reserving the conference room, he left it up to the captain to speak with Burke and Kraus. All day he tried to keep his mind off Eva’s case while he dug into Shanna Wagner’s file and rearranged the contents to coincide with the timeline as they understood it.
“I’ll let you catch up before I give you my thoughts on this.” Louie scratched his head. “Chloe Wagner stopped in to see you.”
“Shit.” Jake blew out a breath.
“Yeah, she asked a few questions about her sister, but she seemed more concerned about you ignoring her calls.”
He’d been an idiot to date her in the first place. Right from the beginning, he handled her wrong and now he was paying for it. Never before had he disregarded a regulation. Ha, the one time I do and it’s a catastrophe. An indiscretion like this could cost him his career. He’d been flattered by the way she had pursued him. Her pretty girl-next-door looks fooled him. No matter where he turned, restaurants, bars, the grocery store, Chloe was there. Alarms should’ve sounded. What a fool he’d been. On the second date, she had insisted on bringing dinner to his house. Before he had a chance to open the cartons of takeout she was on him. He should’ve kicked her out then. Instead he took what she had to offer. Afterward when they lounged in bed, Chloe had started to talk of the future. She stressed how they both had dealt with death at an early age and understood it was important to live for today because there might not be a tomorrow. Before she had finished her sentence, he had her dressed and out the door. She had scared the living hell out of him. No way had he led her on about commitments and forever.
When she called the next day, he ended the relationship over the phone. In hindsight, maybe he should’ve done it after a third date, not the morning after, but the woman had shopped for a damn ring, for God’s sake. After he broke it off, he decided to keep a journal of the times she had showed up at a place where he was dining or drinking. It went from flattering to creepy, fast. She seemed to have arrived at a place even before he made plans to be there. “Cripes, dating her was a mistake. What did you tell her?”
“I told her I don’t get involved in your personal affairs.”
“Oh please! I can’t get you out of my personal life. There’s something off with her. Did you feel it?”
“No,” Louie said, wiping the grin off his face.
“Well I did, when I was with her. We should have taken a closer look at her sooner.”
“You can’t miss what’s not there, Jake.”
“I’m hoping we did. Otherwise we have nothing. Let’s put everyone back on the suspect list and start over.”
With fresh eyes, Jake studied the crime scene photos first. Once or twice he caught himself comparing them to Eva’s wounds. It was difficult, but he forced himself to remain in the present. Such brutality in most cases meant the victim knew her killer. Somewhere along the line, Shanna had pissed off someone and paid the ultimate price. The question was who had she angered? Rage, Jake thought. The crime scene photos exhibited uncontrollable rage.
Everyone they had interviewed stated Shanna was well liked with no enemies. An ambitious woman, she was first in her class, a scholarship athlete like himself, and she had held down a job while attending college. Had she set off a competitor? Could her achievements be the foundation for jealousy? Eliminate her, eliminate the rivalry? Shanna had interned with an accounting firm who had offered her a job a year before she’d even graduated.
No steady relationships. Shanna had dated one person in the six-month period prior to her death. He was another accountant at the firm where she had interned. According to her family she hadn’t dated often because she had been goal orientated. Maybe it was a guy she turned down and his ego couldn’t handle it. But it seemed farfetched.
“Do you remember this Cavilla guy? The one she dated,” Jake said.
“Yeah, he seemed a little old for her. Why?”
“The answers lie in the rage; this kind of violence suggests a scorned lover or wanna-be lover to me.”
“We looked at him but nothing popped,” Louie said.
“We did, but let’s relook at his alibi.”
“Got something?”
“No.”
Jake dug around in the file until he unearthed the information on the boyfriend. Mark Cavilla, at five-nine, weighed about one hundred fifty pounds. He had black hair, black eyes, and a black temper to go with it.
“Your notes say his answers seemed rehearsed at the time. What else do you remember about him?”
“His statement seemed off and he had an attitude right from the beginning,” Louie stated.
“He was alibied by the bartender at a bar less than two miles from the scene. I always believed the killer was a local guy since she was dumped in town even though she was supposed to be up at school in Storrs at the time of the killing. It’s a long way to travel to dump a body unless you’re familiar with the area and that particular construction site. They picked well. No one would be around a construction site at night. I want to re-interview the bartender before too much time goes by. Okay, what else…?” Jake’s head snapped up.
A couple of his detectives were going at it. Amused, Jake listened in. He didn’t do anything about them. These things tended to work themselves out if left alone.
“What was I going to say?”
“Christ, Carrington, can’t you read without your lips moving? I’m trying to concentrate here,” Burke yelled.
Al Burke had his moments. A detective in the department for over ten years, he’d seen it all. Fifteen years a cop and his face showed it. He wouldn’t consider him attractive, with his hard eyes, the stomach the size of Jupiter, and a Rudolph-red nose from drinking. Jake figured Burke had a few more years on the job before it crushed him. The guy’d been divorced three times, and produced five children. A heavy drinker, he could turn on a dime, but his investigative skills were prime. He had no problems going through a door with Burke.
“Al, how’d you get the black eye?” Jake asked with a wide grin on his face. He knew, but he wanted Al to say it out loud.
“Shut up. Everyone, shut up,” Burke said, walking toward the coffee machine.
“A ninety-year-old woman landed a punch when his guard was down,” Kraus, Burke’s partner, said.
“I’m warning you, Kraus. Shut up.” Burke slammed down his coffee cup. “You guys don’t know the half of it.”
Laughing, Detective Gunther “Gunner” Kraus continued, “To his credit, Sarge, she was like a pit bull.”
“I’ll say mean.” Burke took over the story as he yanked up his pants and tightened his belt. “Never mind like one, she was. I got away easy. You should have seen what she did to her poor husband. Carved him like a roast because he complained about her smoking. Her freakin’ smoking? I thought those things were supposed to kill you. She’s ninety freaking years old. What I saw today, she’ll last another ten years, if a day. I feel sorry for her cellmate. Her poor sliced-up husband lived with the witch for seventy-five years. Me, I would have killed myself around year two.”
“We
