Stone Cold

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Rossi was in the Chapman and Henderson murder room, shifting his attention between case files and cold pizza. It was close to midnight. He was working late and Alex Stone was spending her first night in jail. Rossi doubted either of them would get much sleep.

Dwayne Reed’s death hadn’t ended the investigation into the murders or made solving them any easier. If anything, it made closing both cases harder, because whatever Dwayne might have told them would be buried with him.

Rossi knew that breaks came from digging deep and then digging deeper, finding the link that connected the dots, whether on the street, in the lab, or in a stack of paper. And sometimes the break came not from what was in the stack of paper but from what wasn’t there.

Gloria Temple was a case in point. Rossi was worried about her. He suspected she was the one who had given Wilfred Donaire’s gold necklace to Dwayne Reed, which could have put her on Dwayne’s get-even hit list. If so, the reason no one could find her was that she was dead. Best case, Dwayne had missed her and she’d gone to ground. Now that Dwayne was gone, he hoped she’d surface.

The one time Rossi had spoken with Gloria, he’d found her hanging on a street corner, straight and sober, a slender young woman with close-cropped hair, dark coffee skin, and a mouth that roared, showing off to her friends, telling Rossi to go fuck himself. When he asked where she lived, she told him to do it again if he could get it up twice in one day, her friends dissolving into laughter.

She had a record for petty stuff, the worst being possession of marijuana. She pled guilty, got probation since it was a first offense, and agreed to go to drug counseling. She lived at Chouteau Courts, a public housing project on Independence Avenue. He’d gone there hoping she’d talk more and strut less if her friends weren’t around. When he’d knocked on the door, an elderly woman had answered, saying that Gloria stayed there sometimes but not regularly and she hadn’t seen Gloria in a while.

Rossi called Gardiner Harris, waking him on the third ring.

“You asleep?”

“Not anymore,” Harris mumbled.

“How’d you make out on Gloria Temple?”

“You woke me up to ask me that?”

“And you can go back to sleep as soon as you tell me.”

Rossi heard a woman’s voice in the background. “Who is it, honey?”

“Rossi.”

“Why can’t he be like normal people and sleep at night?”

“Because he ain’t normal.”

“Can I butt in here?” Rossi said.

“Sorry. My wife has this crazy idea that I’m entitled to a good night’s sleep.”

“Go figure.”

“Yeah, right.”

“So?”

“So I got sidetracked after the lawyer capped her client. I’ll take a run at her tomorrow,” Harris said and hung up.

Rossi was jealous of Harris, wishing he were home in bed with a wife to keep his bed warm instead of digging out the list of Kyrie Chapman’s known associates. He circled Gloria Temple’s name and underlined the signature of the detective, Denny Trumbo, who’d prepared the report. Trumbo was new to Homicide and Rossi barely knew him. His next call was to Dispatch.

“This is Detective Hank Rossi. I need you to find detective Denny Trumbo and have him call me on my cell. You got my number?”

“It’s on our caller ID, Detective. You want me to tell him it’s urgent?”

“It’s the middle of the night. What do you think?”

Trumbo called ten minutes later. “What’s up, Rossi?”

“I am, and I’d rather be home in bed.”

“This about the Chapman case?”

“Yeah. Your list of Chapman’s known associates includes a woman named Gloria Temple. Where’d you get that information?”

Trumbo thought for a moment. “Chapman’s grandmother.”

“What’d the grandmother say about her?”

“Just that Chapman thought Gloria was his girlfriend but Gloria didn’t agree.”

“Did you try to find her?”

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Thought that was your job, Detective,” Trumbo said, not hiding his irritation at being woken up and yelled at. “All I was supposed to do was make a list.”

Rossi held back, knowing that Trumbo was right. Mitch Fowler kept new guys like Trumbo on a short leash, telling them to do what they were told and leave the thinking to more experienced detectives. Besides, the more he growled at Trumbo, the less he’d get out of him.

“Okay, I hear you. Fucking Fowler still making you raise your hand before you go to the john?”

Trumbo chuckled, backing down. “Yeah. Gotta wave one finger or two.”

“Try the middle finger next time.”

“Will do. Anything else?”

“Yeah. I’m looking at the list of names. Which one is the grandmother?”

“Virginia Sprague.”

“Where can I find her?”

“Same place I did. Chouteau Courts over on Independence Avenue.”

“Thanks,” Rossi said. “Go back to bed.”

Rossi called it a night, deciding against waking Virginia Sprague at that hour, betting she was the elderly woman who’d answered the door when he’d gone to Chouteau Courts looking for Gloria Temple. He’d update Harris in the morning and go with him to talk to the grandmother.

On the way home, he thought about Alex Stone. He’d have bet a month’s pay against her killing Dwayne Reed and he would have lost. Ballistics and the gunpowder residue test had confirmed what had been obvious when he burst into Odyessy’s living room. Alex had fired the fatal shots.

Rossi had heard three shots as he stood in Odyessy’s driveway-two in rapid succession, the third coming after a short pause. CSI found the bullet from Dwayne’s gun lodged in the ceiling, suggesting that Dwayne may have been falling to the floor, already hit, or even been on the floor when he fired. That was consistent with Alex firing the first two shots, making her the aggressor. It was even possible that Alex had shot Dwayne and then taken his gun, put it in Dwayne’s hand, and fired the shot into the ceiling, but he couldn’t give Alex credit for that kind of cool-headed thinking, not the way she was acting when he burst into the house.

Alex would have to claim she acted in self-defense. In the statement she gave at the scene, Odyessy Shelburne said that Alex shot her son in cold blood, but Odyessy would make a lousy witness. Proving that she was telling the truth would depend on the rest of the evidence, most of which was circumstantial.

Rossi recalled the night after the Donaire trial ended when he’d rousted Dwayne and Alex had come downtown to get him out of jail. He’d followed them to the street, watching as they talked, Alex bending over and throwing up as soon as Dwayne left.

Rossi figured Alex vomited because Dwayne admitted to her that he had murdered Wilfred Donaire. He may not just have made her vomit in the street. He may have made her sick enough to want to kill him, especially since, according to Alex’s permit, she bought her gun the day after the Donaire trial ended.

Six weeks later, Dwayne was the main suspect in the Chapman and Henderson murders and he had threatened to rape Alex’s lover. It was easy to flesh out the rest. Filled with guilt and enraged at Dwayne’s threats, Alex tracked him down and killed him. That wasn’t self-defense. It was premeditated murder.

To convince a jury that it was self-defense, Alex would have to testify. She’d have to reveal what Dwayne had told her that night on the sidewalk and explain why she’d bought a gun the next day and why she’d taken it with her when she went looking for her client. She’d have to convince the jury that she’d fired first because Dwayne had made her fear for her life and not because she was avenging the murders Dwayne had committed or because she was protecting her lover. And that prospect, Rossi knew, would give her more than one sleepless night.