Ricochet (23 page)

He’d blown the top of his head off. That could be messy, all right.

“What do you know about his relationship with Elise?”

“They went way back. Fuck buddies, you know? When there’s nobody else around to fuck?”

“I’m familiar with the phrase.”

“They were that kind of friends.”

Duncan took a drink of his ice water and tried to look and sound casual. “When did you meet her?”

“He brought her to a Braves party, not long after he signed with the team. Knocked us all for a loop, ’cause she was such a babe and Cole had never said nothing about her. But he was low-key like that. Not a wild party guy.”

“Are you a wild party guy?”

He laughed. “I do my share.”

“Will marriage cramp your style?”

Esteban bobbed his eyebrows. “What happens on the road stays on the road. Know what I mean?”

“Gotcha.”

Esteban held out his fist. Duncan bumped it with his, forming a male pact of silence. “So, King Cole brings Elise to a Braves party and she’s a babe.”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“And nothing.” Esteban reached for his shake and took a slurp. “That’s it.”

“Really.”

“Never saw her again and, as I said, Cole didn’t talk about stuff like that. So, I guess that’s all I can tell you.”

Duncan leaned against the stiff leather back of the sofa and propped one ankle on the opposite knee. “Know what Elise told me? She told me that you and Coleman Greer were the fuck buddies, and that you were breaking it off, and that’s why he put the barrels of that shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”

Esteban’s jaw went slack. He leaned forward, then back. He opened his mouth to speak but found he had no words. Finally he shook his head and said, “That bitch. That lying bitch!”

“It’s not true?”

“Fucking A, it’s not true.” He bounded off his seat and began to prowl the marble floor, flinging deprecations in rapid-fire Spanish.

“Why would she say such a thing?” Duncan asked.

Esteban bore down on him. “Why? I’ll tell you why. You want to know why?”

“Why?”

“Okay, it was like this. That night at the party?”

“The one where you said there was ‘and nothing’?”

“I didn’t want you to think I was a jerk, the kind of guy who would—”

“What happened at the party, Tony?”

“Cole got wasted. He passed out. That girl, that Elise, comes on to me. And I mean, man, she was hot for it. Hot, you know?”

“Okay.”

“She’s all over me. Made me nervous.”

“Nervous?”

“Yeah, I didn’t want my new teammate pissed at me over this chick, but she said it wasn’t like that between her and Cole. Said they were friends and that he would want her to have a good time at the party. She was saying stuff like that all the time she’s got her hand inside my pants. So I gave her what she wanted. Coupla times. I mean, she’s great-looking. Why not, you know?”

Duncan made a guttural sound of acknowledgment.

Esteban sat back down. “She was good, man. I wouldn’t have minded having some more of that, but the next morning, she’s writing down all her phone numbers, asking when I’m gonna call, stuff like that.

“Every day after that, she’s calling me, asking when she’s going to see me, why haven’t I called, didn’t I like her, how dare I use her and then dump her like she was nothing.”

He stopped suddenly. “You see that movie
Fatal Attraction
? That’s what she was. That broad. That psycho bitch from hell. I expected to come home one day and find a fucking bunny boiling on my kitchen stove.”

“Did you ever see her again?”

He shook his head. “I don’t need that shit, man. I guess she gave up. She finally stopped calling.”

“What did Coleman have to say about this?”

“He didn’t know. At least, I didn’t tell him. Don’t know if she did.” He frowned with disgust. “Man, I knew she was one twisted chick, and she swore she would pay me back for dumping her, but I didn’t figure on her making up something like I’m gay. Gay? Jesus!” Then he chortled a laugh. “It’s funny when you think about it.”

“You took it upon yourself to go to Atlanta and see Tony Esteban?”

“Yes.”

No sooner had Duncan cleared the door of the Barracks than he’d been summoned into Bill Gerard’s office. Captain Gerard was a good cop with nearly forty years with the department. He was a fair supervisor who kept himself up to speed on all the cases the VCU was investigating, and he dispensed advice when asked for it. But he trusted the detectives under his supervision to do their jobs without having to be micromanaged.

However, when necessary, he could chew ass effectively. Duncan braced himself for a good one.

“The Braves management office called,” Gerard said, stacking his freckled hands on his thinning ginger-colored hair. “They were steamed you didn’t go through them to interview Esteban.”

“I wanted to catch him unaware.”

“Apparently you did, because after you left, he had second thoughts. He went whining to the team’s PR people about a cop from Savannah asking him about a woman he barely knows who’s involved in a fatal shooting. He was scared the media would get wind of it, blow it out of proportion, he’d wind up the cover story of
The National Enquirer
.

“The nervous PR people called Chief Taylor, who called me and wanted to know what the hell was going on.” He spat into his dip cup and peered at Duncan over the top of his reading glasses. “I’d sorta like to know that myself, Dunk. What the hell’s going on?”

“I’m not convinced the fatal shooting of Gary Ray Trotter was self-defense.”

“Aw, shit.”

Gerard liked to hunt and fish, read books about the Civil War, and make love to the wife he’d been married to since the night after his high school graduation. He was looking forward to enjoying those pastimes in retirement, which was only two years away. Until then, he wanted to do his job well, meeting its demands, but avoiding the snares of bureaucratic politics so that he could exit the police department gracefully and enemy-free.

“You think the judge’s wife wasn’t just protecting her life?”

“I think she may have been protecting her life
style
.”

“Shit,” he repeated. “This isn’t going to sit well with Cato Laird.”

“I realize that, Bill. Believe me, I deliberated on it all the way back from Atlanta. He’s chief judge of superior court. He presides over felony cases. The last thing a police department wants is a judge with a grudge against cops who bring those felons to court. This places the department in an awkward position. I understand and appreciate that. But it’s my duty—”

Gerard held up his hand. “None of my detectives has to explain himself to me, Dunk. I trust you. Trust your instincts even more.”

He wouldn’t trust him so well if he knew the secrets Duncan had been keeping recently, the ethics he’d violated. Elise’s note. His private encounter with her at his house. He wouldn’t trust him so well if he knew how hard Duncan had struggled with his decision to pursue the case against her.

“What did Esteban say that implicated her?” Gerard asked.

“Is Kong here?”

Gerard looked at him with puzzlement. “I don’t know, why?”

“I’d like for him and DeeDee to be in on this. That way I only have to tell it once.”

“I’ll go take a leak. You get them in here.”

They reconvened five minutes later. DeeDee came in with a can of Diet Coke and an attitude. She was miffed at Duncan for going to Atlanta without her, or even telling her about the trip beforehand. He didn’t let her pouting bother him. She’d get over it. Soon, unless he missed his bet. She’d suspected Elise of an ulterior motive all along, and he was about to provide one.

Kong was his hairy, sweaty, but affable self. “What up?” he asked Gerard.

The captain pointed to Duncan. “This is his meeting.”

Duncan began by saying, “First of all, I’m giving notice here and now. When I grow up, I want to be a professional baseball player.” His description of Tony Esteban’s penthouse was designed to have them smiling, relaxed, and listening by the time he got down to the nitty-gritty.

“There was this red metal sculpture standing in the center of the room. It looked like an instrument of torture, or maybe a swan. And just like in the movies, he pushes a button, these smoky mirrored doors slide open, and there’s a bar stocked with every conceivable potable.”

They were raptly attentive by the time he got to Jenny. “Hugh Hefner never had it so good. Legs that went on forever. Tits out to here.” He gestured with both hands, holding them away from his chest. “Right there on display beneath this tight tank top, and I’m talking—”

“We get it, Duncan,” DeeDee said. “She had big tits. What did Esteban have to say?”

He gave the men a look that said there would be a more detailed description of Jenny’s chest later, then recounted for them his conversation with Esteban.

When he finished, Gerard asked for clarification on a few points. “It was Mrs. Laird who told you Coleman Greer was gay?”

“Last night at their home,” Duncan replied. “DeeDee and I were summoned there. Mrs. Laird was reluctant to destroy the myth—”

“It’s no myth,” DeeDee said.

“—of Coleman Greer’s machismo, but she told us that after their high school romance, which was platonic—”

“Like hell,” mumbled DeeDee.

“—he confessed to her what he’d never told another living soul. He was attracted to men.”

“ ‘As God is my witness.’ ” DeeDee dramatically placed her hand over her heart. “Á la Scarlett O’Hara, she swore it.”

“Jeez, I can’t believe it,” Kong said. “My boys would be crushed. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with it. Live and let live, I say. But… well, you’d rather your baseball heroes be straight.” He looked around as though polling them. “Wouldn’t you?”

“According to Esteban, Coleman Greer was straight.”

“Correction, Bill,” Duncan said. “According to Esteban,
he’s
straight. He couldn’t speak for Coleman Greer, and doesn’t know with absolute certainty, but Esteban seriously doubts he was gay. How could he have been gay and nobody know? How could he have kept that hidden when he lived and traveled in the company of men half the year? He doesn’t believe Coleman Greer was gay. But he
knows
that
he
‘ain’t no fucking fag.’ ”

“Which blows a big hole in Elise Laird’s story,” DeeDee said. “I’m positive she invented that lie because it was the one her husband would grab on to with both hands. During all those trysts, she wasn’t screwing her baseball player. No, she was consoling him over his gay love affair gone awry.” She snuffled with scorn. “Priceless. Your affair is exposed by a PI your husband has hired to follow you. You need a lie, and quick. Voilà! Your lover isn’t your lover. He doesn’t even like girls.”

“PI?” Kong said. “Here’s where my missing person comes in, right? The PI was Napoli?”

Duncan said, “Anything?”

“Nothing. Not a hair off his greasy head.”

“The judge hired
Napoli
?” Gerard said, his dismay showing.

“He said he was desperate to know if his wife was having an affair or if it was his imagination,” Duncan explained. “He admitted to us that Napoli came through with something, but at the last minute he changed his mind, didn’t want to learn what that something was.”

“And Kong found Gary Ray Trotter’s name among papers on Meyer Napoli’s desk.”

“That’s right, Bill,” Duncan said.

“Now I see where you’re going with this,” the captain said.

“Napoli had proof of Mrs. Laird’s affair. The judge got cold feet, didn’t want to know the truth after all, turned it down. But Napoli got greedy and took the proof to Mrs. Laird. He blackmailed her with it. Whether to protect herself, or Coleman Greer, or both of them, she agreed to a big payoff. Gary Ray Trotter was the drop man.” He paused, then added, “This is all speculative, but it fits.”

They sat in silence for a moment, pondering Duncan’s summary. Kong was the first to speak. “But how’d she know Trotter would break in that particular night?”

“It could have been prearranged.” Duncan told Gerard and Kong about her insomnia, her habit of going downstairs for milk. “Trotter may have been about to leave the goods, as instructed—”

“But she popped him first,” DeeDee said. “Maybe he was firing his pistol in self-defense, not her.”

“Maybe,” Duncan said, tugging thoughtfully on his lip. “But if that’s the way it went down, where are the goods? Supposing he had an envelope with him, what did she do with it?”

“Lots of places to hide it in that study,” DeeDee said. “She could have stuck it between two law books before the judge got downstairs. Or in a credenza drawer. It could have looked innocuous enough. She went back for it later.”

“I guess.”

“If Trotter was coming through with the promised goods, why’d she shoot him?” Kong asked.

“To tie up a loose end. This is one cold gal,” DeeDee replied.

“Funny,” Duncan said, “Tony Esteban described her as hot.”

“I guess it depends on your point of view.”

“I guess it does,” Duncan said, matching the bite in DeeDee’s voice.

Gerard said, “The key to all this is Napoli. If he sent Trotter to the Lairds’ house, and Mrs. Laird was expecting him, we’ve got ourselves a case of premeditated murder.”

“Or,” Duncan countered, “it was a burglary gone bad and a matter of self-defense as she claimed.” Or, he thought, there was another scenario. The one in which Elise was supposed to die, not Trotter. But he had only her say-so for that, and after his conversation with Esteban, it seemed even more unbelievable than it had before.

“What about ballistics on the two weapons?” Gerard asked.

“I got the report this afternoon,” DeeDee said. “Both clean as a whistle. The judge purchased his seven years ago.”

“Long before he’d even met Elise,” Duncan remarked.

“Trotter’s has never been attached to a crime,” DeeDee said. “Dead end.”

Addressing Kong, Bill Gerard said, “Napoli needs to be found.”

“I’ve got every cop on the force with his eyes peeled and an ear to the ground. Right now, looks like he’s pulled a Jimmy Hoffa.”