The Heights Page 4

  It’s my first visit to this particular cemetery—which calls itself “Cleveland’s Outdoor Museum” and which holds the graves of Rockefeller and President Garfield, among others—even though I’ve lived a few blocks away since I graduated from college and the police academy in the same summer.

  I kill the engine, push the car door open, and jam the key into my pocket. I clip my badge to my lapel and slam the door closed. A uniform sees me and lifts the yellow tape so I can pass through. I sign in on the scene log, under Fishner’s and Goran’s names.

  “What do we have?” I call to my boss, who stands alone near a zone car, before she sees me. She’s wearing a green corduroy jacket, and a tan knit hat covers her graying shoulder-length blond hair, which she keeps pulled in a bun most of the time but is down today. Jeans and hiking boots are not her everyday apparel. Fishner dresses up for work most of the time.

  “Body’s over there.” She gestures west with her radio antenna, but I can’t see it from here. “We got the call just after three thirty. That guy there called it in.” She tips her head at the guy next to the uniform, who shifts his weight from one foot to the other and gazes at the sky.

  “Anyone talk to him yet?”

  “Briefly,” she says. “He’s a groundskeeper.”

  The gravel crunches under our feet as we walk toward the body. I glance over at Fishner, whose jaw flexes in an erratic rhythm, before scanning the rest of the scene. I start by running my gaze along the perimeter of the crime scene tape and back again. If anything catches my eye, now is the time to back the tape up to preserve it.

  Somebody needs to get into that wooded area.

  “Only thing we’ve found yet is the blood trail from there”—she points at the smallest outbuilding—“to there”—and at the body. “A set of tire tracks and two footprints. One a men’s twelve or thirteen, the other a men’s eight.”

  “Could be a women’s ten,” I reply, glancing at my boots then back up to scan my surroundings. I pull my notebook out of my inside pocket and write down what she says before training my gaze on the techs, who inspect the patches on the lawn that are drying to rust-brown.

  They won’t touch anything until one of us tells them to. “Who’s the primary on this?” I ask.

  My eyes flick to another crime scene tech, who is taking digital photos of the tire tracks, back to the turf excision, then to the tire tracks themselves. Wide-set, knobby. Probably a truck or an SUV.

  “You and Goran.” She has some weird look on her face. “I put Roberts and Martinez on the follow-up from last week, and then they’ll join you. We need you to close this fast.”

  I open my mouth to ask why this is any more important than any other murder case, then I catch a glimpse of Goran, who trudges out of the wooded area, looking focused but slightly grumpy. I flick my chin at him and turn around to survey the outsides of the outbuildings again.

  Two of them are painted a dark green that blends in with the landscape. A few boards have been replaced on the side of the smallest one—it looks like a storage shed—and they haven’t been repainted yet. The biggest is a stone structure that’s probably been here since the cemetery opened in, what, the late nineteenth century? I know there’s another group of buildings, meant to serve as offices, back near the Euclid Avenue entrance.

  A murder of crows carries on somewhere above me, so I gaze up at the tops of the trees, which are starting to lose their leaves into the breeze. Seven of them caw down at us, in silhouette against the blue sky.

  Here’s the thing. It sounds stupid, but a crime scene really does kick the senses into overdrive. It’s all about processing input as quickly as possible, at least at this stage of the game. Maybe I’m just that kind of cop.

  Regardless of what kind of cop anyone is, the stark reality is that we get only one shot at a crime scene. One shot. Full stop.

  Even from here, I notice the numbered tents next to the tire tracks. Physical evidence.

  My partner is the kind of detective who will never let anyone but me know what he’s thinking until he’s sure. He’s more methodical. He takes his sweet-ass time to creep around a scene, looking at everything twice. He takes photos of everything. I do that when I can, but I’m more about mental images, quick sketches in my notebook, and gut instinct. Words, diagrams, sentence fragments. Relaxed little chats with people who might or might not have killed someone.

  I guess that’s why we make good partners.

  He comes ambling our way, clad in a disposable white Tyvek jumpsuit. “Happy Sunday. So much for that barbecue.”

  “Yeah, you too.” I turn back to Fishner. “What’s the deal there?” I point at the tents next to the tire tracks. “Who is that guy, the one who found her?”

  She flips her notebook open. “Paul Greenwade. I talked to him. Groundskeeper, was doing cleanup. He called 911 from his cell. No pulse, obviously.” She watches me write Greenwade’s name in my notebook next to a short physical description of him. He’s still shifting from foot to foot and gazing at the sky.

  “Criminal record?”

  “Criminal mischief in ninety-nine. Nothing since.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Nada,” Tom replies.

  “Anyone touch the vic?”

  “Just long enough to confirm that she was dead,” my boss says. “Not that there was a question about that.”

  Fishner leads us past the buildings and down a small embankment to the body. I slide on a pair of latex gloves before pulling back the plastic sheet. This isn’t my first rodeo, but I have to work hard not to puke. Goran takes a step back and faces the other way, and Fishner goes glassy-eyed all of a sudden.

  “Oh, wow. Do we have an ID?” I scan the battered, naked corpse, a woman who tucked herself into the fetal position before dying, and wonder, not for the first time, what possesses people to do some of the shit they do to each other.

  “I think it’s Heather Martin,” Fishner replies in a low tone. “I recognize the wedding ring. Don’t ask.”

  “Heather Martin, the criminal defense attorney who just happens to work with Jeff O’Connor?”

  She nods.

  “The rock wasn’t stolen,” I say. “Not robbery.”

  “I made some calls,” Goran says. “She didn’t come home last night. Her husband, Eric Martin, figured she was working late on some big upcoming case of hers.”

  “I assume you told him not to go anywhere,” I reply.

  He nods.

  “We still need a formal ID,” Fishner says. “And I’ll handle it with the councilman.”

  Heather Martin was married to a councilman who also happens to be a big wig with Arbor Health, a major insurance company and one of Cleveland’s largest white-collar employers.

  I cock my head but don’t ask why Fishner wants to handle it, nor do I ask how she recognizes the dead woman’s wedding ring, but I make a mental note of both.

  “He’s a big FOP donor,” she says. “The brass is already up my ass on this.”

  My eyes follow the trail of blood back to the smaller shed before returning to the body. “Full rigor.” I glance at my watch. “So we’re looking at roughly five a.m. for time of death.”

  Goran nods.

  I gesture to her clenched fists. “Cadaveric spasm.” I swallow as a thick, slithering feeling takes my stomach. “Watson on his way?” Our deputy medical examiner usually catches Special Homicide cases.

  “Within the hour,” Fishner replies.

  “What’s your read on this?” I ask, my eyes still scanning and ears open. No clothing. Wedding ring and Cartier watch, still on the body. Expensive blond dye job, based on the graying roots, stained with blood in sections. No obvious weapons in the surrounding area. I make a note of all of it.

  “You need to see the shed,” Goran says.

  Fishner gazes down at me. “This is going to be a media shit show if it’s her.” She purses her lips.

  I clench and unclench my jaw a couple of times before pushing myself
up out of the squat.

  “It’ll give them something else to report. The brass will feed it to them to divert them from the other stuff.”

  The other stuff. I don’t ask whether she called us in on this because she hopes we solve it and I protect my good name.

  “I’ve got Patrol blocking off the entrances and perimeter. Heights gave us a few patrol officers, too, given the media interest.”

  There’d been a lot less attention a few years ago, when those two inner-city teenagers were shot and killed here, over by the James Garfield Memorial.

  Wealth has a way of making everything capital-I Important. All “media interest” means to me is that my job is going to be harder than it should be.

  She glances back and forth between Goran and me. “You two, finish up here. I’ll see you back at Justice.” She means the Justice Center, the big police complex downtown that holds our squad room on the sixth floor.

  “I’ll give Becker the update,” she says. “We have a search warrant for this whole area already. Let me know if you find anything else.”

  “Who’s here from Crime Scene?”

  Goran gestures to a figure standing next to the shed, clad head to toe in protective gear, who waves when she sees me.

  Good. I go way back with Jo Micalec, the medical examiner’s chief forensic investigator, and I know she won’t screw it up.

  “We need to get everyone but Micalec out of here. Now,” I say to Tom as I stand. I cover the body then take a step back and meet his eyes.

  “Yeah, I know.” He brings his thick eyebrows together. “Me too. I almost puked.”

  As I walk to my car for my Tyvek suit, I send Cora a text message telling her that today’s barbecue is a no-go because we caught a body. She replies immediately with a sad-face emoji. I shove my phone back into my pocket.

  Goran follows me to my car.

  “You got the video camera?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “All right, you take the spiral, and I’ll work the grid. Then we’ll hit the shed.”

  He nods again. “I’ve got Patrol on the canvass. Who the hell killed Heather Martin?”

  “It’s kind of part of our job to figure that out, right?” I reply in a joking tone.

  He nods. “I’m going to send Roberts and Sims to talk to the husband. Maybe they can get a photo, and we can try to ID her that way.”

  “Have them ask about that lotus-flower tattoo on her shoulder,” I reply, not commenting on the fact that we’re both ignoring Fishner’s politics. “That’ll give us a solid ID.”

  He pulls out his phone.

  In my mind, I establish a grid from the body to the shed. The shed is about fifty feet from the body, and given the dark-red trail between the two, either she was dragged, or she crawled to her spot before her heart stopped when it ran out of blood to pump.

  That’s just a guess for cause of death—exsanguination, or “bleeding out”—and it’s more likely to be blunt force trauma from the looks of it. The amount of blood in the grass is still incredible. Given the extent to which she’d been beaten, cause of death could be almost anything.

  Opportunity and motive could be anything, too, especially given that Heather Martin has irritated a lot of people in her thirty-year legal career. I’m sure I’ll find out just how many once we get to that part of the investigation.

  In my jumpsuit, I head to the body, where I narrow my eyes and take a deep breath as I tower over the inert corpse. Could be a stalker. Overkill like this is common for a stalker—they just go berserk, come completely unglued, and mangle beyond recognition the object of their desires.

  There aren’t any drag marks. She might have crawled.

  It could be a jilted lover. Maybe her husband, or someone to whom she owed money, or someone who wanted money he knew she had. It’s not likely to be a stranger. I make a note of my inklings in my notebook, since part of my job is to reconstruct what happened here. No matter how much I think I’ll remember that great idea or flash of inspiration, I might not.

  The crime scene itself is one of the most important aspects of a murder investigation. It’s our first opportunity not to mess it up. Everything we find here has to go into a bag, onto the record, and into the courtroom once—if—we find a suspect and think we can prove that the suspect did it. Not that most cases go to trial, though, because the prosecutor’s office is filled with people who love plea deals. Either way, my guess, given the size of the service area and of the cemetery itself, is that we’re going to be here for the predawn transition from late to early.

  I radio Dispatch for lights and tents, since we only have about an hour of daylight left, and the weather forecast said something about rain.

  I walk over to Paul Greenwade, who’s still shuffling back and forth outside of the yellow crime scene tape. He looks horrible. I guess most people aren’t used to bloody bodies. Either that, or he did it and is enjoying this. My instinct is no, but instincts aren’t infallible.

  Greenwade is a small man, no more than five five. Soaking wet, he weighs maybe a buck ten. Whoever killed our vic is, if I’m a betting woman, very strong, given how battered her corpse is. Greenwade is wearing well-worn khaki pants—blood, I’m assuming it’s the victim’s, has gotten onto one leg, just under the front pocket—a green polo shirt with the cemetery logo embroidered on the chest, a light nylon jacket, and brown work boots that look like they’ve seen better days. No spatter on his clothes.

  “Oh my goodness,” he repeats several times as I approach. “I already gave a statement. Already gave a statement. Already—”

  “Sir, I’m Detective Elizabeth Boyle.” I suggest with an outstretched arm that he follow me over behind one of the zone cars. “I just have a few more questions, okay?”

  He minces along after me like a baby bird. “I told them already,” he says again, avoiding eye contact, his voice robotic.

  “Sir, if you—”

  “Call me Paul. Call me Paul. Call me Paul.” His voice is high for a man. His beady hazel eyes move everywhere at once but never to meet mine; he scans along the yellow tape, up into the trees, back to the shed, to where the body is, down at our feet, and around again.

  I take a deep breath. “Paul,” I say in a soft voice, my witness voice, the one I use to soothe people, “I know you already talked to the lieutenant. Thanks for that. Would you mind telling me what happened, anyway?”

  He crosses his arms in front of his chest and plays with his windbreaker with both hands. “Call Bobbie. With an I-E. Call Bobbie. Bobbie Butler. She is in charge here.”

  I write Bobbie’s name in my notebook and go quiet for a minute.

  Silence can be an effective tool, especially with someone who just found a dead body. I’m better than most at employing it to suit me. It gives them time to put it together and think through what they want to say. Or it gives them the space they need to blurt out the thing they just remembered or the thing they forgot to hide. I scan him again: he’s probably midforties, given the thinness of his hair, the faint beginnings of crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes, the way the skin on his neck is just starting to separate from the sinew beneath it. I notice a spot that he missed with the razor, where his beard, sparse and reddish-brown, grows in a dime-sized patch.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I am upset. Upset. Very upset.”

  “It’s okay,” I murmur. “Take your time.” Actually, don’t, I don’t say. We’re losing light fast, and I need to get into that shed. I catch a glimpse of Goran talking to Micalec near the vic. She bends down and photographs the body close up then backs up and gets more shots from farther away.

  “I was going to get the weed whacker. The weed whacker is in the shed. I had to work in section three. I went in the shed. There was blood. I dropped my phone and picked it up again. It did not break.”

  His eyes are squeezed shut as if he’s replaying all of this in his head like an old home movie.

  “I thought it was a prank,” he says in a softer
voice, his eyes still closed. “Sometimes people joke with me. I thought someone was joking with me again.”

  I reach out to touch his bony shoulder, trying to reassure him, and he jumps back as if I branded him. “No.” He shakes his head. “No, no, no.”

  “I’m sorry.” I hope that I didn’t just force him into silence. Spectrum? I write in my notebook.

  He still hasn’t opened his eyes. He cradles himself with his arms and rocks back and forth. “There was a smell. It smelled like metal. It smelled like hot metal, and I knew it was not a joke.”

  Smelled the blood, I write in my notebook. Weed whacker, section 3.

  “So I ran away and tried to call Bobbie, but she did not answer. You smell like beer. Do you have an alcohol problem?”

  I wait for him to continue, trying not to think about my new attempts at moderation.

  “Then I saw her. I saw her, I saw her.” He gets up on his toes then lets his weight drop back to his heels then repeats the action three more times.

  “Paul, did you touch the bod—her? Or move her?”

  “No. I saw her and called nine-one-one. Then I tried to call Bobbie again. But she did not answer.”

  “Did you recognize her? Have you seen her in here before?”

  He wipes tears out of his eyes and opens them but doesn’t look at me. “No. She did not look like a person. I know she is a person, but she did not look like one.”

  “Do you remember how your pants got dirty?” He doesn’t have spatter on his pants. It’s more like what would happen if he dropped his phone into a puddle then tried to wipe it off.

  “I do not own protective coveralls such as the ones you are wearing and would not have known in advance to wear them. My phone got dirty when I dropped it after I opened the door to the shed. I wiped it on them. They can be cleaned.”

  I don’t tell him right away that we’re going to need to take his pants. “Thanks, Paul. Do you remember when all this happened? About what time did you come back here for the weed whacker?”

  He stares at a point above my head. “At three fourteen. Three fourteen. At three seventeen, I opened the shed and smelled the hot metal. At three twenty-one, I found her. I called Bobbie in between.”