One phone call from Harry had set the scene for the investigation. A uniformed officer was posted at the top of the garage stairs leading to Bobby Joe’s apartment. Crime scene tape had been run in a wide circumference around the entire structure. And the housekeeper who had found the body was isolated in the rear of a patrol unit in the company of a female deputy. Harry also issued a direct order that no one be permitted inside the taped perimeter. This was met by repeated demands from the Reverend John Waldo that he be allowed to go inside and pray over his son. He was told he’d have to speak to the detective in charge.
When he arrived at the crime scene, Harry went straight to the cruiser that held the housekeeper, after sending Vicky and Jim to make sure the remainder of the scene was still secure.
The housekeeper was somewhere in her early fifties with graying hair, brown eyes, and a light brown complexion. Harry guessed she was Mexican, probably illegal-although he had no intention of pressing the point-and thoroughly shaken by what she had seen.
After telling him her name was Dolores Sanchez she stared at him with trembling lips and watery eyes. “He is dead?” she asked.
“Yes, Mrs. Sanchez, he is.” Harry saw a sense of warmth enter the woman’s eyes when he spoke to her with a tone of respect. The words also seemed to relax her. “Tell me why you went to Bobby Joe’s apartment and everything you saw when you went inside.”
She shook her head as if his words had brought back a horrific image, although Harry was certain the image of what she had seen had never left her, and would not for a very long time.
“I went because his father wanted to talk to him and he did not answer his telephone. His padre, he was getting very angry. He say, ‘Go get him,’ so I go.”
“And what happened then?”
“Well, I knock on the door, but nobody answer. Then I try the door, but it no open. But I have keys for cleaning,” she patted a pocket on her apron, “so I open the door but I no go inside. I can see him right from the doorway. Blood is everywhere, all over everything, and that horrible diablo mask is on his face.”
“Did you touch the mask?”
She shook her head. “No, I no go inside.”
“Then how did you know it was him?”
“He’s wearing the same clothes I wash and iron for him,” she said.
Harry nodded. It was a practical answer from a practical woman. “Did you see or hear anyone or anything unusual before you found the body?”
Dolores thought before giving her answer. “There was someone in the backyard maybe two hours before.”
“Did you see someone?”
She shook her head. “ El perro, next door, he start barking. He always bark when there people in the backyard. I thought maybe the reverend go out to smoke a cigar. Dog always bark when he does. It always makes the reverend angry. But then I saw him inside. So I look, but nobody’s there.”
Harry thanked her and told her that he would send someone to see her shortly to take a formal written statement that she would have to sign. “It won’t be long. Then you can go home,” he said.
The woman looked relieved.
Jim and Vicky were waiting for Harry at the foot of the stairs that led to Bobby Joe’s apartment. He led them up and told the uniform standing watch to allow no one else in except the forensic unit and the medical examiner.
When Harry swung open the door, the heavy coppery smell of blood assaulted their nostrils. Bobby Joe’s body lay on its back in the middle of the room, the devil mask covering his face. He was still wearing the same clothing Harry had seen him in just hours before. Otherwise nothing was as it had been. The room was literally bathed in blood, the walls, the furniture, the floor, all washed in an arterial spray. The body had bled out before the heart had stopped beating, and Harry was certain the autopsy would show that all but the smallest amount was drained from the corpse. Still standing in the doorway he could see one set of bloody footprints leading away from the body. The first officers at the scene had checked the room to make sure the killer was not still there, but had remained far away from the body. The housekeeper, Mrs. Sanchez, said she had never entered the apartment after seeing the body from the doorway. Harry opened his crime scene case, removed his camera, and photographed the blood-stained path leading away from the body so they’d be able to separate those footprints from any new ones that were made in the course of the investigation.
The trio slipped on shoe covers distributed from Harry’s case, then entered the room single file staying away from heavy blood splatter. The first thing Harry noticed were the stark similarities to Darlene Beckett’s murder: the deep wound in the throat; the cut made by someone so powerful it almost opened the neck to the spinal column; hands carefully, even prayerfully folded; the mask placed over the face and left untied.
Harry went immediately to the body, took two photographs in situ, and then carefully raised the mask from Bobby Joe’s face. He stared at the word Fornicator, carved into the forehead. He stood, took two more photographs with the mask removed; then knelt back down and stared into Bobby Joe’s bloodless face.
“I should have stayed outside and watched you,” he said softly.
“Did you say something, Harry?” Vicky asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing.” He glanced at his watch. “I was here three hours ago. I rattled him pretty good and I even thought about staying parked outside to see if he went to anyone, or anyone came to him. But I decided there were other things I had to do first. I requested some unit drive-bys. Either that didn’t happen, or they missed whoever killed him.”
“I’ll check it out,” Vicky said. She went back outside to check with the uniform at the door. The first unit at the scene would also have been doing any drive-bys.
Harry picked up Bobby Joe’s wrist, then reached out and manipulated his jaw with a latex-covered hand. Rigor had not begun, but given the heavy air-conditioning in the room the process could have been delayed. He reached inside his shirt and felt under his arm. It was still warm to the touch, indicating he had been dead for less than three hours.
“I should have stayed and watched,” he said to no one in particular.
“Whoever killed him was probably outside watching you, waiting for you to leave,” Jim said.
The words startled Harry. He had forgotten anyone else was still in the room. But the point was well taken, and he wondered if Bobby Joe’s killer was the same person who had searched his home and pistol whipped Jeanie. Maybe you were looking in the right direction but at the wrong person, he told himself.
Jim’s words interrupted him again. “If you don’t need me here I’d like to go and check where Benevuto was when this murder went down. Superficially, at least, it looks like the same killer who did Darlene, and if Nick has an alibi for the last three hours that kind of lets him off the hook.”
Harry looked back at Jim and nodded. “That’s good thinking, and its fine with me if want to check it out, but touch base with Vicky first and make sure she doesn’t need you. She worked Darlene’s crime scene, along with that cowboy who got himself killed, so I want her to stay and work this one too. She’s liable to spot any similarities that I miss.”
“I’ll tell her,” Jim said.
Harry turned his attention back to the body. He studied the hands. They were covered in dried blood, indicating that Bobby Joe had used them in a vain attempt to staunch the flow from his throat, but otherwise there were no signs indicating a struggle. That told Harry that Bobby Joe knew the man well enough to let him get in close, and that the killer had not only been powerful, but also quick. He had moved in and had gotten behind Bobby Joe before the young minister realized what was happening. Military training? Justin Clearby leapt to mind. The first associate minister had told Harry he joined the church after a lengthy career as a Marine. And there could be others as well. He’d have to begin checking military records for everyone affiliated with the church.
He studied the wound. Like Darlene’s it appeared to have been administered in a right-to-left motion, which, if Bobby Joe had been taken from behind-which is the only way such force could have been applied-would indicate that the killer used his left hand.
“How does this person get so close to people before he kills them?” Harry asked aloud. “Does he just inspire so much fear that his victims are afraid to move? Or is he that fast, that nimble?”
He looked into Bobby Joe’s eyes. They had not become milky and clouded yet. There was still fear in them, Harry thought. The same fear he had seen when Bobby Joe had opened the door to him that afternoon-a fear that disappeared when the minister realized it was not the person he had been expecting.
“Who was that? Who were you waiting for?” Harry stared down at the corpse, almost as if he expected Bobby Joe to return to life and answer him.
The door to the apartment opened and Vicky came in. “The same unit that was called to the crime scene had your earlier request for a drive-by. Unfortunately, there was a traffic accident on McMullen-Booth and the drive-by never happened.”
Harry nodded slowly. “I should have stayed and watched him. He was all unwound. I could feel it in my gut. He was either going to rabbit, or reach out for somebody. He even told me that what I was pressing him to do could get him killed. And he wasn’t running a game on me. Whoever he was talking about scared the living hell out of him.”
“What were you pressing him to give up?” Vicky asked.
“The name of anybody else he knew who was watching Darlene, who was trying to get something on her that would violate her probation.”
“So you still think it was somebody in the church who did this.” Vicky’s voice held all the incredulity she felt.
Harry just looked at her and then turned his attention back to the body.
“Why won’t you even consider Benevuto?” she demanded. “Is it because he’s a brother cop?”
Harry kept his eyes on the body. “I wouldn’t care if he was the man in the moon,” he said. “Nick just doesn’t look good for this kind of killing.”
“Why not, why doesn’t he look good for it?” She spoke the last four words with an edge, mocking the idea.
Harry pivoted slowly to face her. He inclined his head toward the body. “Look at him. Look at the way he was killed; the way the body was mutilated. Then think back to Darlene’s body. This is the work of a religious head case, and that’s not Nick Benevuto. You were in his apartment. There wasn’t one iota of religion in it. Whoever killed Darlene thought she was evil-not a sick woman, not a deviant-but evil. Hell, Nick wouldn’t think twice about a woman spreading her legs for anyone-even a kid. He might think it was stupid, and he’d definitely think she was stupid to do it the way she did, as an open invitation to get caught. But he wouldn’t be declaring it evil and be so outraged that he’d carve that message in her forehead.” He swung a hand toward Bobby Joe’s face. “And do you think Nick Benevuto is so down on fornication that he’d cut up a body like this?” Harry shook his head and glared up at her. “He’d brand anybody who wasn’t a fornicator as an asshole.”
“Did you ever consider that he’s just trying to throw us off? He’s a good investigator. He knows how a good investigator thinks. He knows how you think, Harry.”
“Okay, let’s say I give you all that. Let’s look at the choice of weapon. Our killer used a knife, and a fairly good-sized one. Why? Was it because this was some kind of religious sacrifice? I don’t know. But I do know that Nick would not have chosen slicing somebody’s throat as the best way to kill them. He might use a knife, but he would have used it with a few wellplaced stabs to the heart. He wouldn’t want to bathe the room in blood. Nobody who’s ever worked homicide would want a crime scene like this. Not if he had to walk out of it. It’s too damn hard not to leave evidence behind, or take evidence away with you.”
“People do stupid things when they’re in a jealous rage.”
“These weren’t impulsive acts. These murders were well planned. Remember, Darlene’s body was moved, and it was moved for a reason that we haven’t figured out yet. But whatever it was, it was worth the risk of moving her. And in both murders the killer came prepared to deliver a message.”
“Prepared how? He had the knife with him?”
“He brought the masks with him too.”
“I don’t buy it, Harry. I just don’t buy it. I think it’s all part of his game to throw us off. Just like he altered the computer records so we wouldn’t be able to trace his department car. He was involved with Darlene. He fell for her, and he fell for her hard. But she wanted to bounce from bed to bed. She needed to know that she was wanted by a lot of men; it’s the only thing that satisfied her. God, she even needed to know that young boys wanted her. And Nick couldn’t stand that. He wanted her for himself. Hell, Harry, you saw her. A man couldn’t ask for a more beautiful, more desirable woman. And Nick Benevuto didn’t want to share that with anybody. Period, end of story; motive and opportunity all wrapped up in a neat little package. And to top it off, the best cover in the world. He’s a cop. And better yet, a detective who just might get to investigate the case. And that, my friend, is why Darlene’s body was moved. To make sure the case stayed in our jurisdiction. If her body was found in Tarpon Springs, the case might have been snatched up by Tarpon P.D.”
Harry swiveled back to the body. “Those are all excellent points. And you’ve got a very dirty crime scene here and no reason for Nick Benevuto to ever have been in this room. So let’s work the room and then you can see if anything we find here ties him to the crime scene.”
Vicky’s jaw tightened. “And if we don’t find anything, what does it prove? Just that he’s as smart a cop as I think he is.”
Harry loved the woman’s tenacity. He smiled up at her. “Lady, you’re like a dog with a bone. But the bottom line is this: we’ve got to put the killer at the scene of the crime. If we can’t do that, we’ve got a lot of evidence and no one to tie it to.”
Mort Janlow, the assistant M.E., finished his examination and turned the crime scene over to the forensic unit before joining Harry and Vicky on the small landing outside the front door. “Looks like the same killer-superficially at least,” he said. “I’ll be able to tell more once I get him on the table. But the killer was a strong son of a bitch. The cut went back so far it nicked the spinal column.” He raised a finger. “But that nick in the bone should let us ID the knife as the murder weapon if we ever get our hands on it.”
“You see anything else that we might pick up from the autopsy?” Harry asked.
“Are you talking about fingerprints on skin, something like that?” He watched Harry nod. “Nothing that’s obvious right now. The body looks fairly clean. There’s some loose hair on the scalp and some more on the shoulders. I suspect the killer held him by the hair to pull his head back just before he cut into the throat.”
“Yes, I saw that,” Harry said. “He didn’t do that with Darlene. He held her close to him when he cut her; pressed up against him. You could tell that from the disturbance their feet made in the sand on that small beach and by the blood splatter evidence from the initial cut.”
Janlow nodded. “But he may not have wanted to do that with a man, to keep him close to him like that.”
“Why is that?” Vicky asked.
Janlow gave her a cautionary look, almost as if he thought his next words might embarrass her. “I don’t know anything for certain, but according to the literature I’ve read on the subject, it’s not uncommon for a killer to become sexually aroused when he kills with a knife, or by strangulation, or anything that brings him in close physical contact with the victim. Maybe in this case our killer didn’t want to be close to another man when he began feeling aroused.”
“He didn’t want it because it was sinful.” There was a faraway sound to Harry’s voice, almost as if he was speaking to himself.
“That could very well be,” Janlow said.
“Maybe he just didn’t want to get blood on himself,” Vicky said with a snide edge in her voice.
Janlow took in the exchange, a small smile forming on his thick lips. “Are we having a professional spat, children?”
“Just a disagreement about who our primary suspect should be,” Harry said.
Janlow grinned at them. “More than one suspect strong enough to be a primary? Be grateful when your cup runs over, kiddies.”
“Except you just got through examining his primary,” Vicky said.
Janlow raised an eyebrow. “The young minister?”
Harry nodded.
Janlow smiled again. “I’ve heard the department folklore that the dead speak to you, Harry, but with this poor devil you might be asking a bit too much. His voice box is all chopped up.” He let out a low cackle, then turned to the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.
Vicky and Harry also turned and saw Jim Morgan coming up toward them.
“Any luck with Benevuto?” Vicky asked.
“He didn’t answer the door at his apartment, and his car wasn’t in the lot,” Jim said. “I tried his cell phone, but didn’t get any response there either.”
“There are a couple of bars he hangs out in,” Harry said. “I’ll give you the names and addresses.” He paused. “Do you intend to bring him in for questioning?”
“That’s the eventual plan,” Jim said. “Right now I was just going to see if he had an alibi for tonight.”
“Take Vicky with you. If you find him, bring him in. Let’s get the interrogation out of the way when the office isn’t full of his peers. But don’t start questioning him until I get there.” Harry glanced at his watch. “I shouldn’t be here much longer. When forensics finishes I’ll connect up with you.”
Vicky gave him a long look. “If we find him and decide to bring him in, do we cuff him?”
Harry let out a long breath. “It’s your call. If he was my suspect, I wouldn’t. He’s still a cop. But he’s also not supposed to be carrying, so pat him down and make sure he isn’t.”
Marty LeBaron, who headed up the CSI unit, pointed to the prints that marred the light tan carpeting on the apartment floor. “We’ve got a beautiful blood footprint leading out the door. The shoes are an eleven-C, and you can see a nice pattern in the heel of one print. They won’t be hard to identify when we find them. Blood gets absorbed into the soles and heels; you never get it all out. So unless our perp tosses them, we find them, we nail his ass to the wall.”
“So find the shoes, we find the killer. Sounds simple,” Harry said.
Marty grinned at him. “It is simple, so why don’t you get your ass moving and do it.”
“You notice anything under the victim’s fingernails, any fingerprints on his skin, defensive wounds?” Harry asked.
“The body was pretty clean. There were some fibers on the back of his shirt. Probably left there when the perp first came up behind him; also some hairs that weren’t his. But it was less than we usually find. We’ll sort it all out back at the lab. As far as skin prints go, nothing. It’s my guess the perp wore latex gloves.”
“So you’d say it was a pretty clean crime scene? Like somebody who knew what they were doing?”
“What are you trying to say, Harry?”
“I want to know if the crime scene looks like it was handled by someone who knew how to keep the level of evidence down.”
“Like a cop?” Marty’s eyes narrowed.
“Some people are looking real hard at a cop,” Harry said.
“I can’t say that, Harry. And I sure as hell wouldn’t testify to that.”
“Ease up, Marty.” Harry placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not trying to nail a cop for this. I just want to be able to answer any questions that come up.”
Marty looked away momentarily. “It could have been someone who knows crime scenes,” he conceded. “For everything except the footprints, that is. It took a real asshole to leave footprints like that. The clown never even made an effort to clean them up. If he had, we probably never would have gotten that heel print.”
“Maybe something scared him off,” Harry speculated.
“The way this guy killed these two people, he doesn’t strike me as the type who scares easy.”
“You wouldn’t think so,” Harry said.
Vicky and Jim found Nick Benevuto in one of the bars Harry had suggested, a Hooters wannabe joint located on 66th Street just off Ulmerton Avenue. Nick was seated in an obscure booth nursing the same drink he had ordered when he arrived an hour earlier. He was dressed in a black silk short-sleeved shirt, open at the collar, and tan slacks with a razor crease. Vicky thought he was living up to his nickname: Nicky the pimp.
“What the fuck do you two want?” he asked as Vicky and Jim stopped at his table. “Or are you just here to feed off what’s left of me? Fucking vultures.”
“We need to know where you were earlier tonight,” Vicky said.
Jim had placed himself so he blocked Nick from making a quick exit from the booth, and Vicky was off to his side so she had a clear field of fire. Nick looked at each of them; saw the way they’d positioned themselves.
“This a bust?”
“We just need to ask you some questions,” Vicky said.
“Ask away.”
“Where were you tonight?”
“I was home. I just came out about an hour ago, wanted to have a couple of drinks. No big surprise. They suspended my ass today.”
“Jim went by your place about two hours ago. Nobody answered the door.”
“I never heard the door.” He glanced up at Morgan, contempt filling his face. “Maybe your rookie partner went to the wrong door.”
“Your car wasn’t in the parking lot,” Morgan said.
“Then I’d already left, asshole. What else can I tell you?”
“So you were at home between two and five this afternoon?” Vicky asked.
“That’s right.”
“Was anybody with you?” Jim asked.
Nick held up his right hand. “Yeah, Mary Fist. I’m sure you know her well, jerkoff.”
“That’s not necessary,” Jim said. “We’re treating you with respect; you can treat us the same way.”
Nick let out a barking laugh. “I got a problem there, boyo. I don’t respect either one of you. So I guess I’d have to fake it.”
“Then fake it,”
Vicky snapped.
“Fuck you,” Nick snapped back.
“On your feet and assume the position,” Jim said.
“What? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Do it,” Jim ordered. “Do it or I’ll charge you with resisting the lawful command of a police officer.”
“You arresting me?”
“You’re going in for questioning,” Vicky said, seizing control back from Morgan. “Let us pat you down for weapons and we won’t use cuffs.”
“Why you cunt…”
“Now,” Morgan growled. His raised voice made several patrons turn to watch them.
The sudden attention seemed to embarrass Benevuto. “Alright, alright,” he said in a softer voice. “But can we do the pat down in the parking lot?”
“As long as you behave yourself,” Vicky said.
Morgan gave her a look that told her he thought it was a mistake to grant Benevuto’s request.
Benevuto reached into his pocket and then froze when he saw Morgan and Vicky tense. “I just want to pay for my drink,” he said. He removed a wad of folded bills held by a money clip, pulled out a ten, and placed it next to his half-finished drink. “I suppose you don’t wanna wait for me to get change.”
“Leave the whole thing,” Vicky said. “It’ll make the waitress remember you.”
Nick was alone in the interrogation room when Harry arrived at the office. Vicky and Jim filled him in.
“So he has no alibi for the time period when Bobby Joe was killed,” he said when they had finished.
“None,” Vicky replied. “And when we found him he was dressed in clothes that looked like they’d just come from the cleaner. I checked with Rourke and got an idea of what he wore to work today. It didn’t even come close. I’d like to get a warrant to search his condo.”
Harry held up a hand. “I don’t think we have enough probable cause for a warrant. Let’s interrogate him first, see what you come up with, and then we’ll decide where we go from there.”
“Are you going to question him?” Jim asked. There was an edge in his voice that Harry picked up on-as though he feared Harry might try to steal Benevuto away now that his own suspect was dead.
Harry shook his head, and glanced at each of them in turn. “I’ll watch through the glass. The interrogation is all yours.”
Vicky and Jim huddled outside the interrogation room, setting up strategy, as Harry entered the viewing area. He took a chair facing the one-way window. Nick Benevuto was seated no more than ten feet away, isolated and alone. Harry saw a lonely, beaten man, not the same pushy, thoroughly obnoxious detective he had worked with for more than five years. All the cockiness was gone from his eyes and Harry knew that any manifestation of it that he managed to force out would be little more than false bravado.
Nick’s head snapped around to the sound of the door opening and he watched Vicky and Jim enter and take chairs opposite him across a small metal table. There was a mix of relief and irritation in his eyes. Harry understood it. Suspects did not like to be isolated, especially in a small, closed, windowless room. They felt threatened by it. But they were equally threatened by the interrogation that followed. It was a confusing mix of emotions. Nick showed that now. He glared at his fellow detectives with open disgust. It was a feeling, Harry knew, that would never fully disappear, no matter the outcome. And he had little doubt that there would also be a dose of it for him as well.
Speaking to no one in particular, Vicky gave the date, the time, the location, and the names of all persons present; then advised Nick that the interrogation was being tape recorded, and that he had a right to have an attorney present.
Nick waved the statement off. “I don’t need a lawyer. If I decide I do, I’ll tell you your interrogation is over.”
“Fair enough,” Vicky said.
“Let’s start with Darlene Beckett,” Jim began, indicating that he would take the lead in the interrogation.
It was a smart move, Harry thought. Nick’s attitude toward women would keep him from dealing with Vicky with any degree of openness. On the other hand, by taking the secondary role, she could jump in and force an issue whenever an irritant was needed.
“Start wherever you want,” Nick said. “You can start with Marilyn Monroe. I didn’t kill her either.”
“You already admitted that you had a sexual relationship with Darlene. Isn’t that true?”
“I slept with her a couple of times. I was trying to get her to turn snitch for me, and I was trying to get close to her. I got a little too close. It was a mistake.”
“How many mistakes did you make?” Jim asked.
Nick glared at him. “Do you mean how many times did I fuck her? It’s okay, kid, you can say the word. Your tongue won’t turn black and fall out.”
Harry saw Jim’s jaw tighten, but he kept his cool. “How many times?” he asked again.
Nick gave out a little snort. “Three, four, I didn’t keep count. To tell you the truth, for all her looks she wasn’t that great.”
“Then why did you keep going back?” Vicky snapped.
Nick seemed pleased that he had irritated her. “I didn’t say she was terrible. I might even go back to a bitch like you for a second or third roll in the hay. Who knows?”
“Not on the best day of your life, slimeball,” Vicky retorted.
Jim raised a hand, calling for an end to it, and Nick laughed out loud. First round to the suspect, Harry thought.
“According to the younger Reverend Waldo you were pressing Darlene for sex, but it never happened,” Jim said. “At least that’s what she allegedly told him.”
“And?”
“Who’s telling the truth, you or him?”
“Was he fucking her too?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“No it’s not, rookie,” Nick barked, taking charge again. “If he was fucking her, why would she admit that she was balling me too? She might say I wanted to fuck her to make him jealous, but why tell him she’d already spread her legs for me?”
“Jealousy, that’s an interesting point,” Jim said. “You didn’t know that she was sleeping with him-with Reverend Bobby Joe Waldo?”
“I assumed she was sleeping with anybody who had a dick. That’s the kind of broad she was. For crissake, she slept with fourteen-year-old kids, didn’t she?”
“So you expected her to be promiscuous,” Jim said.
“Shit, it was a fact of life.” He leaned closer to them, lowering his voice in a mocking manner. “It was on TV, in the newspapers, it was no fucking secret. So, yeah, I expected it. I never went near the broad without a box of condoms in my pocket.”
“So you weren’t jealous of her other lovers,” Vicky said.
“No,” Nick shot back.
Harry looked at Jim. It was time for him to jump in. He did, and he came in hard.
“You’re a liar,” he snapped, his eyes cold and hard on Nick.
“Fuck you,” Nick responded weakly. He hadn’t anticipated the sudden turn, the hard edge to Jim’s body language. He thought he was in control and it had taken him by surprise.
“You were jealous of every man who had ever been with her. She was beautiful, more beautiful than any woman you’d ever had. Men saw her on television and sat in their living rooms wanting her. And now you had her. You, Nick Benevuto, a short, fat, aging womanizer, who could only get a woman when he could browbeat or threaten her into it. And you weren’t going to let this one slip away. You weren’t going to share her with anybody. So you started following her, and when you caught her with that pathetic salesman, all dressed up like a cowboy, you flipped out and killed them both.”
“Prove it. It’s all bullshit!”
Harry watched Jim bear in, ignoring Nick’s denial.
“And when you realized what you’d done, you knew you had to do two things. First, you had to move the body so it was sure to come under county jurisdiction, where you’d have some involvement in the investigation. And second, you knew people were watching her, and that somebody might have seen your department car at Darlene’s house, might even have written down the license plate, so you had to cover yourself, you had to alter department records so they never showed you taking that particular car out.”
“It’s bullshit and you know it.”
Again, Jim ignored him. “And then you found out that Bobby Joe Waldo knew about you and Darlene, so you went to him and threatened him, scared the living hell out of him. But Harry Doyle was on his case; had him named as a suspect because people had seen him at Darlene’s house. And you knew Harry was good, you knew he’d break him down eventually, and that the little punk would give you up to save himself. So this afternoon you went to see him, didn’t you?”
“What the fuck are you talking about? I was never anywhere near that dope-peddling little prick. I never even met the son of a bitch.”
“You went to him and you killed him, just like you killed Darlene. You killed him because you knew he’d not only tell Harry about you and Darlene, about how you’d threatened her and blackmailed her into having sex with you, but that he’d tell him how you were threatening him to keep his mouth shut. You knew Harry would break him eventually, and so you had no choice. It was a ball rolling downhill and you couldn’t stop it.”
“The kid minister is dead?”
Harry noted the genuine shock on Nick’s face. If he was acting, he’d missed his calling in life.
“Stop the innocent act, Nick,” Vicky said. “If you want to show us you had nothing to do with this, let us toss your apartment, right now, tonight.”
Harry could see the wheels turning in Nick’s head. He was clearly thinking about what they might find there if he allowed a search. But it wasn’t necessarily what they might find about Darlene or Bobby Joe Waldo. Harry knew if they tossed his apartment and found the duplicate evidence he kept at home, he might easily face a suspension. Very few cops, if any, were clean as the driven snow. If the department wanted to get something on you, there was always something they could find.
“Let me think about it?” Nick said.
“Think about it for how long?” Jim asked.
“A day or two,” Nick said, knowing it was more than they’d agree to, but also knowing they’d have a tough time getting a search warrant any faster.
“Just enough time to clean out the place,” Vicky said. “That’s bull.
Would you give a suspect a day or two?”
“So now I’m a suspect? I thought I was a brother cop.”
“You’re both,” Jim said.
Nick leaned forward again, glaring at him. “If I wanted to toss a suspect’s crib, I’d get a search warrant. Maybe you should do that, rookie.”
“So you’re refusing?” Vicky asked.
“You bet your ass I’m refusing. And as far as I’m concerned, this interview is over.”
Nick sat back in his chair, stone-faced, hands in his lap. Harry noticed that his hands were trembling slightly. He was scared, and he should be scared. Harry was sure murder charges would never hold up. But Nick had to know they could be filed. Mistakes had been made before. Harry still didn’t make him for either murder. It just didn’t add up, and he’d fight filing charges against Nick. But at best the guy’s career had been tarnished beyond redemption. Even if he remained with the department, it would never again be in a position of trust or authority.
“You still don’t make Nick for either murder?” Vicky’s tone was pure incredulity.
“Are you going to back us on a warrant?”
“Go for your warrant,” Harry said. “I agree he’s a viable suspect. I just don’t think he’s our guy.”
“And who do you think is?” Jim asked.
Harry studied his shoes for a moment, considering how much he wanted to say. “I still think it’s someone connected to Bobby Joe’s church. And I think he knew who that person was, and it was somebody who really scared the hell out of him.”
“You said his father scared him to death,” Vicky said.
“No, this wasn’t someone who just intimidated him. This was somebody who made Bobby Joe believe he’d be killed if he ever talked. But his father was part of it. His father sent out a call asking his parishioners to get something on Darlene. Bobby Joe answered that call-that’s how he met Darlene. But our killer answered it too, and Bobby Joe knew it. That’s what eventually got him killed. The parents of the kid Darlene molested gave me a copy of a church bulletin where that call from Reverend Waldo was repeated. That’s the only thing that was taken from my house when the killer broke in. That’s the connection, that church bulletin. So I’m going to find out why it was important enough to make our killer risk breaking into my house. And when I do, I’ll know who killed Darlene and Bobby Joe.”
“I don’t buy it, Harry,” Vicky said. “It still could have been Nick Benevuto. Bobby Joe knew about him and his connection to Darlene. And Nick smells to high heaven on this. The only thing we haven’t been able to do is place him at the scene. When we get our warrant, we’ll do that. In the meantime, I need people watching his house to keep him from removing any evidence.”
“I’ll assign the two Tarpon detectives, Davis and Deaver. You two can alternate with them, take turns sitting on him. One at a time, six-hour shifts each.”
“That’s going to slow us down,” Vicky complained.
“I can’t help it,” Harry said. “Give it thirty-six hours. If you don’t get a warrant by then, you’re not going to get one. But right now I can’t spare any more manpower.”
“You can’t spare it for a suspect you don’t believe in,” she said.
Harry gave her a long, hard look. “That’s right, Vicky, not for a suspect I don’t believe in.”