Habit (5 page)

Instead of the waitress, they saw a pretty brunette in jeans and a white blouse, a small bag over her shoulder. She smiled at them. “Good morning. I’m Olivia. Can I join you?”

Kevin looked across the table at Brendan. His eyes were bloodshot.

“I don’t want to talk to this woman.”

Brendan was opening his mouth to speak when the grief counselor responded. She addressed Brendan directly at first.

“Good morning, Detective. I’d like to start by being clear about something; about who my client is. My client is this man, Kevin. It is not the Sheriff’s Department.”

Now her eyes drifted over to Kevin, who was looking down at his hands. “What you and I discuss is entirely confidential. My job is to help you through this process. If you feel like you are in a good condition to help the police officers after we speak, then that is for you to determine. But, you may not. And that’s okay, too.”

Kevin lifted his head up and met her gaze.

CHAPTER SEVEN / THURSDAY, 12:12 PM

Brendan left Kevin with the grief counselor and headed back to the scene. It had been about forty-five minutes, and he needed to debrief with Delaney. The CSI unit would probably be close to finishing up the first round. One or two of them would take all the evidence collected so far to the lab. The others would stay behind. It might take the entire day to process the scene. Brendan wouldn’t have to wait for it all to be collected – he would want to get going right away on some priority items like the cell phone. He also wanted to talk to the owners, who he’d found out from Kevin were the victim’s parents, right away.

He and Olivia had agreed to meet at her in-home office that afternoon at four. She had very quickly volunteered to bring Kevin Heilshorn back to the house, back to his motorcycle.

Brendan didn’t pretend to know her methods, but he felt intuitively that besides being polite and helpful, the therapist may have seen value in returning to the scene of the tragedy with the young man whom it affected so deeply. Perhaps more effective “work” could be done if they were in the presence of what had caused such tremendous grief, rather than away somewhere else, where it could be dulled or sanitized. Either way, Brendan was grateful for her offer. He had consulted with her at the door, on his way out the diner, and had stressed to her that he needed to keep Kevin Heilshorn close at hand. She understood.

The next few minutes unfolded like a kind of dream. Several news vans had arrived on the scene. Eager reporters were held back by the barrier the deputies had placed in front of the driveway. Bollards had been placed along the front edge of the property where it abutted Route 12 by State Troopers.

Two trooper vehicles sat in the road, their lights flashing. The sun crawled even higher, and baked the already scorched grass and corn. Small bugs zipped about in the air. Bees droned past. The voices of reporters drifted over from where they talked with deputies and State Troopers.

Brendan walked from his car, which he’d parked along the shoulder of Route 12, and over towards the house. Delaney stood in the center of the giant front yard, holding a cell phone to his ear. Two men in white Hazmat suits were coming out of the shed with large bags. He also saw a new face, over by the victim’s Audi, talking to one of the CSIs. He knew by reputation it was Howard Skene, the Senior Prosecutor for Oneida County.

Delaney snapped his phone shut. He too looked across the dry grass at Skene, and said to Brendan, “You’re just in time. Let’s go tell him how much we
don’t
have to go on.”

Skene walked over. He had a peculiar gait, as through his pleated pants didn’t fit quite right around his crotch. Delaney would say he had a stick up his ass. Skene didn’t shake hands either, but parked both of his palms on his hips. Brendan could see the heat of the day getting to the prosecutor, too. His upper lip was beaded with perspiration, and his dark hair was damp around his ears and forehead.

“Morning,” said Brendan.

Brendan and Skene had never met in person, and Delaney made introductions. Skene nodded. He wore black sunglasses, but Brendan could sense the prosecutor’s eyes examining him. After a moment, Skene said, “So?”

Delaney took a barely perceptible step to the side and looked at Brendan, indicating that he had the floor.

“Well, sir,” Brendan began doubtfully. He tried to sort the information in his head in order to proceed articulately. “The victim is 28 year-old Rebecca Heilshorn. What we know right now is that the house and the property are owned by her parents, also named Heilshorn.”

“Is she married? Kept her name?”

“There was no wedding ring on her finger, but I have yet to get with CSI and establish a real inventory of the contents of the home. Right now the house doesn’t seem very lived-in. The kitchen and the bedroom and upstairs bath are the only places that show real signs of habitation. There’s thick dust over everything else. Some plastic on the furniture in the living room. However, the master bedroom upstairs looks like it recently underwent a renovation, as if someone were planning a more regular occupancy of the home.”

Skene was expressionless. He said, “That’s a very nice description, Detective.” He turned to Delaney. “Any leads?”

“A brother of the victim showed up not long after we got here,” said Delaney. “He wrecked his bike, he was hyperactive. He had to be subdued by one of our deputies.”

“That’s interesting,” said Skene, raising his eyebrows. He then turned and glanced towards the group of reporters, held at bay by the driveway gates.

“He’s grief-stricken. In shock,” Brendan interjected. “He laid down the bike because he hit the soft dirt of the driveway. That could suggest that he’s never been here before, except he told me the name of the neighbor, Folwell. He knew who he was.”

Skene’s head swiveled slowly back to look at Brendan.

Brendan continued, “As he approached, police were on either side of the road. The Folwell farmer had been shooting at a pest in the corn. There were people everywhere. The brother was distracted and confused. In any case, it would be outlandish to return to the scene of a crime less than an hour after perpetrating it.”

“Unless that’s his defense,” said the prosecutor flatly.

Brendan skipped past it. “We have her cell phone and a laptop found in the bedroom. We’re going to go through that. I’ll contact the parents next. My hope is that I can get them to come and ID the body. If they are unreachable, we can have the brother Kevin do it, to keep things moving. The coroner determined the victim expired due to an injury to her pulmonary artery – a stab wound, one of several. She was naked in the bed.”

“So I heard. Raped?”

“We’ll know more when we get the results of the PERK,” Brendan said.

“Which will be when?”

Brendan glanced at Delaney, who seemed to be enjoying himself. His face was hidden in part by his own sunglasses and his mustache, but Brendan got a sense the senior investigator was taking pleasure in the interaction between Brendan and Skene.

“As soon as Clark’s investigators and his forensic staff perform the autopsy. The forensic pathologist will verify Clark’s original cause of death, perhaps elaborate upon it or invalidate it. But if there was rape, it will show up in the PERK.”

“Again, how long?”

Brendan was taken aback. Skene had been with the prosecutor’s office for a decade or more. He knew the routine. He knew that with a homicide autopsy, there was limited access, the surgeries performed in a special room, everything photographed and documented down to the last detail. “It could take all the rest of today, maybe until tomorrow,” said Brendan. He realized as soon as he answered the prosecutor why the man had asked a question about something he more than likely knew the answer to.

“That’s not good enough,” Skene said.

The prosecutor didn’t want to be the one breathing down the Deputy Coroner’s neck. He wanted Brendan to be the one to keep the pressure on.

“I understand,” Brendan said quietly.

“I hope you do. Look, I’m not trying to be an asshole here. I know you’re new to Oneida. But this is the first homicide we’ve had in two years. People are going to be terrified. If there is a killer on the loose – I don’t have to tell you we need to act quickly. And here you are already defending the kid who shows up, wrecks his bike, and gets in a fight with our deputies at the scene of the crime. That’s fine. But if there’s a rape, let’s get the serology report sooner rather than later. Let’s get prints from the house, more serology from the sheets, and let’s get the bastard responsible for this. Do you even know if he’s the victim’s kin? Did you check his ID? Did anyone?”

Skene looked from Brendan to Delaney. Delaney nodded towards the road. “I was dealing with Elmer Fudd over there,” he said.

“Jesus Christ,” said Skene. He reached down and adjusted the waist of his pants. Then he looked back at Brendan.

“I checked his ID. Kevin Heilshorn, from Scarsdale.”

“Okay. Tell me what else you have.”

“In the shed,” said Brendan. “There appeared to be a burnt device in the trash.”

“A ‘burnt device’? What does that mean?”

“Burned. Cooked. Incinerated. A computer, maybe. Someone torched their laptop. The one upstairs could be a dummy.”

“Why would you think that?”

“A hunch. I also . . .”

“A hunch. Who are you, Kojak? Check it anyway.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Brendan. He turned and started walking away. His head was blazing hot from the sun beating down on his dark hair. His suit was itchy. The breakfast he’d horked down at the diner wasn’t sitting right in his stomach. Suddenly, he stopped, and bent forward, putting his hands on his knees. There he swayed. He thought he was going to vomit, just like Kevin Heilshorn had.

He closed his eyes. He could hear Delaney and Skene mumbling behind him. Skene sounded agitated, incredulous. Delaney was placating. A moment later, Delaney walked over and put a hand on Brendan’s shoulder.

“You alright?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Don’t let him get to you,” Delaney whispered. “He’s a fucking prick. It’s an election year. Now come on. Stand up. It’s almost over.”

Brendan slowly got to his feet. He felt lightheaded, but the sensation was starting to subside. He looked at the house. With sweat in his eyes, it took on the look of a looming funhouse, pitching and yawing. He wiped the moisture away with the back of his suit sleeve. A second later, he took off the jacket and tossed it in the grass.

When he looked back at Skene and Delaney, Delaney’s mouth was open, his hands out in front of him, ready to minister the make-up between the prosecutor and rookie detective. Brendan said, “I have something else to show you.”

Skene’s flat face showed a tremor of response to this. He came over, with his weird, shit-pants walk. Delaney, a little dumbfounded, followed. As they approached, Delaney’s expression tried to convey,
What aren’t you telling me
?

Brendan unsnapped the sleeves of his shirt. He rolled up the cuffs to his elbows. He looked at both men, their eyes concealed behind their sunglasses. Then he turned and started towards the house.

* * *

Inside, the kitchen was gloomy and refreshingly cool.

Skene goggled at everything, his eyes darting around like a kid looking for Christmas presents. Delaney wore a mildly puzzled, mildly amused expression. Both men had removed their sunglasses and perched them atop their heads – Delaney with a few wispy hairs left, Skene with thick salt-and-pepper curls.

“What are we looking at?”

For a moment, Brendan saw Delaney’s eyes drop to the pile of knives on the butcher’s block. Brendan shot Delaney a look that conveyed:
It’s not the knives.
They walked further into the room, passing the appliances, including the new dishwasher, the sink, the counter space, the spice rack and two hanging bunches of dried herbs, and through into another room.

Brendan flipped the light switch.

The large oval, antique dining table had a leaf added to its center. Eight chairs were around it. As Brendan had told Skene outside, the furniture was thick with dust. Silken cobwebs were festooned around the corners of the room. There were no placemats or adornments to the table except for two cast iron candelabras, giving the whole set-up a rather macabre feel. Flanking the table were two banks of cabinetry, all white, with small wood knobs on the drawers. Fine dinnerware was stored in the top glass cabinets.

In between the rows of drawers and upper glass-front cabinets, was an open shelf. Other candles and candle holders sat there, as well as a basket of faded cloth napkins. Everything was covered in dust. Including the dozen or more framed photographs.

“This is how I’ve come to suspect that Rebecca and Kevin are, in fact, brother and sister,” said Brendan. He pointed to a photo, a studio portrait of the victim, perhaps only eighteen, and a fifteen or sixteen-year-old Kevin. The young Rebecca was posed behind the young Kevin. Her smile looked genuine, his perhaps a little manufactured. Skene began to drift through the room, lit by the overhead chandelier. While the faces in the frames, too, were covered with a film of dust, there was no mistaking them. Here was Kevin and Rebecca again, even younger, with two older people.

“Bops and Ma’am,” said Brendan.

Delaney glanced across the table at him. The senior investigator was on the other side, where more photos decorated the other shelf. “The parents,” he inferred.

Brendan nodded. He returned his attention to the last photo in the display on his side of the room. There were others – Bops standing next to a guide boat; a mountain vista with the four of them posing in tourist’s garb; a prom picture (Rebecca was a beautiful girl); and a young man in a black and white photo – likely Bops in his prime – standing shirtless next to the open hood of a cherry muscle car. But the last one had been what Brendan had been unable to get out of his mind all day. “This one here is of particular interest,” he said. “And one over where Detective Delaney is standing that would seem to correspond to it.”

He pointed to the picture, in an ornate gold frame, of Rebecca Heilshorn. Here she looked almost the same age as the girl who had stared at Brendan in the reflection of the mirror this morning, her eyes haunted, her mouth open. Here, she was the portrait of happiness, and why not? She held a beautiful bouncing baby girl on her lap. The child, only a few months old, had a bow on her nearly bald head.