darkened the fabric beneath his armpits and at the center of his chest.
Sheffield gave each of them a once over, then wiped his arm across his damp forehead. “I figured you people would show up sooner or later.”
“Why is that, Mr. Sheffield?”
He cast them a look as if they had the intelligence of newborn ants. “Because of the letters I wrote her.”
He cast a look at Mari. At least they were all on the same page. “Is there somewhere that we can talk?”
With a flick of his arm, Sheffield gestured toward the house. “We can go inside if you want, but don't expect no air conditioning.” He led the way up the white stone path.
Inside the house looked like something out of an old-time Sears Roebuck catalogâold home furniture and lots of itâand all of it neat as a pin.
Sheffield settled on the sofa. Jonathan sat in the wing chair facing him, while Mari prowled around, looking at the furnishings. A photograph of Old Blue Eyes in his heyday hung on the wall above Sheffield's head. It was the only picture in the room.
“Why did you write those letters, Mr. Sheffield?”
“Why shouldn't I have written them? She was a vulture that one, but she didn't even wait until the bones were clean to pick them. She got rich, made herself famous, trashing the lives of people she didn't deserve to be on the same planet with.”
Jonathan nodded toward the portrait. “Like Sinatra.”
Sheffield's fair complexion became mottled with red around his eyes and throat. “Damn right. The man was a musical genius, a philanthropist. He was a good man who didn't deserve what she or that other one did to him. He was practically on his death bed when she wrote that.” Sheffield's voice rose in volume and pitch. He brought his fist down on the arm of the sofa. “Who did she ever help but herself? What did she ever do but try to ruin other people's lives?”
“So someone needed to end hers?”
Sheffield lowered his gaze, and the emotion seemed to drain out of him, as well as the color. “Someone, yes, but not me.”
“Where were you last Friday morning?”
“Where I always am. My wife, she's at her sister's now, she gets dialysis three times a week. You can check with the hospital.”
“We will.” Jonathan took down information on where he could reach Sheffield's wife and her doctor. It didn't take them long to reach either of them and confirm Sheffield's story. Both he and his wife were at the hospital from six o'clock that morning.
As they walked to the car in the hospital parking lot, Mari said, “You know what gets to me. That poor bastard probably feels guilty for not killing her.”
Jonathan had sensed it, tooâSheffield's rage, not completely directed at Amanda Pierce but also at himself for his own impotence to do what he felt needed to be done.
He'd leave it to the shrinks to analyze the Sheffields of the world. All he knew was that the man's innocence closed off one more area of investigation. Once again, they were back to square one.
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“Frankly, Father, I'm going a little stir crazy.”
Father Mike, still dressed in shorts and a T-shirt from his morning run, chuckled. He'd claimed to have stopped by simply because he'd passed her house on his run, but she didn't believe him. He was checking up on her. As much as she hated it, she made the decision to let all those busy bees in her life have their way, since none of them seemed capable of taking no for an answer. Joanna was due to visit in another half hour. If she could withstand Joanna's mothering she could survive anything.
Father Mike had shown up fifteen minutes ago, and after commenting on the continuing heat of the weather, he'd asked her how she was coping. The comment on going nuts had been her answer.
“Don't they say doctors and nurses make the worst patients?”
“That's because we know all the things than can possibly go wrong once you put that hospital gown on. Sometimes the injury or ailment that caused you to seek treatment is the least of your worries.”
He regarded her for a long moment in a way that left her clueless as to what he was thinking. “You've seen a lot, haven't you,” he said finally.
Yes, she'd seen her share of misery. If she wanted to shock him, she could share some of it with him. But she didn't. Instead she offered him a rueful smile. “I suppose you have too, Father.”
He offered back the same rueful smile, then shook his head. “Actually, I did have a purpose in stopping by. I spoke to Ms. Evans as you asked me to.”
“How is she?”
“As well as can be expected under the circumstances, I guess. She asked me to apologize to you for hanging up on you the way she did. She thought you'd be angry with her considering that you were almost killed because of her grandson.”
Dana shook her head. It had never occurred to her to blame Nadine for what happened. “She should know me better than that.”
Father Mike shrugged, a gesture of helplessness to explain the workings of another's mind. “I helped her make the arrangements for the burial tomorrow morning. We can go together if you like.”
Considering that she was in no shape to drive an automobile, that sounded fine. “Thank you, Father.”
He stood. “I'll come by at seven-thirty to pick you up.”
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