It should’ve been me.
Slam.
It should’ve been me.
Slam.
It. Slam. Should’ve. Slam. Been. Slam.
I stopped when I heard the crack. Didn’t know if it was the desk or my hand. I looked down and the wood at the corner of the desk had split along with my knuckles. In the bathroom I put on a Band-Aid and returned to my chair. The image of Harper, frozen on screen.
My head went gently to the desk, resting on the back of my hands. I wanted to sleep, but I knew it wouldn’t happen.
The killer took some cash from a bureau in her bedroom. Five hundred in twenties. Maybe they’d thought about taking her necklace, and then thought again. And they smashed her phone.
The images from the night of her murder would never leave me. I saw blood on her hallway floor. The broken necklace in the blood, the little gold cross in the middle of the chain. There was something else I needed to remember. Something important. I squeezed my eyes shut.
There. I saw it. Playing out in my mind like a nightmare.
Beyond Harper’s hallway was a set of French doors leading to a kitchen. Her laptop lay open on the kitchen table. I’d seen it when I came in. Although I hadn’t registered it at first. I was too busy looking at the blood on the floor.
They took the money. Left her necklace. Smashed her phone but left the laptop.
My head shot up to the video. I played it again from the beginning. Harper’s death had not been part of a robbery. She had no defensive wounds. She’d been stabbed as soon as the killer had stepped into the house. If it had been a robbery, the phone would’ve been fenced for a hundred dollars, and the laptop five hundred, easy.
This was no robbery. It was just supposed to look like one.
Sofia had gotten a copy of this video. So had Alexandra.
What if Harper had seen something? Something none of the rest of us had seen. Something implicating the killer.
What if the killer had known this?
I clicked the track pad and started the video again.
When I was done, I scanned most of the Avellino case, started composing an email and then attached the file and the video, and hit send.
There was one person in the world who I trusted to look at this. Maybe she could see something I couldn’t.
THIRTY-SEVEN
KATE
The house in Edgewater, New Jersey, felt both familiar and new. Kate remembered the house when Bloch’s father had filled every corner with Christmas lights and refused to take them down until Easter. Every time Kate saw him he had a smile on his face, a ready joke and candy in his pocket. Every single time. Until he got busted out of the NYPD and then all of that changed.
Now, instead of lamps scattered around the rooms, Bloch had put up strings of fairy lights. Said it reminded her of her father, and besides, there weren’t enough plug sockets for adequate lighting and the overhead bulb was too harsh. Bloch liked the fairy lights. Kate said she liked them too.
What remained of an extra-large pizza had grown cold as it lay in the takeout box in the center of Bloch’s dining table. Beside it was the Avellino trial bundle. Kate popped another Diet Coke, Bloch pulled the cap on a Michelob. They saluted each other with fresh drinks, didn’t say cheers, but each swallowed a mouthful and eased back in their seats at the table.
‘You okay?’ asked Bloch.
It took some time for Kate to find the right words. ‘I’ve never seen anyone die. I can’t get that sound out of my head. When his face hit the road …’
‘I’ll look into the pharmacy murders some more. A biker, female, all in black. Tinted visor. It could’ve been the same person.’
‘You think it was Sofia?’ asked Kate.
Bloch shook her head, ‘I don’t know, to be honest. This is a whole new ball game. I don’t think Alexandra is a killer, and I would be surprised if I was wrong, but I can’t say for certain. She said she went straight home after court when I called her. I can’t verify that, and we have no way of knowing where Sofia was at the time Cohen was murdered.’
That last statement drew a heavy silence into the room. The temperature seemed to drop. If Hal Cohen, a witness in the case, was targeted, then it meant he must’ve had information that could nail the killer. Neither Bloch nor Kate knew what that might be. The events of that day had rocked Kate. She was going to stay at Bloch’s house tonight – work on the case – try to sleep. She felt safe here.
‘I don’t sleep much,’ said Bloch. ‘If you want to turn in, the spare room is ready.’
‘It’s okay. I don’t think I’ll sleep much either.’
Since the murder of Hal Cohen, and Bloch’s revelation that the figure in black leathers had been outside her apartment building, Kate decided there would be safety in numbers. As long as the other number was Bloch. No point in denying it, she felt safe around her. Two nails above the front door held a twelve-gage pump-action shotgun. Bloch would need to stretch for it, but it was within reach. On the kitchen counter, beside a bottle of tomato ketchup, lay one of Bloch’s personal firearms. A Magnum 500. Earlier that evening, before the pizza arrived, Kate had felt the weight of the gun, and wondered how the hell Bloch carried it around all day. The Magnum held five rounds in its cylinder. Each round looked the same size as a cigarette lighter and cost two and a half bucks.
No matter what kind of problem you had, as long as you were carrying that gun, two dollars fifty was probably all you needed to spend in order to solve it.
‘What’s it for? A gun that size?’ Kate had asked.
‘Wildlife rangers carry them. It’s one of the few handguns that can stop a bear.’
‘We don’t get many bears in Central Park.’
‘It works real good on people, too.’
Kate picked it up, in a two-handed grip, careful not to let her finger stray to the trigger.
‘Don’t worry. You have to really pull that sucker to fire it.’
‘How’d you even get a carry permit for this? In New York?’
Bloch took the gun from Kate, set it back down on the counter.
‘Who said I had a permit?’
Kate glanced over at the weapon now, her stomach full of pizza, and an uneasy feeling spread. It would be good for Bloch to have it if they were attacked. And at the same time, Kate knew she never wanted Bloch to use it.
‘Seriously, why the heavy artillery?’ asked Kate.
It took a while for a response. Bloch liked to chew on things for a while. Like there was only a certain amount of words she could use before they all dried up. Bloch didn’t talk about her feelings, or her fears. They were spending more and more time together, and Bloch was slowly opening up.
‘I took a couple rounds in the vest a while back. It scared me. I bought the Magnum when I quit the force. Had to put on eight pounds of muscle before I could shoot it straight, but it was worth it. Sometimes you only get one shot. With that thing, one shot to the center mass is all I need.’
Kate wanted to probe further, ask how such a terrifying experience affected her friend, make sure she was okay, ask her if she wanted to talk about it. But she knew from the look on Bloch’s face that this tiny piece of information was all she was going to get. Bloch was staring at the bookcase. There was only one book placed face out. A novel – Twisted, by J. T. LeBeau.