“As I said on the phone, something’s come up that concerns your husband,” Franciscus began. “One of the suspects wanted in the bombing of Guardian Microsystems and the murder of Officers O’Neill and Shepherd has popped up on our radar. We’re calling her Bobby Stillman, but she went by a different name back then.”
“Sunshine Awakening, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Yes. So you recall the details of the case.”
“Intimately.”
“I’m sorry.” Franciscus knew that many survivors viewed suicide as murder by unseen forces.
“It wasn’t suicide,” she said, as if to underscore his thoughts. “Theo wasn’t the type. He was just thirty-one. He was still bubbling about making detective. I’ve read all the psychobabble the department gives the grieving widow about how a policeman takes a job home with him. That wasn’t my husband.”
Katie Kovacs took a breath. “Did you find her? The woman who got away? Bobby Stillman. Is that why you’re here?”
“Not exactly. She’s peripherally involved in another case I’m working. When I was checking her record, I noticed a few discrepancies with the paperwork on the case.”
“Just a few?” she asked sarcastically.
“You’re not surprised?”
“My husband didn’t kill himself, Detective. He was murdered.” She let the words sink in, then stood. “Will you excuse me, Detective Franciscus?”
“Call me John. Please.”
“I’m sorry, but after everything I’m not comfortable calling policemen by their Christian names.”
Franciscus stood as she left the room.
Katie Kovacs returned a minute later carrying a cardboard moving box. Setting it down on the coffee table, she took a seat next to him. She pried off the lid and began sorting through folders, newspaper clippings, and police files. “Here we are.” Kovacs handed Franciscus an article from the front page of the Albany Times Union dated July 29, 1980. “Read it,” she said.
“Sure.” The article detailed the storming of a house on Rockcliff Lane by the Albany Special Weapons and Tactics unit after a two-day siege, and the murder of its tenant and sole occupant, David Bernstein, a former New York University law professor. Bernstein, a self-styled underground revolutionary, who went by the moniker Manu Q, was suspected of carrying out the bombing of Guardian Microsystems, and later, to have shot to death the two Albany police officers sent to question him.
“Done?” she asked.
Franciscus nodded, and she handed him another photograph. It was an eight-by-ten of the notorious crime-scene photo that had made the rounds all those years ago. It showed Bernstein, or “Manu Q,” naked to the waist, lying in a twisted pose on a wooden floor. Bullet holes dotted his torso. Too many to count. He handed the picture back. “I’ve seen it.”
“Now take a look at these.” Katie Kovacs extended several black-and-white photographs, all showing spent bullets misshapen by impact. “Three eleven-millimeter slugs. All of them were fired from the same pistol. The Fanning automatic that was found in David Bernstein’s hand. The first two bullets were those that killed Officers Shepherd and O’Neill. The last one was dug out of Bernstein’s brain.”
Franciscus studied the pictures. They were standard ballistics shots, the slug placed in scale by a ruler. All three had similar markings. “Are you saying that Bernstein shot the policemen, then turned the gun on himself?”
“Not exactly. The coroner estimated that the bullet that killed Bernstein was fired from a distance of ten feet. It’s what drove Theo crazy. Not crazy crazy, so that he’d commit suicide, but regular crazy. How could David Bernstein shoot himself in the forehead from ten feet away? And, if he was already dead, why did the SWAT guys shoot him so many times afterward?”
“The article mentioned an exchange of gunfire.”
“The theory was that it was Bobby Stillman-Sunshine Awakening, the newspapers called her-firing at the police. But Bernstein’s pistol was fired only three times. It had eight bullets remaining in the clip.”
“And Bobby Stillman was never caught,” added Franciscus.
“They claimed that she escaped from a house surrounded by a SWAT team.” Katie Kovacs laughed disgustedly. “Not likely. Which brings me back to my original questions. How does a man shoot himself in the head from ten feet away? And if he’s already dead, why shoot him so many times?”
“Good question. Did your husband follow it up?”
“Theo was the original bull terrier. Once he got hold of something, he wouldn’t let go.”
“What did he find?”
“There was a second set of prints on the gun. A few of them were very clear. It was enough to convince him that David Bernstein was murdered before the SWAT team stormed the house. He told me he’d run the prints and gotten a man’s name.”
“He was sure it was a man?” asked Franciscus.
“I can’t say for certain, but I assume so. Otherwise he would have said something. Were you expecting it to be Bobby Stillman?”
“Maybe,” said Franciscus. “It would have made sense. And he never told you who the prints belonged to?”
“No,” she said, her shoulders collapsing. “Theo didn’t bring it up, and I never asked. I was nineteen. It was 1980. I was into Bruce Springsteen and Dallas.”
“You don’t have to apologize. You couldn’t have known what would happen.” Leaning forward, he rummaged inside the box. “What actions did the department take?” He was thinking of the file with the pages torn out of it at 1 Police Plaza. Of the detective who had erased his name from the case record.
“None. The chief refused to move on it. Bernstein was dead. They had the murder weapon. It was a good collar. There were already enough questions about why the police had failed to nail Bobby Stillman. He didn’t want any more about who really killed Bernstein.” Kovacs swiveled on the couch so she could look Franciscus more directly in the eye. “What upset Theo was that even his partner wanted him to let it go.”
“I assume they’d discussed the second set of prints.”
“Of course. Theo thought the world of him. Everyone did. He was the department’s shining star. The mind reader. They called him Carnac, just like the guy on the Johnny Carson show. ‘Carnac the Magnificent.’ Theo never did a thing without clearing it with him.”
“Carnac the Magnificent,” who had erased his name from the case’s master file at 1 Police Plaza. Franciscus slid forward on the cushions. “Any reason why his partner wouldn’t want to look into the matter?”
Franciscus had one answer. The partner knew who the prints belonged to, and knew better than to get involved.
“Theo never said a word, but it upset him terribly. He did as he was told and let the case go. He was ambitious. He wanted to be chief. He said that in the long run everything would balance out. He’d win more than he’d lose. Two months later, he was murdered. You know the funny thing? A few days before, he’d traded his Smith and Wesson for a Fanning eleven-millimeter.”
“His partner had one, too, didn’t he?”
Katie Kovacs snapped her head in his direction. “How did you know?” When Franciscus didn’t answer, she looked away, her eyes focused on some faraway place. “He had eyes that looked right into you, right down into your soul.”
“What was his name?”
“Francois. He was a French Canadian originally. He left the force after Theo’s death. He told me he’d had enough of police work. I don’t know what’s become of him.”
“Detective Francois?”
“No, that was his first name.” She took a breath. “Francois Guilfoyle.”
Franciscus must have twitched or moved somehow, because Katie Kovacs asked him if he knew the name. He said no, he’d never heard of him, but he’d look him up. She packed up the box and returned the lid. “If you’d like, you can take the box. Maybe you’ll find something useful.”