Perfect Grave

Chapter Thirty-Seven

J ason positioned his Falcon in the early morning line at a twenty-four-hour donut shop drive-thru in Fremont. As he eased up to the order board, his cell phone rang.

It was Eldon Reep.

“This is what we’re doing today, we’re going big on how the Mirror first tracked him after breaking the story on the murder weapon, etcetera. You give me a first-person on ‘the killer’s lair under the Interstate,’ and use every ounce of color that didn’t go into your news story.”

“Eldon, they’ve got to charge him first,” Jason said. “Two grape jelly donuts and a jumbo coffee, please. Thanks.”

“Wade? Where the hell are you?”

“Getting my breakfast.”

“Where are you headed? I’ll send Cassie to hook up with you.”

Jason fished a five-dollar bill from his jeans at the window and exchanged it for his order.

“No need to send her. That’s good, keep the change,” Jason said, checking traffic as he exited the shop. “I’m good by myself. I’ll call you.”

“We have to stay out front on this story, you got that, Wade?”

“You bet. Bye.”

Jason slid a Norman Greenbaum CD into his sound system. He put this morning’s Mirror, with his two page-one bylines, on his lap to use as a napkin. He tore into his donuts, dripping jelly on the faces of Cooper and Sister Anne as “Spirit in the Sky” flowed through his speakers.

After the song and his breakfast were done, he pulled over and called Cooper’s lawyer, Barbara North, on her cell phone and at home, leaving messages at both places. By the time he hit the Aurora Avenue Bridge spanning Lake Union, she’d got back to him.

“Jason, it’s Barbara.”

“Sorry for calling so early. Did you see today’s paper?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I don’t like the headline.”

“I don’t write the headline.”

“Otherwise, fair coverage.”

“Do you know if Cooper’s going to be charged?”

“I’m on my way to meet with Detective Garner and company as we speak.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I have no indication one way or the other at this point.”

“You’ll let me know, once you know?”

“You have my numbers.”

“And you have mine.”

In the seventh-floor meeting room of the Homicide Unit, Grace Garner flipped through her files on John Randolph Cooper. Next to her, Lynn Mann of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office checked her BlackBerry as they waited for the others.

Perelli entered and slapped the Mirror on the table.

“What’s this convenient suspect crap? Did you know this was coming, Grace?”

Grace shook her head.

“Barbara’s just protecting her client, Dom,” Lynn Mann said. “Countering the image of his arrest. Even the Pope would look bad, taken down in public at a funeral.”

Stan Boulder joined the meeting accompanied by Kay Cataldo and Detective Yamashita, the polygraphist.

“What time do we expect Barbara North, Grace?” Boulder asked.

“About twenty minutes or so.”

“Okay, everybody was up most of the night, especially Kay, and Yami. Kay, you go first.”

“Hold up for a moment,” Grace said. “Before we proceed, I want everyone to know that records came up with something last night that we missed.”

“Must be old stuff.”

“It is. Seems Cooper was twenty years old when officers in a district car observed him acting suspiciously in a car parked down the street from an Ocean First Prudential Bank in Ravenna. He had a disguise, a starter’s pistol, and the beginnings of a holdup note. Cooper later pleaded guilty, blamed his action on substance abuse owing to his mother’s death in a house fire. Judge gave him four months probation for conspiracy. He never did time inside.”

“He’s had a terrible time losing people in fires,” Boulder said. “Go ahead, Kay.”

Cataldo opened her file folder.

“Chuck and I put out full-court press analyzing those casts we took of his feet, looking at weight-pressure patterns, comparing them with the wear of the insole with his shoes and the sneakers from the murder scene.”

“What did you find?”

Kay started shaking her head.

“Those sneakers, inside and out, are not consistent with his feet.”

“What if he wore them the one time to commit the crime?” Perelli said.

“I could not testify that they are consistent. His weight distribution, the tread wear, the wear on the sole. Look, his foot is a nine and a half and the sneakers are a ten and a half. So while he could easily wear them, the patterns and wear are all off.”

Boulder inhaled, then exhaled slowly, while Lynn tapped her pen.

“So the shoes we found at Cooper’s place under I-5 do not match the impressions from the murder scene?” Lynn asked.

“Correct,” Cataldo said.

“Yami,” Boulder said. “You’re up.”

Yamashita flipped through pages of fanfold graph paper that were punctuated with his neat notes.

“Based on my analysis, the subject was truthful in his responses.”

Grace concentrated on her notes.

“What about here?” She slid closer to Yamashita and read aloud.

“Did you meet a stranger at the shelter whom you saw argue with Sister Anne and cause her to be upset?”

“Yes.”

“Did you witness this stranger take a knife?”

“Yes.”

“Was it similar to the knife in the photograph shown to you today by the detectives?”

“Yes.”

“Yami, was there any problem there?”

Yamashita flipped through his graph paper and notes, checking and double-checking. Then he shook his head.

“All consistent with truthful responses.”

“We’ll be kicking Cooper free once his attorney arrives,” Lynn said. “Alert Media Relations to put out a release, clarify things.”

“But what if he hallucinates that this happened and believes it?” Perelli asked.

“You’re reaching, Dom,” Boulder said. “We have to face the fact that her killer is still out there.”