As I walked in, I spotted Cohen standing by his desk, tapping his pen on a stack of papers while he talked on the phone. His expensive suit—one of a never-ending supply he received from a mother who’d been hoping for a trial lawyer instead of a cop—was wrinkled but clean; he must have stopped by the house to change. When he saw me, he kept talking but waved me forward.
I removed the evidence bags from my duffel and placed them on his desk—the photograph, the article, the MoMA folder, and the gun. I added the CD and the stills from the TIR video.
Cohen pointed to the evidence bags. “Ben’s?” he mouthed, and I nodded. To whoever was on the other end of the phone he said, “Yeah, keep running it. I want to know what we’ve got.”
He dropped his phone in his pocket and his butt in the chair and gave me a weary smile.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey. Any word on the blood test?”
“Not yet.”
I sank into the chair next to his desk and gave Clyde the all clear. My partner once again greeted Cohen with a rapture usually reserved for a long-lost brother, then crawled under Cohen’s desk and stretched out as much as he could in the confined space.
Cohen lifted his feet out of the way. “You big mutt.” He picked up the CD and popped it into his computer. “Any surprises here?”
“Not really. Looks like she was hurt, as Deke said. And unable to move, as he also said.”
Cohen watched the video in silence, then ran through it a second time. When he reached the part where the animal appeared, he hit pause.
“What is that?” he asked.
“That’s the ‘not really’ part. I brought you some stills. Maybe you can get someone from the Fish and Wildlife Service to take a look.”
He nodded and finished watching. After a third time through, he shut down the program and studied the stills. Then he picked up the clear evidence bag holding the photograph of the woman. “Any idea who this is?”
I shook my head. “It was locked in Ben’s desk with the other things I brought, including that photo of Samantha and Jack Hurley. I’ll see if Hiram Davenport knows who she is—he told me to stop by.” I left out my fear that he’d likely fire me.
Cohen picked up the picture of Samantha and her assistant. “A day trip by two artists to an art museum. Why lock it up?”
“Why indeed? Unless you think there was more to their relationship.”
“We just cut Hurley loose with a promise we’ll be looking into those illegal sales he made. Like I told you, his alibi is so-so—his girlfriend swears he never left her side and she’s got the used condoms to prove it. Not exactly an interview with the pope. But so far there’s nothing that links him to any of the crime scenes. You find anything that DPC might want to hide?”
“Not really.” I filled Cohen in on what I’d found in Ben’s office. And what I hadn’t. “No appointment calendar, no business cards, nothing to indicate who he might have seen lately or planned to see.” I tapped the bag holding the newspaper article. “This piece suggests that the rivalry between Hiram Davenport and the Tates goes back at least thirty years, when Hiram bought out one of Alfred Tate’s lines and got the cement factory as part of the deal. I’m guessing it was a hostile takeover. I’ll look into that. But more immediately relevant is the fact that Hiram lured away Tate Enterprises’ chief litigation lawyer six months ago and gave her a top spot at DPC.”
Cohen’s eyebrows shot up. “Veronica Stern?”
“None other. Has Stern said anything?”
“Not much. But she hasn’t lawyered up, either.” He picked up his pen, jiggled it between his thumb and forefinger. “They towed her car here and forensics is going over it. We’ve taken DNA swabs, and she gave us permission to search her home and garage and a tool shed, which has so far turned up zilch. She was adamant with the officer who brought her in that she knows Lucy by name only and that she has no idea how or why the clothes got in there, or who would have phoned in a false tip. But my spidey sense says she’s sitting on something.”
“Like what?”
He sucked in air, blew it out. “No idea. Bandoni and I will start the interview in about ten minutes. Anything strikes you as odd or off, I’d like to know.”
“Of course. What else do you have?”
He tossed his pen on the desk. “We’ve got nothing. Half the civilized world is looking for that little girl, and the other half is telling us it was space aliens. Feds are working the terrorist angle, but they’re pulling up empty lines. Neighbors didn’t see anything. Hurley says Samantha mentioned a stalker, but he never saw anyone, and her friends never heard about it. We’re working to track her movements during the last week, hoping CCTVs caught something. The tech guys are going through the family’s social media accounts and e-mail, but they haven’t picked up a lead with any legs. Could be Hurley’s lying about a stalker in order to redirect the heat.”
He picked up a paper coffee cup, stared into it, then crushed it. A trace of coffee dribbled onto his lap, and he swore and pulled a napkin out of his desk.
“What about the dead man who was shot outside the kiln?” I asked. “Any hits on the sketch?”
Cohen wiped at the coffee spill. “Not so far. We found enough of him to print, but the prints didn’t match anything in the system. We also found a casing we hope is related to the case. Hard to be sure with the bomb blast, but ballistics says the large-caliber gun that killed him doesn’t match the gun used on Ben and the twin boys. So either the shooter had more than one weapon, or we’ve got more than one shooter.”
He dropped the napkin in the trash and picked up the clear evidence bag holding Ben’s gun.
“That was locked in his desk with the photos and the article,” I said. “There was a bottle of whiskey in there, too. And his military medals. Maybe that’s what Hiram didn’t want us to find.”
Cohen frowned. “Says something to his state of mind, I guess. We’ll run the gun. But a .40 cal? This won’t match, either.”
“And the bodies in the kiln?”
“Both male. We got an ID on one because we have his prints on file for trespassing and loitering. Frank Kaye. Been homeless since the time of Moses.”
I found my hand reaching for the comfort of Clyde. “Trash Can.”
“What?”
“Frank Kaye was known around the hobo camps as Trash Can. He was a harmless old man, never came out of his drunken stupor long enough to hurt a fly. He used to hang at Hogan’s Alley when he was in Denver. He must have relocated to the cement factory.”
“And stumbled on the killer,” Cohen said. “Then maybe got whacked because he saw what he shouldn’t.”
I remembered the face I’d seen through the plastic before the bomb blew. “Could the ME tell if Kaye had been tortured?”
“It looks like it, Syd. I’m sorry. Bell said that, near as she can tell given the condition of the bodies, both Kaye and the other man in the kiln were tortured.”
I laced my fingers around my bad knee, brought my chin up. Compartmentalize. It’s how you survive.