The Mystery of Jessica Benson (5 page)

“Not really, but I do think I’m being harassed, and I’m
getting tired of it. My inclination is to call my attorney and let
you deal with him. So we can handle it that way or just finish
this up with the three of us, okay?”
Will grunted. “So, just how upset was she when you
dumped her?”
Kyle remembered hearing that the less you say to a cop,
the better your chance of not incriminating yourself. “We were
both pretty upset, and hurt.”
Karen spoke his name and he looked at her. Their eyes
caught and his heart did a somersault. She was ions away from
the annoying little girl he had known, and she was clearly trying
to buffer her partner’s bad attitude.
“I suppose if I hadn’t broken up with her, she would’ve
eventually broken up with me. Our relationship had grown pretty
thin.” He shook his head, and continued, “Anyway, when we got
to her place last night, we fought and I was out of there. Pretty
grim, huh?” He looked toward Karen for sanction.
She smiled at him and looked as though she was about to
say something when Will came slamming back.
“Oh yeah, real grim, Mr. Quarterback, except Jessica
Benson isn’t able to tell her side of the story. Convenient, huh?”
Kyle stood and said, “That’s it. If you don’t have any
other questions, I’ll be going.”
Karen stood also and nodded to him. “We appreciate
your cooperation.”
“If you need me for anything else, just give me a call.
But if you intend to continue hassling me, give me a heads-up so
I can bring my lawyer.” He watched as the detectives started
down the hallway.
Will stopped and turned back to Kyle. “You can be
damn sure you’ll be seeing us again so don’t make any long term
plans. Hey! Mr. Q.B., you’re looking a little green around the
gills there. You sure you don’t want to get something off your
chest?”
Feeling more like himself, Kyle shot back, “I can’t
believe you guys really talk like that.”
Karen glared at Will then looked toward Kyle. “Thanks
again for your help. We’ll be in touch. Sorry we had to bring you
the bad news.”

“That guy’s some actor. He’s guilty as fuck and that
wide-eyed ‘golly gosh I’m such a nice guy’ theme of his is a
crock of shit.
“And you,
partner
. That was a mighty convincing goodguy you played to my very convincing bad guy. Maybe you were
a little bit
too
convincing, huh?”

She didn’t speak until they got into the car. She sat
quietly for a short time and then turned to Will and said, “I try.
I’m sure you’ll keep an open mind, though, right?”

K
aren watched as Will showed signs of a slow boil during the
ride back to the station. There had been an uneasy silence
between them and she knew he had turned his anger inside. Now
he’d begun mouthing words to himself as though framing a
speech. That was a sure sign he was working up to a war with
her, and she was getting that feeling of desperation that there was
nothing she could do to stop it.

In a feeble attempt to lighten the mood, she spoke.
“Penny for your thoughts, partner.”
Will scowled, giving no response. His mood, however,
was oozing out and seeping through Karen with its intensity. But
she could not stop herself from pushing.
“C’mon Will, you can’t believe Sands was putting on an
act. He lost all his color when we told him she was murdered. If
he weren’t such a jock, he might have even cried. You copped an
attitude before you ever met him and I don’t get it!”
“Well now Miss Karen, so long as you want to discuss
attitude problems, that jock Sands was playing you like the
horses and you bought into him like a groupie meeting her first
rock star. Even
I
could feel the vibes between you two, for Christ
sake. I don’t know what your story here is, and I sure as hell
can’t figure where you’re coming from.” His face was red and
his volume rose as he spoke. “We’re trying to catch the scumbag
who beat a woman to a pulp, and you’re playing coochie-coochie
with our prime suspect!”
Karen was taken back by his anger. They fought plenty
throughout the years as a team, but he had never attacked her
professionalism.
“You’re one to talk. I thought we were going to question
the guy, not punch him into a confession. He should’ve tossed us
out or called his lawyer and you know it. He sure as shit didn’t
have to take the crap you were throwing at him! I was just trying
to defuse the bomb before it went off and avoid the
repercussions of having to deal with his lawyer when we had our
suspect right there and willing to talk.”
“Yeah, well, we weren’t there for you to flash your
bedroom eyes and give aid and comfort to the bastard,” Will shot
back.
“So because I wasn’t whacking him with the butt of my
gun, all of a sudden I’m getting sexual with him?
“Okay. So he’s a great looking guy and I’m not dead yet.
So I noticed. So fuck me. It’s not like you’ve never lusted after
some sleazy hooker who’d been brought in. So what’s the deal
here? The old double standard?”
“Shit,” he spat. “You should’ve seen yourself, Karen. It
was as though you were in the presence of God. You were ogling
a freaking suspect during a murder investigation. Goddammit,
Kar! What were you thinking?”
Karen smiled, once again hoping to take the hostility
down a notch, and teased, “Why, Will, I think you’re jealous!”
“Fuck jealous. This isn’t a joke, Karen. What I am is
pissed. You went for a walk on this one and now you’re dancing
around it. You talk about me giving hookers a break. Hookers,
for God’s sake! We’re talking
murder
here. Get a grip, huh? I
suggest you butch up and get your head on right, or you’re going
to find yourself off this case. “Remember, doll, I’m the lead
detective here. Don’t think I would give a second thought to
bumping you off the team. And you know me well enough to
know I’m not bullshitting.”
Disturbed, Karen continued. “If you think I have such a
problem with this one, have at it, Mr. ‘Lead Detective.’ We
haven’t even begun the investigation and you’re looking to wrap
it up and tie it with a pretty bow. Nothing about that guy says
‘guilty’ to me. If he’s good for it, he’s one dumb son of a bitch.
He sure doesn’t strike me as being stupid. I think it’s a case of
being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She paused for a
moment, looking as though she was trying to put all the pieces
together in her mind, and then continued, “Sands is far from
being an idiot and he didn’t come across to me as being insane.
So why would he leave a trail of clues that were almost as
blatant as a signed confession? There’s just too much
coincidence here, and you know how I feel about coincidence,
Will. Sands picks a fight in front of how many people earlier in
the evening, then everyone sees him drag her out to his car. As if
that wasn’t enough, he continues fighting for all her neighbors in
her apartment building to hear. Then, to top it off, he leaves
himself without an alibi. Did he really look that stupid to you,
Will? So freakin’ stupid that you have to threaten to pull me off
the case because we’re maybe not on the same wavelength?”
He winced at her words but said nothing. He sighed and
looked as though he was about to speak, but did not. Finally,
“How many times have you seen these piss-ants walk, Karen?
He’ll hook up with his attorney, probably couldn’t wait till we
left there today so he could call him, and then we’re shit outta
luck. You’ll see. Kyle Sands is the hometown hero and the
media people’ll do their little song and dance and make us look
like the bad guys, again. I don’t need my partner working for
him as well, promoting his ass for the media. They do just fine
without our help.”
“I see. You want to take this guy down and anyone who
has a different angle, including me, is off the case. That the
bottom line?”
“Look at it any fucking way you want. All I’m telling
you is to pull yourself together and stop making excuses for a
suspect. Get with the program or get out of it!”
Karen was silent for a moment while she attempted to
balance her emotions. She felt Will was being unreasonable, but
she knew she was, in fact, biased toward Kyle. She wanted to
make sure Kyle got a shot at a fair chance. If only everything
wasn’t so damning!
“Okay,” she finally said. “I get your message.”
“That’s my girl.”
“I’m not anyone’s
girl
, Will. You try to remember that.”
They arrived at the station as they had been throughout
the drive, sheathed in ice.

E
xhausted by the end of the second day of the investigation,
Karen’s mind raced with the facts as they now knew them.
Although Will continued his ranting and was stalled on Kyle
Sands as ‘the most feasible lead, if not the perp,’ nothing they
had learned so far closed the case.

God
, Karen thought,
he actually said ‘perp!
’
Tenants in Jessica’s building were still being questioned,
but no further leads had been uncovered. They were also
following up with everyone who was in any way connected to
the Demons.
Several guests from Tyrell Utley’s party had already
been interviewed. It had apparently been a casual gathering,
invitation by word-of-mouth. Many of those who had shown up,
according to the host, were ‘friends of friends.’
Utley looked to be a dead end. He was a creep and not
the least bit concerned with his teammate’s fate. If anything, he
was buoyed by what Sands’ loss to the team would do for his
own career. He bragged about having been home all that night,
promising there was more than one woman who could
corroborate his story, gladly relating the intimate details. And
one for one, each of the women backed Utley up.
The parking ticket Kyle brought up in his interview with
Karen and Will was recorded. It was written shortly after 11:00
p.m. as he claimed. The meter maid, a short plump brunette
named Antonella Perez, confirmed that he had shown up just
after she signed the violation. She said he looked “pretty riled up
over something,” and he attempted to talk her into ditching the
ticket. Ms. Perez confided to Karen that she was very tempted to
rip it up for him because he was “one hot piece of
carne
,” but
because it was already documented, there wasn’t anything she
could do.
Garcia had yet to come up with anything useful from the
crime scene. Everything in the apartment had been wiped clean.
He hadn’t even been able to recover any of the victim’s own
prints. The homicide investigation was one of the most intense
ever for the Crimes Against Persons unit of the Miami Beach
Police Department. The Versace murder had been a cakewalk in
comparison.
Urgent
,
Confidential
and
Urgent Confidential
memos flew around the squad room like confetti. The brass
insisted everything be handled
by the book
. Screw-ups would not
be tolerated. Everyone was under the looking glass. It had been
years, but the Simpson case was still the standard for fucked-up
high profile cases.
But Kyle Sands was not O.J. Simpson. There had never
been 911 calls about abuse. In fact, as far as they could
determine, the quarterback had lived his life as a model citizen, a
leader in the community. He was loyal to his family, his friends
and his team. A regular Eagle Scout. But mass murder Ted
Bundy was also an Eagle Scout, and Will pointed that out every
chance he got.
Mixed messages were everywhere. After all, Kyle was a
star, an icon in the community. All ‘t’s would be crossed and all
‘i’s dotted, but the media would be treated with kid glove. News
conferences would be held twice daily and all questions would
be addressed.
As far as Karen was concerned, any one of the witnesses
with whom she had spoken so far could be guilty.
Anyone but
Kyle Sands
. Memories of her youth haunted her, and she found
herself easily distracted and at least part of the time obsessed
with their past.
Kyle giving her her first tennis lesson; yelling
for her to hurry up so she could go to the park with him and her
brother; bringing her balloon bouquets when she was sick;
teasing her about her first date and then comforting her when
the little prick stood her up.
When her brother Brett died, she was inconsolable, but
Kyle had been the one there for her. Until he started college and
got involved with the rigorous schedule of quarterbacking at that
level, Kyle was always there for her. She now felt she had a
chance to reciprocate. She wouldn’t break any laws, but she
would bend whatever rules she had to in order to make sure he
wasn’t railroaded and made the scapegoat for Jessica Benson’s
murder.
Her partner sure as hell wasn’t making matters easy for
her. He did not try to hide the fact that he was keeping tabs on
her every move. She looked for a chance to work alone every
time it was possible, which wasn’t often. Will Kaufman’s gut
told him that Karen had an agenda that was not on the books and
made sure she had precious little time to address it.
To her relief, Garcia was more in tune with her thoughts
on this case than with Will’s. He, too, recognized that Kyle
Sands was far from the standard good time, bad boy football
player that Will continued to insist he was. He assured Karen
that he was examining everything with an open mind and had
urged her not to succumb to Will’s bullying.
Over the years, everyone had witnessed one of Will’s
hotheaded pursuits at some point or another. He got away with
his attitude because his clearance record was so high, but every
now and again he’d get stuck on a suspect who was not the
guilty party. He would bang away at him or her, sounding like a
broken record, until someone finally caught a lead that took them
in another direction. Then Will would reluctantly move on, and
more often than not, would be the one to end up solving the case.
Karen supposed she was more sensitive to Will calling for
Kyle’s head because she had her own insights into who Kyle
really was, but could in no way share them with Will or anyone
else in the Department. At least not yet.
This afternoon, though, Will was tied up in a bunch of
administrative bullshit, so Karen took the opportunity to call
Kyle and ask to meet with him that evening. It was a risky move
on her part, but she felt as though another face-to-face with him,
this time without her partner’s input might net some answers or
at least give her a better feel for Kyle’s part in this quagmire. If
anything came of the meeting, she’d find a way to tell Will.
As a precaution, however, she told Garcia about the
meeting with Kyle. This way no one would be able to claim she
had some clandestine plan should anything come from the
session. As far as Garcia knew, her only knowledge of Kyle was
through the case, and he was close enough to her that he would
not spill what she confided in him to Will or anyone else on the
force. She told him nothing about her past relationship with the
quarterback because that would have put Garcia in a bad
position. He would then have to withhold information in order to
protect her from suspicious minds. If subsequent events made it
necessary to face Will with what she had done, she knew Garcia
would be by her side, and would not have to lie about how much
he knew.
Without the slightest hesitation Sands agreed to see her
but joked that her ‘bodyguard’ would not be welcome. She
assured him she would be alone, and now, here she was, not five
minutes from his apartment, breaking every Department rule and
then some. She was risking her career and feeling no guilt at all,
for the moment at least.