Lisa Scottoline - Killer Smile

Bill arrived a half an hour later and sat slumped in the chair as Mary recounted a sanitized version of how she had found Keisha. He sank deeper and deeper into his clothes, flipping up the collar of his jean jacket as if to ward off a winter wind. Judy, her face a mask of well-scrubbed worry, arrived right after, and she couldn’t take her stricken gaze from the blood drying on Mary’s suit. “You okay, girl?” she asked, her tone hushed.

“I’m fine. Keisha’s in the OR still. She lost a lot of blood.” For Bill’s benefit, Mary didn’t add the details about the slicing of the carotid. Evidently, Chico had known what he was doing. “The doctors said we’ll know more later.”

“They’re great doctors here,” Judy said to Bill, and he nodded.

When Detective Gomez and his partner arrived, Bill listened only idly, all over again, as Mary filled them in. Gomez’s partner, Matt Wahlberg, was a grayish blond detective of about forty-five years who was as tall as Gomez was thick. His blue eyes seemed sunken in a gaunt face that Mary understood when she spotted his triathlete’s watch. Insanely fit, he wore a light tan jacket and khaki slacks, and sat back in the padded chair, legs crossed and arms folded, while Mary leaned toward Gomez.

“I’m telling you, it was Chico,” Mary said as she finished. “He left her for dead in the driveway. He must have gotten out through the church.”

“Did you see his face?” Gomez looked at her directly, and her mouth went dry.

“If I said I had, would you arrest him?” Mary was so tempted to lie.

“We’d question him.”

“Would you question him anyway? I mean, how many people does he have to kill? He killed Frank and now he tried to kill Keisha!”

“In other words, you didn’t see his face.” Even Gomez sounded regretful. His soft mouth had formed a deep frown and his thick eyebrows sloped unhappily.

“No, not really. But I saw him. His back, his shoulders, his outline . I know it was him. At least go out and question him.”

Wahlberg snorted. “An outline isn’t probable cause.”

“Who are you kidding?” Judy interjected. “What do you call a racial profile?”

Mary wanted to get back on track. “Didn’t anyone in Rittenhouse Square see Keisha with Chico? There had to be a hundred witnesses. She may have walked with him from Eighteenth amp; Walnut to the church.”

“We got uniforms canvassing right now. If they find anybody who can ID this Chico, we’ll haul him in for a lineup.”

“Detective Gomez, I know it was him. It makes sense it was him. Chico is a violent man, Saracone’s muscle, and he was there the night I accused his boss of Amadeo’s murder.” Mary felt a deep pang of guilt. If she hadn’t burst into Saracone’s bedroom that night, Keisha wouldn’t be in the OR right now. “I’ll swear out an affidavit, I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m making a formal complaint. He assaulted me. Please, please, please, at least go out there and question Chico.”

Gomez frowned. “Where does he live, do you know?’

“I don’t know, but I think on the Saracone property.”

“But didn’t Saracone just die? The funeral should be when?”

“Today, this morning.” Mary didn’t add that she was moonlighting as a funeral planner. Gomez was already frowning deeply.

“I’m not going out there tonight. They buried the man today.” Next to Gomez, Wahlberg nodded in agreement. “And anyway, your theory that it was Chico, or connected to Saracone, doesn’t make sense. What would be the motive for an attempt on Keisha? Saracone is dead, so what’s the reason for it?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure.” Mary wracked her brain. “I accused Saracone of killing Amadeo and maybe Saracone confessed to Keisha. Or said something that admitted it. Something that the Saracones don’t want to come out.”

“So what if Saracone confessed to Brandolini’s murder? Both men are dead. What can they be hiding?”

“I don’t know, they have lots of money and I have no idea how they got it. Maybe illegally. Drugs, money laundering, whatever.” Mary thought of the investments in the drawers in Saracone’s office, but she couldn’t tell Gomez that. “Maybe stocks and bonds, something corporate, with IPOs. It could be anything. What if Saracone was going to call the cops and confess? What if the wife or the son had to kill him to stop him?”

“ Killed him? Why would they kill him? He was already on his deathbed.” Gomez frowned. “Why would they care, anyway? So he gets prosecuted for the murder, so what?”

Judy, who had been listening, looked over at Gomez. “They didn’t do an autopsy on Saracone and he was buried today. Can we exhume -”

“No way, I can’t order one unless there’s credible evidence of a homicide. This is getting way out of hand.” Gomez shifted his weight in the hard plastic chair. “Look, we have enough questions that we’ll consider taking a drive and talking to Chico. But not tonight.”

Wahlberg looked at his partner in disapproval. “Dan. Cavuto is cleared. We start running out there, moving too fast, without the facts, we’d lose the evidence in motions -”

“Then consider this as independent of Frank,” Mary interrupted. “Somebody tried to kill Keisha and you have to catch that guy.” She didn’t bring up that Homicide had no jurisdiction unless Keisha died. “You can at least question him. What’s it going to cost you?”

Gomez glanced at his partner. “We can check it out, can’t we, Wally? Aside from Cavuto? You got a problem with that?”

Mary sensed she should shut up but couldn’t. “Just see what Chico’s alibi is. I bet he won’t have one, and if you want me to look at some mug books, I will. He probably has a record, being a thug ain’t exactly a white-collar line of work. Did you recover the knife in the driveway or the church?”

“No. There are crime scene guys looking for it.”

“So he didn’t drop it.” Mary knew from Bennie that this was significant. Also from Forensic Files on the Discovery Channel. “He saw me coming and didn’t drop it. He risked getting caught with it, so that means he didn’t want you to look up his prints. Somebody who had no record would have dropped it.” Mary was impressed with her own powers of deduction, but Gomez waved her off.

“Quit while you’re ahead. Wally and me will go out to the house and check it out.”

“When, if not tonight?”

“Soon as possible. We’ll follow standard procedure.”

“Thank you, thank you!” Mary leapt impulsively out of her seat and into his arms. Gomez felt solid and smelled wonderfully of roast beef hoagie.

Suddenly, Bill, who had been sitting quietly off to the side, rose stiffly on his long legs. “You’re all assuming Keisha’s not gonna make it through this operation. I think she is, and it would be nice if you thought so, too.”

Mary felt a twinge she knew the others shared, except possibly Wahlberg. “We’re not assuming that. We’re just talking. Trying to figure it out.”

Bill’s expression said, Well, don’t . His dark gaze shifted away.

Later, the detectives left, and Mary and Judy tried to distract Bill by asking him computer questions, which he answered ad nauseam. The three of them were in the middle of his lecture on Microsoft XP when the surgeon entered the waiting room on soft paper booties.

And slid off his mask to give them the news.

When Mary got home, she dropped her briefcase and bag at the front door of her apartment, ignored her bills and other mail, and went almost mechanically upstairs, kicked off her pumps, stripped off her bloody suit, climbed into the shower, and cranked up the temperature. Hot water coursed over her body, and she closed her eyes and stood under the spray, letting it soak into her skin and loosen her muscles.