The Witness

Chapter Eighteen

“IT’S TOO QUIET.” Connor dropped the stir stick for his coffee into the trash bag at his feet and thought about calling it a night.

“The report was solid. It’s a tan Lincoln, nine years old,” Marsh replied, shifting the notebook he was updating into his briefcase and glancing back at the parked vehicle they were watching.

“A car that hasn’t moved in the last three days.” They had spotted it Sunday night, and now it was Wednesday. The initial hope that their killer would return to his car had so far proven a dead end. He could be sleeping off a bad couple days drinking in one of the rooms around this depressed block and thus not venturing out into the world. He could but after three days he was either drunk enough to kill himself or not planning to come back for the car. “Our guy left it for us to watch.”

“Probably.”

“I vote we have it pulled in tomorrow morning for parking violations or something.”

“I doubt our knife was left in the vehicle, or the next note we’re waiting for him to drop on us.”

“You still think this is the red herring, that it’s a local guy doing the killings, not some imported talent from New York?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“An absurd hunch,” Marsh replied. “I told the chief the idea. No offense, but I don’t want to be looking stupid twice in as many days. I’ll tell you if I find something that makes me right.”

“That’s a lot of partner trust for you when it doesn’t extend to so much as an explanation.”

Marsh smiled. “How did last night go?”

Connor frowned. “Why are women so hard to figure out?”

“I’ll take that as a ‘not so well.’”

“Marie was beautiful, chatty, engaged, her normal perfect self.”

“You haven’t dated long enough; that’s for sure. No lady is perfect.”

“Okay, so she has this annoying habit of worrying, but on the whole I’m not knocking that as such a bad thing, given she’s in the middle of two sisters whose lives are turning in circles. Tracey marrying you is a big deal, as is Amy in hiding. No, last night Marie was perplexing.”

“How so?”

“Haven’t I made it perfectly clear in a thousand ways I like her?”

“I got the message.”

Connor shoved his coffee back into the holder. “She hasn’t. She was trying too hard to be likable last night. It’s been driving me crazy the more I think about it. What is it about women and the fact they never figure out how to relax around a guy? I felt like I was seeing the polite-behavior Marie when I just wanted to hang out with her for the evening.”

“On an official date, dressed up, and a nice restaurant. Bad territory when you want relaxed.”

“Well, I’m not likely to invite her to my new place-it’s barely above a rattrap right now with the walls being prepped to re-plaster-and I’m not going to get invited to her place above the gallery as long as getting there is a wall of reporters to wade through. She doesn’t mind chatting on the phone, but she doesn’t really like it for personal conversations, and the job hasn’t exactly been kind on the work hours.”

“You’ve got a problem.”

“I already know I’ve got a problem, thank you. Let’s not talk about women; the subject frustrates me.”

“I’m not talking,” Marsh agreed, smiling.

“You’re engaged. What do you remember about dating, anyway?” Connor muttered, reaching back for his jacket. “I’m walking the block again. You want a sandwich this time?”

“Get me something that was shipped from the manufacturer already sealed. It’s not that dark that I can’t tell from here the cleanliness, or lack of it, in that shop.”

“The coffee was hot,” Connor replied, “and I doubt the rest kills me. Five minutes.”

Marsh nodded and shifted to pick up the binoculars, watching the shadows for signs there was actually someone willing to move on a cold night like this.

“You look busy.”

Luke turned to see his sister in the doorway to his office Thursday morning, and his concentration on the report in his hands turned into a smile of welcome. “Never too busy for you. What brings you downtown?”

“You haven’t been home for a few days it seems, so I thought I’d bring over the tickets to the concert next Tuesday night. You mentioned taking the kids.”

He smiled. “I haven’t forgotten; Margaret has it written on my calendar with block letters, meaning I change it at risk of her resigning. I gather they are looking forward to the evening?”

“It’s all they’ve talked about lately.” Susan set down her purse and jacket on the chair and studied him. “Too many work hours lately, I think; you look exhausted. I saw the newspaper.”

Luke grimaced. “Sykes is getting inside information from somewhere. It’s making it difficult, defending against the press while trying to work an investigation.”

Susan reached back and closed the door behind her. “Sam bumped into me at the grocery store, while I was picking out strawberries for the fruit plate tonight, of all things. The guy looks very much out of place with a mango in his hand, like he’s not sure what exactly it is.”

Luke walked around his desk. “This isn’t good.”

“I guess he figured I would be seeing you in a reasonable time. His office got broken into, nothing displaced, just skimmed, he said. But he’ll assume he’s being followed now, and he knows his phone has been tapped; he thought you should hear it sooner versus later.”

“We were expecting something of the sort. I didn’t put Sam on using you as the messenger though; I’m sorry about that.”

She smiled. “I haven’t been your sister for such a short time that I haven’t figured out the extra duties which come with being the police chief’s closest relative. This is not the first message passed to you via me, and it won’t be the last.” Her smiled faded. “This is still three-year-ago stuff reappearing, isn’t it? You’ve been… absent… more than usual recently.”

“I know. Yes, it’s the same problem.”

“She came back.”

He merely lifted an eyebrow.

“Give me some common sense, please. You don’t hire Sam to find you information; you hire him to find someone. And lately you’ve had a lady’s jacket in your car and haven’t mentioned you were seeing someone. You always mention when you date, because it keeps me off your back about if and when you’re ever going to see someone and settle down. Sam working for you three years ago, being back in your life now in a serious way on something unrelated to your official job-it’s personal, Luke. Give me the common sense to figure that out.”

Luke had begun to smile partway through her words, and as she finished, he just relaxed in a chair and let his smile broaden. “Since you’ve already shut the door, you want to have a seat for a few minutes. You’ll like her, Sis; she’s a nice lady.”

“I figured that much out on my own. She’s got trouble?”

“Yes. The Griffin sisters in the news lately? Amy is the oldest that everyone talks about as having been murdered in New York years before. She’s still alive.”

Susan sank down in a seat and a few moments later closed her mouth. “All right, I got my shell-shock moment in. She’s okay? Safe, I mean?”

“As best we can arrange. Someone wants her dead so she’s not coming out of the shadows for a while as this plays out.”

“Why tell me?”

“Because I like her more than a little,” Luke finally replied. “And I promised a long time ago that there was one person I wouldn’t keep secrets from when it became really personal.”

“You could have bent that promise to me and I would have understood. Still… you really like her?”

“I do.”

“And it’s going to be forever and an age before I get to meet her.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Susan smiled at him. “I’ll grow into that idea. It explains why you’ve been disappearing.”

“And if Sam is getting followed, I may soon be as well. So if I’m more paranoid in the next few weeks, driving in circles, ignore it. We’ll get this guy sooner or later.”

“The killings…”

“I don’t know, Sis. Probably related, but it’s just hunches all around for what is going on.”

“You know I like Daniel a lot; I always have, and the sister I met, Marie-I hope you can resolve it soon. I’d hate to think of more trouble showing up in their lives.”

“I do too.” He got up and offered his hand. “Come on; you have to meet Marsh for a minute while you are here and tease him about getting engaged. The man turns positively embarrassed in the nicest kind of way.”

She slid her hand into his. “You’re enjoying that part of it, aren’t you? Seeing him finally settling down.”

“As proud as a chief could get. I’ve seen all the relationships that didn’t pan out, so it’s nice to watch one working for a change,” he admitted. He walked with her back through the bull pen, and spotting Marsh perched on the corner of Connor’s desk in a serious exchange, he cleared his throat to give his guys two seconds to shift gears before Susan reached them.

“So tell me what you two were debating,” Luke suggested to Marsh, finding the copy of the report he had been reading when Susan appeared and passing it to Connor for his attention. The two cops looked somewhat ill at ease being back in his office again, but Luke figured they would grow out of the problem eventually. One day he expected one of them to be sitting in his chair and running this place.

“The car. The VIN numbers show the Lincoln is New York registered, and the plates have been proven to be stolen. So the car is his, but the drop spot-maybe he paid someone in town to do his work for him, because either by pure luck or help, he chose one of the three spots in town I would dump it if I wanted it to be an interesting find for the cops. There is enough come-and-go housing in those blocks to make it a plausible area he might have settled.”

“They towed the car in last night.”

“Yes. The crime-lab guys found nothing, not even a partial print. He’d cleaned it out and left it for us.”

“He was probably watching the car too, to see who would come and watch it before it got hauled away,” Luke added. “He’ll have made you and Connor for sure.”

“A bother, but not so unexpected,” Marsh replied with a shrug. “We’re already all over the news thanks to that pack of reporters, and he could get our photos off a search of the newspaper archives if he wished. You’ve got to assume this guy stayed in town.”

“Sam’s place got slipped into-neatly, but files ruffled. So he’s searching for information wherever he can get it.”

“Okay, that’s news. Sam want us to take a look?”

Luke smiled at Connor and his detective grimaced. “Forget I asked. Did he get any prints?”

“He would have remarked if he had. You’ve got the recent photos on this guy that New York sent down?”

“Copies taped to the visor in all the vehicles and an extra copy in my wallet. We’ll know him on sight, Boss.”

“Let word slide down through the ranks that I’ll personally thank the guy that radios in a confirmed sighting. I don’t want an officer out on his own trying to stop this guy without backup, but I want him off the streets as a priority.”

“I think Marsh and I have already passed that message out,” Connor replied. “It’s going to cost us a couple nice game tickets, but that kind of offer tends to get some guys willing to work some overtime off the books. If there is something to hear-or see-out there, I expect we’ll have it.”

“Good.” Luke looked between the men. “Anything else catching your interest in the lab reports? I’ve seen the results coming in. Pretty thin so far.”

“A few hairs they haven’t been able to identify pulled from a blood spot on the bookkeeper’s body and a couple partial smudge marks from the bathrooms that might be sweat. It’s not a lot of evidence to match to a killer. The knife is consistent to both victims, including the busted tip on the blade. We’re back at both scenes this afternoon to give Caroline a look at them.”

“Keep it toned down a bit, okay? You two having nightmares is enough.”

“I’m not pushing photos her way,” Marsh concurred. “You want to hear her thoughts?”

“Anything glimmers at all, call me. This guy got both victims to let him inside, and they apparently didn’t sense danger until it was too late. I’d love to know how he managed that.”

“We’re talking to the neighbors for a third time tomorrow, hoping to get something new, and we’re going back through the interviews of people who knew the two of them, looking for someone they had in common recently. To just arrive, meet them, and kill them-he’s using quite a story.”

“Or someone they both already trusted had made the introductions,” Connor offered, “not realizing what was being set up.”

“Yeah, that fits. If you get an idea for how you want to try and push this guy, let me know. I’ll do the press work for you.”

“Appreciate it, Boss. I had a reporter leaning against my car this morning, waiting for me at 5 a.m. That’s not the way to start the day.”

Luke smiled. “Tell me about it. Tell Caroline hi for me and that I still want her back on the job. She’s going to get tired of being away one of these days.”

“I might even weave her a story or two about how much she’s missed,” Marsh said, smiling back. He nodded his partner toward the door. “We’ll call in.”