Blood Score (20 page)

“Yeah, the guy had a serious man crush on his neighbor,” Schumacher said.

“
Well, I’ll be damned.” Cronan stared at the countless souvenirs and images of the violinist that occupied every inch of the space. “This guy could be our stalker.”

“
Looks like his fixation has gone on for years,” Angel added. “Some of these pictures are of Ethan when he was a kid. There are ticket stubs and dated souvenirs that go back. Unbelievable.”

“
Looks like the guy took it pretty hard that he got turned away backstage.”

“
What are talking about?” Angel asked him.

Cronan pointed to shards of glass strewn across the room and a broken liquor bottle with its neck still intact. Someone had tossed it at a large photo of Ethan Chandler and cracked the glass on the portrait. The frame hung at a slant on the wall. McFarland hadn’t bothered to clean up the mess.

“He got pissed off when Bryce got in his face backstage after the concert. McFarland may have turned that anger on our fiddle player.”

Angel nodded without a word.

“There’s a gift box you need to see too,” Schumacher said. “It’s addressed to Ethan Chandler, but with McFarland’s home address. A bottle of Scotch. There’s a brochure inside from an auction house. Whatever came in this box had to cost some coin.”

Angel caught Cronan’s eye.

“That confrontation McFarland had with Bryce didn’t look like a new thing. It had roots. Bryce said he knew about his good neighbor policy. Maybe this package sparked something.” She glared around the room. “Ethan Chandler lived next door to his number one fan. I wonder if Bryce and Rachel knew about this guy’s hobby.”

Angel had made a good point on what might’ve fueled last night’s altercation. After McFarland tried to crash Chandler’s party backstage and got turned away by Rachel’s pit bull, Bryce Peterson, that ugly confrontation could have antagonized an already contentious neighbor relationship. Given Chandler’s obsessed entourage, the scenario could have turned ugly for any number of reasons, but at the center of it all was Ethan Chandler.

“Don’t leave our fiddle player off that list,” Cronan told her. “He’s the one who lives next door. If he got unwanted attention, he’d be the first to know. If he talked to Bryce about the guy, he could’ve said something to Rachel, too.”

“
Or Bryce passed on what he knew, without Ethan knowing it. When Evelyn Carmichael and her cabana boy asked about the guy who’d caused a scene, Rachel said McFarland was Ethan’s neighbor, and she’d fill her in later. I don’t think Ethan heard her say that.”

Angel had ignored his not-so-subtle hint that Ethan Chandler remained on his suspect list. She was still painting him as a victim. If McFarland had intended to make a public rooftop display of his death by suicide, Cronan could now understand who the note had been meant for. His ‘solo performance’ would’ve been aimed at the young musician he’d centered his world on, if it had gone that far. How much Chandler knew about his neighbor, Cronan had no idea, but he intended to find out.

“I found something to narrow your suspect list to a party of one.” Schumacher held a plastic evidence bag in his hand and swung it.

The bag had a cell phone in it.

“He had more than one cell. He had a personal one on a charger in his bathroom, but when I found a second one in this very private room, I recognized the number. It’s the prepaid burner phone that texted the Davenport girl.” With a broad grin, Schumacher handed Cronan the bagged cell and said, “He didn’t toss it, thus making another memorable entry in the chronicles of stupid criminals.”

Angel looked relieved, but she asked,
“You sure it’s the same phone?”

“
Yeah. Confirmed,” the senior investigator said. “I’ll check it for prints and see what else I can find to make it solid, but I’m thinking this is pretty damning evidence in the Davenport case.”

With the circumstantial evidence piling high and the chief chewing on his ass for results, Cronan knew Tim McFarland had become a homicide detective’s wet dream—a slam dunk case that would satisfy the man in charge and the DA’s office. On the surface, his death looked like the suicide of a man who obsessively stalked a celebrity, but finding the burner phone in his possession linked him to Olivia Davenport’s murder.

If the knife he’d used to slice his wrists turned out to be consistent with the depth and width of the blade that killed Olivia—whether or not there was blood evidence to link the weapon to the murder—the DA and the chief would push to point the finger at McFarland. Most detectives would’ve been thrilled, but something triggered Cronan’s hinky vibe.

He didn’t like the tidy explanation that came with evidence wrapped in a bow. There were too many players with secrets to suit Cronan and all of them had an unnatural obsession to protect Ethan Chandler.

Why?

Chapter 13

Downtown Chicago

Cronan had plenty on his mind and since he thought better on a full stomach, he convinced Angel to join him at one of his favorite stops. Slim’s on Montrose was located in the trendy neighborhoods of Ravenswood and Lincoln Square. They had burger joint prices with homemade goodness and a chef’s touch of quality that never changed.

The distinctive awning on the outside had the name of the place in red and white. Inside the brick building, Slim’s had a black and white checkerboard floor, an order counter in front of the sizzling grill, and plasma screens running sports at every angle. Every time Cronan walked into the place, it brought back good memories.

“Manny’s Fire Dogs, coming right up.” Dressed in a black polo with the Slim’s logo, the guy behind the counter grinned and yelled his standing order to the short order cook before Cronan opened his mouth.

“
What about you, Angel?” the man asked.

“
I’ll have the grilled chicken pita, Vinny. Gabe’s buying.”

“
Smart man.” Vinny rang up their order and made change.

Cronan was addicted to the Chicago-style hot dogs at Slim’s, but when Manny ordered a double dog basket with curly fries and added a heaping pile of jalapenos—on top of the usual concoction of mustard, relish, onions, tomatoes, pickles, sport peppers & celery salt on a steamed bun—that’s when the order deserved recognition. After Manny got diagnosed, Vinny added his fire dog special to the menu. His best friend had called it ‘
being
immortalized in mystery meat
.’

Cronan fed the tip jar at the counter and slid into a corner booth with Angel to wait for their food.

“So what do you think?” she asked.

“
I think…” Cronan reached for napkins from a dispenser on the table and shrugged. “…grilled chicken pitas are for lightweights who can’t take the heat.”

“
Or someone without a cast iron stomach.” She smiled and stared into his eyes in a way that always dug into his heart before she said, “This place brings back great memories.”

“
Yeah.”

In that moment, it struck Cronan as strange that he’d brought her here—a joint where they both shared memories with Manny. Was he sabotaging any hope he had of a life with her by keeping Manny between them? Or was he reminding her how much she’d loved Manny so she wouldn’t make a mistake with someone new—someone who wasn’t
him
?

Either way he felt like an ass.

His love for Manny had brought him closer to Angel. He saw what it meant to be loved without venturing into those murky waters, but his respect for his only real friend had kept him from crossing a line with her now. Coming to Slim’s hadn’t been the smartest idea. A shrink might’ve thought he had deliberately kept her at a distance for a reason.

If people sought the love that they felt they deserved, what did that say about him?

“Why did you bring me here, Gabe?” She reached across the table and touched his hand. “No jokes, okay?”

When it mattered, Angel never let him get away with anything. Her eyes made it hard to sling his usual bullshit. She stared at him, waiting. He felt the intimacy of her soft fingers on his hand that sent a rush of heat through his body.

If he were a better man, he should’ve told her how he felt about her right then—that he’d had these feelings for her since before he’d ever introduced her to Manny. His best friend had been a good guy without all the baggage he carried. Manny had the goods, and he let her love him. There were times Cronan wondered why he couldn’t let her in, but his answer always came back the same.

Angel deserved better.

‘Why did you bring me here, Gabe?’
Her question had become a wall between them, when it could’ve been a door meant to be opened.

“
I don’t know, Angel.” Cronan told her the truth—just not all of it. She looked disappointed, like she’d caught him in a lie and knew it.

“
You’ve been telling me that I should move on,” she said. “I can’t argue with you on that. I’m tired of feeling sad. Manny left a hole in my life that I don’t know how to fill.”

“
Yeah, you do. You need to know that it’s all right to move on…and find someone…new.” Cronan felt her looking at him, but he couldn’t hold her stare.

“
Is there something you’re not telling me?” Angel tossed him an easy softball over the plate, ready for him to take a swing. “Talk to me, Gabe. Tell me what you’re thinking. I can see there’s something bothering you…and it’s not just this case.”

Cronan fixed his eyes on her and took a deep breath as the noise of the restaurant faded to nothing. All he saw was Angel, backlit by the light from the front window. When he opened his mouth to answer her, he had no idea what he’d say.

“You deserve to be loved.”

His words were out, and they sounded like they came from someone else. He’d stepped perilously close to a precipice and teetered on the brink of change.

“So do you.” Her voice was so hushed that she almost mouthed the words.

Being this close to Angel—nearly saying how he felt with her holding his hand—the intense rush of it was painful and addictive at the same time. His brain pinged with the realization that if he went too far, things would never be the same again. Yet the rest of his anatomy wanted…
more
.

Angel stared at him with tears welling in her eyes. When she grasped his hand tighter, he loved how her hand felt in his. But after she pulled from him and looked away, he didn’t know why she’d broken off their connection until he heard Vinny’s voice over his shoulder.

“Grilled chicken pita for the lovely lady…and Manny’s Fire Dogs for the gent. Anything else?”

Angel made small talk with Vinny when Cronan didn’t feel like it. Like a good partner, she knew when to cover for him, but his moment with her had come and gone. After her fingers pulled from his hand, Cronan sobered up as if he got hit with cold water. If Angel had feelings for the violinist—or anyone else—he didn’t want to stand in her way. She deserved to be happy. She deserved someone better than him.

Cronan took a bite of peppered tube steak and chewed in silence. Angel picked at her pita sandwich until the conversation shifted to the case and they got into it.

“
The chief will push us to close the Davenport case, now that they have the McFarland motive, but something doesn’t feel right,” he said. “That missing front door key bugs me, and someone could’ve planted that burner phone to make the neighbor look guilty. It’s too easy.”

“
Maybe it
is
that easy.” She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “If our guys find the key and make that question go away, would you see McFarland as our killer?”

“
No, something else is bothering me. If McFarland was gay and obsessed with Chandler, why did Olivia look the way she did when she died? Her skirt was hiked up, and her blouse was unbuttoned.”

“
He could’ve done that to throw suspicion off a gay man.”

“
But then why openly send a stalker letter claiming to have killed Olivia? I’m not saying he’s our letter writer, but whether or not he is, all he had to do was…nothing. He wasn’t on our radar. And why call attention to himself with that backstage argument?”

Cronan didn’t wait for her to answer. He shook his head and took a bite of curly fries.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I keep coming back to Chandler being at the hub of something. He’s got a circle of people around him who would do anything to protect him. Who knew about the neighbor’s obsession? Who would Ethan have told if something had happened between McFarland and our boy?”

Angel took a bite of her sandwich and thought about it.

“Bryce definitely knew. Maybe it had something to do with that gift box and the delivery addresses getting switched. I heard Bryce say that Ethan had told him about McFarland’s
good neighbor policy
. His sarcasm was obvious. And when Evelyn Carmichael and her boy toy asked about that argument backstage, Rachel was pretty quick to spread the word about McFarland.” Angel shrugged. “Hell, anybody hearing that quarrel between Bryce, Rachel, and McFarland would’ve wondered what could be wrong between neighbors.”

His partner was right. Anyone within earshot would have seen and heard the altercation and wondered how things had gotten heated. The bad blood was obvious.

“I wonder if McFarland had a tie to Simone’s. He doesn’t travel in the same circles as Olivia and Ethan, but maybe there’s another connection.”

“
Why does he have to be connected to Moreau’s sex club? Do you know something you’re not telling me?” She glared at him in a way that women do when they’re trying to make a point that read better between the lines.

“
After I saw the sex toys at our vic’s home, I had an angle to investigate. I didn’t make a beeline to Simone. I hit several places that cater to the BDSM crowd before I talked to her. With Simone, I had to go alone and it paid off.”

“
Yeah, I’ll bet. Why alone? Didn’t you think I could take it? I’m your partner. You should’ve included me. It wouldn’t be my first bump and grind rodeo.”

A tough cop like Angel never liked to be treated different than her male counterparts. He understood that and respected it, but he wasn’t sure that was her
only
reason to object. The way she looked at him now, it felt like their old argument of him going rogue and investigating on his own, had turned personal.

“
I knew Simone wouldn’t have talked to me, like she usually does, if you were there. She’s a confidential informant that I don’t have to pay.”

“
That might be the
only
thing she doesn’t do for money.”

Cronan narrowed his eyes at her and went on.

“I have history with Simone because of her sister’s murder, but there’s never been anything more between us. Never.”

Cronan didn’t know why he felt the need to explain his relationship with Simone, but the fire in Angel’s eyes cooled.

“Did you ever ask Chandler about…the sex?” he asked. “Was
she
into the toys and fantasy play…or was
he
?”

He pushed for an answer on Chandler. Angel didn’t look happy, but she didn’t hesitate either.

“Ethan told me she was the one who had the fantasies, and she liked role play, but he went along with it…for obvious reasons.”

“
When did he say that?” he asked.

Angel blinked and hesitated before she said,
“When I met him at Bogart’s.”

If his partner didn’t like his rogue investigation into the sex clubs, she got reminded of her solo meet with a suspect at Bogart’s. Cronan couldn’t point the finger at her without looking in the mirror either, but something more bothered him.

From his recent visit with Simone he’d learned that Ethan had been the paying member at Chez Moreau, not Olivia. Yet the musician had misdirected his partner by implying the rough sex play and games had come from Olivia, as if he were an innocent bystander who had no connection to ‘the life’ except through her. Something wasn’t right. Had the prominent violinist merely avoided the truth to keep his reputation intact, or had he lied to cover his ass in the death of his girlfriend?

In that moment, sitting across from Angel at Slim’s, he made up his mind to search McFarland’s place again, without her. Maybe neither of them could be objective, one way or the other, when it came to the guilt or innocence of the violinist. But Cronan thought it would be better to error on the side of letting the evidence support or deny the truth, rather than turning a blind eye, so to speak.

“Do you think he’s telling you the truth?” Cronan shoved his half-eaten basket of dogs to the side. He’d lost his appetite.

She thought about it and said,
“Yeah, I do. Gut instinct, but I got nothing else to back up that feeling.”

Cronan only nodded. He had nothing else to support his version of the truth either. Until he did, he wouldn’t risk bursting the bubble of his partner’s high opinion of Ethan Chandler. Holding back on his doubts wasn’t about the case anymore. Angel had the right to be happy, even if that meant he had to finally let go.

***

Evening

If Cronan wasn’t working such a high-profile case that included face time with the chief, he would’ve been looking for a fight. The underground fight club would’ve pounded him into the oblivion of a dreamless sleep. Without the punishment of a good fight, he had to find release another way.

After he got home and fed One-eyed Jack, he hit his makeshift gym located beneath the metal rafters of his lofted bed. He had free weights, an exercise mat, and other contraptions to work on his abs, but hanging from metal girders, he had a seventy-pound punching bag, his chosen method of abuse now.