Chasing The Dead

Chapter Thirteen

Rossi got back to his desk in the homicide unit, playing out in his head his next visit with Alex Stone, wanting that encounter to appear as accidental as the one at the Zoo actually had been. He was trying to figure out how to make that happen when his boss, Mitch Fowler, hollered at him from the door to his office.

“Rossi! My office! Now!”

Fowler was the commander of the homicide unit. He yelled at Rossi because he could and because it was his idea of strong leadership. Fowler lived in and by the book, while Rossi used the book as a doorstop. Fowler spent his days crunching numbers on overtime and closed cases, his hair thinning as his waistline swelled, frustrated that Rossi’s name was always at the top of both lists. Rossi’s overtime cost their unit too much money, but his closure rate made it impossible for Fowler to dial him back.

Rossi grabbed his cell phone, holding it to his ear, pretending to be talking to someone on the other end, one finger in the air signaling to Fowler that he’d be there in a minute. No one was on the other end, but he couldn’t resist pimping Fowler. He watched Fowler from the corner of his eye, waiting until Fowler’s face blossomed red before he pocketed his phone, slow walking to Fowler’s office. By the time he got there, Fowler was behind his desk, thumping a pencil against his belly. There were two chairs on the visitor’s side of the desk, one of them occupied.

“Hey, Rossi,” Charlie Wheeler said. “How’s it hangin’?”

Wheeler was Rossi’s first partner when he joined the homicide unit. His parents were wealthy physicians who sent him to Pembroke Hill, Kansas City’s private prep school, and to Princeton, where he got an engineering degree. He’d disappointed them when he enrolled in the academy the day after he graduated, telling Rossi he never grew out of playing cops and robbers. Rossi nicknamed him Mr. Mayor since he shared the name of a popular former holder of the office.

He was black, which would have given him a leg up with the brothers on the east side if they trusted the cops and if they couldn’t sense his upper-class, Ivy League background a mile away. Despite the badge, he was an engineer at heart, more pen-and-paper problem solver than throw-down motherfucker.

One day they chased a suspect into an abandoned house, Wheeler taking the front, Rossi going in the back. The suspect put a bullet in Wheeler’s left leg before Rossi took him out. His wife, Lorraine, reminding him that their two kids needed their father, convinced him that it was time he stopped chasing bad guys and used his engineering degree. Wheeler didn’t want to quit the force, so they compromised and he transferred to the traffic investigation unit and started reconstructing accidents.

Rossi occasionally used him as a sounding board, appreciating how Wheeler could deconstruct a case, finding the flaws and pointing him in the right direction. Rossi bought him a beer after Alex Stone was acquitted, running the case past him. Wheeler told Rossi he agreed with him but since Alex had been acquitted, he had no choice but to let it go. Rossi said he couldn’t, and Wheeler said that was the difference between an engineer and a homicide cop.

Rossi shook his hand. “Free and easy, Mr. Mayor. How’s the leg?”

Wheeler patted his thigh. “Still got a limp, but Lorraine says it’s not enough to get me out of mowing the lawn.”

Rossi laughed. “I hear that. What brings you over here?”

Wheeler pointed at a file on Fowler’s desk. “Like I told the commander, I’ve got a case I’d like you to take a look at. My boss said your boss would have to okay you doing that.”

Rossi turned to Fowler, whose perpetual scowl notched another downturn. “He said take a look, not take it over. Are we clear?”

“Clear as ever, boss,” Rossi said. “Follow me,” he said to Wheeler.

Rossi pulled a chair next to his desk, motioning to Wheeler to take a seat, Wheeler sighing as he did, rubbing and stretching out his left leg.

“Just a limp? Looks like it feels worse than that,” Rossi said.

“Depends on the day. Sometimes I get pins and needles that won’t quit. Sometimes it gives out on me and sometimes I can mow the lawn.” He patted his stomach. “But it’s a good excuse for packing on the weight.”

Rossi grinned. “And what’s your excuse for the bald head and glasses? You didn’t have those the last time I saw you.”

Wheeler smiled and nodded. “That, my friend, is just me getting where we’re both going, only I’m getting there first. But it makes me glad you killed the prick that shot me so he could get there ahead of both of us.”

“Makes me glad too. What’s with your case?”

Wheeler spread his file on Rossi’s desk, separating the photographs from the accident report and a diagram of the scene. “One-car accident last night north of the river, way west on Barry Road. Westbound car goes around a curve where the road turns to the south, driver loses control, goes down an embankment, and smacks into a tree. The driver is dead at the scene due to massive head trauma.”

“So? Happens all the time. What do you need me for? Maybe she fell asleep at the wheel or maybe it was suicide.”

“Maybe, but she didn’t leave a note and the family says no way. She was happy, wasn’t in debt, wasn’t on drugs, and as far as anyone knows, wasn’t in any kind of trouble. And, there’s one more detail.”

“What’s that?”

“The accident location. According to her oldest son, who’s a senior in college at UMKC, his mother never went north of the river unless she was going to the airport, and this location is a long way from KCI. He had no explanation for why she was where she was.”

Rossi took sip of cold coffee. “Which leaves you where?”

“Suspicious. I won’t know more until we get an autopsy report to rule out drugs and alcohol and until I get a chance to flyspeck the vehicle and do a complete reconstruction of the accident.”

Rossi nodded. “Okay, you’ve got a case with a lot of questions. I still don’t get why you want me to look at it.”

“The victim was Robin Norris. Ring a bell?”

Rossi’s eyes popped. “The Robin Norris who runs the public defender’s office?”

“Yeah. That Robin Norris. We found her cell phone on the floor in the front of her car. We pulled her phone records. She made a call just before the accident.”

“Who’d she call?”

“Alex Stone.”

Rossi sat up. “How ’bout that.”

“Yeah, how about that. I was going to pay her a visit and ask what they were talking about, but I thought you might like to come along.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”