Hard Stop

TWELVE

JOE SULLIVAN WAS WAITING for me on the front walk that led up to Bobby Dobson’s group rental on Vedders Pond. It was only seven-thirty in the morning, but the day was already heavy with humidity. Unusual for September, but the weather had been nothing but unusual lately, so we were used to it. Sullivan wore olive drab safari shorts and heavy hiking boots, a black shirt with a half dozen pockets, a black Yankees cap and sunglasses. And a black leather shoulder harness securing his regulation Smith & Wesson .38.

The perfect plainclothes disguise. Who’d ever guess he was a cop?

He had a headset around his neck with a cord leading to a little black box hitched to his belt.

I had the coffee. A Viennese cinnamon for me and a double latte for him. So much for working-class sensibilities.

“You’re recording this?” I asked him.

“Digital, baby. Cheaper than a steno.”

“I’ve got one of those. Amazing things. Tell me when to keep my voice down.”

“You’re here as a witness. Totally legit. I cleared it with Ross.”

I followed him to the front door where he told the recorder we were cutting the yellow tape and entering the building. Just inside was the living room, now cleared of newspapers and magazines and covered in multicolored fingerprint powder. Also strewn about were little yellow cones with black numbers.

“Riverhead’s been busy,” I said.

That was where the Suffolk County forensics lab was headquartered. According to Sullivan, they were twitchy with paranoia after blowing a famous case, bringing on a huge lawsuit and a savaging on 60 Minutes. Ross was one of the few officials who stood up for them in the press, earning the DA’s fury and the lab’s permanent devotion.

“Is this suicide thing their idea?” I asked.

Sullivan scoffed and flicked off the recorder.

“Veckstrom. The paper said it was ‘an anonymous police official,’ but who else would say the killing looked like a classic jingo thing.”

“Jigai. Ritual suicide practiced by Japanese women.”

“Practiced, huh? Not many chances to get it right.”

Sullivan picked out a comfy spot on the sofa and peeled the plastic lid off his latte. He pulled his case book out of his pocket and flipped through the pages while he listened to me talk.

“The problem is, jigai involves slitting the throat, severing the jugular and bleeding out,” I said. “This knife was shoved straight up into her skull. Even Veckstrom should know that details matter in these things.”

“That’s what Ross told me, the only other guy in Southampton who knows about this shit. Though the press leak might’ve been his idea in the first place. Not bad if the perp thinks we’re barking down the wrong trail.”

“So you think it’s a wrong trail.”

Sullivan looked up from his case book.

“Riverhead thinks it’s the wrong trail. The knife was jammed up through the soft tissue of her palate, then into her brain. Very accurate. Or very lucky. Especially given the girl’s blood alcohol level, which was a point above sloshed. There were also defensive marks on her throat, so the fatal thrust wasn’t the first try.”

“I didn’t see that,” I said.

“You wouldn’t with all the blood.”

“None of which was on the bed. That I did see.”

“That’s because the body was moved there from somewhere else,” said Sullivan. “They thought somewhere in the house, because it happened shortly after death. And they were right. There’s a blood trail from the patio under the deck to the bedroom. Good cleanup job, but God Himself can’t escape luminol.”

“Or Herself.”

Sullivan scowled at me and flipped off the recorder.

“I can never tell if you’re serious.”

“Assume I’m not, as a rule of thumb.”

He talked some more about the crime scene, sharing some of the assumptions and conclusions Riverhead had come to based on forensic science, a subject I never tired of. Though my curiosity always led back to the more complex and less easily divined part of the equation, the people.

“So what was Bobby Dobson’s opinion of all this?”

He studied me unhappily.

“That would be confidential information concerning an official homicide investigation.” He flipped off the recorder. “Do I need to tell you how happy my wife would be if I blew my pension?”

“Very?”

“Sharing forensic reports is one thing. Revealing confidential statements from potential suspects another.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I said.

His face fell a little.

“Not saying that.” He went back to his book. “I’m recalling from my notes, but I think I got the main points.” He cleared his throat. “Dobson stated that the victim had been staying full time at the share since about mid-August. He claimed to know nothing about her motivation for leaving her employment other than what he called burnout, though he wanted it clear that this was his opinion and nothing about this was ever expressed to him by the victim or anybody else. Dobson was the only renter who was in the City during the week. He said the others had summer gigs out here. Carl Brooks and Sybil Shandy at Roger’s, and the other Brooks, Elaine, at the Varick Gallery.”

“What about Zelda? Zelda Fitzgerald?”

He looked through his book.

“Nothing on Fitzgerald. He did say others would come and go during the summer, though he couldn’t remember all their names. I got a note to go back at that if we need to.”

“Okay.”

Sullivan leaned back on the sofa, dropping his boots on the coffee table and taking a sip from his latte.

“Damn, that’s great shit,” he said. “Almost makes you stop hating yuppies.”

“Speaking of which.”

“Right. Dobson said the victim would spend the week basically hiding out in her room. He’d see her on weekends and try to get her to go out and get a little fresh air. Have a little fun. Sometimes successfully.”

“So they were dating.”

Sullivan shook his head at me.

“Couldn’t quite get that one nailed down. He said they were sort of seeing each other. But the way forensics tells the tale, if they were getting it on, it wasn’t here.”

“So you got some good prints?” I asked.

Sullivan took another sip of his latte before flipping ahead in his case book.

“We have prints from the victim, Iku Kinjo, of course,” he read. “And Robert Dobson, the principle leaseholder, which we got off a soda can during the interrogation. Also Carl Brooks and Sybil Shandy—IAFIS had the prints off a lewd-ness charge. We got a copy of their file. Nice mug shots. Then we have Unknowns A, B and C.”

He looked at the recorder to make sure it wasn’t running.

“Remarkably, the only prints from the witness who discovered the body were a perfect set on the front door.”

“Witness efficiency is definitely on the uptick.”

He put the recorder back on.

“Any ideas on the mystery guests?” he asked.

“Elaine Brooks, Carl’s sister, and Zelda Fitzgerald are two. My guess is the owner’s number three.”

Sullivan went back to his case book.

“John Churchman. Lives on a boat at Hawk Pond. Inherited the house from his parents, who built it in 1972.”

“There’s an accountant in town with that name. He has an office next to Harbor Bank.”

“That’d be him. He’s been cooperative, so it shouldn’t be hard to get elimination prints.”

I looked around.

“So everybody’s prints showed up in the common areas.”

“Correct again. Be a surprise if they didn’t. Let’s go upstairs and see what other nifty things we found.”

Before he could stand I asked him where everybody was when Iku was killed. He sat back into the sofa.

“According to Dobson, Carl Brooks had returned to the City as planned after Labor Day. As did Elaine Brooks, who works at the Varick Gallery’s other place on the East Side. Sybil Shandy is still at Roger’s till Christmas, when they close for the season, but left the rental when Carl moved out. She’s got a place above the restaurant.”

“You’re talking to her?” I asked.

“She’s on the list.”

“So Bobby and Iku had the place to themselves.”

“At least on the weekends. During the week she was by herself. Can we go now?”

I followed him up the staircase to the balcony that led to the bedroom doors. He waved me into the first room.

“Here we have Robert Dobson,” said Sullivan, “as identified in testimony and corroborated by careful investigation.” He held up a Dopp kit with the name Robert K. Dobson in gold leaf on the side. “This is his bedroom, which he apparently shared with Unknown A.”

“Not Iku.”

“Unless she wore surgical gloves. Knowing what goes on in these group rentals, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Who’s next door?” I asked.

“Carl and Sybil, the drunks pulled naked out of a fountain in Las Vegas two years ago.”

“I thought that was Zelda’s trick.”

He looked at his book.

“I told you. Nothing here about a Zelda.”

“Look in the evidence room for a New Yorker magazine with her name on the label. The prints will match one of the unknowns. When you’re ready to confirm with the actual girl, I’ve got her address.”

He frowned down at his book as he jotted down the tip.

“They shoulda seen that already.”

“What about Elaine?” I said. “Did Dobson say he was living with Elaine?”

He flipped through some more pages.

“Quote: ‘Elaine and I have been off and on for years. But we’ve always been friends. You wouldn’t understand.’ I love that shit. You wouldn’t understand, you dumb fucking Ivy League–deprived cop.”

“Condescension’s on the Princeton curriculum.”

He flicked the backs of his fingers under his chin. “Fungu to Princeton.”

“Any other prints in Dobson’s room?”

“Just him and A. We checked the sheets, too, by the way, and got all the usual goodies. Also not the victim’s.”

I walked back onto the balcony and looked down at the living room, trying to see the players arrayed on the broken-in furniture. I tried to imagine who was sitting with whom. I shut my eyes and listened for their conversation, but I didn’t know enough to hear.

“To the basement?” Sullivan asked.

“Sure.”

On the way down we stopped at the kitchen so he could show me where a set of carving knives was stored in a wooden block on the counter. A set of five.

“Japanese,” he said. “Similar handle design as the murder weapon. Very sharp. The lab is tracking down the source.”

We moved on from there, stopping a few times so he could explain the little yellow cones that marked where forensics had picked up a sample or spotted something they wanted to come back and recheck. He told me they needed a warrant each time they did that, but it was almost impossible to get everything on a single pass.

“So Bobby’s cooperative,” I said.

“Not bad. His old man’s been up my ass a bit, but the DA’s been up his. It’s nice to have that broad on my side for a change.”

We went down to the basement, which was technically at ground level at the back end of the house. More colorful finger print powder and little yellow cones.

Iku’s room looked even more forlorn without her body lying on the bed. The disarray of the search and investigation showed around the edges. There was still an impression on the bed from the weight of her body.

“They searched the hell out of this room,” said Sullivan. “Nothing probative to write home about. One set of prints. Hers.”

I couldn’t help wishing I’d poked around a little myself before calling in the cops. It was an unworthy thought—unfair to Iku and the cops, but I couldn’t help it. I was bugged by a strong sense of absence, that something was missing.

“Gadgets,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Where’re the gadgets? Cell phones, laptops, iPods.”

Sullivan rested his hand on my shoulder.

“At the evidence lab, Sam. We don’t know what them things do, us hick cops, but we knows we gotta get ’em to the lab.”

I turned and looked at him.

“What was on the computer? Did you get her email?”

He still wanted to be insulted.

“Weren’t no computers. Jes’ an old cell phone. Don’t happen to have that report yet, but when I do you’ll be the first we tells.”

“Really? Great. I appreciate it.”

I quieted him back down with a grip on his meaty shoulder. He shook his head.

I walked deeper into the room, with my hands in my pockets as he’d instructed me earlier. On impulse, I tried to look behind a dresser, the only large piece of furniture in the room.

“Can I touch that?” I asked, pointing to the dresser.

He handed me a set of surgical gloves. I squeezed them on and pulled the dresser toward me. Stuffed down between the dresser and the wall was a green cable. I pulled it free.

“What’s this?” I said.

Sullivan stood next to me and bent over to look.

“That’s not a phone cord?” he asked.

“It’s a Cat 5. A phone jack is smaller. Cat 5s are used for Internet connections.”

“I’m sure it’s in the report,” he said. “We do know something about this shit.”

I reminded him that only one of us had a computer with broadband access and an email account, and a PDA. And it wasn’t me. He looked a little less defensive, but concerned. I went back to looking around the room.

“Two closets?” I asked.

He pointed to one of the doors.

“That one goes to the bedroom next door.”

“Prints on the handle?”

“Just on the other side. Unknowns A and B. Shall we look?”

We went back out to the hall so we could go into the other room without touching anything.

“Unknowns A and B are all over the place. Since B was also found in tucked-away places, we’re guessing that’s the one who owns the room. But that’s an inadmissibly wild-ass guess.”

“You could ask Bobby.”

“We did. He said he never came down here, so he didn’t know. The print evidence more or less proves that.”

“Don’t forget the rubber gloves theory.”

“I don’t forget anything. And I don’t believe anything I can’t see with my own eyes, and even then I’m suspicious.”

“What about C?”

“C is scattered about the house. The only one you find on the furnace and water heater, along with the usual unknowns found nowhere else.”

“The owner and maintenance mechanics.”

“You think?”

He took me out to the patio under the deck where they found the blood trace, and showed me how it led back to the bedroom. Reluctant as I was to bring up the concept of jimmied locks, I asked if the patio door had been forced or messed with in any way.

“Nope. No evidence of that anywhere. It’s some skill to pick a lock, let alone leave no trace of doing it. Takes a real mechanical whiz,” he said, looking at me pointedly.

I put up my hands.

“It’s beyond me.”

We walked the blood path a few more times, me asking questions, him answering as well as he could and jotting down things to check out later. He turned on the recorder a few times to get my official statement on the disposition of the body, the condition of the house, all the stuff he already knew but had to ask to cover him for the warrant that got us back inside.

I wanted to feel more enlightened after walking around the death-impregnated place, but all I felt was confused and disoriented. It made me wish again that I hadn’t found her. Maybe I would have been able to think more clearly if the image of young promise rendered silent and supine wasn’t filling my mind’s eye.

We were back outside and about to get into our cars when I remembered another obvious question.

“You said Dobson was in the City during the week. What does he do?”

“Wall Street, of course,” said Sullivan.

“Like what?”

“Some administrative job.”

“Where?”

He sighed and fished out his case book again, with a look that said this was the last time.

“Eisler, Johnson Consulting, Inc.,” he said. “He’s a help desk administrator, though not much help to me so far.”