Post by mlm828 on Jun 11, 2006 22:58:23 GMT -5
Episode 21: “Wrongful Death”
Day One
Scene One
Jim woke up early – it felt early, anyway. Christie’s deep, even breaths told him she was still asleep beside him. Not wanting his talking clock to wake her, he felt around on the night stand for his watch and opened its crystal to check the time: 5:40 a.m. He lay back down and reached out to stroke Christie’s hair. He knew he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, but he resisted the temptation to wake Christie and tell her what he was thinking. Both of them, especially Christie, had been working long hours recently. He was beginning to think their only time together – at least, the only time when both of them were awake – was during their weekly couples therapy sessions with Dr. Cohen. They seemed to be falling back into the pattern of separate lives which had almost destroyed their marriage. He resolved to do something about that. One way or another, he would make sure they spent some time together over the coming weekend.
Jim was tying his tie when Christie came into the bedroom, fully dressed and ready to leave for work. “Hey,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, yourself,” Jim replied, smiling at her.
“Something’s come up at work,” she began hesitantly.
“What’s that?”
“Clay has put me in charge of a big spread on some of the Paris collections coming out next week. Two other editors and I are going over for the shows. We’re leaving Friday night. I’ll be back on Wednesday.”
“Who’re you going with?”
“Not Clay, if that’s what you’re asking. He’s not going,” Christie replied, sharply.
“Just wondering.”
“As I said, I’m going with two other editors, Jessica Winters and Brad Christiansen. I don’t think you’ve met either of them.”
“Who’s this Brad?”
“You’re not jealous, are you?” Christie asked, laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Brad’s gay,” she explained, walking out of the bedroom.
“Oh.” Jim finished tying his tie in silence, then went into the living room, where Christie was packing up her briefcase. “You really have to go? I mean, it has to be you?”
“Yes, Jimmy, I’m in charge,” she told him firmly. As she closed her briefcase, she wondered what Jim was trying to tell her. “You’re not worried about being on your own while I’m gone, are you?” she asked, in a gentler voice.
Jim bristled. “No, of course not. Forget it.”
“Jimmy, look, this assignment is a huge opportunity. If I pull it off, it could open a lot of doors for me. You’re not the only one with a career, you know. This is my career, and it’s as important to me as yours is to you. You need to remember that.”
“OK, OK,” he replied irritably, with a wave of his hand.
Christie picked up her briefcase and walked quickly toward the front door, her high heels tapping on the hardwood floor. “I have to leave right now, or I’ll be late for the planning meeting. We can talk more tonight, if I don’t get home too late.” She was out the door before Jim could respond.
Scene Two
Jim had just settled in at his desk with a cup of coffee when Fisk strode out of his office. “We got a DOA,” he said, handing a slip of paper to Karen. “Russo and Selway will meet you there.”
“Sorry, Hank,” Jim said to the German Shepherd, “time to go to work.” He took hold of the dog’s harness and followed Karen out of the squad.
“Tom and Marty are here already,” Karen whispered to Jim when they arrived at the DOA’s apartment. They walked into the living room, where the two detectives were talking to a uniformed officer while looking intently at the prone form of the DOA lying on the floor under a window. All three of them were holding handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses. They looked up when Jim and Karen approached. Jim pulled out his handkerchief and offered it to Karen. “No, thanks,” she said, pulling a package of tissues from her bag.
“What’ve we got?” Karen asked.
“Dan Hoffman, 43 years old, the only tenant of the apartment,” Marty replied. “Looks like multiple stab wounds. One of the neighbors noticed the smell and called it in. He’s been dead a while.”
While Marty was talking, Karen looked around the apartment. “It looks like there was a major struggle,” she told Jim, “blinds and curtains were pulled down, a couple of tables and chairs overturned, lots of blood on the walls, floor, and furniture. What’s that?” she asked Marty, pointing at a piece of paper on the floor next to the victim’s body.
“A drawing of some kind.”
“What kind?” Jim asked. Marty frowned impatiently.
Karen took a few steps closer to the victim, to get a better look at the drawing before answering. “From here, it looks like a drawing of the ‘Blind Justice’ figure. It’s a pretty good drawing, like the person who did it knew how to draw.” Marty gestured to her to hurry up. Karen ignored him and continued, “It’s not the ‘Blind Justice’ figure, exactly. She’s not wearing a blindfold, and her sword is stuck in the chest of a person lying at her feet. The person on the ground looks something like our DOA.”
“Which means,” Marty explained, gesturing at the victim, “this guy pissed off someone, big time.”
“Yeah,” Jim agreed, nodding. “Let’s get started on a canvass, see if any of the neighbors saw anything, or knows why someone would be pissed off enough to do this.” He gestured in the general direction of the DOA.
Scene Three
Back at the squad two hours later, Marty tossed his coat onto his chair in frustration. “How can someone live in a place for two years, and not know anyone?”
Fisk came out of his office. “What’ve you got?”
“Not much, boss,” Tom answered. “The guy was like some kind of hermit or somethin’. Super said he moved in about two years ago, after getting divorced. He worked in IT at a big brokerage house. People saw him coming and going, to and from work, but he never really talked to anyone. Maybe ‘hello’ or ‘good morning,’ but that was all. None of the neighbors ever noticed anyone coming to visit him, either.”
“There’s something else that’s strange, boss,” Karen added. “The guy’s apartment was really bare. I mean, he had the usual furniture and stuff, but there was nothing personal in it. There were no pictures or mementoes to tell us anything about him. The whole place was just – impersonal.”
“Well, maybe that tells us what kind of guy he was,” Marty observed.
“Could be.”
“Where are you going from here?” Fisk asked.
“I’ll run him for priors, then we’ll check out his work,” Tom answered. “Maybe someone there knows him better than his neighbors.”
Jim spoke up. “We should look into the ex-wife, too. The nearest and dearest are always candidates, in my book.”
“Yeah,” Fisk agreed. “Hit it.”
After Fisk returned to his office, and Marty and Tom disappeared down the hall, Jim turned to Karen. “Are we alone?”
“Yes.” She scooted her chair toward him.
“What you said a minute ago – about the guy’s apartment being bare and impersonal – you need to tell me that kind of thing,” he told her in a harsh whisper. “Dammit, Karen, I can’t do my job if you keep information from me.”
Karen recoiled. “I didn’t keep anything from you. I didn’t think of it until just now, when Tom was talking about no one knowing the guy. It didn’t seem important before.”
Jim gave a frustrated sigh and waved his hand. “OK. I understand. But you gotta tell me these things. Let me decide what’s important.”
“All right.” Karen rolled her chair back to her own desk and looked at her partner thoughtfully. She thought she’d learned what Jim needed from her in order to do the job. But sometimes, like now, she still found it difficult to imagine what it was like for him – spending his work days moving through an unseen world, interacting with faceless people he would never see.
Scene Four
Jim and Hank followed Karen up the stairs to the front door of the small house in Flushing which was the last known address of Hoffman’s ex-wife, Sheila. A man opened the door in response to Karen’s knock. He was large, well over six feet tall, and heavily-built. His dark hair was cropped short. He hadn’t shaved in at least three days. A beer belly overflowed the belt line of his faded jeans. His lower arms, visible below his shirt sleeves, were covered by smeared, bluish tattoos that looked like prison “tats.” “Yeah?” he asked as he opened the door.
“Detectives Bettancourt and Dunbar,” Karen answered, showing him her badge.
He did a double-take as he looked at Jim. “This is some kind of joke, right?” Karen glanced at Jim, but as usual, his impassive expression did not betray any reaction to the comment.
“No joke,” Jim assured him, pulling out his badge. “We’re looking for Sheila Hoffman.”
“She ain’t here,” the man replied. “And she don’t use that name no more, either. She went back to Sheila Murray.”
“And you are?” Karen asked.
“Ken Murray, her brother.”
“Where’s your sister, Mr. Murray?” Jim asked.
“What’s this about?” Murray demanded.
“Where’s your sister?” Jim repeated, raising his voice.
“In Florida,” Murray replied. “Why are you asking about her?”
Jim ignored the question. “How long has she been there?”
“Since last week – Wednesday, I think. Our mom lives down there now, and she’s been in the hospital. Sheila went down to stay with her after she came home.”
“Can anyone verify that?” Karen asked.
“Look,” Murray asserted, “I answered your questions, so now you answer mine. What’s this about?”
“All right,” Karen told him. “Her ex-husband, Dan Hoffman, was found stabbed to death in his apartment this morning.”
“And you think Sheila – ?” Murray began, disbelievingly.
“We don’t suspect anyone,” said Karen, “we’re just trying to find out who might have wanted to kill him.”
“Oh, hell, you might as well come in,” said Murray, stepping back from the doorway to allow them to enter. They stepped into a dark, over-crowded room that smelled of mold and dust. Even though Jim had Hank with him, Karen stepped to his right side to guide him to a chair. “Sorry about the mess,” Murray said apologetically, “it’s all Sheila’s crap.”
Karen wrinkled her nose as she sat on the edge of a chair. “I understand Sheila and Dan divorced about two years ago,” she began. “Was it amicable?”
“As amicable as any divorce could be, I guess,” Murray replied. “She wanted out, and he didn’t fight it. The guy was – well, there was just nothin’ to him, you know, no life in him. I was glad to see her dump him. Sheila was always – lively, you know, but being with him just sucked the life out of her. She’s better off without him.”
“Do you know of anyone who had a problem with him, anyone who had it in for him?” Jim asked.
Murray shook his head. “You’re not gettin’ it. The guy was a nothin’ – there wasn’t nothin’ there for anyone to get mad at. I was glad to see him out of Sheila’s life, sure, but he just wasn’t the kinda guy that would get anyone riled up. There was just – nothin’.”
“We’re going to need Sheila’s number in Florida,” Karen said, handing Murray a notepad and a pen. When he finished writing and returned the pad and pen, she turned to Jim. “We done here?”
Jim nodded. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Murray.”
Scene Five
“We confirmed the ex-wife has been in Florida since last week,” Jim told Fisk, who was sitting on the desk opposite his. “But her brother is worth looking into.”
“Yeah,” Karen concurred. “We ran his record, and he has a couple of DWIs, plus an aggravated assault he did prison time for.” She turned to Jim. “I told you his tattoos looked like prison ‘tats’.”
“Did I disagree?” he asked, dryly, throwing up his hands. Marty snickered.
Fisk smiled briefly, then got the discussion back on track. “What did you find out at Hoffman’s work?”
“Same old, same old,” Tom told him. “The guy kept to himself, never talked to anyone, just showed up and did his job. His boss called him a ‘cipher.’ No problems with anyone at work. No one knows any reason anyone would have to kill him, or anyone who would want to. They didn’t even notice he wasn’t at work on Monday.”
“How can anyone live like that, with no connection to other people?” Marty demanded.
Fisk shrugged. “Who knows? So where are we going with this?”
“We need to look into the brother-in-law some more, see if he can account for his whereabouts,” Tom replied. “What does the ME say about time of death?”
“We don’t know yet,” Fisk told him, “ME’s office is backed up.”
Karen spoke up. “I don’t know about the brother-in-law. It seemed like he didn’t have a problem with the DOA once he was out of his sister’s life. Where’s the motive?”
“Maybe the DOA was trying to get back into his sister’s life,” Marty suggested.
“Maybe.”
“Check it out,” Fisk directed them, “and find out if he can account for his whereabouts, when we know the time of death.” He turned to Jim. “Any ideas, Jim?”
Jim pressed his lips together, thinking, “Yeah. Maybe we need to go at this from a different angle. We’ve been looking at the victim. Maybe we need to look at this from the angle of the perp.”
“But how, Jim?” Karen protested. “We have no idea who it could be.”
“That’s true,” Jim conceded. “But we do know something about him. The drawing he left at the scene – assuming the perp left it there – tells us the motive is revenge. And the drawing’s a pretty distinctive signature. What if he’s going after other people?”
“So what are you suggesting, Jim?” Fisk asked.
“Let’s check around, see if there are any other homicides – or any crimes – where this drawing or something similar has shown up. It might give us a place to start.”
“Oh, great,” said Marty sarcastically, “the blind guy’s gonna look into a picture.”
Fisk frowned. “Marty, please. Tom, Marty, you follow up on the brother-in-law. Jim, Karen, you check out the drawing.”
Scene Six
Jim was standing at his locker, gathering his belongings and getting ready to head home, when he heard someone enter the locker room. “Hello?” he asked, wishing people would speak up and identify themselves.
“Hey, Jim,” Marty answered. “Long day, huh?”
“Sure was,” Jim agreed. He closed his locker but remained standing in front of it, thinking. He took a deep breath and turned toward Marty. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“What d’you mean?” Marty asked.
“C’mon, Marty, don’t be cute. You’ve been on my case for the past week. What’s up?”
“Nothin’, forget it.”
“Something’s bugging you. Just spit it out.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
From his vantage point next to his own locker, Marty studied his blind squad mate for a moment before deciding to answer him. “You know, Jim, this whole situation sucks.”
Jim looked puzzled and said nothing.
“If things were – different . . . I mean, I respect the fact that you can clear cases, don’t get me wrong. And I know you’re a stand-up guy. Hell, sometimes I even think I could get to like you – eventually. But – ”
“But what?”
“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you how lucky we’ve all been, the last nine months, with you going out there every single day? How long is our luck going to hold, d’you think?”
“So that’s it.” Jim bowed his head.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Marty confirmed. “We got a major wake-up call when that crazy guy came after you with a knife. Maybe we need to pay attention. I mean, it’s not like you have to prove anything anymore, you know.”
Jim turned toward him with a questioning expression. “You mean that?”
“Yeah. I admit, when you first showed up here, I thought it was some kind of stunt. I figured you wouldn’t last, and the problem would take care of itself.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Jim said with a wry grin.
“Seriously, Jim,” Marty went on, “you don’t need to go out in the field to do your thing. Why not stay here and let the rest of us do the legwork?”
“Is that what you’d do, in my situation?”
“I – I – don’t know,” Marty stammered, relieved that Jim couldn’t see the pained expression on his face. “But I do know this. If I was in your situation, and something happened to any of us – especially Karen – because of it, I couldn’t live with it. You couldn’t, either.”
Jim sighed heavily. “I hear what you’re saying, and I know where you’re coming from – really. But I can’t do what you’re asking.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
Instead of answering, Jim turned away and walked toward the door. Just before he reached the door, he stopped and turned back to face Marty, “There is one thing – ”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“You don’t need to remind me I can’t see. I know.” He grasped the door handle and walked away before Marty could respond.
Day One
Scene One
Jim woke up early – it felt early, anyway. Christie’s deep, even breaths told him she was still asleep beside him. Not wanting his talking clock to wake her, he felt around on the night stand for his watch and opened its crystal to check the time: 5:40 a.m. He lay back down and reached out to stroke Christie’s hair. He knew he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, but he resisted the temptation to wake Christie and tell her what he was thinking. Both of them, especially Christie, had been working long hours recently. He was beginning to think their only time together – at least, the only time when both of them were awake – was during their weekly couples therapy sessions with Dr. Cohen. They seemed to be falling back into the pattern of separate lives which had almost destroyed their marriage. He resolved to do something about that. One way or another, he would make sure they spent some time together over the coming weekend.
Jim was tying his tie when Christie came into the bedroom, fully dressed and ready to leave for work. “Hey,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, yourself,” Jim replied, smiling at her.
“Something’s come up at work,” she began hesitantly.
“What’s that?”
“Clay has put me in charge of a big spread on some of the Paris collections coming out next week. Two other editors and I are going over for the shows. We’re leaving Friday night. I’ll be back on Wednesday.”
“Who’re you going with?”
“Not Clay, if that’s what you’re asking. He’s not going,” Christie replied, sharply.
“Just wondering.”
“As I said, I’m going with two other editors, Jessica Winters and Brad Christiansen. I don’t think you’ve met either of them.”
“Who’s this Brad?”
“You’re not jealous, are you?” Christie asked, laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Brad’s gay,” she explained, walking out of the bedroom.
“Oh.” Jim finished tying his tie in silence, then went into the living room, where Christie was packing up her briefcase. “You really have to go? I mean, it has to be you?”
“Yes, Jimmy, I’m in charge,” she told him firmly. As she closed her briefcase, she wondered what Jim was trying to tell her. “You’re not worried about being on your own while I’m gone, are you?” she asked, in a gentler voice.
Jim bristled. “No, of course not. Forget it.”
“Jimmy, look, this assignment is a huge opportunity. If I pull it off, it could open a lot of doors for me. You’re not the only one with a career, you know. This is my career, and it’s as important to me as yours is to you. You need to remember that.”
“OK, OK,” he replied irritably, with a wave of his hand.
Christie picked up her briefcase and walked quickly toward the front door, her high heels tapping on the hardwood floor. “I have to leave right now, or I’ll be late for the planning meeting. We can talk more tonight, if I don’t get home too late.” She was out the door before Jim could respond.
Scene Two
Jim had just settled in at his desk with a cup of coffee when Fisk strode out of his office. “We got a DOA,” he said, handing a slip of paper to Karen. “Russo and Selway will meet you there.”
“Sorry, Hank,” Jim said to the German Shepherd, “time to go to work.” He took hold of the dog’s harness and followed Karen out of the squad.
“Tom and Marty are here already,” Karen whispered to Jim when they arrived at the DOA’s apartment. They walked into the living room, where the two detectives were talking to a uniformed officer while looking intently at the prone form of the DOA lying on the floor under a window. All three of them were holding handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses. They looked up when Jim and Karen approached. Jim pulled out his handkerchief and offered it to Karen. “No, thanks,” she said, pulling a package of tissues from her bag.
“What’ve we got?” Karen asked.
“Dan Hoffman, 43 years old, the only tenant of the apartment,” Marty replied. “Looks like multiple stab wounds. One of the neighbors noticed the smell and called it in. He’s been dead a while.”
While Marty was talking, Karen looked around the apartment. “It looks like there was a major struggle,” she told Jim, “blinds and curtains were pulled down, a couple of tables and chairs overturned, lots of blood on the walls, floor, and furniture. What’s that?” she asked Marty, pointing at a piece of paper on the floor next to the victim’s body.
“A drawing of some kind.”
“What kind?” Jim asked. Marty frowned impatiently.
Karen took a few steps closer to the victim, to get a better look at the drawing before answering. “From here, it looks like a drawing of the ‘Blind Justice’ figure. It’s a pretty good drawing, like the person who did it knew how to draw.” Marty gestured to her to hurry up. Karen ignored him and continued, “It’s not the ‘Blind Justice’ figure, exactly. She’s not wearing a blindfold, and her sword is stuck in the chest of a person lying at her feet. The person on the ground looks something like our DOA.”
“Which means,” Marty explained, gesturing at the victim, “this guy pissed off someone, big time.”
“Yeah,” Jim agreed, nodding. “Let’s get started on a canvass, see if any of the neighbors saw anything, or knows why someone would be pissed off enough to do this.” He gestured in the general direction of the DOA.
Scene Three
Back at the squad two hours later, Marty tossed his coat onto his chair in frustration. “How can someone live in a place for two years, and not know anyone?”
Fisk came out of his office. “What’ve you got?”
“Not much, boss,” Tom answered. “The guy was like some kind of hermit or somethin’. Super said he moved in about two years ago, after getting divorced. He worked in IT at a big brokerage house. People saw him coming and going, to and from work, but he never really talked to anyone. Maybe ‘hello’ or ‘good morning,’ but that was all. None of the neighbors ever noticed anyone coming to visit him, either.”
“There’s something else that’s strange, boss,” Karen added. “The guy’s apartment was really bare. I mean, he had the usual furniture and stuff, but there was nothing personal in it. There were no pictures or mementoes to tell us anything about him. The whole place was just – impersonal.”
“Well, maybe that tells us what kind of guy he was,” Marty observed.
“Could be.”
“Where are you going from here?” Fisk asked.
“I’ll run him for priors, then we’ll check out his work,” Tom answered. “Maybe someone there knows him better than his neighbors.”
Jim spoke up. “We should look into the ex-wife, too. The nearest and dearest are always candidates, in my book.”
“Yeah,” Fisk agreed. “Hit it.”
After Fisk returned to his office, and Marty and Tom disappeared down the hall, Jim turned to Karen. “Are we alone?”
“Yes.” She scooted her chair toward him.
“What you said a minute ago – about the guy’s apartment being bare and impersonal – you need to tell me that kind of thing,” he told her in a harsh whisper. “Dammit, Karen, I can’t do my job if you keep information from me.”
Karen recoiled. “I didn’t keep anything from you. I didn’t think of it until just now, when Tom was talking about no one knowing the guy. It didn’t seem important before.”
Jim gave a frustrated sigh and waved his hand. “OK. I understand. But you gotta tell me these things. Let me decide what’s important.”
“All right.” Karen rolled her chair back to her own desk and looked at her partner thoughtfully. She thought she’d learned what Jim needed from her in order to do the job. But sometimes, like now, she still found it difficult to imagine what it was like for him – spending his work days moving through an unseen world, interacting with faceless people he would never see.
Scene Four
Jim and Hank followed Karen up the stairs to the front door of the small house in Flushing which was the last known address of Hoffman’s ex-wife, Sheila. A man opened the door in response to Karen’s knock. He was large, well over six feet tall, and heavily-built. His dark hair was cropped short. He hadn’t shaved in at least three days. A beer belly overflowed the belt line of his faded jeans. His lower arms, visible below his shirt sleeves, were covered by smeared, bluish tattoos that looked like prison “tats.” “Yeah?” he asked as he opened the door.
“Detectives Bettancourt and Dunbar,” Karen answered, showing him her badge.
He did a double-take as he looked at Jim. “This is some kind of joke, right?” Karen glanced at Jim, but as usual, his impassive expression did not betray any reaction to the comment.
“No joke,” Jim assured him, pulling out his badge. “We’re looking for Sheila Hoffman.”
“She ain’t here,” the man replied. “And she don’t use that name no more, either. She went back to Sheila Murray.”
“And you are?” Karen asked.
“Ken Murray, her brother.”
“Where’s your sister, Mr. Murray?” Jim asked.
“What’s this about?” Murray demanded.
“Where’s your sister?” Jim repeated, raising his voice.
“In Florida,” Murray replied. “Why are you asking about her?”
Jim ignored the question. “How long has she been there?”
“Since last week – Wednesday, I think. Our mom lives down there now, and she’s been in the hospital. Sheila went down to stay with her after she came home.”
“Can anyone verify that?” Karen asked.
“Look,” Murray asserted, “I answered your questions, so now you answer mine. What’s this about?”
“All right,” Karen told him. “Her ex-husband, Dan Hoffman, was found stabbed to death in his apartment this morning.”
“And you think Sheila – ?” Murray began, disbelievingly.
“We don’t suspect anyone,” said Karen, “we’re just trying to find out who might have wanted to kill him.”
“Oh, hell, you might as well come in,” said Murray, stepping back from the doorway to allow them to enter. They stepped into a dark, over-crowded room that smelled of mold and dust. Even though Jim had Hank with him, Karen stepped to his right side to guide him to a chair. “Sorry about the mess,” Murray said apologetically, “it’s all Sheila’s crap.”
Karen wrinkled her nose as she sat on the edge of a chair. “I understand Sheila and Dan divorced about two years ago,” she began. “Was it amicable?”
“As amicable as any divorce could be, I guess,” Murray replied. “She wanted out, and he didn’t fight it. The guy was – well, there was just nothin’ to him, you know, no life in him. I was glad to see her dump him. Sheila was always – lively, you know, but being with him just sucked the life out of her. She’s better off without him.”
“Do you know of anyone who had a problem with him, anyone who had it in for him?” Jim asked.
Murray shook his head. “You’re not gettin’ it. The guy was a nothin’ – there wasn’t nothin’ there for anyone to get mad at. I was glad to see him out of Sheila’s life, sure, but he just wasn’t the kinda guy that would get anyone riled up. There was just – nothin’.”
“We’re going to need Sheila’s number in Florida,” Karen said, handing Murray a notepad and a pen. When he finished writing and returned the pad and pen, she turned to Jim. “We done here?”
Jim nodded. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Murray.”
Scene Five
“We confirmed the ex-wife has been in Florida since last week,” Jim told Fisk, who was sitting on the desk opposite his. “But her brother is worth looking into.”
“Yeah,” Karen concurred. “We ran his record, and he has a couple of DWIs, plus an aggravated assault he did prison time for.” She turned to Jim. “I told you his tattoos looked like prison ‘tats’.”
“Did I disagree?” he asked, dryly, throwing up his hands. Marty snickered.
Fisk smiled briefly, then got the discussion back on track. “What did you find out at Hoffman’s work?”
“Same old, same old,” Tom told him. “The guy kept to himself, never talked to anyone, just showed up and did his job. His boss called him a ‘cipher.’ No problems with anyone at work. No one knows any reason anyone would have to kill him, or anyone who would want to. They didn’t even notice he wasn’t at work on Monday.”
“How can anyone live like that, with no connection to other people?” Marty demanded.
Fisk shrugged. “Who knows? So where are we going with this?”
“We need to look into the brother-in-law some more, see if he can account for his whereabouts,” Tom replied. “What does the ME say about time of death?”
“We don’t know yet,” Fisk told him, “ME’s office is backed up.”
Karen spoke up. “I don’t know about the brother-in-law. It seemed like he didn’t have a problem with the DOA once he was out of his sister’s life. Where’s the motive?”
“Maybe the DOA was trying to get back into his sister’s life,” Marty suggested.
“Maybe.”
“Check it out,” Fisk directed them, “and find out if he can account for his whereabouts, when we know the time of death.” He turned to Jim. “Any ideas, Jim?”
Jim pressed his lips together, thinking, “Yeah. Maybe we need to go at this from a different angle. We’ve been looking at the victim. Maybe we need to look at this from the angle of the perp.”
“But how, Jim?” Karen protested. “We have no idea who it could be.”
“That’s true,” Jim conceded. “But we do know something about him. The drawing he left at the scene – assuming the perp left it there – tells us the motive is revenge. And the drawing’s a pretty distinctive signature. What if he’s going after other people?”
“So what are you suggesting, Jim?” Fisk asked.
“Let’s check around, see if there are any other homicides – or any crimes – where this drawing or something similar has shown up. It might give us a place to start.”
“Oh, great,” said Marty sarcastically, “the blind guy’s gonna look into a picture.”
Fisk frowned. “Marty, please. Tom, Marty, you follow up on the brother-in-law. Jim, Karen, you check out the drawing.”
Scene Six
Jim was standing at his locker, gathering his belongings and getting ready to head home, when he heard someone enter the locker room. “Hello?” he asked, wishing people would speak up and identify themselves.
“Hey, Jim,” Marty answered. “Long day, huh?”
“Sure was,” Jim agreed. He closed his locker but remained standing in front of it, thinking. He took a deep breath and turned toward Marty. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“What d’you mean?” Marty asked.
“C’mon, Marty, don’t be cute. You’ve been on my case for the past week. What’s up?”
“Nothin’, forget it.”
“Something’s bugging you. Just spit it out.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
From his vantage point next to his own locker, Marty studied his blind squad mate for a moment before deciding to answer him. “You know, Jim, this whole situation sucks.”
Jim looked puzzled and said nothing.
“If things were – different . . . I mean, I respect the fact that you can clear cases, don’t get me wrong. And I know you’re a stand-up guy. Hell, sometimes I even think I could get to like you – eventually. But – ”
“But what?”
“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you how lucky we’ve all been, the last nine months, with you going out there every single day? How long is our luck going to hold, d’you think?”
“So that’s it.” Jim bowed his head.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Marty confirmed. “We got a major wake-up call when that crazy guy came after you with a knife. Maybe we need to pay attention. I mean, it’s not like you have to prove anything anymore, you know.”
Jim turned toward him with a questioning expression. “You mean that?”
“Yeah. I admit, when you first showed up here, I thought it was some kind of stunt. I figured you wouldn’t last, and the problem would take care of itself.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Jim said with a wry grin.
“Seriously, Jim,” Marty went on, “you don’t need to go out in the field to do your thing. Why not stay here and let the rest of us do the legwork?”
“Is that what you’d do, in my situation?”
“I – I – don’t know,” Marty stammered, relieved that Jim couldn’t see the pained expression on his face. “But I do know this. If I was in your situation, and something happened to any of us – especially Karen – because of it, I couldn’t live with it. You couldn’t, either.”
Jim sighed heavily. “I hear what you’re saying, and I know where you’re coming from – really. But I can’t do what you’re asking.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
Instead of answering, Jim turned away and walked toward the door. Just before he reached the door, he stopped and turned back to face Marty, “There is one thing – ”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“You don’t need to remind me I can’t see. I know.” He grasped the door handle and walked away before Marty could respond.