Closing his eyes, he nodded. Then looked at her straight on.
“That’s why I wanted you on this. Exactly why. No. There’s nothing. I swear to God right back at you. What’s the TOD? In the loop, you said.”
“Twenty-one-eighteen.”
“Christ, Christ, I was probably walking in the door of the building, or on my way up five or ten minutes later. If I’d gotten here just a few minutes earlier—”
And she could see, literally see, his control crack. And so spoke briskly.
“Ifs don’t solve anything. Put it away. Did he say anything to you, even just shooting-the-shit cop stories about a threat?”
“No—” Backtracking, Webster waved a hand in the air. “I mean sure, before he retired. IAB cops get threats all the time, it’s part of the package. You get verbal bullshit, you get physical altercations. Mostly, it’s just blowing air, so you document and let it go. Same as you, Dallas, or any cop, but the difference is the threats and altercations are usually from other cops.
“We’re not popular,” he added with a shrug. “That’s how it goes.”
“Anything recent, anything specific?”
“No. Listen, he didn’t have to retire. He chose to. He told me it was time to, like, pass the torch. And he wanted time, more time to just be a husband, a dad, a grandfather.
“He liked being retired. Beth retired a few years after he did, and they did some traveling. They made noises about moving south, getting a place on the shore, buying a boat, but their family’s here, so they never followed through. The only time anything like threats came up is when we talked shop and it was: ‘Remember that asshole who said he’d cut out your rat heart with a dull knife and feed it to the other rats?’
“It was yesterday for him, Dallas, and he’d put in his time.”
At the knock, Eve rose, let in the sweepers. While she read them in, gave them her priorities, the morgue team arrived.
“Why don’t you wait in the kitchen?”
Webster shook his head. “He deserves someone who knew him, cared about him, to stand by.” Then he turned to her. “You’re calling it homicide.”
“Right now, it’s suspicious death. Where’s his service weapon?”
“He turned it in when he retired. I know he did because I was there.”
“How about his clutch piece, his backup, a drop weapon?”
“Dallas, Martin rode a desk the last fifteen years of his tour. He didn’t have a clutch piece, he’d never use a drop weapon, and he didn’t have a backup. That stunner’s not his.”
“And if it is?”
“Then someone found a way to make it look like that.”
He stood silently as the morgue team rolled the bagged body away. “I want a drink—a real drink. He keeps a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen.”
“No. I’ll get it,” Eve told him when he stepped that way. “I’m sealed up, you aren’t.”
Roarke came back in, nodded at Eve.
“Where’s the bottle?”
“Cabinet by the window. Glasses in the cabinet to the right of the sink.”
“I’m sorry, Webster,” Roarke said when Eve went into the kitchen. “Truly sorry for your loss.”
“I get that. I appreciate that.” He sat again, pressed his fingers to his eyes. “She’ll find who did this. You’ll help her.”
“However I can. But she’ll find the one who did this. Will it be enough?”
“It’s never enough, but it has to do.”
He took the two fingers of whiskey Eve brought back.
“When’s the last time you were in this apartment?”
“Three—no, four weeks ago. Four weeks ago. His daughter’s birthday dinner.”
“So I’m not going to find your prints anywhere on scene?”
“The way Beth cleans? Not a chance.” He downed the whiskey. “You got the security feeds. I’d like to see them.”
“Tomorrow,” Eve told him. “I want you at Central at noon.”
“But—”
“I need to report to Whitney, meet with Morris, do what I have to do. Then we’ll go over everything again. If I’m satisfied, I’ll let you view the footage. I’m letting you stay on scene,” she added before he could object, “to be here for the captain’s widow. Don’t fuck with me when I’m questioning her, Webster. Don’t make it harder.”
“She loved him. They loved each other, and family was their world.”
“Then she’ll want me to do my job.”
“She will.” He glanced at his wrist unit. “She’ll be home soon. Let me tell her. Please. Let me be the one to tell her he’s gone. I won’t get in your way.”
The hardest part, always, Eve thought, was telling someone their world had shattered.
“Do it fast,” Eve advised.
Chapter Three
After signaling Roarke to stay with Webster, Eve went into the crime scene to consult with the sweepers.
“No prints on the bedroom window lock,” the head sweeper told her. “None on the window, or any window in that room, inside or out. Clean as they come. We bagged the glass and contents. Victim’s and his spouse’s prints there.”
“She brought him the drink.”
“Logically, yeah. The only prints on the victim’s workstation, the D and C, his ’link are his own. Same with the weapon recovered on scene. But I want a closer look at the prints on the weapon in the lab.”
“Because?”
“They’re perfect. Right thumb, right index finger.” The sweeper cocked her fingers as if on a trigger. “One print each, one print only. Otherwise, it’s clean.”
“Okay.” Eve nodded. “A guy’s going to self-terminate this way, he’s likely to handle the weapon more than once. He’s going to check, make sure it’s on full. He’s probably going to hesitate, no matter how committed.”
“That’s my but.”
“It’s a good but, Frowicki.”
“Pilates,” she said, patting her own ass. “Three times a week.”
“Funny. Other prints, bedroom, crime scene.”
“Elizabeth Greenleaf. Several of hers on the bedroom closet, the dressers, nightstands, the bedroom lamp to the right of the bed. A few on the doorjamb to the crime scene. Some hair on the bedroom floor, a few strays that match the strays in the brush on the dresser.”
The sweeper looked around. “Not much to sweep, Dallas. The place is seriously clean. We’re picking up traces of what’s going to be furniture polish and over-the-counter cleaners, so somebody did the job recently. But we’ll keep at it.”
“You’re going to find Webster’s prints on the front door. Let me know if you find them anywhere else.”
“Will do.”
“Did you know the victim?”
“Only by rep. A hard case is what you hear.”
“Yeah.”
As she stepped back into the living area, she heard a trill of female laughter outside the door, and the slide of the lock. Webster surged to his feet.