Flipping Out (11 page)

'She's wearing
sweats,' I said. 'I know the two of them were supposed to go shopping this
afternoon. They must have come back here together, and Nora probably put on
something comfortable and was planning on changing her clothes at the last
minute. What time do you think she would have gotten dressed for the party if
she was expecting Big Jim to pick her up at six fifteen?'

Terry gave me a
blank stare. 'Mike, I'm the last guy you should be asking for fashion tips. I
would have figured she was just gonna wear her gym clothes to the book
signing.'

I looked at his
hand. The blood had already soaked through the paper towels. 'You really should
have EMS bandage that.'

He stood up.
'I'd rather try to solve this shit first before this maniac shoots my wife
next.'

We went outside
and found Big Jim. He had talked his way out of the backseat of the squad car
and was standing in the road, cell phone to his ear. He saw us coming and
snapped it shut. 'It's about time,' he said. 'One of your cops said something
about bodies. As in more than one.'

'Julia's dead,'
I said. 'Tell us what you heard, saw, and did from the time you got here.'

'I got here at
six ten, five minutes early. I waited twenty minutes and called Nora from my
cell. All I got was her machine. I said something like, "Pick up if you're
there," but she didn't. So I got out of the car, walked up the steps, and
rang the bell. No answer, so I tried the door, and it was open.'

'Open, like wide
open, or open like not locked?'

'Open like an
inch, so that it looks closed, but it's not latched, so when you push it, it
opens.'

'Then what?'

'I knew
something was wrong. I go in and call Nora's name. No answer, so I walk to the
living room, and I see her on the floor. Dead. Then I called you.'

'On the phone you
said she was shot. Did you hear anything?'

'No. But I could
see the gunshot wound and there's blood on the floor by her head. I'm sorry,
but I stepped in it.'

'Yeah, we saw
your tracks. The crime lab will need your shoes, and since you touched the door,
your prints. Then I want you to write out a statement.'

'Anything you
need.'

'Terry and I
have to get back to work. I'm going to have one of the officers stay with you.'

'OK. But I knew
you were wrong about Julia.'

'Meaning what?'

'Did you really
think she could kill her own mother?'

'No,' I said.
'Most people don't kill their parents. They just fantasise about it.'

He gave me the
finger.

I gave him a
quick hug and went back to the house.

Jessica Keating was
waiting for us at the front door.

'Nice going,
Biggs,' she said. 'It's not every day that my lead detective bleeds all over
the evidence.'

'Your job's been
too easy lately,' Terry said. 'I decided to make it a little more challenging.
And I didn't bleed
all
over.
Just the kitchen. My partner's father helped out by slogging through the blood
in the living room.'

'Darn,' she
said. 'My guys followed those bloody footprints right out to the squad car. I
figured the killer must have turned himself in. Give me your hand. I need a
swab of your blood for my Dumb Cop file.'

'Only if you
promise to bandage me up.'

Jessica took a
blood sample from Terry, sprayed the cut with an antiseptic, and began wrapping
it.

'I walked the
scene,' she said. 'First impression - same MO on Mrs Bannister as on Jo
Drabyak. Small-calibre bullet to the back of the head. The killer took a lock
of hair. With Mrs Knoll it looks like she saw him coming and tried to defend
herself with the Pellegrino bottle. He shot her head on. Then he cut the hair.'

'There's no sign
of a forced entry,' I said. 'It looks like the shooter rang the bell, Nora knew
him, and invited him in.'

'Him or her,'
Jessica said.

'Right. Nora
leads the way, she gets to the living room, the killer pops her from behind.'

'But he doesn't
cut her hair yet,' Terry said.

'Why?' I already
knew the answer, but Terry and I work best when we try to reconstruct the crime
out loud.

'Because he
knows that Julia is in the kitchen,' Terry said, 'and he's got to do her right
away.'

'How does he
know she's in the kitchen?'

'OK, so maybe he
doesn't know what room she's in, but he knows she's here somewhere. Otherwise,
he'd have shot Nora and took off.'

'So Julia is in
the kitchen,' I said. 'She hears a gun go off. Bang.'

'Or he used a
silencer. But even if she did hear it, she's afraid to come running out. She's
unarmed. She goes for the phone. It's not there. She hears him coming, so she
grabs the bottle, but that's useless. He walks in, shoots her, she falls down,
bottle breaks, end of story.'

'Not quite,'
Jessica said. 'There are bits of green glass on the edge of the counter in the
kitchen. I think she smashed it in the hopes of using it as a weapon.'

'Julia is so
mousy,' Terry said. 'Hard to think of her breaking a bottle to fight someone
off.'

'I work in a
lab. You'd be amazed at what some mice will do when they're threatened. It's
easy enough to check. The glass would break differently if it hit the ground
when she fell. Not to mention that you wouldn't have glass chips on the edge of
the counter.'

My cell phone
rang. It was Sergeant Bethge, the assistant watch commander.

'Mike,
Lieutenant Kilcullen should be there any minute. Same with Detective Burns. I
held off calling Charlie Knoll to give you time to get squared away. I just got
off the phone with him. He should be there in ten. What's the story on his
wife?'

'Dead. We got a
double homicide.'

'Oh, Jeez.' I
heard him repeat the news to Jack Mullen. 'Mike, I have the medical liaison on
the way. Charlie's gonna need him. Let me know if you need anything else.'

'Thanks, Carl.'

'One more
thing,' Bethge said. 'You said Charlie was waiting for his wife and
mother-in-law at the book party. It sounded to me like he started partying
before they got there.'

'Drunk?'

Carl hesitated. 'Let's
just say impaired.'

I hung up and
turned to Terry. 'Brace yourself. Charlie Knoll is on his way.'

'And we get to
break the bad news to him about his wife?'

'Unless you know
someone else who'd be willing to do
it.'

Jessica finished
bandaging Terry's hand. 'Don't look at me, boys,' she said. 'I only work with
the dead.'

'Thanks,' Terry
said. 'In that case, I'm not scheduling another appointment.'

The
second-biggest pain in the ass at a crime scene is having to put up with the
vultures who want to capture it all on film. Since Nora was a semi-celebrity,
there were more media trucks and paparazzi than usual. When word got out that
one of victims was the second cop wife to be shot, all hell broke loose.

'If I ever meet
the guy who taught civilians how to use police scanners,' Terry said, 'I will
personally shove a five- thousand channel Bearcat up his ass.'

Fortunately
Wendy Burns showed up. Wendy is one of those bosses who says 'How can I help?'
more than she says 'What have you done for me lately?' She immediately offered
to take over the job of keeping the gawkers and stalkers at bay.

'They must have
taken twenty thousand pictures by now,' Terry said. 'How many more can they
possibly need?'

'Maybe if you
smile for one they'd go away,' she said.

'One more
favour, Wendy,' I said. 'Big Jim found the body.'

'Got it. Don't
let the press get near him,' she said.

'It's more like
don't let him get near the press. Thanks.'

Kilcullen
arrived just in time to help us deal with the first-biggest pain in the ass at
a crime scene. The brass. Everyone from the chief on down was either there or
on the way. And they'd have plenty of questions.

'You know the
first thing they're going to ask,' Kilcullen said. 'Is somebody targeting cops'
families?'

'We can't say
for sure,' I said, 'but these three victims were all in business together.
Business means money. And money is a motive for murder. I think it's about
these women and not about the fact that their husband or their son-in-law is a
cop.'

'You're probably
right,' Kilcullen said. 'But we should still let the wife of every cop on the
force know that her life may be in danger.'

'None of my
business, Loo,' Terry said, 'but I wouldn't do that if I were you.'

Whatever
friction there was between the two of them, Kilcullen still respected Terry's
instincts. 'Why not?' he said.

'Because if the
morning paper reads like it's just some business deal gone sour, the average
cop will turn to the sports section. But if a cop thinks someone is targeting
his old lady, the first thing he's going to do is give her a gun. And what do
you think will happen then?'

Kilcullen has
good instincts himself. He laughed. 'A lot of cops are going to come home drunk
and wind up getting shot by their wives.'

'Give that man a
kewpie doll,' Terry said.

'Thanks, Biggs,'
Kilcullen said. 'I'll go talk to the...oh, shit. It's Charlie.'

Charlie Knoll
was running through the maze of parked cars. 'Lomax. Biggs. Where's my wife?'

Kilcullen still
had time to walk off and deal with the brass. To his credit, he didn't.

Charlie raced up
to the three of us. He was sweating, dishevelled, and smelling of booze.
Kilcullen stepped up to the plate. He put a hand on each of Charlie's
shoulders.

Charlie already
knew what was coming, but he went through the motions anyway. 'Julia,' he
whimpered.

Kilcullen shook
his head. 'I'm so sorry, Charlie. Both Nora and Julia were shot. They're dead.
I promise we'll get whoever did this.'

Charlie's face contorted,
and then the grief, the anger, and the alcohol took over. He shoved Kilcullen
out of the way and ran toward the house.

It took the
three of us and two patrol officers to stop him.

'It's a crime
scene,' Kilcullen said. 'You know you can't go in there.'

'I want to see
her. I want to see both of them.'

'Not till we're
done,' Kilcullen said. 'You'll contaminate the scene.'

That was true.
Of course, with Big Jim's bloody footprints, Terry taking a nosedive on the
kitchen floor and commingling his blood with Julia's, plus a platoon of cops
tromping from room to room to room, the crime scene was now about as immaculate
as a three-dollar hooker. But there was another reason we couldn't let Charlie
go in. The husband is Suspect One. If he answers one of our questions with
something that only the killer could know, we don't want him to explain it away
by saying he saw it when we gave him a tour of the house.

'It might be a
good idea if you gave us your gun,' Kilcullen said.

'Is that the
rule now?' Charlie screamed. 'The killer gets to keep his gun and the victim's
husband has to turn his in? This is insanity. Who would kill a cop's family?
First Reggie. Now me. You guys should get home and protect Marilyn and Diana.
Terry, what about your kids? How do we know who's next? I'm not turning in my—'

He grabbed his
chest and started gasping for breath.

Several cops
were standing around in case we needed help. I yelled at the closest one. 'Get
a paramedic.'

Charlie was
hugging his chest. 'No, no. It's just an anxiety attack,' he said gasping for
air. 'I get them. I'm OK. I'm OK.'