MASS MURDER (29 page)

The small office they shared was painted a faded pea green and held two old, chunky wooden desks, a bank of dented, metal file cabinets
,
and a water cooler that appeared to have been created around the dawn of time.
An old framed map of the city was mounted on one wall.
File folders and papers were stacked everywhere
,
and the only clean surface was a small Formica table set in between the windows.
On it was a
carved mahogany chess set in play.
Swan was always in the middle of a challenge, sometimes with the Captain
, sometimes with
someone in another city
.

“My wife and I used to raise Bassets,” he said, holding the dog’s noble head in his hands.
“He’s got good breeding.”
He pulled the ears forward and noticed the injuries.
“What happened here?”

“He was abused.
Somebody just dumped him.
The Humane Society was ready to put him down.”

“Tragic.”
Swan stroked the dog’s back, careful to avoid the burn marks.
“Do you know how old he is?”

“No.
Although I think he’s young.”

Swan looked him over from the heavy head to the short, wrinkled back feet.
Grosvner allowed the evaluation with a polite wag of his tail.

“I’d say he’s between two and three years old.
Probably not much more than that.”
Swan stroked the velvet-soft ears and Grosvner groaned in ecstasy, the heavy folds of his throat twitching with pleasure.
“He’s a beautiful dog, but somebody really did a number on him.”

The officer ran his fingers across Grosvner’s back in an expert fashion.
Most of the scabs had come off during the bath, leaving small pink marks in their place and a shi
ny, healthy multi-colored coat.

“These will heal all right.
He’ll be just fine.”
Swan patted Grosvner on the head and dropped his ears back in place.
Grosvner pushed up against his leg hoping for more attention.
“They’re very clever dogs, you know.
You ought to train him if he isn’t already.
They make great hunting dogs.
In fact they were bred with those short legs so that hunters could follow them easily in the field.”

“I
just
hope Angie lets me keep him.”

“Sounds to me like you may be the one in
the dog house,” Swan chuckled.

Giorgio ignored the comment while he flipped through things on his desk.
He picked up a copy of the coroner’s report when Grosvner came to lie at his feet.

“How’s your head?” Swan inquired.
“I heard about last night.”

Giorgio looked up, reaching for his scalp.
“I won’t be playing soccer any day soon.”

“Any clue who hit you?”

“I followed a monk into the garden where he rendezvoused with someone from the kitchen.
When I followed the monk back inside, he caught me from behind.”

“Were they both monks?”

“I don’t think so.
It was some sort of planned meeting though.
I just don’t know what for.
I think the person from the kitchen may have been one of the caterers.”

“Could have been Colin Jewett.”

“Why do you say that?”

“We ran backgrounds on the entire staff.
Something Ms. Fields may want to do in the future,” he added smugly.
“Colin Jewett has a record for drug trafficking.”

“Really?”
For Giorgio, two and two
had just added up to make four.

“According to McCready’s notes, Fields said last night that she hired him because he’s the relative of a friend.
That’s probably why she didn’t run a check.”

“We need to have a talk with Mr. Jewett, but we also need to talk with her other caterer, a guy named Peter.
He was outside last night, too.”

“I’ll get somebody on it.”

Giorgio scanned the coroner
’s report until the phone rang.

“Detective Salvatori?” a female voice said at the other end.

“Right.
Who’s this?”

“I’m Rebecca Browning from KBTV.
I’d like to get a statement.”

Giorgio winced.
“Sorry.
I don’t have anything to say.
You’ll have to talk with our Public Affairs guy.”

“I’ve already spoken to him, Detective.
I need to speak with you.”

“Look, I really don’t have time.
I have a murder to solve.
Give Max a call.”
And with that, he hung up.

Swan rolled his eyes.
“Well, that’s the way to make friends with the media.”

“I really don’t have anything to say.
I mean what am I gunna say?
We don’t know who the killer is
,
or if he’ll kill again.”

“Point made,” Swan acquiesced with a shrug.

“Okay, tell me more about what the coroner said.”

Swan leaned forward, resting his arms on the desk.
“Olsen hadn’t eaten since lunch
,
and there was a fair amount of alcohol in her system, along with the chloral hydrate.”

Giorgio continued to read the report as he talked.
“But it seems there was more alcohol in her system than what was missing from the wine bottle in her room.”
His eyes narrowed as if he were trying to make a calculation.

“Maybe she had a drink at the bar before she went up
stairs
,” Swan offered.

“Perhaps.
But maybe her visitor brought a bottle
of something
with him.
She could have had a drink before he arrived.
That was the glass we found in her room.
Then the friend brought
his own bubbly with the drug.”

“
But
where’s th
at
bottle
,
or the glass?”
Swan challenged him with a raised eyebrow.

Giorgio shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know.
Maybe he took it with him.”

“How?
If your theory is correct, he killed her in the room and then carried her down the stairs to the kitchen closet.
He couldn’t have carried a bottle of wine, too
.

“Maybe not,” Giorgio said to himself.
“Do we have the lab results back from the bottle in her room?”

“Not yet.”

“Hmmm,” he contemplated.
“If he drugged her first, that would account for the lack of a struggle.
The question is how did he administer the drug?”

“Hey, Joe, glad you’re here,” Maxwell said, coming into the room with a fax in hand.
“The coroner vacuumed Olsen’s body and clothing this morning and found coarse, gray fibers on her dress and in her hair.
Hey,” he interrupted himself, “where’d the dog come from?”

“Joe has a new partner.”
Swan smiled broadly, enjoying the joke.

“My aunt used to have a Basset.”
Maxwell handed the fax to Giorgio and walked over to stoop down to pet Grosvner, his protruding stomach stretching the limits of his shirt.
“You don’t have a pool do you, Joe?”

Giorgio was busy reading the report.
“Hunh?
No. Why?”

“They don’t swim too good.
Too heavy in the front end or something.
I mean, look at that schnaz.
It’s a dog built around a nose
,” he chortled
.
“
My aunt used to put a life jacket on her dog whenever they went boating.
Looked pretty stupid, but I guess he fell in once and almost drowned.”

Giorgio looked at him with a blank expression wondering why everyone suddenly seemed to have a story about Basset Hounds.
He returned to the report.

“Looks like the killer wrapped Olsen in something.
Maybe a blanket or a rug,” he said.

“You mean the fibers?”

Swan was sitting at his desk kneading the palm of his hand and wincing as he spoke.
As Swan dug the knuckle of one hand into the other, his expression seemed to vacillate between pain and pleasure.

Giorgio dropped the report to watch his partner. “Why do you do that?”

He had watched Swan manipulate his hands like that almost daily for four years, never knowing why.
For some reason, now he wanted to know.

“Ever heard of reflexology?” Swan asked, shaking his hand out.
“The muscles in your hands and feet are related to the muscles in your back.”
He got up and went around to Giorgio’s desk.
“Here, give me your hand.”

Giorgio backed away
,
but Swan grabbed his right hand and pressed the knuckle of his index finger deep into the thick muscles that made up the heel of Giorgio’s palm.
Giorgi
o almost came out of his chair.

“Ow!”
He
cried, yanking
his hand away
.
Swan and Maxwell
just
laughed.

“See?
It works
,
”
Swan smiled.

“What works?
That hurt like hell!” he snapped, rubbing his hand.

“Yeah, but if you kept it
up your back would feel great.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my back!
It’s my head that hurts.”

“Well, I don’t think it will help that.”

“Well, keep your hands to yourself.”

Giorgio gave Swan a wary look as if he thought Swan might grab his hand and try it again, but Swan merely wandered nonchalantly back to his desk, chuckling.

“We have a murder investigation to conduct.”
Giorgio eyed Maxwell who quickly suppressed a smile.
Giorgio glanced back at the report hoping to change the subject.
“A blanket was probably used to carry
our victim
down to the supply closet.
Get forensics on it.”
He said this to Maxwell, slapping the paper onto the desk a little more loudly than necessary.
“And what about fingerprints?”