Deep Dark (25 page)

“Ahem.”

Jordan's gaze darted over her shoulder, and Veronica froze.

“Hey, Jay. What's up?” Jordan chirped.

Crap, crap, crap.
Veronica cringed but didn't turn around.

“Novak just got here. He wants to talk to you.”

“Thanks.” Jordan gave her a quick glance and walked out, leaving her alone with Jay. She turned around.

“You, too, Ronnie.”

His face looked blank, so maybe he hadn't overheard. Maybe.

She followed him across the condo and stepped through the front door into the blazing sunlight. The crime-scene van was parked on the street behind Phelps's black Saab.

She hazarded a look at Jay. His expression was hard now, and he wouldn't make eye contact.
Crap
.

She cleared her throat. “Back there with Jordan, what I meant was—”

“Forget it.” He strode over to the crime-scene van, where Reed and Jordan were standing beside the open cargo doors.

“What time was that?” Reed was asking the detective.

“About eight o'clock,” she said. “Dispatch took the call around seven fifteen. A neighbor out walking his dog happened to glance inside the car. Said he'd heard about the Abrams murder on the news and knew Phelps worked at the same company as the victim, so he decided to call it in. A patrol officer came over and did a pass-by on foot, then called the squad room. I showed up a few minutes later, and the Saab was parked here on the street.”

Reed nodded at the car. “And everything was just sitting there in plain view?”

“Right in the backseat,” Jordan said. “A bloodstained T-shirt and a bloody hammer.”

“Where's the fiancée right now?” Reed asked.

“I hear she's out of town for the weekend,” Jay said. “Left yesterday evening.”

“Okay, so Jordan responded to the scene around eight
A.M
.” Reed looked at Veronica. “And when did you get here?”

“About twenty minutes after that. I actually live not too far from here.” She glanced at Jay, who was looking impressively blank again.

“What about Hall?” Reed asked Jay.

“He showed up when I did. He wanted to get Phelps down to the station to see if he'd talk to us while we lit a fire under some judge to sign off on the search warrant.”

“And Phelps went in voluntarily?”

“No arguments,” Jay said. “We didn't put him under arrest or anything.”

“We weren't drawing attention to his car at that point,” Jordan added. “He was totally cooperative.”

Veronica watched Reed's reaction. He looked perplexed, and she didn't blame him. It was an unusual turn of events, to say the least.

“So where's everything now?” Reed looked at her.

“Here.” She stepped over to the crime-scene van. “The shirt is sealed in an envelope already, but the hammer is in a box.” She grabbed a mask and gloves from a supply kit and handed them to him. “Wear this if you want to look. The last thing we want to do is contaminate anything.”

Veronica secured a mask over her mouth and nose. She carefully removed the lid to the box, and Reed eased closer to look inside.

It was a silver hammer, long and slender. The instrument was shiny and elegant-looking—except for the circular face, which was coated with dried blood. Veronica pulled the box closer, and sunlight glinted off a strand of blond hair.

Reed's eyes flashed to hers. “You have a ruler?”

She pulled a measuring tape from her pocket and handed it over. He let out several inches of tape and held it up to the face of the hammer.

“What'd you get?” Jay asked. “Does it fit the description?”

“One-point-five inches.” Reed looked at him. “It fits.”

•   •   •

By the time Reed got back to the station, Phelps had been cooling his heels in an interview room for more than three hours. Reed swung by the lab and found Veronica at a computer looking at fingerprints. She glanced up.

“You finish with his laptop yet?” he asked.

“I got what I needed and delivered it to Paul.”

“What about the cell phone?”

“Same.”

Reed's phone buzzed as he headed upstairs, and he recognized the number of the Ann Arbor detective he'd left a message for earlier. He took the call to his desk.

“I got your message,” the detective said, and Reed pegged him for a veteran cop based on the sound of his voice. “You guys turn up something on our cold case?”

“Possibly. It looks like your case has some similarities with one down here in Austin. You remember much about the investigation? I realize it's eight years ago.”

“It's not something you forget,” he said. “The victim was nineteen. She'd been raped and had her skull bashed in. It was bad. And I had teenage girls at the time.”

No wonder he'd returned Reed's call so quickly. The detective had probably lost a lot of sleep over the case through the years.

“According to the records, they think a hammer was used?” Reed asked.

“They never did figure out what kind. That was one of the mysteries. It wasn't your standard size, according to the pathologist who looked at the skull injuries.”

“I'd like to read the file. You mind shooting it over?”

“Sure. You'll want to check the sketch, too, see if it reminds you of anyone you're looking at.”

“There's a sketch?”

“Yeah, we had a witness at one point. Victim's neighbor. He claimed he saw a man around her apartment the day before the murder, maybe tampering with her lights. We had him sit down with a police artist to come up with a drawing.”

“I'd definitely like to see it.” Reed rattled off his email address and asked the detective to call him if he thought of anything else that might help. Almost as soon as he ended the conversation, another call came in.
U
NAVAILABLE
, which was probably Laney's new phone. She'd given him her number this morning, admitting the possibility that someone might be spying on her digitally.

“I was about to call you,” Reed said.

“I bet.” She sounded sarcastic. “You tell your lieutenant about the cold cases?”

“Not yet. Where are you?”

“Just picked up my car from the impound lot. Listen, I've got some news. I talked to Scream's brother a few minutes ago.”

“Gantz's brother?”

“Yeah, he tells me Edward bounced back after the last round of meds. He's doing much better now, and they decided to go ahead and release him today. I'm going to stop by and see him later.”

Reed didn't say anything. He didn't like the idea of her going to visit the guy, not until they sorted all this out. And probably not even then. Gantz had a long rap sheet, and the last time she'd been to see him, she'd nearly been killed.

“He's awake and alert now,” she said, “just in case you want to interview him or anything.”

“You said he hates cops.”

“He does, but you're not FBI, so you might have a better chance. You should at least try to talk to him.”

“I will. But I've got my hands full right now with some new developments. We executed a search warrant at Ian Phelps's place.”

“You—wait, what?”

“Ian Phelps.”

“Are you serious? How many times do I have to tell you Ian didn't do this? Come on. He's a sales guy, not much going on upstairs. There's no way he pulled off an exploit of this magnitude.”

“I know all that, Laney, but we found evidence in his car. A potential murder weapon.”

“
What?
”

“A body hammer. With blood on it. And some bloodstained clothes.”

“Are you making this up?”

“No. Why?”

She laughed. “Because it's utterly absurd, Reed. Who leaves evidence like that in a car?”

“Maybe someone who doesn't have much going on upstairs. Or someone who wants to get caught.”

“You don't really believe that, do you?”

“I'm not sure what to believe at this point. But I definitely have some questions to ask him.”

“Get me his computer,” she said. “I will absolutely prove to you Ian had nothing to do with this.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

“Ha. You think I believe you? You're trying to fucking placate me, Reed. You don't want me involved.”

“You're right, I don't.”

“Well, I
am
involved. Give me an hour with that computer, and I'll disprove this stupid case theory.”

“How can you be so sure he didn't do it?” Reed asked, just to hear her make her argument.

“Because I
know
the guy, Reed. Ian's a lot of things—a womanizer and a narcissist and even a halfway decent software salesman. But a hacker he is not. Ian Phelps couldn't defeat a Rubik's Cube. There's no way he could pull off an exploit like this.”

Reed scrubbed a hand over his face. He was tired and discouraged and sick of arguing.

“Where's his computer now?” she asked.

“In our lab.”

“Let me come in and take a look.”

“Laney—”

“At least let me talk to Paul, tell him what to look for.”

The door swung open, and Jordan walked out. “Damn it, there you are. Hall's looking for you. He wants to get started with Phelps.”

“Laney, I have to go. Call you later, okay?”

But she'd already clicked off.

•   •   •

Reed found the lieutenant in the observation room. The screen mounted on the wall showed black-and-white video footage of Ian Phelps sitting by himself in an interview room.

“We need to get cracking,” Hall said. “So far, he's cocky and overconfident. He waived his Miranda rights, but we need to get things moving before he changes his mind.”

Reed glanced at the screen again. Phelps look thoroughly bored. Not the reaction Reed would have expected for a man who'd been picked up by investigators before managing to stash a bloody murder weapon someplace safe.

“This is his sheet?” Reed took the paperwork from the table.

“Yeah.”

He'd seen the information before. The guy had almost nothing on his record—just a half-dozen speeding tickets over the past decade.

This didn't feel right to him. None of it, including Laney going to visit Gantz today. Reed was goddamn sick of her pushing him away and ignoring his advice.

“You need to finesse this thing,” Hall instructed.

The lieutenant was all hyped up, no doubt relieved to have a suspect he could parade in front of a camera just as the media was getting wind of the serial-killer angle.

“Finesse what, exactly?” Reed asked. Hall made it sound like he wanted him to pull a confession out of thin air.

“You've talked to him before, so see if you can get him comfortable, get him talking. We want him to retell his story about the night of the Abrams murder, catch him in some inconsistencies. Pin him down, get him to lie, but don't let him know you're doing it.”

Reed shot Hall a look, then took the file and made a stop by the break room. He bought a couple of Cokes from the vending machine and grabbed some paper from the recycle bin to beef up the file. Then he walked into the interview room.

“Ian. How's it going, bro?” He tossed the file down and slid a Coke across the table.

“This is harassment,” Phelps said. “I've got half a mind to call my attorney.”

“You're welcome to.” Reed offered him his phone, and Phelps eyed it suspiciously. “Or I can get you a private room if you want. Maybe you'd rather use a landline?”

He glanced at his watch. “Let's just get this over with. I've got a tee time at two.”

“Shouldn't be a problem.” Reed popped open his Coke. He opened the file and took a long look at it as he sipped. Phelps took the other Coke and watched Reed defiantly as he popped the top and guzzled it down.

“Says here you're twenty-nine.” Reed flipped a page. “Where'd you go to school?”

“UT.”

Reed looked at him. “University of Texas?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “Come on. Is this what you waited three hours to ask me?”

Reed smiled. “We're getting to it. April Abrams, she went to Vanderbilt University, is that right?”

“Right.”

“That's up in Tennessee. Nashville, I believe.”

Another sigh.

“You graduated what, seven years ago? Eight?”

“Seven.”

“That's undergraduate?”

“Yes.”

Reed thumbed through the file, as if it contained anything relevant. “And your major was . . . let's see . . .”

“Communications.” Phelps leaned forward, setting his elbows on the table. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“Just something I was wondering.” He closed the file and pushed it aside. “You maybe get a master's degree along the way?”

“No.”

“You ever do any summer school or maybe an internship anywhere?”

“Summer school, yes. Here in Austin.”

“What about University of Michigan?”

“What about it?” He glanced at his watch again.

“You ever take any classes up there? Or live there for any length of time?”

His brow furrowed. “No.”

“Ever visit any friends or family in Michigan? Maybe take a vacation?”

“No.” He was scowling now. “I never set foot in Michigan.”

“You never set foot there.”

“Maybe I've been through an airport. So what?”

The door opened behind Reed.

“Detective?” Jordan gave him a pointed look. “Sorry to interrupt, but you've got a phone call.”

Reed excused himself. Out in the hall, Jordan shot him a look. “He's pissed.”

Reed walked into the surveillance room, and Hall was red as a beet.

“What the fuck, Novak?”