Shakeup

54

Stone and Maren were taking a walk up Park Avenue in the late afternoon when Maren got a call. She stopped. “Excuse me for a moment, Stone. Yes?” She listened intently. “What’s the address? Cross street? I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She hung up and took Stone’s arm again, and they walked on. She was very quiet.

“Is anything wrong?” he asked.

“Well,” she said. “It appears that I’ve lost my witness, who could have convicted Little Debby.”

“Eddie Craft?”

She nodded. “We’re only a few blocks away. You’re an old homicide detective, Stone. I’d like you to give me your take on this.” She wouldn’t say more.

They reached East Sixty-third Street and crossed Park. “Here we are,” she said.

“This is Dino’s building.”

“I know.” They entered the building, and she flashed her badge to the doorman.

An agent stood nearby. “I’ll take you up, Director,” he said, then led the way to the elevator.

The door to apartment 14D stood open, and Stone could see men down the hall in the living room.

“This way,” their agent said, pointing at the doorway. “Bedroom is right, then left.”

Stone and Maren bent over the body. “One in the temple, one in the back of the head,” he said. He saw a pill bottle and read the label. “Ambien.”

“This way, Director,” the agent behind them said. He led them through the living room to the dining room, where a window stood wide open. “Stand on the chair and look down,” he said, then helped Maren up. She got down, and Stone took a turn.

“Any conclusions?” Maren asked Stone.

“Only the obvious ones: he shot her twice while she was sleeping, then took a dive out the window, taking the gun with him. It’s next to the body. I’d like to hear from the medical examiner before I go any further.”

“Why would he shoot her?” Maren asked.

“The ME isn’t going to tell us that. My guess is they were married or longtime companions, and that makes this a case of domestic violence. They’re unpredictable before the fact and, often, unsolvable afterward, unless you can locate a few good friends and hear what they have to say about the relationship. My guess is that Eddie was a loner, except for his girl, so he wouldn’t have a lot of friends.”

“You don’t see anything professional in this, then?” she asked.

Stone shook his head. “Not unless your crime scene team comes up with some DNA or other evidence indicating the presence of a third party.”

“So, it’s a murder-suicide?”

“Probably. It would be a hard thing for a pro to plan, but he might have done it on the fly, found himself in circumstances that required killing them both. Someone recently mentioned Occam’s razor to me.”

“We’d never solve anything, if we didn’t look beyond Occam’s razor,” she said.

“Good point, but why tie yourself in knots? If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.”

Maren managed a chuckle.

“I think you would spend your time more profitably looking for someone who can back up Eddie’s story about Little Debby stealing the gun from the D.C. evidence locker.”

“We’ve already interviewed his neighbors in the lockup. The cop in charge was in the john with a crossword.”

“Hang on,” Stone said.

“What?”

“Let’s go take a look at the scene in the alley.”

They rode the elevator down and walked outside, then around the corner. The rain had stopped an hour before, but they had to avoid puddles.

Eddie’s body was a crumpled heap, and the weapon lay nearby. “What kind of weapon was stolen from the evidence room?” Stone asked.

“A .22 semiautomatic pistol with a silencer,” Maren said.

Stone pointed at the gun near the body. “Voilà,” he said.

They were walking back up the alley when the ME’s van backed in. Maren slapped a palm on the fender; it stopped and a door opened. She gave the man her card. “Call me when you’re done; I don’t want to wait for the written report.”

They walked on up the alley to the street. “Let’s steal a car,” she said, pointing at an FBI vehicle.

“Go right ahead, Director,” an agent said.

“Hello, Karl. I’d like you to get a ballistics report on the weapon at the scene. It resembles one stolen from a D.C. evidence room, and I want a comparison.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said. They got into the car, and Maren gave the driver Stone’s address.

They were at dinner that evening, at Patroon, with the Bacchettis.

“I don’t like people getting killed in my building,” Dino said. “Or jumping out windows. It’s bad for property values.”

Maren’s phone rang, and everybody kept quiet while she listened. Finally, she hung up.

“What?” Stone asked.

“The gun in the evidence room was used in a homicide, so they had a full ballistics report on it. They did another at our offices on the gun found near Eddie’s body. It’s the same weapon.”

“No doubt?” Stone asked.

“No doubt.”

“What does that tell us?” Maren said.

Stone sighed. “I’m trying to think of a scenario that would make possible the use of this gun in two murders, in separate cities.”

“One murder,” Dino said.

“Two,” Stone replied. “The woman was shot twice.”

Dino nodded.

“Can you think of such a scenario?” Stone asked.

Dino squinted. “Little Debby steals a gun from the evidence room in D.C., then she gives it to the guy who’s about to testify against her, so he can use it on his girlfriend before he offs himself?”

“You see the problem,” Stone said to everybody. “I can’t make it make sense.”

Maren shook her head. “It happened, so there is a scenario. We just have to figure it out.”

“I need another drink,” Stone said.