Ice Shear (6 page)

“Are you coming?” Annie demanded, holding the back door open.

A small deck made of untreated pine jutted over the yard, which was dominated by an old tree stump. Multiple sets of footprints tracked back and forth in the snow to the coffee-can ashtray balanced on the railing. A third set led down the steps and across the yard to the fence that bordered the alley that was a straight shot to the river. Halfway across the yard, a deep indentation ran parallel to the footprints. Someone had dropped and dragged Danielle. I could make out the sweep of long hair and where her arms had spread wide, a bleak snow angel. Blood marked the path.

“There's been some melting. Can you cast the molds?” I asked.

“Of course I can.” Annie thrust out her chin, but she dropped it slightly as she pointed to the first footprint. “Just not that one. Or that one,” she said, pointing to the next one. “Oh, but this one!” and Annie smiled to herself as she pulled out her molding kit.

“Annie, do you need help here?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Well, then, I'm going in and finish my interview with Ray.” Annie waved me into the house. “They are sending a few more techs over from the river.”

“Oh, great,” Annie grumped. “More people to destroy my scene.”

“Aren't they your peers?”

“Colleagues, not peers,” she sniffed.

I found Pete in the living room with Ray, both with game controllers in their hands. On-screen, a man crashed his car into a pole, and several women in miniskirts pulled him from the vehicle and beat him until he was lying senseless on the ground.

“You suck at this,” Ray told Pete gravely. “For serious, yo.”

Pete shrugged. I waved him over to the bathroom. Bill was returning a box of tampons to the cabinet under the sink, stiff armed and with gloves.

“So?” I prompted once we'd all crowded in.

“Nothing of interest,” Bill said. “I've got a brush with her hair, for DNA. Clothes were all over the floor, but Ray says they're always like that. I did brush for prints. Nothing interesting.”

“How 'bout these earrings?” Pete pulled an evidence bag out of his pocket containing a pair of two-inch hoops, blinged out with stones running down the front curve. “I was straightening the afghan and found these tucked behind the couch.”

“The finest zircon,” Bill said.

“Not zircon.” Pete waved his finger in a circle next to his own ear, indicating hoop earrings or, possibly, craziness. “I mean, assuming these are the same earrings that were out at Franklin Jewelers right before Valentine's Day, two weeks back.”

“Why were you at the jewelers'?” Bill asked. “Need a new string of pearls?”

“Me and Delia were looking at rings.”

Bill hooted. “Delia?! Who you have been dating for three months?”

I gave Pete a sympathetic smile and he continued. “Yeah. And shut your stupid face about that. I tried to get Delia to try these earrings on, for a joke, you know. Anyway, she wouldn't, because she was afraid she'd lose one and owe nine thousand dollars.”

“Which means the pair”—I suddenly became afraid
I
would drop one—“are worth . . .”

“Eighteen thousand dollars,” Pete said.

Bill and I whistled. That was the starting salary for a cop. Without overtime, of course.

“Husband better have scored,” Bill said.

I held the earrings up to the window. I liked shiny objects, and they glittered brilliantly, even through the plastic.

“Your turn!” Ray yelled from the next room. We agreed that I would take Ray, Bill would start the search of the car, and Pete would go help out Annie.

“Can I have a soda?” Ray asked as I entered the living room. He glanced up, noticing the bagged earrings, and frowned. “Give those to me. They're mine.” He blushed, but held his hand out insistently. “They're Danielle's. Give 'em to me.”

“I wanted to ask you about them. We thought they might be evidence.”

“They're not. She's rich and has rich earrings. Hand 'em over.”

He had a point. These earrings could not be linked to the commission of the crime. He grabbed them out of my hand as I held them out, shoving them in a pocket of his pants and snapping the button. He stared ahead at the TV, where it was player two's turn.

I went into the kitchen and stood in front of the fridge. Orange juice and mayonnaise sat on the top shelf, some wilted greens on the second. Soda filled the bottom shelf.

“What kind do you want?” I called.

“Grape!”

I smiled as I grabbed one. Lucy would have chosen the grape, too.

When I returned he was frantically thumbing a text. He blushed when he saw me. “One of my girls,” he said. “Jackie.”

I handed him the drink. “Got a lot of girlfriends, Ray?”

He popped the tab and gulped down the soda, letting out a huge burp when he was done, his lips stained purple. “In California. They're way hotter there.”

I picked up the controller and pushed the button. The vehicle on-screen lurched forward.

“So,” I said, pulling my on-screen car over to the side of the road to make a drug deal. “You sleep out here?”

“Mos def.” Ray burped again. He giggled. “You're sitting on my bed right now.”

“And you're sitting in your closet.” He shifted around in the nest of clothes.

The police on-screen tried to stop me, and gave chase when I gunned it onto the expressway. “When's the last time you saw Danielle?”

Ray was back in gangster mode. “I don't have to answer you. I don't have to answer anything.” The leather of the vest bunched up as he crossed his arms.

“True. But I think you might have seen her last, and I assume you want to help. I mean, from what you said before, the two of you had a bond, right?”

Ray seemed to consider the question. “You're supposed to stop and beat up the hos. More points.”

“Thanks for the tip”—I swerved around the group of prostitutes, crashing my car—“but I prefer not to.” I sent my guy running for the pursuing cop car, grabbed the cop's gun, and commandeered his cruiser. Police business.

“So, can you tell me when you last saw her?”

“Before I went to bed, okay?”

“And no one could have come in or out the front door without waking you up?” I fired my stolen gun back at the police car that was now in pursuit.

“That's right.”

“And the back door?”

“That's, that's possible.” He dropped the controller and quickly grabbed it up again. “That's probably what happened, okay?”

“But she told you she was going to meet her dad for breakfast.”

Ray was rocking back and forth in the tan recliner, oblivious to the fact that he was banging the wall every time. “She told me that before. I woke up, she was gone, and I figured her dad picked her up. I went out, got my brother—”

“What time did you go to bed?” I asked.

“I don't know.”

“Guess.”

“Midnight or one, okay?” He bobbled the game controller before bouncing it between the chair and the wall. As he scrambled to reach it, his drooping pants revealed Homer Simpson boxers peeking out from beneath the biker vest. When he sat back he was breathing hard. I let myself crash on-screen, and watched as a cop pushed my guy down on the hood of the vehicle.

Ray was still huddled up in a ball.

“Your turn,” I said.

Ray picked up the controller. He hit a bunch of keys at once and the car started to fly.

“That's cool,” I said.

“I know all the cheats. Wait, catch this.” His speech was a charming mix of farm boy and gangster. He didn't do either well. “I'll show you how to get a really big gun, for your turn, you feel me?”

“I feel you,” I said. “So the Abominations. Pretty hard core.”

“They are. They're in the Bible.
Serious
badasses.”

Somehow I doubted that the Bible spent much time on outlaw motorcycle gangs. “I didn't realize they were in New York.”

“They're everywhere. They are legion.” He swung his arms and the vehicle on-screen made a sharp right.

“Do the Abominations, or any other gangs, have anything to do with Danielle's death?”

“No!” His on-screen car skidded off the road. “No, nothing like that!”

Dave and Marty walked in. Marty moved quickly across the room, standing in front of his brother. “You okay, Ray?”

“Yes. They're stupid. They should leave.” Ray threw his controller on the floor. Marty grabbed him up in what looked like a headlock but I realized was a hug. Marty's muscular arm completely encircled Ray's head. Marty whispered to Ray, Ray responding yes softly, before Marty pulled away. “Look,” Marty said, “do your thing here. I'm going to trust you for now, trust you to find Danielle's killers. My folks'll be in tomorrow to pick up Ray—”

Ray's head bobbed over Marty's shoulder. “Did you talk to Dad?”

Marty didn't acknowledge Ray's question.
An indirect lie,
I thought. “—after the funeral. Which I need to plan.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “But I have one follow-up question for you. Ray, the earrings?”

Ray looked stricken. “What?”

“The earrings in your pocket. Can you show them to your brother?”

After fumbling with the snap, Ray slowly pulled the earrings out of his pocket and handed them to Marty.

“Was she wearing these,” Marty asked, “when she . . .”

“No,” I said quickly.

Marty continued to study them. Even in the dim light of the living room the earrings had a real sparkle. Finally he said, “But she wore them?”

“Ray says so.”

Ray nodded. The brothers didn't look at each other.

“Well, I guess the earrings are hers. Were hers. You taking them?” I told him no. Ray looked ready to reach over and grab them back, but Marty folded the bag and gripped them tightly.

Dave and I left the brothers in the living room for some solace, if not solitude. In the backyard, we found Annie pulling a finished cast out of one of the footprints.

“Annie!” bellowed Dave, grinning broadly.

Annie jumped. “Don't do that!”

“What? We're old friends,” Dave said to me. “Annie and I did great work together on that string of B&Es last spring. We understand each other.”

“Shut up,” Annie said.

“Did you get a footprint?” I asked, figuring the less time spent on social niceties—did Annie have any social niceties?—the better.

“Three!” Annie pointed to two bags and a box. “And I was about to tackle that drag mark.”

Dave jumped off the porch and over the footprints. “So, we're just in time.”

I paused for a moment, looking at the tracks. There were footprints away from the house, but not toward. The killer had come in, or been invited, through the front door.

I jumped over the fence. Midcalf on Dave, the snow was up to my knees. We all approached the imprint, and Annie crouched down.

“Aha!” Annie pulled a hair out of the snow. I held out a bag for her. The three of us settled into a happy pattern, finding hairs, drops of blood, and even a piece of fabric. While we worked, I explained to Dave that I had suspicions about the earrings. We arrived at the edge of the fence, which was made of flat wooden planks of varying widths and in a range of shades of drab, depending on the water damage. The planks were woven unevenly through poles, and the gaps provided toeholds.

Annie hit the fence. It vibrated out three houses on each side. “She went over here!”

“No shit!” another tech yelled back. “Something got dragged, all the way down past the power plant to the river.”

“Any blood?” called Dave.

“A little. Any blood over there?”

“Yes!” shouted Annie.

“Anything else?” yelled a voice.

“Don't we have radios we can use?” I asked.

Dave stood on his toes and peeked over the fence. “Radio if anything else comes up, guys. And you,” he said to me, “why don't you go home for a few hours?”

I looked at my watch: noon. I felt strangely energized despite going on hour thirteen. Still, it would be good to catch a nap and play with my daughter.

“I'd like to see Lucy,” I said.

“Yeah, I'm so going to owe her after this,” Dave said. “Tell her she's got a trip to Hoffman's Playland coming to her when things thaw out. Roller-coaster rides and skee ball till her arm falls off.”

I smiled. “She'll keep you to it, you know.”

“She's a tough one . . . just like her mom.” He waved me away. “Get lost, and be at the station at seven. We got a meeting with the chief, Jerry, and Special Agent Hale Bascom, our liaison from the FBI.”

Hale?
At the mention of his name I shivered, my guts feeling like they'd turned to ice. Hale and I hadn't seen each other in eight years. During that time, he was off being a badass in Homeland Security, so we never crossed paths professionally, and he steadily ignored the e-mails Kevin and I sent, even as Kevin's illness progressed and Kevin's desire to connect with Hale became desperate. My last e-mail to him three months before Kevin died probably got me knocked off Hale's Christmas card list: “Hale, I appreciate that you are an overgrown adolescent, but Kevin needs you right now, and there's not a lot of time. I have no idea why you stopped talking to us—or maybe it was just me—but whatever the reason you need to get over yourself and call him. Give a dying man the peace he needs.”

He never called.

“June? Is Hale Bascom a problem?” Dave asked, a worried look on his face.

I waved him off, promising to be at the meeting at seven sharp.

Inside, Ray was again playing the game, hopping up and down in the chair. Marty spoke low into a phone, plugging his other ear to muffle the sounds of the game, his face like one of the granite cliffs along the Hudson.