“I know. We’re not related.”
“We’re not even dating.”
A sign hanging from the ceiling gave directions to the main hospital. I started walking in that direction, preferring to ask anyone except Glenda for directions to the surgery waiting room.
“Where are you headed?” Grisnik asked.
“Waiting room. A friend of mine is in surgery.”
“The woman your killer clocked?”
“Yeah. Her name is Kate Scranton.”
“You look like you could use some coffee and company.”
He was wearing chinos, a short-sleeved polo, and a light windbreaker. It wasn’t cold inside or out. The jacket was to cover his weapon. He had the ID to prove he actually was a cop in his own jurisdiction and that meant he didn’t have to leave his gun in the car. I knew that he wanted to keep me company as long as he might learn something useful. I didn’t mind. Some of my best friends were cops.
“I’ll skip the coffee and settle for the company.”
We settled into the waiting room. There were two clusters of people and a few solos spread among the chairs, some of them sleeping, some of them watching the television hanging from the ceiling, some of them present only in body. Grisnik tried the coffee, blowing on it before sipping and wincing.
“Hell of a thing,” Grisnik said.
“The coffee or what happened with Latrell Kelly?”
“Both, only you can’t shoot the coffee.”
“You missed all the excitement,” I said.
“FBI didn’t call us until it was all over. Damn cooperative of them. Not much going on by the time I got there.”
“Anybody brief you?”
“Yeah. Ammara Iverson. She and I might wind up friends if a few more of your suspects get killed in my city.”
“She tell you the same gun was used on Marcellus Pearson and Javy Ordonez?”
“Yup. And she said that Latrell’s fingerprints were on it and that they think it was stolen along with the gun Latrell used on your friend. Know for sure when they check the registrations.”
“She tell you anything else?”
“You mean did she tell me about the photograph of Latrell and a woman that was found in Javy Ordonez’s car? Yeah, she told me. That, plus the gun, is enough to make Latrell good for doing Ordonez. Ammara asked me to check our mug books for a picture of the woman. Said she’d get a copy to me in the morning. I told her no problem, but that’ll take some time.”
“Photograph was taken around seventeen years ago. If she’s in the books, it’s probably for drugs or prostitution. Start your search back then, crosscheck it against Latrell’s address. Go at it that way and I’m betting you get a hit in less than an hour.”
“Who do you think she is?”
“Latrell’s mother.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“After Marcellus went down, Latrell told a reporter that’s what happens when nobody takes care of a little boy. He was talking about himself. That’s why you’ll find her in the system on drugs or prostitution or both.”
“So why did he kill Marcellus?”
“I don’t know why he went after Marcellus, but he did. Told me so before he died. I think he killed Jalise and her son because they reminded him too much of his mother and him.”
“Too bad about the mother and her kid, but he did us a favor getting rid of the others. What about Oleta Phillips?” asked Grisnik.
“Oleta saw Latrell when he came out of Marcellus’s house. A real case of wrong place, wrong time. There’s a couple of graves in Latrell’s basement. Probably Oleta and his mother.”
“Somebody like Latrell, they don’t usually take seventeen years off between killing people. If they do, they make up for lost time. That’s another reason to like him for the Ordonez thing, especially since it was the same gun. Toss in the photograph and it looks tight to me,” Grisnik said.
“I don’t know. Latrell killing Marcellus and the others makes a twisted kind of sense, but I can’t make it stretch to fit Javy Ordonez. Right before he died, Latrell accused me of following him somewhere. Said I took his things. I don’t have any idea what he’s talking about. Could be whoever killed Javy found Latrell’s gun.”
“Maybe the guy you saw running from the scene was real. Could have been him,” Grisnik said.
“What’s the connection?”
“You started out thinking this was a drug war. Maybe you were right. Maybe the guy you saw was planning on taking out Marcellus, only Latrell saved him the trouble. The guy stays on Latrell, gets the gun and the photograph, pops Javy, and plants the picture. End of story.”
“Works better than your theory putting Javy on Latrell.”
“Hey, I’m just a mule-headed city cop, but I’ll tell you one thing. I’d rather get shot than drink any more of this coffee.” Grisnik sat the cup on a table and got up. “I’ll get someone started on those mug books. If you’re right, I don’t need the photograph. All I need is to find an arrest record on a woman who lived in Latrell’s house seventeen years ago. How hard can that be?”
“You mean you’ll have someone else do it?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. Hope everything goes okay with your friend. Anything new on Colby Hudson or Wendy?”
“Nothing. They’re off the grid.”
“That’s not good. I’ve got some feelers out. I’ll let you know if I get any bites.”
“I appreciate it.”
He was at the door to the waiting room when it hit me.
“Hey, Marty.” He turned toward me. “How’d you know my daughter’s name was Wendy?”
His eyes?ickered for an instant and his mouth pulled back in a tight smile. “Ammara Iverson told me. Gave me a description, too. How am I supposed to look for someone if I don’t know their name and what they look like? Get some rest. You look like hell,” he said, waving good-bye before I could answer.
Chapter Fifty-five
At eleven o’clock, I walked out to the nurses’ station and asked a nurse if she could update me on Kate’s surgery. She started to say no but then I began to shake and she said she’d be right back. I hate pity, but I’m not above exploiting it.
She returned a few minutes later and told me that Kate’s surgery would last at least a couple more hours and that she would be in recovery for another two hours after that before I could see her. I thanked her and went back to the waiting room, sat down, and stopped shaking. If only it were that easy all the time.
I thought about the photograph of Latrell and the unidentified woman. Marty Grisnik believed that it made the case against Latrell for the Ordonez murder. That’s what we were supposed to think, but I couldn’t make it fit. If the woman were Latrell’s mother, it definitely wouldn’t fit. Their age differences ruined that scenario. The photograph had to have been planted by the killer to set up Latrell.
I thought again about Kate’s explanation of how we read faces. We manipulate our voluntary expressions, choosing honesty or deceit as it suits us. Our micro expressions are honest precisely because they are involuntary, beyond our powers of manipulation. Both are there to be seen, but we settle for what is easier to see, oblivious to what we need to know. Like the person with face blindness, we don’t recognize what we’re looking at.
The photograph of Latrell and the woman was just one example. If I accepted its presence in Javy’s car as proof of a connection between him and Latrell, I wouldn’t bother to ask if it made sense. I had to reject at face value everything that had happened since the drug house murders, challenge the assumptions I had made, and disregard my instinctive reactions to the evidence. I had to slow everything down to a freeze-frame and dissect it like it was a micro expression.
Troy Clark had assumed that someone on my squad had leaked the existence of the surveillance camera in Marcellus’s house. He seized on Colby Hudson’s failure to appear for his polygraph as proof that Colby was the source of the leak. That was the easiest explanation for him and it turned out to be wrong. Latrell Kelly was the killer.
Colby must have had another reason to duck his polygraph. Maybe he was afraid of being asked about his purchase of the car and the house or Thomas Rice’s death. Maybe he’d gotten in over his head and was hiding out or had been killed.