Sleight of Hand

CHAPTER Thirty-Six

Frank Santoro met Gloria when she was working as a dispatcher. She understood his hours and never got on him about the time he spent on the job. Frank adored Gloria, and he appreciated how lucky he was to have someone who understood the demands of police work. His first marriage had gone on the rocks because of the time Frank spent on his cases and the shitty mood he could be in after a shift dealing with the dregs of society.

Dana liked Gloria as soon as the heavyset brunette opened the door and flashed a big, warm grin at her. By the time Frank pulled into his driveway, the two women were chatting away over coffee in the living room. Frank knew they had been talking about him when the women worked to stop smiling as he walked in carrying a briefcase.

“Don’t believe a word she says,” Frank told Dana.

“Who says we were talking about you?” Gloria said. “You men always want to be the center of attention.”

Frank kissed Gloria on the cheek, then told her that he and Dana were going downstairs to review surveillance tapes. Gloria handed Dana a thermos filled with coffee.

“If you want something to eat, give a holler,” she said as Dana and her husband vanished down the steps to the basement.

“Why am I here, Frank?” Dana asked as Frank pulled a DVD out of his briefcase and put it in his laptop.

“Something has always bothered me about the keys. You weren’t close enough in court to see them, but there are three that are important. The key in the grave with Horace Blair’s prints on it and the key on the key chain we found in Carrie’s purse—they both opened the front door to Blair’s mansion. But they had something else in common. They were both dulled by wear. Then there’s the key on Horace’s key chain that didn’t open the front door: it looked like the other keys, but it was newer.

“Around the time Carrie disappeared on Monday there was another homicide. The guy’s name was Ernest Brodsky. He was in his seventies, didn’t have any vices, and everyone liked him. We figured it for a killing in the course of a robbery, but there was one odd thing about the case. Brodsky had a shop in the River View Mall, and the evidence points to the crime occurring on Tuesday night in the parking lot of the mall, but his body was found in a field miles away. If Brodsky was robbed and killed at the mall by some junkie, why move the body? It didn’t make sense until I remembered what Brodsky did for a living.”

“And what was that?” Dana asked.

Santoro grinned. “He was a locksmith, and he had equipment in his shop for making copies of keys! If a locksmith made a key that looked similar to Blair’s front door key but wouldn’t open the door, that key would look newer.”

“And the tapes?” Dana asked.

“They show what went on in the mall on Monday and Tuesday.”

The last time anyone had seen Carrie Blair was after court on Monday afternoon, so Santoro and Dana watched the DVD for Monday until Brodsky closed his shop. After Brodsky left the mall Santoro skipped through Monday evening and started watching again when Brodsky opened up on Tuesday morning.

“There!” he said a few minutes after they started watching in real time.

A man in a hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers walked into the picture and opened the door to the locksmith’s shop. He kept his face out of view of the surveillance camera, as if he knew where it was and didn’t want to be identified.

Santoro zoomed in. The picture was in black and white, but the resolution was grainy.

Dana squinted at the screen. “I think he’s Caucasian,” she said, “but that’s about all I can tell.”

The man stayed in the store for twenty minutes and came out holding a small paper bag.

“That’s about the right size for a few keys,” Santoro said just as the man walked out of the picture.

There was another set of tapes that covered the parking area near Brodsky’s shop. Santoro cued up the DVD for Tuesday morning and stared hard at the screen. Suddenly a Porsche drove into a spot around the corner from Brodsky’s place of business, even though most of the lot was empty.

“Carrie Blair drove a Porsche,” he said. “And it’s missing.”

Santoro froze the screen and enlarged the picture. Part of the license plate was visible.

“I can only make out two letters,” Santoro said. “What about you?”

Dana shook her head. Santoro checked his notebook.

“The L and the Q are in the right spot for her plate,” he said.

Santoro pressed PLAY and the man in the sweatshirt got out of the Porsche, working hard at keeping his head down so that his face wouldn’t show.

Santoro watched him walk around the corner, and kept watching until he returned to the car and drove off.

The man didn’t return on Tuesday and Santoro fast-forwarded through the day. Dana and Santoro watched Brodsky lock the door of his shop at 5:30 p.m. and walk into the lot. The cameras didn’t cover the whole lot and Brodsky had parked out of the camera’s range.

It was after midnight and Santoro’s eyes were about to fall out of his head. He leaned forward to turn off the machine just as a Mercedes drove across the screen. Santoro froze the picture and ran the DVD back.

“Can you make out the license?” he asked.

“No,” Dana answered. “The car’s going too fast. I couldn’t see who was driving, either.”

“Too bad. But this wasn’t a total loss. Charles Benedict drives a Mercedes-Benz.”

“Tell me what you’re thinking, Frank.”

“After Benedict kills Carrie, he decides to frame her husband for the crime by leaving a clue in her grave that points to Horace. He takes Carrie’s house key off of her key chain, drives Carrie’s Porsche, with the body in the trunk, to Brodsky’s store in the mall. Benedict has Brodsky make a key that looks like the real house key but won’t open the front door to the Blair mansion. After he buries Carrie, he figures out a way to switch the key that won’t work for Horace’s front door key, which has Horace’s fingerprints on it. Benedict puts Carrie’s house key back on her key chain before he buries her. Then he returns to the grave and plants Horace’s house key in the grave where we’ll find it. Now, the key in the grave opens Blair’s front door, but no key on Blair’s key chain opens the door, and we are going to conclude that Blair must have lost the key when he was burying his wife.”

“That makes sense, but how did he switch the keys?” Dana asked.

“That is the million-dollar question.”

“Which we won’t be able to answer as long as Benedict represents Horace Blair.”