Стюарт Вудс - Shakeup

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said. They got into the car, and Maren gave the driver Stone’s address.

They were at dinner that evening, at Patroon, with the Bacchettis.

“I don’t like people getting killed in my building,” Dino said. “Or jumping out windows. It’s bad for property values.”

Maren’s phone rang, and everybody kept quiet while she listened. Finally, she hung up.

“What?” Stone asked.

“The gun in the evidence room was used in a homicide, so they had a full ballistics report on it. They did another at our offices on the gun found near Eddie’s body. It’s the same weapon.”

“No doubt?” Stone asked.

“No doubt.”

“What does that tell us?” Maren said.

Stone sighed. “I’m trying to think of a scenario that would make possible the use of this gun in two murders, in separate cities.”

“One murder,” Dino said.

“Two,” Stone replied. “The woman was shot twice.”

Dino nodded.

“Can you think of such a scenario?” Stone asked.

Dino squinted. “Little Debby steals a gun from the evidence room in D.C., then she gives it to the guy who’s about to testify against her, so he can use it on his girlfriend before he offs himself?”

“You see the problem,” Stone said to everybody. “I can’t make it make sense.”

Maren shook her head. “It happened, so there is a scenario. We just have to figure it out.”

“I need another drink,” Stone said.

Stone and Maren were getting into bed, but sex was not on either of their minds.

Stone froze for a moment, deep in thought.

“There was a third party in the apartment,” he said.

Maren turned and stared at him. “Why do you think that?”

“Because it’s the only thing that makes any sense. Debbie stole the gun from evidence, not Eddie, right?”

“That’s true.”

“And Eddie hotfooted it out of the country to England, as soon as he hit the street. He may even have been the guy who coshed me.”

“‘Cosh’ is an old-time criminal’s word,” Maren said. “Eddie’s friend, Alfie, probably coshed you.”

“My point is, Eddie was in the room; he was in the country in England. He was not someplace where Little Debby could hand him the gun. In fact, she probably stole it to use it on Eddie. Wait a minute, wasn’t Donald Clark shot with such a weapon?”

“I believe he was.”

“Okay, compare the ballistics of the gun in custody to that of the Clark bullets.”

Maren tapped out an e-mail and sent it. “We should have that tomorrow, since the record already exists for both shootings. Now, what else?”

“Do we believe that Little Debby shot Clark and Eddie herself?”

“I don’t. She had an ironclad alibi for the Clark murder. My bet is she’ll have one for Eddie’s death, too.”

“You read the ME’s report,” Stone said. “Were there any bullets in Eddie’s body?”

“No, they’re saying the fall killed him.”

“Where’s the report?”

She went to her handbag, produced it, and gave it to Stone. “Okay,” Stone said. “‘Death resulted from head injuries resulting from a fall from a fourteenth-story window.’ There’s no mention of a slug in the body.” He read on. “Wait a minute, there were some marks on the body not associated with the fall.”

“I didn’t get that far,” Maren admitted. “I probably would have later. What were the marks?”

“An elongated bruise on the back of the neck,” Stone read, “and another mark, but not a bruise, over the right kidney. I remember the body lying on its left side,” Stone said. “Leaving it open to the injury above the kidney.”

“Go on; the rest of the scenario, please.”

“I’m not a doctor, but let me play one for a minute.”

“Go right ahead, Doctor.”

“A bruise is formed by blood collecting under the skin from an injury, breaking tiny blood vessels, I think the little blood vessels are called capillaries.”

“Right.”

“So, our third party hit Eddie across the back of his neck, rendering him unconscious, but not dead, so there was still blood flowing to collect under the skin, forming the bruise.”

“Agreed.”

“The other injury, the one over the kidney, did not form a bruise, so we can posit — I love that word, posit — that Eddie was already dead when he suffered the non-bruising blow above the kidney.”

“One injury before death, one after,” Maren agreed. “I buy the gun being used for the blow to the back of the neck, but what caused the one above the kidney?”

“The gun,” Stone said.

“But it didn’t cause a bruise.”

“Here’s how it went, to my mind,” Stone said. “First of all, I was wrong about the guy not being a pro. He was very much a pro. He gets into the apartment — probably Eddie let him in — he slugs Eddie, who goes out like a light. Then he opens a window and tosses Eddie out.”

“Why do you think that?” Maren asked.

“Because Eddie went out the window — no question about that. And if he was unconscious at the time, it was because the third party in the apartment — the pro — made him that way.”

“I buy that,” she said. “Tell me about the girl.”

“The pro would have cleaned up after himself, so he’s looking around, and he finds the girl in bed, asleep — she’s taken Ambien — and he finds it necessary to improvise, so he shoots her. But he has to hang the murder on Eddie, so he goes back to the open window and tosses the gun out. Eddie is lying, dead, in the alley, and the falling gun strikes him over the right kidney, then bounces off to where your agents found it. I’ll give you odds there are no fingerprints on the weapon, because Eddie couldn’t make any, and the pro would have wiped the gun, because he couldn’t put Eddie’s prints on it at that time, and he certainly didn’t want his own on the weapon.”

Maren took herself through the scenario, making little gestures as she thought, then stopped and looked at Stone. “I buy it,” she said, “all of it. Horses, not zebras. Now I’m too excited to sleep.”

“Let me make another suggestion,” Stone said, reaching for her.

They slept quietly through the night, sated with each other. The bell on the dumbwaiter woke Stone at seven. They finished their saugage and eggs quietly and were having coffee when Stone spoke.

“We’ve got another problem,” he said.

“Swell,” she said, “and just when I thought we’d — or rather, you’d — worked it out. What is the problem?”

“We don’t know who the third party was — the pro.”

“Oh, shit.”

“And how are we going to find out?” he asked.

“Well,” Maren said, “pros don’t take out an ad in the Times , do they?”

“They used to do that in Soldier of Fortune magazine,” Stone said, “but I’m not sure that’s even still in business.”

“I haven’t heard of it in years,” Maren said.

“How well do you know Little Debby?” he asked.

“I’ve had a drink with her. I think we’ve been at the same dinner party a couple of times, but I can’t say I know her.”

“Who’s her best friend?”

“Donald Clark,” she replied, “but she apparently got tired of him.”

“Do you know of anybody who knows her well?”

“She’s not the sort to have a lot of friends, and certainly not the kind she would confide in about how to hire a pro.”

They finished their coffee and went to their respective showers.

Debby awoke in a bed that was empty on the other side, but still a little warm. She called Rocco’s room.

“Yes?”