Scorpio Rising by Alan Annand
“Some kind of poison?”
“No.”
Crowe persisted. “An aerosol? Something like Mace?”
Levinson and Crowe locked eyes. Levinson blinked first and his glance shifted briefly to a case file on his desk, as if to confirm it was still closed. His eyes betrayed his obvious confusion, probably wondering how Crowe had known about something so specific at the crime scene.
“Mrs. Stockwell had a pepper spray,” Levinson admitted. “Her attacker turned it against her. That’s a critical piece of information we’ve kept as our hole card. Only reason I’m sharing it, you already seem to have insider information, courtesy of the family. But if it leaks to the media, I’m holding you responsible.”
“The family hasn’t told me anything about how she died. But don’t worry, I’m accustomed to keeping secrets,” Crowe assured him. “Any prints on the dispenser?”
“One, but too smudged to be useful.”
“Could I see her stuff, including that fingerprint?”
“It’s all with Forensics.”
“Where’s that?”
“Downstairs.”
“I might be able to tell you something they can’t.”
Levinson considered this a moment, then picked up his phone. “Tracey, it’s Jake. Can you bring up the Stockwell evidence?” As he hung up, he looked at Crowe through fresh eyes – part suspicion, but maybe also a grudging respect.
Crowe walked over to the precinct map for a closer look.
“You want a coffee?” Levinson offered. “A soft drink?”
“No, I’m good, thanks,” Crowe said. “How’s the husband look?”
“No criminal record. Only thing on his file is a 15-year-old DUI from California. No criminal associates and no bad habits that we can find. He’s a VP of Media Relations at Centurion Bank, been there over seven years, chairs a community service organization that coordinates charitable donations from the Manhattan banking community. Near as we can tell, he’s a boy scout in a corporate pinstripe.”
“You sound frustrated.”
“Try desperate,” Levinson confessed. “His father-in-law has a lot of clout with the Mayor. And the Commissioner takes a special interest in the Mid-Town North, which is home to many of his well-heeled supporters. So I’ve got my ass on the front burner and my boss is cranking up the heat.”
An attractive early-thirties brunette entered the office with a file folder and an evidence box containing several items. Crowe acknowledged her with a polite nod. Levinson took the file folder from her and dumped on his desk the box contents, all of it in plastic evidence bags. The effects included a black leather purse with a broken shoulder strap, a dark green wallet, a silver-colored cell phone, a red plastic pepper spray dispenser, something tiny and white in a small see-through plastic canister, and something indeterminate in another canister.
The brunette stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Tracey Lovegrove.” She wore a stylish pair of red glasses and her hair was tied in a thick ponytail.
“Axel Crowe.” Crowe shook hands, noting the pliable warmth of her grip. In an instant, he’d pegged her as a pitta type in the ayurvedic system. Athletic build, springy gait, alert eyes, slightly curly hair, lightly flushed complexion. A tendency to move fast, and keep moving – physically, mentally, emotionally. Same type as him.
“Where are we at with fingerprints?” Levinson asked her.
“After eliminating those of Mrs. Stockwell and the homeless guy who found her wallet, I was able to lift two partial prints, index finger and thumb,” Tracey said. “Same process of elimination for the construction worker who found her purse and cell phone. The phone had no other prints on it, but the purse had partials of a thumb, index and middle fingers.”
“What about the pepper spray?”
Tracey picked up the bag containing the red dispenser and pointed. “Like the other items, the surface seems to have been quickly wiped. But here on the button where it’s recessed, there’s a partial print of what I assume to be an index finger.”
“That’s all we’ve got – three partials?” Levinson said.
Crowe turned as another detective in a black overcoat, unshaven with a thick shock of unkempt black hair, entered the office. Crowe sized him up – overweight with a pale and oily complexion, someone who needed regular jolts of caffeine to jumpstart a body made sluggish from over-indulgence in a high-carb diet. In ayurvedic terms, a kapha type. But behind those dark brown eyes was an alert intelligence, like that of a hungry reptile.
Levinson said to Crowe, “My partner, Arnie Rossimoff.” And to Rossimoff, “Axel Crowe, private investigator retained by the Blaikies.”
“To get in our way?” Rossimoff sniffed.
“Right now,” Levinson chided his partner, “we’ll take all the help we can get.”
Rossimoff stared at Crowe, a toothpick moving from one side of his mouth to the other, like a snake’s tongue taking a sample of the environment, trying to decide whether this was predator, prey or just part of the scenery.
Crowe offered his hand. Rossimoff shook with apparent disdain. Crowe felt a cool and oily grip, like handling a fresh eel. He noticed Tracey shifting a bit to one side, giving Rossimoff a wider berth. Had those oily hands strayed her way or was she just trying to get upwind of an overcoat that looked like it had slept on the Bowery?
“May I have a look at those prints?” Crowe said.
Levinson opened the folder that Tracey had brought and removed a sheet with a blowup of three fingerprints. He handed it to Crowe.
Crowe studied it and observed, “Despite the partials, the fingertips all have a spatulate shape. Fingerprints have arch patterns on both the index and middle fingers. Thumb has a whorl with a forked line that penetrates the center.” He closed his eyes a moment, factoring in the event chart of Janis Stockwell’s death, a map that bore the signatures of both victim and perpetrator. When he opened his eyes he said, “This is a woman who works as a writer, editor or critic of some kind.”
Rossimoff snorted. “You can’t read sex or occupation from fingerprints.”
“She’s also athletic,” Crowe said.
Rossimoff was about to object again when Levinson signaled to hold his tongue.
“...and has no moral boundaries when it comes to getting what she wants.”
“Sounds like a Tonya Harding,” Rossimoff quipped.
“Not a professional athlete,” Crowe said. “Foremost, this woman’s a thinker.”
“Shit,” said Rossimoff. “A man’s worst nightmare.”
Tracey gave him a wicked look. Rossimoff turned away, shaking his head like a fighter who’d just taken a solid punch.
Levinson said to Crowe, “Not to dispute your ideas, but this seems very speculative. Even if it were true, I don’t see how useful it’s going to be.”
“Useful or not,” Tracey spoke up, “he just mentioned something that conforms to the crime scene evidence.” She held up one of the evidence bags containing a see-through plastic canister.
The others closed in to take turns handling the evidence bag. Inside the canister was a tiny piece of white fabric or leather, about half the size of a pinkie fingernail.
“What is that?” Levinson said.
“Cabretta leather. A high-end leather advertised as ‘second-skin-thin’ typically used for driving, shooting or golf gloves, but also for police service because of the combined protection, dexterity and sensitivity it allows.”
“No shit!” Rossimoff said. “Where’d this come from?”
“It was stuck in Mrs. Stockwell’s front teeth,” Tracey said. “I’m speculating that the assailant clapped a hand over her mouth while trying to break her neck. I think Stockwell bit her assailant’s hand and got a piece of leather in the process.”
Levinson and Rossimoff nodded. It made sense.
“If you look closely,” Tracey said, “the fragment has a small perforation, just like the ventilation holes in gloves.”
“Probably a golf glove,
“So much for it definitely being a woman,” Rossimoff said.
“Still a possibility,” Levinson conceded, “and it supports his idea of an athletic killer.”
“Anybody can buy a pair of golf gloves,” Rossimoff countered.
“You’ve got to admit, Arnie, it’s a critical piece in the profile,” Levinson said. “We’re not looking at some crackhead in a mugging that went sour. We’re looking for a murderer who gave some thought to how this would go down.”
Rossimoff shook his head, reluctant to admit defeat.
“Another reason I agree with Mr. Crowe about the killer being athletic,” Tracey said, “is the way she tried to kill Mrs. Stockwell. It takes strength and skill to snap someone’s neck. I’m thinking someone with military service, police training or expertise in martial arts.”
“Martial arts,” Crowe agreed.
“Why do you say that?” Levinson said.
“Just something that came to me.” Crowe didn’t want to defend his use of astrology. “Besides, a killer with a military or police background would have launched a more aggressive and violent attack. A piece of pipe struck at the base of the skull could have killed her on the spot and been disposed of down the nearest storm drain. But the actual attack suggests someone who’s a bit naïve about what it takes to kill another person. Martial artists are trained to fight and disable, less likely to kill. That makes me feel this person was slightly out of her depth.”
“Her again?” Rossimoff said.
Crowe turned to Tracey. “What else did you find of the victim’s?”
Tracey held up the other see-through canister, the one in which there appeared to be nothing, but with a closer look revealed a few strands of fiber. “In the clasp of the purse I found a tuft of wool and polyester that didn’t match clothing worn by the victim.”
“Anything identifiable?”
“You want my educated guess, it’s from a jacket lining, typical of stuff sold by L.L. Bean and other sportswear manufacturers. Worthless as a clue to search for a suspect, but might be useful as a sample to match against a suspect.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
Crowe picked up the evidence bag containing the purse. “May I open this?”
Levinson produced latex gloves from a box in his desk drawer. Crowe donned the gloves and removed the purse from its bag. He turned it in his hands, brought it to his nose and sniffed. He wet a fingertip with spittle, rubbed it on a patch of leather and sniffed again. He closed his eyes.
The three police staff watched him with varying degrees of interest, Rossimoff with cynicism, Tracey with fascination and Levinson with curiosity as to where this would lead next.
“Piñon,” Crowe pronounced.
“Say what?” Levinson said.
“A small pine indigenous to the American Southwest,” Tracey said.
“One with a very distinctive scent,” Crowe nodded. “The person who handled this has been around burning piñon, probably a campfire, maybe a fireplace.”
“Come on,” Rossimoff said. “Her purse was found in a dumpster full of other crap.”
“That only reinforces my opinion. There’re no piñon in Manhattan.”
“I don’t buy it,” Rossimoff said. “A dog’s got a nose that subtle but I doubt you do.”
Crowe smiled. “So the dog and I are the only ones who know that for lunch today you had pasta arrabiata with a glass of red wine?”
Rossimoff checked his loosely-knotted necktie for the telltale sign of pasta sauce that had betrayed him.
“Not on your tie – on your breath.”
Rossimoff flushed a deep red, embarrassed at having been sniffed out.
After relishing Rossimoff’s awkward moment, Tracey said, “We don’t have the equipment here but the FBI could do a spectrographic analysis, confirm your theory about the piñon.”
“Let’s say it’s true,” Levinson said. “What does it tell us anyway?”
“The killer left the crime scene with Stockwell’s purse under her jacket,” Crowe said. “Given body heat and humidity, the scent transferred from jacket lining to purse.”
“Muggers don’t do that,” Rossimoff said. “They take the money and plastic and ditch the other crap the first chance they get.”
“I agree,” Crowe said, “which is why we know this wasn’t a mugging.”
Crowe looked at the map on the wall. In his mind’s eye, he was still thinking of the two graphic patterns he’d observed at the crime scene – the triangle of cracks in the asphalt where Janis Stockwell’s hand had lain, and the more subtle junction of finer cracks that formed a six-pointed asterisk.
As in all things, Guruji had taught him, one first had to paint a picture with broad brush strokes using the grosser elements. The trend is your friend, as the market traders said, their challenge to weed out signal from noise, sifting through a mountain of financial data to find the nuggets of information that would guide their million-dollar decisions. First you figured out whether you were bull or bear, then the stock-picking followed. Guruji could have made millions on the stock market but his life was uncomplicated by lust for money or anything else.
Staring at the map, Crowe projected the triangle in his mind’s eye onto the precinct grid of streets and avenues. Keeping its proportions in mind he played with the size of the triangle, comparing it to the three blue stickpins marking the locations of Stockwell’s body and her disposed possessions. After a long pause, he turned to face the others. They all seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for him to speak.
“If I were you,” Crowe told Levinson, “I’d canvass every hotel within a three-block radius of Sixth and 58th. You’re looking for a woman from the Southwest who checked out in the last twenty-four hours.”
Chapter 33
Larkspur, California
It was another beautiful day in Marin County, except for the felonious residents of San Quentin, because even though the maximum security prison occupied prime real estate on San Francisco Bay, inmates didn’t have rooms with bay views. From down in the yard, all they could see was blue sky, and smell salt air, and hear distant traffic on the Richmond Bridge, a daily taunt of the senses that only served to remind them of freedom lost. On the other hand, security officers manning the guard towers could see oil tankers, container ships and Navy frigates navigating the channels to and from the docks and shipyards on the east side of the San Francisco peninsula. Even closer, there were sailboats coming and going from San Pablo Bay, plus the regular-as-clockwork ferries in and out of Larkspur.
Over at the ferry terminal at the mouth of Corte Madera Creek, commuters were in full transit mode. Cars entered the huge terminal parking lot as a steady flow of buses discharged passengers in front of the terminal building. Commuters flashed their transit passes at the entrance and crossed the dock to a waiting ferry.
In the administration building overlooking the dock, Detective Jim Starrett pulled a chair up next to Delray Perkins, a black man in his early fifties whose desk placard read Terminal Superintendent, Bay Area Transit. Perkins worked his computer as Starrett looked over his shoulder.
“Thank God, no more videotape,” Perkins said. “Couple of years ago we went digital. Used to be this was mostly for insurance purposes to resolve fender benders but, ever since 9/11, it’s a whole new deal. Thank Homeland Security for all this new equipment. Way it works now, everything from four different surveillance cameras, twenty-four on seven, is saved to hard disk. Once a week we archive that and then the camera feed rewrites the hard disk. Here you go, my man.”
Starrett peered at the flat-screen monitor. It showed a high shot of the parking lot on the west side of the terminal. In the corner of the screen a block of text indicated a Tuesday, the calendar date and the time, 19H00.
Starrett examined a Larkspur & Sausalito Ferry Service schedule. “The Jeep was reported stolen at seven-forty. Acc
Perkins tapped the screen whose resolution was good enough to read the number ‘4’ painted on one of the poles whose floodlights illuminated the parking lot at night. “Not there at seven.”
“That’s because it was busy running down my hit-and-run victim at six-fifty-five. Back up an hour.”
Perkins typed in 18H00. The screen refreshed and Starrett saw blank spaces in the parking lot suddenly filled by vehicles that hadn’t been there in the previous view. A blue Jeep Cherokee was now parked next to pole number 4.
“So it’s there at six,” Perkins said. “Now what?”
“When’d the next ferry arrive?”
“Six-oh-five.”
“Give us the view at six-oh-seven.”
Perkins hit the fast-forward button. A number of vehicles disappeared from the screen as their owners, arriving at six-oh-five, drove away. The Jeep didn’t budge. Perkins froze the screen at 18H15.
“Next arrival’s six-twenty,” Perkins said.
“Go ahead.”
Perkins typed in 18H20 and they watched the screen in real time. At 18H22 dozens of people appeared at the bottom of the screen, spreading across the parking lot. Cars pulled out of their parking slots and headed for the exit. A man in a cap and windbreaker approached the Jeep. He lingered on the far side of the Jeep where it was impossible to see what he was doing but in a moment the door opened and he was inside the vehicle. After a few moments he drove away.
“Bingo!” Perkins said.
“Can we get a closer look at him?” Starrett said.
“Not with this technology. I could copy this segment, maybe you got somebody can enhance it like they do on TV cop shows.”
“You got a camera on the other side of the lot?”
Perkins worked his computer and they looked at the Jeep from the far side of the parking lot. In this clip the guy in the windbreaker pulled a shim from his sleeve and worked it into the driver’s side door. Once inside the vehicle, he was under the dash for all of thirty seconds before the Jeep was on its way.
“Not the first time I’ve seen that,” Perkins said. “Some of these guys are amazing, take a car in less than a minute, even with an alarm. ‘Cept what this guy wanted with a ten-year-old Cherokee, I can’t imagine.”