Killing Frost Read online

  To Shanahan, this reinforced the notion of a hired killer. The client only paid for one killing. It would be like buying a Cadillac and the salesman throwing in a Chevrolet because it was there.

  Still, it didn’t add up. Fournier only knew there was a witness. She didn’t have the only vote on Card. Why would Card up the ante by killing her? He wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree, but he was a cop with some savvy. And Charles? What did he have to do with anything other than this mystery company called Tyrus? No connections between Tyrus and Card could be made. Yet Charles was iced professionally. And poor Nicky Hernandez. His connection seemed obvious. He could identify the intruder. He was an accidental witness much like his friend, Justice King.

  Shanahan heard his name, the sound broken by a gust of wind that scattered the leaves. He had a sense they were escaping during a temporary dereliction of duty. He didn’t know where his mind had been. He hadn’t seen Maureen go.

  But she stood in the doorway, phone in hand, auburn hair tousled by the wind, looking like autumn herself.

  The call was from Collins.

  ‘Card had an iron-clad alibi when Charles was shot. A young masseuse in Noblesville. Make that a barely-clad alibi.’

  ‘But it works.’

  ‘It’s on tape too, if we want it. Parking lot. Going in, coming out. Time-stamped.’

  ‘Too good. His alibis are too good.’ Shanahan thought for a moment. ‘Her name wasn’t Samantha, was it?’

  ‘Pearl, I think. Asian. Who’s Samantha?’

  ‘Probably nobody. A car in his driveway. Ran the plates. Drew a blank.’

  ‘Swann is writing up his report on the Justice King death,’ Collins said.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Might make Card more talkative,’ Collins said.

  ‘You going to talk to him?’

  ‘That would make things official and we would get all caught up in Internal Affairs.’

  ‘You want me …’

  ‘I’m not asking for anything. Just thinking out loud,’ Collins said.

  ‘Tell Swann to turn his report in tomorrow afternoon. That will give me tomorrow to shake Card’s cage.’

  Shanahan often drifted off during the day, but he was not so blessed at night. Instead, he was haunted by a kind of cosmic loneliness, which, if allowed, would inhibit his breathing. It helped to walk, even through the empty rooms. Sometimes he would sit in his chair. If he couldn’t shake it, he would step outside. The fresh, cold air in his lungs helped dispel the feeling of suffocating.

  The fact that Card had two perfect alibis was damning, but not proof of his innocence, Shanahan thought. But while Shanahan could grasp a reason for the cop to want Alexandra dead because of her position on Card’s so-called ‘accidental’ shooting, the sleepless detective couldn’t rationalize why Card would need Charles to suffer the same fate. Charles was locked away in Michigan City when the first kid went down. He had made that point to Jennifer Bailey as well. If they were professional hits, how did Card pay for them? One might be able to hire some local thug to off someone on the cheap, but these kinds of clean hits don’t come cheap. It occurred to Shanahan as he meandered about in the dark that the deaths of Justice King and Nicky Hernandez were connected to each other but not necessarily to Alexandra and Charles. Nicky and Justice were not killed by a sniper or at least not using the sniper’s MO. Was there a connection beyond their friendship and temporary home at Second Chance? There was a connection between Alexandra and her brother: Tyrus Investments. Whatever those investments were, it appeared Charles sweet-talked Alexandra out of them.

  He was eager for morning to come.

  Shanahan stood at the front window, waiting for Harold. Maureen was gone. She was inspecting a house on the northeast side. Collins called earlier to share some information. In Charles’s wallet, they found three bank deposit receipts, each for $9,000, and each from a different major bank. It was clear that he was avoiding the IRS requirement that financial institutions have to report deposits over a certain amount. The fact that they were made at major banks suggested Charles wanted the maximum in geographic mobility and as much anonymity as was possible these days. The deposit, Collins said, sounding defeated, was a cash transaction, which eliminated the ability to trace the source of the funds. While the way all this was handled didn’t require a financial genius, it did show some sophistication in that regard as well as a criminally devious mind. Had they been able to trace the funds, Shanahan was sure it would lead to Tyrus Investments, whoever the hell they were.

  The Lexus pulled into the driveway at noon.

  ‘Are we gonna just sit here?’ Harold asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Leonard Card was what was left. His dirty Jeep Cherokee was in the drive. He was likely home. If he didn’t provide the next step, Shanahan might as well toss it in. Nobody alive, except Leonard Card, could be linked to the boys’ deaths or the demise of the two elder siblings. It didn’t look good. Surely, a slack-jawed bully, a loser like Leonard wasn’t Tyrus.

  ‘You going in?’

  ‘I suspect so. You have a date?’

  ‘Good thing I don’t.’

  ‘This is the only place I know to go, the only person to talk to. I don’t know what to say or do.’

  ‘You don’t have a plan?’ Harold pulled the ear bud from his ear.

  ‘Right, but I often don’t have a plan. There’s something here I’m not seeing.’

  Shanahan started to get out, but decided to tell Harold a story.

  ‘One of the tests I had was from an ophthalmologist after I explained that if I put something down on my left I couldn’t find it. They gave me a visual field test and discovered that I was blind here and there after the second operation. The inflammation and swelling inhibited the gathering of visual information or the processing of it. Apparently it’s not like being in the dark or there is a dark place here and there. My mind fills it in somehow, and it all looks perfectly normal, but like magic, the rabbit is gone. I’m missing something that others see. A pen, a glass, perhaps a human.’

  ‘I don’t think you are the only one missing something,’ Harold said. He laughed.

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Everybody. Mrs Fournier didn’t know. The police don’t know. Seems to me different people have different pieces the others don’t see. But things are done. People die. Money changes hands. Pieces are being moved.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Maybe instead of finding out what people know, we find out what or who they don’t know,’ Harold said. He leaned forward. ‘Keep the car parked here. I want to make sure he sees you. Made him nervous the last time.’

  ‘I like making people nervous.’

  Shanahan got out of the car, headed up Leonard Card’s driveway.

  Card looked particularly grizzled. Shanahan realized why.

  ‘Haven’t seen your girlfriend in a while?’ he asked the unhappy cop at the door.

  ‘Girlfriend?’

  ‘Last time I was here. Silver Malibu.’

  ‘Somebody paying you to keep track of my life?’

  ‘Yeah, the world is a funny place, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, I believe you are trespassing.’

  ‘I have some news for you,’ Shanahan said.

  ‘Spill it.’

  ‘How about you invite me in?’

  ‘How about I break every bone in your face?’

  ‘You really think that beating up a senior citizen will help your case in front of the review board?’

  ‘Just make me feel better.’

  ‘Then I wouldn’t be able to fill you in on the development in your hearing. It’s not going to go the way you think it is.’

  Card was quiet.

  ‘And there is a witness sitting out there in the Lexus. You don’t like having witnesses around, I’m told.’

  ‘Come in.’

  The living room looked like it was once the normal living area for a modest two-bedroom home. A substantial couch, pillows now stained
and askew. Two flower-patterned upholstered chairs. Space had been cleared, though awkwardly, for a giant-screen TV, which blocked the front picture window. At one end of the room, more space had been cleared for weightlifting. Aesthetics played no part in the decisions. Obviously, priorities had changed. It was a man cave.

  ‘We got a talk ’n go situation here,’ Card said, his face inches from Shanahan’s. It was an intimidation technique used by cops and the gang members who emulated them. His eyes were old and evil, dissipated by years of unhealthy habits and bad attitude. Yet his body was tightly muscled, like a pit bull. Even at his fittest, Shanahan thought, he wouldn’t have wanted to come up against Card, who was, by age at least, ten years beyond his prime.

  ‘Been divorced two, maybe three years?’ Shanahan asked.

  ‘Don’t make yourself comfortable.’ He rubbed the stubble on his cheeks.

  ‘There is a witness to the killing of Justice King. And the witness said you killed the boy without cause.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Card grinned. ‘The dead are usually a quiet lot.’

  ‘That smile explains everything,’ Shanahan said. It explained the sad death of Nicky Hernandez. Shanahan would let the police drive that truth into Card’s heart. He felt his work was done. He moved toward the door. He would have liked to ask to use the bathroom to check out drug use or other health problems, as well as evidence of someone staying with him. But even a dumb cop like Card knew that trick.

  ‘You come all the way over here to tell me that? Nothing better to do? You might want to retire,’ the cop said, still smirking, as the clean, chilly air greeted Shanahan’s escape from the stale environs of Card’s retreat. ‘You are way behind the curve,’ Card shouted after him.

  ‘How’d it go?’ Harold asked.

  ‘Magic,’ Shanahan said. ‘Like you said, he revealed what he didn’t know. He killed Hernandez because he thought Hernandez was the secret witness.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Shanahan and Collins met near the Museum of Contemporary Art and walked down to the canal.

  ‘You don’t like your office?’ Shanahan asked. He liked the idea of being outside, but didn’t look forward to walking back up the hill.

  ‘Not a desk jockey at heart. What’s up?’

  ‘What kind of history does Card have?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Homicide? Vice? What?’

  ‘I’ll double-check, but Homicide. No, I think Vice and now Gangs.’

  ‘I think you need to get Card’s alibi for the morning the Hernandez kid was killed.’

  ‘Even though he’s got two solid ones for the others?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nobody has an alibi for five a.m. No one is up that early unless they’re making donuts.’

  ‘It will give him something to think about,’ Shanahan said. ‘There’s no real evidence that the same killer did all three.’

  ‘In fact …’

  ‘In fact, the MO was different. And we all assumed the kid was murdered because he saw the killer tossing Fournier’s office and could identify him. That was a presumption.’

  Collins gave Shanahan a sharp look. ‘A pretty fucking logical presumption.’

  ‘That’s what a cop would think and what a cop would do,’ Shanahan said. ‘The office could have been messed up after the boy was killed to connect the boy’s death with that of Mrs Fournier’s. Link the deaths you link the alibis. If Card had a solid alibi for one murder he might be able to parlay that into two.’

  ‘Why the kid? And who knew he was going to be there at that hour, on that day?’ Collins asked.

  ‘Card heard there was going to be a witness, thanks to Swann’s anonymous note. Card didn’t know who until he found out, as I did later, that both King and Hernandez had lived at Second Chance and that they were good friends. Since Swann initially covered his steps, Card assumed it was Hernandez, King’s best friend, who was going to testify. Card thinks this whole witness thing is old news since Hernandez was eliminated.’

  ‘And you’re saying Card knew exactly when Hernandez was going to be in Fournier’s backyard?’

  ‘Fournier was a creature of habit. The boy was there every Wednesday morning at that time. With a little bit of surveillance, it wouldn’t have been hard for Card to figure that out. He had all the time in the world. And there was an undercover car hanging around the community center. There’s probably a dozen kids willing to testify to that. Card knew Mrs Fournier’s standard routine.’

  Collins kicked at the pebbles on the path. ‘What you’re saying here is that these deaths aren’t connected after all.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what I’m saying.’

  ‘That is what you’re saying. And you’re saying that all this work to figure out the murder of Mrs Fournier, subject of serious media attention, has been for naught, while we may have closed an internal affairs case no one particularly cares about.’

  Shanahan said nothing right away as Collins paced by the slow-moving muddy water.

  ‘Two kids are dead.’

  ‘All right. I’m not the most sensitive guy on the block. But you get my gist. And that goes for you too. Right. You’re getting paid to find the murderer of Jennifer Bailey’s sister.’

  ‘Collins?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If I’m right, the guy who killed Hernandez had to know Fournier was going to get it and when.’

  ‘Officer Perfect Alibi.’ Collins shook his head. ‘Maybe we haven’t wasted our time.’

  ‘Well, that’s a thought, isn’t it?’

  ‘So is Collins happy or unhappy?’ Maureen asked, taking a corner off a slice of pizza.

  ‘Mostly unhappy. The media and the mayor are impatient.’

  ‘You?’ She took a sip of a glass of Chilean wine. The news, coming from the small TV set on the kitchen counter six feet away, seemed to underline Shanahan’s comments about the pressure to come up with something on the deaths of Alexandra Fournier and her brother, Charles Bailey. Collins’s name was also bandied about.

  ‘Me? Nobody knows my name.’

  ‘Hurt your feelings?’

  ‘A blessing,’ he said.

  ‘You’re making progress and so is Collins.’

  ‘Seems so. Fortunately we were able to nail down some facts that were previously allusive and sent us in the wrong direction. We still have no direction. What we do have is the probability that Card had some foreknowledge of Alexandra and her brother’s deaths. And the fact that the only assets that could have enabled Charles to make such significant cash deposits was his connection to Tyrus Investments, whatever or whoever they are.’

  ‘The other thing that Charles had was a map,’ Maureen said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Real estate.’ She plucked another slice of pizza from the box, put it on Shanahan’s plate, followed by some lightly dressed romaine. ‘You have to have your greens.’

  ‘Isn’t there some parsley on the pizza?’

  ‘A sprinkle or two.’

  ‘I rest my case,’ Shanahan said.

  ‘The police remain silent on the murder of Alexandra Fournier and her brother, Charles Bailey,’ said the female news anchor in the background as the colorful lights of the TV bounced around on the walls. ‘However, a spokesman verified what we reported earlier. Both deaths came from a sharpshooter at a distance, fueling rumors that they were professional hits.’

  ‘Someone let that out,’ Shanahan said. He was surprised.

  ‘We’ll have more from weapons experts commenting on that, Denise,’ interrupted a male voice, ‘tonight at eleven. And we’ll be asking a former district attorney why it’s taking so long to get a lead on these brazen daylight murders.’

  ‘How about a dog?’ Shanahan asked. He knew the question would seem to come out of nowhere. There was a moment of silence.

  ‘No, thanks – the pizza is filling.’

  ‘But you can’t walk a pizza.’

  ‘What brought that up?’

 
; ‘Wandering the halls at night. A little life in the place might be good.’

  ‘What am I? Chopped liver?’ she asked.

  ‘That time of night you’re in France or someplace snoring through a plate of manicotti.’

  ‘That would be Italy.’

  ‘I rest my case again.’

  ‘I don’t need a shih-tzu yipping at my heels all day long.’

  ‘I was thinking more like a Belgian Shepherd.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘Ex-police or military dog. Well-behaved. Mature.’

  ‘Kind of like a canine version of you.’

  ‘Maybe a little younger.’

  They watched the Kennel Club Murder Case. It seemed fitting, considering a night of conversation about murder and dogs. Maureen put the film on pause when the phone rang.

  ‘I have some information,’ said Collins in a slightly muffled tone.

  ‘You’re working late. That’s not like you.’

  ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures. And it’s important.’

  ‘And you called me?’

  ‘It was either you or Batman, but the spotlight blew a fuse. As I expected, Leonard Card’s alibi for the early morning Nicky was killed was as we expected. At five a.m., he was asleep in his own bed at his own home, alone. It may or may not be true, but it is believable. What’s interesting is that Card has used the police department as a billiard table. Not Homicide. Yet. But everything else. Vice, Gangs, where he was up to a few weeks ago and before that, Organized Crime.’

  ‘Organized Crime?’ Shanahan asked.

  ‘I thought you’d pick up on that.’

  ‘You can meet some interesting people in Organized Crime. Contract killers, for example.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can to find out who.’

  Shanahan put on his brown tweed sport coat, and a pressed blue button-down, straight from the dry cleaners’ plastic wrap.

  ‘We’re meeting downtown,’ Shanahan said in defense of Maureen’s mock-jealous, accusatory look.

  ‘All this for Mrs Thompkins? You have a thing for real estate agents?’ Maureen asked.

  ‘I do.’