Cold Justice (Kali O'Brien series Book 5) Read online

  The cop shook his head. “Don’t go putting words in my mouth. If she was picking up guys, you might have a lead on her killer, is all.”

  “How’d she die?” Lou asked.

  “Appears she was strangled.”

  “Who was it found her?”

  “Old guy. Homeless. Sounds like he discovered her body this morning, but it took him till noon to report it.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Says no one would listen to him. I guess they thought he was a rambling drunk. He’s in a black-and-white out there on the street if you want to talk to him.”

  “Yeah. Make sure they hold him until we’re finished here.”

  Lou moved closer, his eyes scanning the scene as he approached the woman’s body.

  She was in a sitting position, her back propped against the metal side of the dumpster. Her arms were folded neatly in her lap, but her legs were spread in what was clearly an unnatural position. She wore a sleeveless, black jersey tee, tight and cut low in a deep V at the neck. And one of those short stretch skirts that would barely cover her panties had she been wearing any. Now, it had ridden up, exposing the bare flesh of her thighs and buttocks, and a triangle of blond hair at her crotch. Impossible to tell if she’d been raped, though Lou saw no obvious abrasions or signs of bruising. No signs of semen either, but that might have been washed away by the rain during the night. In time, the coroner would be able to give them an answer.

  Keating stepped in beside him. “Doesn’t look like the face of a hooker, does it?”

  “You can tell a hooker from her face?” But he knew what Keating meant. Life on the streets hardened women. This one looked like she belonged downtown with a briefcase. Or in her garden, watering roses while conversing with her cat. Her makeup was subdued and artfully applied, her hair a golden brown, lightly frosted. It framed her face with curls, even now when it was wet. Her nails were short, with clear polish. She had a fresh look about her, even in death. She reminded Lou of Jan when she was younger.

  So what was with the clothes? These days it was hard to tell the whores from the models, but given the weather, he’d at least have expected something with sleeves.

  Keating was sketching the scene in his notebook. “Looks like she was killed elsewhere and dumped here.”

  “Unfortunately for us.” An outdoor crime scene was hard enough. It was harder still when it wasn’t where the murder had actually occurred. There was less evidence, fewer clues to go on. “Only not really dumped,” Lou added. “Whoever killed her took care to position the body.”

  “An added risk for our killer.”

  Lou nodded. The longer the guy stuck around, the greater his chances of being seen. Still, given the area, it was unlikely they’d find a witness.

  “So why’d he take the time to pose her, you think?”

  “Got me.” But Lou knew it was a question they’d be coming back to in the course of the investigation. He donned a pair of latex gloves and examined the line of discoloration around her neck. Ligature marks. Clear but not deep.

  “Looks like he used rope,” Keating said, echoing Lou’s own thought.

  “Let’s see if the coroner agrees.” Lou rolled the body slightly to the side, checking for scratches or bruises. Nothing to indicate she’d fought her attacker. Nothing that made it appear she’d been dragged either. She wasn’t a large woman, but it still took considerable strength to carry dead weight.

  Lou eased himself to his feet. “Let’s do a walk-through.”

  They walked the length of the alley, then back out to the street. There was precious little to go on in the way of helping them find her killer. “We’ll see what the crime scene folks come up with in the way of trace evidence. On first impression, though, I don’t see a lot here that’s going to help us.”

  The old guy who found her wasn’t much help, either. He talked in circles, and it took effort on Lou’s part to get the story even halfway straight.

  “What time this morning?” Lou asked.

  “Don’t got a watch.”

  “Approximately.”

  The guy looked at the sky, like he was going to tell time by the movement of the sun. “Hard to tell. Clouds and all.”

  “You see anyone else around?”

  The old guy shook his head. Only he was so full of twitches it took Lou a minute to decipher the shake for what it was.

  “Did you touch the crime scene in any way? Take anything, like her purse maybe?”

  The twitches grew more pronounced. “I didn’t take nothing of hers! Nothing! Why you gotta go accuse me like that?”

  “Calm down. It wasn’t an accusation.”

  “I got respect for people’s property,” the guy muttered.

  Lou had pretty much despaired of getting anything useful from him. “How’d you happen to spot her?” he asked.

  “Just passing through, checking for collectibles.”

  Dumpster diving, in other words. “And then?”

  “Went looking for a cop, I did. Weren’t a one to be seen.”

  Lou figured he’d gotten as much as he was going to. The man could have been lying, of course, and probably was about some of it. Most likely he’d been camped out rather than passing through. And his timing was off a little, so maybe he had been drunk, or hung over, and not gotten around to reporting it as soon as he should have. On the other hand, Lou could believe that he’d been dismissed by folks, too. Just the smell of him had been enough to keep Lou leaning against the open rear door of the black-and-white.

  The uniformed officer approached. “Are you about finished here? The coroner wants to take her away.”

  “I think so. Let me check with my partner.” Keating was on the cell phone, and Lou waited to catch his eye.

  “It’s the sergeant,” Keating said. “There was a call not long ago. A woman who says her friend didn’t show up for dinner last night and hasn’t been home all day. Five-five, short hair, frosted blonde.”

  “What’s the friend’s name?”

  “Anne Bailey. She’s an attorney.”

  Lou remembered his first impression on seeing the body. She looked like she belonged downtown with a briefcase. He hated the thought that he’d been right.

  “See if the caller is willing to give us an ID.” He checked his watch. “Tell her to meet us at the morgue in an hour.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Kali pressed a knuckle to her mouth as she examined the face on the monitor. “It’s her.”

  “You’re sure about that?” It was the younger cop who spoke. Bryce Keating, as she recalled.

  She nodded, not trusting her voice. Breathe deeply, she told herself. Don’t think about Anne right now.

  It didn’t work. Grief slapped her in the face and brought tears to her eyes. Anne, with an open heart, an infectious smile, and a whimsical sense of humor. A woman who bubbled with enthusiasm for life. How could Anne be dead?

  The older, heavyset cop by the name of Fortune offered Kali a tissue.

  “What happened?” she asked finally. She wouldn’t have been sitting here in a cramped room at the morgue with two homicide detectives if there hadn’t been foul play of some sort. Beyond that, she hadn’t a clue.

  “We’re not sure,” Fortune replied. “It would be helpful if you could tell us about your friend and the dinner plans the two of you had for last night.”

  “How was she killed?” Kali asked. She wasn’t going to tell them anything until she had a few answers of her own.

  The cops exchanged glances. Neither of them was familiar to her, although she was acquainted with several homicide detectives from her criminal defense work. If they recognized her, they were keeping it to themselves.

  “Look, I’m an attorney. I know you can’t tell me the details, but I need to know what happened.” She softened it with, “Please.”

  Fortune stuck his hands in his pocket. He was broadly built and carried extra weight around his middle. His ruddy face was set in a dour expression, but Kali th
ought she detected kindness in his eyes.

  “It looks like she was strangled,” he said. “But that’s just a guess. We won’t know for sure until after the autopsy.”

  “Strangled.” Kali’s hand went to her throat. She had trouble swallowing. “Where was Anne’s body found?”

  “In an alleyway near City Center.”

  “All the way down there? We were going to meet at a restaurant in Berkeley. Near where she lives.” Lived, Kali amended silently.

  “That’s the kind of information we need. You feeling up to it?”

  She wasn’t. She could feel tears stinging her eyes, waves of sorrow building inside her. But she wanted Anne’s killer found. “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully.

  “How about we try?” Keating asked. He was about her own age, long-limbed but with broad shoulders and muscular arms. His nose jutted out between prominent cheekbones. Above, his eyes were gray and sharp. Not unfriendly, exactly, but there was none of the gentleness there she’d sensed with his partner.

  “Okay.” She took another breath and worked on shelving her grief for a later time.

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  Kali shook her head, then changed her mind. “Yes, a soda, if you don’t mind.” She usually qualified such requests with, “Diet, if you have it.” But with the pall of death hanging over her, a hundred or so empty calories seemed nothing to quibble about.

  Keating went to get their sodas while she and Fortune made small talk in the tiny, airless room. How many grief-stricken people had sat here over the years? And how many of the crimes remained unsolved?

  When Keating returned with three Cokes, Fortune took out a notebook. “Tell us about your friend. Where she lived, what kind of work she did, husband or boyfriend . . . The more you can tell us, the better.”

  Kali took a deep breath and pushed away the mental image of Anne’s face on the morgue monitor. “She was an attorney. We both worked at the DA’s office right out of law school.” It wasn’t an important fact, but Kali didn’t know where to start. She licked her lips and began again.

  “Anne had her own practice, in Berkeley. She handled mostly family matters, trusts and estates, divorces, that sort of thing, although she had some business clients too.”

  “Married?”

  Kali nodded. “She and her husband separated about two months ago, but they were trying to work things out.”

  She saw a flicker of something in the cops’ eyes as Fortune wrote down Jerry’s name and address. Kali knew he’d be a prime suspect, at least initially. She wondered what sort of alibi he had for the time of Anne’s murder.

  “Did you call him?”

  “I tried last night when Anne didn’t show up for dinner. There was no answer. Same thing this morning.” At the time, Kali had half suspected that Jerry was simply ignoring her. He sometimes acted as if he were jealous of his wife’s friends. Now, her stomach soured at the suggestion that he might have been involved in her death.

  “Why’d they separate?”

  Kali gripped her soda can and struggled to stay focused. “It was Anne’s idea. I’m not sure why, really, except that she thought it might help.” Kali knew there were problems in the marriage, but she didn’t know the details. She could imagine Jerry might not be the easiest guy to be married to, but then, when you got right down to it, the same could be said about a lot of men. It was a thought Kali often used to reassure herself when she was feeling lonely.

  “Any kids?” Fortune asked.

  “No.” Though she knew Anne wanted them and Jerry didn’t.

  “Other immediate family?”

  “A brother. He lives in Palo Alto.”

  Keating drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “The two of them have a good relationship?”

  “Reasonably good. I don’t think they were close, but they got along.”

  “How about her parents?”

  “Her mother died when Anne was in college. Her father remarried. He lives somewhere in Florida. Sorry, but I don’t know any more than that.”

  “Was she dating other men?”

  “Not that I was aware of. She wanted to make her marriage work.”

  Keating and Fortune took Kali through her last conversation with Anne, roughly thirty-six hours earlier. They’d spoken Friday morning, confirming their plans for that night and agreeing on a time. She’d gotten the impression that Anne would be coming straight from work, but she didn’t know for sure. Yes, Anne would have been driving, and no, she wasn’t the type to offer a ride to a stranger. Kali tried only to think about the questions and her answers, not the fact they were discussing a dear friend who’d been murdered.

  “She do drugs?” This was Keating again.

  “No. She wasn’t even much of a drinker.”

  “Did she hang out with a bad crowd?”

  “Not unless you include lawyers.”

  Neither cop cracked a smile.

  Fortune rocked back in his chair. “What kind of dresser was your friend?”

  The question caught Kali by surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “Conservative? Flashy?”

  “Not conservative, but definitely not flashy.” Like so many women, Kali included, Anne had tried to find the right balance between looking professional and being stylish. “I guess I’d say she was a fashionable dresser. Suits and dresses for work, slacks and sweaters when she wasn’t in jeans. Why?”

  “Just trying to get a complete picture.”

  “She was nude when you found her?” Murder was hard enough to accept. Kali tried not to think about the horrors Anne might have endured before her death.

  “Not nude,” Fortune said, clearly trying to offer Kali some degree of comfort. “She was dressed. And on first impression, it doesn’t look as though she was sexually assaulted, but we can’t say for sure.”

  Kali was grateful for his efforts at kindness. “What do you think happened?”

  It was Keating who replied, though not with any sort of answer. “At this point, anything we say is pure speculation.”

  They asked her a few more questions, then thanked her for coming down.

  “You’ll notify her husband?” Kali asked. She knew she’d call herself and offer solace, but she didn’t want to be the one to tell him about Anne’s death.

  “Right away.”

  Talking had kept Kali focused, but the minute she stepped into the cavernous hallway, she felt tears again prick at her eyes. By time she made it outside, she was choking back sobs. Finally, in the relative privacy of her own car, she pressed her forehead against the steering wheel and let her grief flow.

  <><><>

  Sunday morning Kali woke to gray skies but no rain. Loretta had padded into the bedroom at the first light of morning and nudged the bed with her muzzle. Kali could feel her waiting expectantly for any sign of human activity. Finally, Kali opened an eye, and the dog leapt to life with the throaty whimpers and soft barks of her morning greeting.

  “Okay, girl. I’m getting up.” Although she might not have without the Springer spaniel’s insistence. She’d slept fretfully during the night, experiencing a flood of sorrow anew every time she woke. Now that morning had arrived, all she wanted to do was bury herself again in sleep.

  Kali showered, then fixed coffee and a bagel, and braced herself for the story of Anne’s death that was sure to be front page news.

  It was, but only one column in width. There wasn’t, apparently, a lot in the way of information to report.

  The partially clad body of Anne Bailey, thirty-five, had been found Saturday afternoon in a narrow alley in downtown Oakland. She appeared to have been strangled. Anyone with information was asked to call the Oakland police department, homicide division. The final two paragraphs of the article were given over to a cursory summary of Anne’s life, derived, Kali felt certain, from Anne’s legal resume. Her work on the Dwayne Arnold Davis trial had not been overlooked. The article concluded by noting that her husband, Jerry, was i
n seclusion mourning the death of his wife.

  She wondered how and when to offer her condolences, and found herself feeling grateful that it was too early in the morning to even think of calling.

  Under normal circumstances, Kali would have taken a long and brisk walk through the hills near her home, or forced herself to work out at the gym. But this morning she felt as though her body were made of lead. She opted instead for a short walk with Loretta—enough to let the dog sniff and squat—and then returned home, where she wandered aimlessly from room to room.

  Until recently, Kali had had housemates—two elderly sisters who’d leased the house from her when she’d moved back to her childhood hometown, Silver Creek, and then had graciously sublet a portion of it back to her when she unexpectedly returned to the Bay Area. But Bea and Dotty had left last month for an extended stay with friends in Arizona. Instead of relishing the experience of having her home to herself again, Kali found herself face-to-face for the first time with the angst of being alone.

  She knew it wasn’t just the empty house. More to the point was an empty heart. Bad luck, bad timing, the wrong men—who could say why, but bottom line was, she had no one to share her life in the ways she cared about.

  There were days on end, weeks even, when it didn’t bother her. But today wasn’t one of them. Anne’s death had cast a gray shadow on her psyche and there was no shaking it.

  Finally, because she had to do something, she tackled the stack of ironing that had been building for weeks. She was down to the last pair of khakis when the phone rang.

  “Hi, Kali. It’s Jerry Bailey.”

  She’d been uncomfortable, wondering whether or not to call him, and now he’d beat her to it. She felt a pang of guilt. “Jerry, I’ve been thinking about you. I’m so sorry about Anne.”

  “I still can’t believe it. I’m in shock, I guess.”

  “If there’s anything I can do . . . “

  “Actually, there is.” He hesitated, but only briefly. “I’m at the house, and . . . I could use some company, I guess. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind coming over.”