False Witness (John Steel series Book 3) (6 page)

“Man, is it lunchtime yet? I am starved,” Tooms remarked.

Tony shook his head in amazement at his large partner and smiled. “It amazes me how your gut knows what time it is, it really does.”

His friend just smiled as he headed for the vending machine for a chocolate bar or anything else that might tide him over.

Tony pressed the call button on the elevator and waited for his partner, who was attacking the machine because it was taking too long. The doors slid open and Tony blocked it before it shut.

“Hey, you coming or what?” Tony couldn’t help smiling as Tooms ran up and into the steel box, simultaneously ripping the end off the chocolate bar with his teeth. Tony laughed as the doors closed and they headed up to their department.

*

The doors of the elevator slid open, revealing the bustling noise of the Homicide Department. As they stepped out onto the floor, Tony nudged Tooms and nodded over to the captain’s office, where Captain Alan Brant stood with a woman who could have been a supermodel.

She was tall, with dark Hispanic looks and long black hair. The pair just stared for the moment in wonderment, wondering just who was this exotic woman, and what was she doing with the captain?

Brant looked over to the elevator, saw the two detectives standing there busily chatting like school kids, and waved them over. Tooms shoved Tony forwards playfully.

“Come on, let’s see what the captain wants,” Tooms said.

Tony straightened his tie and combed his hair with his fingers to Tooms’s disgust. “You sooo did not do that!” the latter said.

Tony turned to his partner after adjusting his jacket. “Do what?”

Tooms shook his head and tutted. “Man, can’t take you any place where there’s women.”

Tony winked at his colleague as they reached the door. Tony knocked and the two men entered slowly.

“Captain.” The two men said one after the other, as Tooms closed the door behind them.

“Agent Cassandra Lloyd, this is Detectives Tooms and Marinelli,” their boss, Alan Brandt introduced his men to the newcomer. “They’re working on the accident.”

They took turns in shaking hands and talking pleasantries.

“Agent Lloyd is with the FBI,” Brant continued. “She is working on the escapees.”

Cassandra wore a black suit that screamed ‘government’ but had exotic looks that said something far different. She had high cheekbones and a full-lipped mouth to which a subtle lip gloss had been applied.

“We have sent you as much footage of the street as we could, since some of the cameras were either dummies or not working,” the FBI lady began. “I hope we can exchange notes as we progress.” Her large eyes were hypnotic, like dark pools of a forbidden lake.

“Absolutely.”Tony said, Tooms just looked at his partner in amazement.

“If we get something, we will be sure to let you know, Agent Lloyd.” Tooms’s tone indicated that he almost distrusted her promise.

“Please call me Cassandra, after all we’re on the same team—aren’t we?” Her gaze fell on Tony, who just stood there mesmerised, like a rabbit held in the calm gaze of a viper.

“Sure, no problem.” Tooms grabbed hold of the love-struck Tony and dragged him out of the office.

“We got, er, stuff to do, Captain, downtown,” Tooms explained.

Captain Brant smiled and shook his head, understanding Tooms’s meaning.

“So, Agent Lloyd, will you be working from here or the Bureau?” Brant said.

She looked round at her surroundings and smiled. “Thank you for the kind offer, Captain, but I must be getting back.”

Brant gave an insincere smile and shook her limp hand. “Oh I understand perfectly, Agent Lloyd, until next time.”

She moved quickly across the floor towards the elevator whilst answering a call on her cell phone that had just rung in her jacket pocket. Brant watched her press the button several times before disappearing down the stairwell next to the elevator wall.

He felt the same wariness that Tooms did. Was she to be trusted? And how much information would she give up? The elevator doors slid open and McCall stepped out onto the floor, with Steel close behind. Their expressions suggested that something was not right.

“So what did the doc find on your vic?” Brant asked, walking slowly halfway out of his office to meet them.

Steel gave an easy look and rocked a flat open palm. “Uhm, not so much ON, as IN, really.”

Brant looked at McCall in confusion as she abruptly sat down in her chair.

“Someone had put a scorpion in his mouth and then sewed it shut,” Sam told her boss.

Brant stood up straight after nearly dropping the coffee cup that was still in his hand. “They did what? Why in God’s name would they do that?”

McCall pointed to Steel with her pen as he took the seat next to her desk. “Steel reckons it was some sort of sign, you know? ‘You lousy snitch’ type of sign.”

Steel looked thoughtful for a brief moment before looking back at them. Sam picked up on his moment of inattention.

“What, Steel?” she asked. “Just what are you thinking?”

Steel sat back in the chair and looked up at the evidence board. “Why would anyone want him dead? After all he didn’t seem to know anybody, or have any enemies.”

Sam McCall bounced the pen off her chin as she tried to come up with something—anything.

Steel felt the cell phone vibrate in his pocket. He took it out and opened up the view screen and read the text that he had just received. His face betrayed no emotion, apart from taking on an apparently purposeful look.

The British detective stood up and headed to the back room that he had commandeered as his own office and slammed the door. Brant and McCall looked at each other, puzzled by the sudden change in his behaviour.

“What’s up with Wonder Boy? And why the hell has he gone into the storage room?” Brant’s gaze headed back to the door in between the recreation room and the corridor to the holding cells.

McCall looked at the captain. She was just as confused as he was.

“Maybe it’s this other case he’s been working on?” she suggested. Then she saw the questioning look on her boss’s face.

“What the hell other case?” Brant demanded. “This is the only one you guys have had recently.”

McCall realised her mistake and headed off after Steel.

“Maybe I was mistaken, sorry,” she called back.

Brant could see she was covering for him and hoped that she knew what she was doing.

Sam backed into the old storage room and shut the door slowly, checking to make sure the captain wasn’t behind her.

“You know the captain’s real pissed—” Her words faded as she looked round at the transformed room.

Oak panelling covered the lower half of the walls. The upper part had burgundy velvet wallpaper. There was heavy oak furniture and thick leather chesterfield armchairs sat before a grand looking ‘partners’ writing desk. This had a green leather-topped inlay and carved side panels. Her jaw dropped at the sight of the extravagance.

“Oh my God, how did you do this? When did you?”

Steel turned in his red leather captain’s chair and smiled at her appreciation. “I had it done in the holidays, no one was really around, and I picked up the slack while the boys worked their magic.” He looked round and breathed in the musky scent of old wood and leather.

McCall walked up to a sixty-inch smart-board that looked as though it was part of the wall, and touched it.

The screen immediately came on, a colourful picture view as though it was a window showing the New York skyline. Along the left-hand side different files sat ready to be opened. Her eyes caught a glimpse of one of them that simply said
missing.

“So how many channels do you get on this thing?” McCall asked, impressed by the toy.

“Sorry, I only get porn, hardly your taste I would think.” His joke made her smile.

“Oh, I don’t know, you’d be surprised by my taste, Mr Steel.”

Steel raised an eyebrow over the top of his sunglasses, charmed by the friendly flirtation.

“Does the captain know about this?” she asked.

John Steel gave a quick smile. “It took a large contributionto the pension fund, but it was worth it.”

McCall looked around before backing onto one of the armchairs and easing into it. The leather creaked with age as she settled herself comfortably.

“It’s lucky you got a couple of bucks then.” McCall watched Steel cross the room to a large wall unit that had several books and other homely items on it. He picked up a decanter of pure crystal and poured two glasses of clear liquid into two matching crystal glasses.

“You know we’re on duty, right?” McCall said, looking at him, shocked he would even consider drinking.

“Don’t worry, it’s water.” He smiled as he handed her the glass. “It’s not what’s in the crystal glass, it’s the fact you’re drinking from it that makes the difference.”

Sam took a sip and silently smiled to herself. She had to agree, but she wasn’t about to tell him so.

“I take it you told Brant about my little side quest?” John Steel said.

McCall looked at him awkwardly. He just looked contented and sat in the chair next to hers.

“So what is this case you’re on?” she asked.

Steel just sat back and enjoyed the feel of the leather against his back. “It is not important. Besides I have hit a... dead end, shall we say.”

McCall nodded, hoping that didn’t mean what she thought it meant.

“So our vic,” he began. “What do we know about him apart from the fact that he hated going outside his flat?”

McCall took out her notebook from her jacket pocket and flicked through the pages. “Well, he was fifty-seven years old, divorced and lived alone. Apart from that we have nothing until records comes back to us.” She put her notebook away and took another sip of water, watching the rainbow collect on her hand as the shimmering light from the lamp reflected on the cut-glass surface.

“But according to his daughter he was a gym teacher until ten years ago. So what happened ten years ago?”

Sam McCall stood up and placed the glass down on the leather part of his desk.

“I guess we have to ask the ex-wife.”

Steel nodded, having had the same thought. McCall shook her keys at him as she turned to leave.

“I take it you’re driving then?” Steel yelled after her as she opened the door.

“You get a car and you can drive,” she yelled back, causing him to smile wickedly.

“Oh, don’t worry, I have a car,” he mumbled under his breath.

It was around half
one by the time McCall had pulled up on the same street as Marie Heller’s building. As she got out of her faded blue 1966 Mustang, Samantha McCall felt the warmth of the sun on her skin; a cool breeze found its way down the long street and brushed past her and slightly lifted her shoulder-length brown hair.

The whole street had the stench of money, the apartments here were full of lawyers, doctors and anyone with a large enough bank account.

“Nice neighbourhood,” Steel noted, looking up at the aging architecture as he closed the car door.

“Yeah, even the muggers say please and thank you round here,” she quipped.

The British detective grinned in response as they headed towards a large building just down from where they had parked.

Carlson’s ex had remarried into money and got as far away from her old life as she possibly could. They stopped and looked up at the towering monument to a greater lifestyle.

“I’m quite surprised you didn’t move here,” she remarked to the man beside her, who was so clearly used to the finer things in life.

John Steel looked around at the large lobby with its Victorian furnishings that blended with the modern flooring and the long marble-topped front desk.

“Nah, too stuffy for me. Besides it’s miles away from the park.”

She smiled to herself, as she knew these people were either rich through their own efforts, or had inherited money. Steel had to be loaded, she thought: after his parents had been murdered he had inherited his father’s title, and was now Lord Steel.

They headed for a tall thin man in his late fifties that McCall figured was either the manager or his second in command.

The man turned towards them as they approached. “Good afternoon, sir, madam, how may I help you?”

McCall lifted a large A4-sized leather organizer that had her shield pinned to its back. “Detectives McCall and Steel to see Mrs Heller.”

The man smiled politely and lifted a handset from its cradle, and McCall watched as he pressed a series of numbers and waited.

She figured that someone must have answered as the desk clerk, who had black greased-back hair, cradled the handset and turned away from them to make his conversation appear to be less suspicious. Steel watched and shook his head.

“Yeah, saying that wouldn’t draw attention, would it?” he muttered. McCall elbowed him in the ribs and tried not to smile.

“She will see you now,” said Greasy-hair. “Take the elevator up to the tenth floor. She is in room ten-eighteen.” The man looked ill at ease and Steel could not help but think he was hiding something and that whatever it was had nothing to do with Mrs Heller. He shook off the feeling and followed McCall to the gold-coloured elevator doors.

“Did something seem wrong about that to you?” she asked as they stepped inside one of the elevator cars that was about to leave.

“Yeah, but I think it has nothing to do with what we’re interested in finding out. It’s either a vice or a robbery problem... ooh, or the guy is a nark.” Steel said this loudly so that everyone around could hear.

“You’re such an ass!” McCall said, glaring forwards with a stern look. The doors opened after their short journey and she stepped out of it, forgetting the spat with her unconventional colleague.

Room ten-eighteen was about a minute’s walk from the elevator on the left-hand side of the corridor. McCall pressed on the brass doorbell that sat squarely between the doorframe and a watercolour of a waterfall.

They didn’t have to wait long before a short woman in a black and white maid’s uniform answered the door.