The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club 17)

“I promised Millie I’d look into what she says is an ongoing pattern of homeless shootings, no arrests,” I concluded.

Rich was already tapping on his keyboard, searching for a report of a homicide outside Sydney G. Walton Square.

“Got it,” he said. “Victim: James Dolan, white male, fifty, shot twice in the chest at approximately four a.m. No witnesses to the shooting. Investigation ongoing. Body at Metro Hospital morgue.”

I said, “That’s the guy. Who was assigned to the case?”

“Sergeant Garth Stevens and Inspector Evan Moran. I don’t know them. You?”

“I know of Stevens,” I said. “He’s been on the job for twenty-five years.”

“Stevens and Moran work graveyard shift,” Conklin said.

I called Sergeant Stevens before Conklin and I clocked out for the day, and was put through to his desk at Central. He knew my name, said he’d even worked with my father, Marty Boxer, back in the day. My father was a bad-news cop and a worse husband and dad, but I let the comment slide with a “No kidding.”

I said, “Sergeant, you’re investigating that shooting at Walton Square early this morning?”

“Yeah. Vagrant took a couple of rounds to the chest. Killed instantly. Why do you want to know?”

“A citizen got hold of me and said there may have been several incidents like this one. Does that sound right?”

“You have a suspect in this shooting?” he asked, answering my question with one of his own.

“No.”

“Then don’t worry about this, Sergeant. Moran and I are on it. Nice chatting with you.”

And then he hung up.

I put the receiver back in the cradle and said to Conklin, “Stevens blew me off.”

“Typical,” said Conklin. “Old-timer. Get offa my cloud.”

I had a bad feeling about it. It wasn’t just that the old-timer had been rude; maybe he had a reason for blowing me off. Maybe there was something he didn’t want me to know.

CHAPTER 12

YUKI WAS HUNCHED over her computer rereading transcripts of her interviews with some of Marc Christopher’s associates from the Ad Shop.

Parisi had warned her that their case pretty much rested on the video, and she agreed. The recording was powerful. Yuki thought that if it was true the DA could get a grand jury indictment with a ham sandwich, then Marc Christopher’s rape video was a five-star seven-course meal with a vintage wine.

No doubt she could get a grand jury indictment; if they went to trial, the rape video had to go into evidence and had to be shown to the jury.

Giftos would try to get the video excluded. That way, if he put Hill on the stand, the jury would hear both versions of the sex act. Only one juror had to agree that the rape was staged, and Briana Hill would be found not guilty.

Yuki had to find more evidence to shore up her case if the video was thrown out, but how?

No one else had been in the bedroom with Hill and Christopher. The cops had photographed fading bruise marks on Marc’s wrists and ankles, but apparently, Marc hadn’t told anyone that he had been raped until weeks after the fact.

Now she wondered if anyone else had had a sexual encounter with Briana Hill that could be called rape.

As she reread the interview transcripts, she was looking for something that she might have missed, a comment that she should have probed, a tell that she had let slide.

She called up the transcript of senior art director Lyle Bevans. He was forty-two, had worn red-rimmed glasses and an untucked plaid shirt over his jeans, had long hair, and had smelled like weed. He had seemed to enjoy the meeting with the ADA and been willing to spend as much time as she would allow.

She had interviewed him because he had frequent and recent experience working with both Christopher and Hill.

Yuki highlighted the relevant parts of the transcript, including the part where Bevans told her that Briana Hill was hot and demanding. “She’s a sex bomb.”