Faces of Evil [4] Rage (7 page)

Lori harrumphed. “Did you get that from Lifetime’s movie of the week?” She passed him the marker and he added his scenario without acknowledging her jab. “Not to mention, if that were the motive, why didn’t he take the child?”

“Maybe someone interrupted him,” Harper argued. “He had no choice but to flee the scene without the child.”

Officer Cook joined them at the case board. “Other than the broken slider, there wasn’t the first sign of a struggle or an attempt to get away from her attacker inside the house. Don’t things usually get turned over or broken? Besides the glass and the blood where the victim was found, the place was neat as a pin. Did the intruder have a gun and that prevented her from fighting or”—he looked from Harper to Jess—“did she know her attacker? Maybe an old lover, like Sergeant Harper said. Did the broken slider have anything to do with the murder? Maybe that happened before the killer arrived or when he was leaving. Or maybe the killer just wanted it to look as if someone broke into the house.”

“You going for brownie points, Cook?” Lori teased.

“Valid scenario, Cook,” Jess said with a chastising glance at Lori.

Cook added his two cents’ worth to the board.
Did vic know her assailant?

“The pool guy said the kid was driving her nuts,” Lori reminded them. “Maybe she was bored and lonely and had gotten involved with the wrong people. Could be a recent lifestyle change. Bored housewife and all that jazz. The reality TV industry is making a killing on what America’s housewives are up to.”

Jess nodded. Another credible scenario. “We need to know if Mrs. Grayson was suffering from depression or anxiety related to motherhood or to her marriage. Was her husband not paying attention to her needs and worries as her old pal Trenton suggested? And what had she done about that?”

Harper reached for the marker and added
husband’s lack of attention
to the growing list.

Jess turned to Lori. “Detective, track down Gabrielle’s girlfriends or coworkers from her nursing days. Find out who she was and what she did when she wasn’t busy being a wife and mother. See if anyone is aware of her ever skating on the dark side with a bad guy like Lopez.”

“I could also dig around to see if she’d joined any support groups,” Lori offered. “If there was anything going on from the new mother perspective, she may have felt more comfortable seeking advice from strangers.”

“That, too,” Jess agreed. “Officer Cook, spend some time with any academy buddies you have in the South Precinct or in the GTF. See if anyone’s talking about Lieutenant Grayson. We’ve been a little focused on the wife, but she may not have been the one living dangerously. This new money may have gone to his head. Maybe volunteering with Allen’s task force was about getting away from the house.” Jess pressed Cook with a warning look. “Tread carefully. We don’t want anyone thinking we’re trying to build a case against an innocent man, especially one who carries a shield.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll be very careful,” he promised.

Harper waited patiently for his orders. “Talk to your contacts in gangland and find out if one clique or the other is taking responsibility for this murder. Maybe Captain Allen isn’t sharing all he knows. Though I can’t imagine why, unless it would somehow put us at odds over jurisdiction again. We have to determine if someone had a grudge against Grayson or Gabrielle. Did she have friends in that world that her husband might not know about?”

“And you?” Harper inquired.

Jess’s gaze narrowed. “I’ll be following up with the crime scene techs and the ME. Translation,” she stated for emphasis, “I’ll be fine without a babysitter.” If Burnett didn’t stop whispering in her detectives’ ears she was going to give him what for. She was a grown woman, a highly trained one at that.

Of course that hadn’t protected her Saturday night. She’d gotten snatched right off the street like an unsuspecting child. Not her proudest moment.

“Yes, ma’am,” Harper acknowledged. “Just trying to keep the big boss happy.”

The big boss
. Ha! Jess motioned for them to go. “Shoo… go find witnesses and motives.”

Harper grabbed his jacket. Wells got her purse and Cook just smiled and followed the crew. Jess watched them go and felt relieved. She felt good, actually.
This
, her new job and her new life, was going to work out better than she’d expected. There would be more bumps along the way but she could see a future here.

The door opened and Jess looked up to see who had forgotten what.

Sergeant Jack Riley, Grayson’s partner, wandered in. “Chief Harris.” He gave her a nod. “I made sure my LT got home okay. My wife, Sarah, is seeing after him and little Gary. I thought I’d check in with you. See what I can do to help.”

The reality that all their notes were in plain sight had Jess rushing across the room to meet him. “Thank you for stopping by, Sergeant.” She snagged him by the arm and directed him to the small conference table, which would put his back to the case board. He favored his right leg. Had a bit of a limp. There had been some mention of medical leave in his file. “I was hoping for the opportunity to speak with you today.”

“I want to help any way I can,” the younger man assured her.

Jess settled in the chair across the table from him and didn’t waste any time on idle chitchat. “How long have you worked with Lieutenant Grayson?”

Riley was considerably younger than his fifty-year-old partner. At thirty-three he was a ten-year veteran of the department. Married with two children. His wife was also a former nurse and now a stay-at-home mom.

“Five years. It was his guidance that got me promoted to sergeant a year ago. The LT is the best. You won’t find a better cop, friend, husband, father.” He turned his hands up. “He’s a model human being.”

“The two of you have never had any problems?” Two years ago, shortly after returning from his medical leave, Riley had requested a transfer out of his division but then he’d withdrawn the request.

He moved his head side to side. “I’ve had problems with Chief Waters, but never with my partner.”

“What sort of problems? Chief Waters has been your superior most of your career as a detective. What suddenly went wrong?”

His brow creased into a deep frown. “Am I a suspect, Chief?”

Jess laughed. “You know the answer to that, Sergeant. Until I clear them, everyone who was a part of Gabrielle Grayson’s life is a suspect. Including you and her husband.”

He jerked his head in acknowledgment. “Yeah.” He heaved a big breath. “I know the drill. It just feels weird being on this side of the table.”

She definitely understood. Not so long ago she had been on the wrong side of an interview. Eric Spears, the Player, had tried and succeeded in destroying her career at the bureau. But she had bounced back. Funny, she hadn’t expected a journey to her past to turn into her future.

“Chief Waters didn’t see me as up to the job after my accident,” Riley explained. “I was in an automobile accident. Left me with a limp, but I’m as good as I ever was.”

“So you had to prove yourself to Waters,” she suggested.

He nodded. “Ticked me off at first, but I got over it. Leaving the precinct wasn’t a problem but losing Larry Grayson as a partner was out of the question.”

“Did you and your wife spend a lot of time with the lieutenant and his wife?”

“Yes, ma’am. My Sarah and Gabrielle are… were best friends. We were just there for a cookout yesterday before Larry and I went on shift with the GTF.”

“You’ve been supporting the GTF longer than Lieutenant Grayson. Was that a financial decision, Sergeant?” The man didn’t have finances nearly as solid as his partner’s. Then again, he was younger and hadn’t inherited a tidy sum from his rich uncle either.

“At first it was purely a financial decision. I got two kids, Chief, and a wife who’s a stay-at-home mom. The extra money came in handy. But when I saw what an impact Captain Allen’s people are having on the gang situation I would’ve kept doing it regardless of the money.”

“Can you tell me if Lieutenant Grayson and his wife were having any sort of trouble? Sometimes parenthood throws a kink in the best marriages.”

Riley took some time before answering. “I’ve been a part of their lives since they met and married. They never fought, at least not publicly. And they seemed genuinely in love. But she was lonely, I guess, like most of the wives. And bored maybe. She had a high-octane career as a nurse before and I think she felt a little sad that she’d given it all up. Sarah went through the same thing after our first was born. Otherwise, Larry and Gabrielle were the perfect couple.”

Jess could sympathize. She couldn’t imagine her life without her career. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing, but it was what it was. “No marital issues at all, huh?”

“If there were any, I didn’t know about them and I probably spent more time with the family than any other person on the planet.”

“Did your wife know Gabrielle when she was a nurse?”

“Oh yeah. They worked together for a couple of years. They knew and respected each other. My wife introduced Gabrielle and Larry at a cookout at our house.”

“Wasn’t Grayson still married to Sylvia when he met Gabrielle?”

“That would be an affirmative.” Riley whistled a long, low sound. “Now that was hairy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Sylvia Baron wanted a husband just so no one could call her an old maid. That Larry was a decorated cop—a hero—made him suitable, I guess. She was never home and she refused to have children.” He shrugged. “To be honest, she’s one of those women who’s self-sufficient. She doesn’t need a man for money or anything else.”

“You mean, she’s independent and ambitious?” Jess shouldn’t have taken offense, but she did.

Riley hesitated but then nodded. “Guess so. No offense intended to independent, ambitious women. She’s just a little cold-hearted. I guess you have to know her.”

“Maybe so.” That was the thing with Southern men. If a woman was ambitious and independent and had no desire to breed she was cold-hearted and probably a bitch. Jess supposed she was in real trouble. “Were there any problems between Sylvia and Gabrielle?” It was doubtful Sylvia would have set out to murder the other woman years after Gabrielle had stolen her husband, but stranger things happened.

Riley was shaking his head. “None to my knowledge. I never heard Larry or Gabrielle mention Sylvia. Not in the last year or so anyway. Like I said, things were a little sticky at first but everybody moved on.”

“No marital problems. No financial problems.” Jess tapped the file she had been reviewing earlier. “I guess if Gabrielle’s murder wasn’t related to their personal lives or Grayson’s work, it was a random act of violence.”

“Had to be.” Riley turned his palms up. “We know all the same people. Same friends—all cops, by the way. And Gabrielle was a saint. She had no enemies. Everyone who ever met her loved her.”

Unfortunately, most saints died as martyrs. “If you think of anything else that might prove useful, please call me immediately, Sergeant. You have my number already.” She’d given him a card at the scene.

“For sure.”

Jess showed him to the door, mostly to ensure he didn’t turn around and get a good look at her case board. The less he knew, the fewer questions Grayson would ask.

When he was gone, she marched over to the board and considered what she could do to protect the privacy of their timeline and notes. The board stood on legs but didn’t rotate as some did. Maybe this one was too long for that. It did have wheels though.

It took some finagling but she got it turned around so that the side with their timeline, photos, and notes faced the wall.

That worked. For now.

She grabbed her bag. A set of keys lying next to the phone on her desk snagged her attention. She picked up the keys and the note beneath them.

Jess, use this Taurus until your Audi is released. You’ll find it in the garage, 2nd level, slot 32. It belongs to the department so take it easy. DB.

PS: I took care of your parking ticket.

“God, I hope it’s not beige.” Department vehicles were purposely nondescript. At least she had transportation at her disposal without having to visit the department carpool. It annoyed her that her Audi was still in the print shed. They knew who had abducted her. Why did they still need her car? And that parking ticket was beyond ridiculous. If she hadn’t been distracted by that damned thing she might have noticed trouble was about to swoop in on her. Right now, all she wanted was her car.

Maybe she could give someone at the lab a nudge and get her car back by tomorrow. Jess dropped the Taurus keys into her bag and headed for the door, checking her watch as she went. Two fifteen. The coroner’s office had had better than four hours to have a look at the victim’s body. Under normal circumstances that would mean nothing. But Jess felt certain that Dr. Sylvia Baron would permit Dr. Leeds to waste no time doing a preliminary examination. Jess wanted to know what, if anything, they had found. She wished she hadn’t ticked off the woman at the scene, but Jess had done what she always did. She’d spoken her mind, putting herself at odds with the highbrow ME.

She’d have to find a way back into her good graces. In this line of work, good contacts were vital.

The door opened just as Jess reached it. A tall, undeniably handsome man blocked her path.

Wesley
. Her ex. Supervisory Special Agent Wesley Duvall, who had come all the way from Southern California to help with a case… and to see that she was safe.

“Jess.” He smiled. She liked his smile. Always had. “I was about to go for a late lunch.” He chuckled. “I’m still on West Coast time it seems. Anyway, I thought maybe you’d like to join me. I remember how often you forget to eat, so I’m guessing you haven’t had lunch either.”

“That’s so sweet.” Her stomach sent a signal of its own confirming his conjecture. She hadn’t eaten. “I was just on my way to check on the progress at the coroner’s office.”