Стюарт Вудс - Contraband

A man wearing a raincoat and a hat walked into the frame, unlocked the Mercedes, backed out, and drove away.

“That’s obviously got to be Hedger,” Stone said, “though I’m not sure he could be identified in that light.”

“Obviously,” Dino said, “because he died in that car around half an hour later.”

They continued to watch as someone wearing something that looked like a trench coat with a hood entered the frame, unlocked the Macan, and drove away.

“Man or woman?” Stone asked. “I can’t tell.”

“I think a man. Now see this, which was taken by a camera at a garage a couple of blocks away.” The Mercedes pulled in and an attendant came to the car and filled the tank, then it drove away.

“Clock says 9:42,” Dino says.

“Then the car was seen at Second Avenue and about Fifty-Fifth Street, maybe five, ten minutes away, by Werner Blau. And he makes Hedger at the wheel. Maybe another five or ten minutes later, Hedger is capped in the forties.”

“There’s more,” Dino said. “We’re back at the garage, Parkinson’s two parking spaces are empty, and the time is 10:14.”

The Macan pulled into the parking space; the same hooded figure got out, locked the car, and walked to the elevator. Six minutes later he was seen leaving the elevator, not to be seen again.

“What’s your scenario?” Stone asks.

“Two people arrive at Estelle’s building — we don’t know what time. Estelle is murdered while one or both of them is present in her apartment. They leave separately, a few minutes apart. Both of them are driving to the same place, but Hedger stops for gas, and the other car catches up and follows him. Shortly after that, Hedger is stopped at a light in the Mercedes, and the Macan pulls up next to him. The driver rolls down a window and shoots Hedger through the window, then drives away. A few minutes later, the Macan returns to Estelle’s garage. The driver gets out and goes upstairs to her apartment, is there a couple of minutes, then departs. When my guys search the place the Macan keys are found in a bowl on a foyer table, probably where Estelle would keep them.”

“Okay, but when was Estelle killed?”

“These are the choices: One, both visitors kill her, but they depart separately, leaving one there to tidy up the scene. Two, Hedger kills Estelle, then departs the apartment. Then the Macan driver discovers the body, follows Hedger and kills him, then returns the Macan to its parking place, goes upstairs and leaves the key ring, which has a door key on the fob, and departs. You choose.”

“Not enough information to name Estelle’s killer, but the Macan driver did kill Hedger.”

“That’s pretty much how I see it. Both the Macan driver and Hedger were wearing gloves, so we’ve got no prints.”

“Is Estelle’s garage manned at night?”

“No. The people in the building have remote controls that let them in and out,” Dino said. “So we’re fucked.”

“No,” Stone replied, “ you’re fucked. I don’t have to solve this.”

“I’m just looking for what you think,” Dino said.

“I think one or both of the visitors killed her.”

“You’re such a huge fucking help,” Dino said.

“I also think they all knew each other, maybe were friends.”

“And on what do you base that completely wild guess?”

“I don’t know, it’s just a hunch.”

“I hate hunches,” Dino said. “I like evidence.”

“Do we have any video from the main lobby?”

“Yes, and they didn’t enter or depart that way.”

“So they must have got into the garage and entered that way,” Stone said. “Maybe one of them already had a car key with the remote on the chain.”

“They didn’t drive either car there. The tapes show both cars parked there for the past forty-eight hours.”

“Maybe one or both of them went there to borrow a car?”

“That makes sense. On the other hand, the keys to both cars were probably kept in the bowl on the table in the foyer. They could have just looked for her jewelry or other valuables, then stolen both cars. One got greedy and offed the other.”

“Did you find Estelle’s jewelry?”

“We cracked the safe. It was all there, and about six thousand in cash, too.”

“Maybe they stole a piece of art, something very, very valuable.”

“A possibility. She had some good stuff.”

“There may be a copy in the house of an insurance list of valuables.”

“We haven’t found that yet,” Dino said.

“You got any hunches about this?”

“I told you, I hate hunches.” Dino was silent for a minute. “Okay, here’s my hunch: the Macan driver was Roberta Calder.”

Stone stared at Dino. “Doubtful,” he said. “Robbie is no killer. You were there when I asked her, remember? And you bought it.”

“There’s just the tiniest possibility that I could have been wrong,” Dino said. “Almost never happens, but I’m human.”

“Almost,” Stone replied.

“Just try to look at this objectively,” Dino said. “Pretend, for a moment, that you’re not fucking Robbie and loving it. I know that will be tough, but try.”

“All right,” Stone said, “I’m trying.”

“Our Randy was fucking both Robbie and Estelle, right?”

“At one time or another,” Stone admitted. “We’ve no reason to believe it was simultaneously.”

“So, we’ve got jealousy as a possible motive. Maybe they were having a threesome. Maybe Robbie was jealous of Estelle — so much so that she was, simultaneously, very angry with Randy.”

“Even though she hadn’t fucked Randy for a year or more?”

“By her own account, anyway. You think the hots can’t last that long? Haven’t you noticed that women — all right, people — sometimes take a proprietary attitude toward their former lovers?”

“I believe Randy may have had that attitude toward Robbie, but not vice versa.”

“Maybe she was sick enough of him that she’d put a bullet in his head to make him go away.”

“She had just filed for divorce from him. That’s enough to make him go away. And she said she’d never fired a handgun.”

“She said, she said,” Dino said, scornfully. “Maybe she’s lying. Anyway, it ain’t hard science. You point the thing and pull the trigger. Small children do it, when their parents stupidly leave guns lying around.”

“All right, I’ll give you that,” Stone admitted.

“Look, I’m not saying I’ve nailed this, but it deserves a closer look, doesn’t it?”

“Well, that’s what we’ve got a police department for, isn’t it, Dino? You keep working on it.”

“While you keep fucking Robbie?”

“I don’t see a negative connection between the two,” Stone protested, “as long as your guys knock before entering.”

“Do it at your house, all right? I want to get a search warrant for Robbie’s place.”

“Yeah, but there’s that nagging little probable cause thing to deal with, isn’t there?”

“You could have a look around her place, between sessions,” Dino pointed out.

“You just told me to do it at my house!”

“Okay, make an exception. Is she a sound sleeper?”

“I haven’t researched it, since I’m a pretty sound sleeper myself.”

“Find a way to nose around. You can do that, can’t you?”

“Maybe. What am I looking for?”

“Gosh, maybe the murder weapon, for a start.”

“You think she kills two people, then tucks the weapon into her bedside drawer?”

“I’ve known murderers to carry a dirty weapon around in their pockets for months!”

“What kind of weapon was it?”

“Our ballistics guy says a short-barreled .38 revolver.”