Captain Robinson wasn’t a morning person. He cradled his thermos of hot coffee between his hands as he lumbered to his office. God help the employee whose desk resembled a dump site because it would be Robinson’s ass that would be chewed out by Chief Murphy.
There had been changes to the fourth floor at Precinct Six. Mayor Schuler, having won a very tight race for mayor with Police Chief Dennis Murphy, decided to play hardball with the chief seeing that the city council refused to back the mayor’s replacement for Murphy. Now he was stuck with his adversary until the next election. Sam Casey had been a thorn in Schuler’s side during the election process. She had helped to clear Murphy’s name in a murder case, a charge that knocked Murphy’s name right off the ballot. Trying to revoke Sam’s consultant job with CHPD was a non-starter. She was too damn good at what she did. But Schuler could do the next best thing. He decided the Sixth needed a larger conference room so he had a wall knocked out to expand the current conference room. Unfortunately, that wall had separated Jake’s and Frank’s offices. Now they were out in the open, amid the noise and congestion where desks were butted against each other in pairs around the room. Along the outer walls were a copy room, file room, two interview rooms, and a break room. Jake and Frank had desks butted against each other outside the captain’s office.
“JAKE!” Captain Robinson bellowed. “Why the hell have I got pigeon poop on my window sill?” His linebacker frame filled his doorway.
“They ain’t pigeons,” Frank said. “They are mourning doves.”
“I don’t care if they are protected bald eagles. What are they doing on my window sill?”
Jake turned from his computer and didn’t even try to keep the smile from forming. “When they moved me from my office, they had to look for a friendly face and they found yours.”
Robinson wasn’t buying it. “They got other window sills to pick from but for some reason mine has sunflower seeds scattered on it.”
“Blame Sam. She was worried they wouldn’t get fed so she told them to go to your window.”
“She told them?” Robinson was skeptical. He had heard rumors that Sam had a way of talking to the doves, that when Murphy was still captain Sam had told the doves to fly into the office and make a deposit on Murphy’s desk. But Robinson had considered it all myth. Now he wasn’t so sure. “I don’t suppose if I say no that Sam is going to have them leave a gift on my desk.”
Now Jake couldn’t stop the smile. He was a witness to Sam speaking to the doves in her native language and witnessed the doves obeying her commands. “I wouldn’t try it if I were you.”
Robinson saw Scofield motioning from his desk near the elevators. He sighed inwardly and motioned for Scofield to send the visitor down to his office. Jake had little problem reading the visitor. He moved slowly, as though in pain, but Jake didn’t think it was a physical pain. He gathered the man was around thirty, in good shape, and probably had a desk job because of the suit he wore. Jake caught Frank’s attention and lifted his brows in question. Frank shrugged.
Jake’s intercom buzzed. He looked up to see Scofield on the phone. “What have you got?”
“A possible I.D. for your victim. Vi Lasky owns a six flat on Escanaba. She wants to report a missing person. Says she hasn’t seen one of her tenants in two weeks. Got alarmed ‘cause her tenant always pays her rent early. This month she’s late. Vi let herself into the apartment to find a cat, against rules, naturally, but it had eaten what it could from a bag of cat food it rummaged out of a pantry, and Vi also saw it turning off the damn water faucet so it had food and water.”
“Did she give a description?”
“Says she’s about five foot six and has brown hair. Also says she is a waitress at a sports bar.”
“Is Vi home now? Get her address. We’ll drop by to talk to her and take a look at her tenant’s apartment. Maybe there’s a photo in the apartment.”
“Will do.”
“Got a lead?” Frank asked.
“Yeah, sounds like a good one.” Jake grabbed his jacket and they headed for the elevator.
<><>
“I don’t want to be a pest,” Forrest said. “I just need…”
To talk, Robinson thought in his head. He felt for the man. Robinson had lost his own wife years ago leaving Robinson to raise a son and daughter on his own. Forrest was having a hard time accepting the fact that his wife had committed suicide. Maybe there was something in Robinson’s eyes that told Forrest he shared the same pain—the loss of a loved one.
“How is that support group going?” Robinson poured Forrest a cup of coffee from the carafe on his desk.
“Okay, I guess. It’s just kind of hard to relate. I feel like I’m not at the same point as the rest of the group.”
“And where is that?”
“They seem to accept it. It’s just me and one woman who feel suicide wasn’t in the nature of our loved ones. I know…knew my wife. She would never have committed suicide.” Forrest had told himself to hold it together. How could his suspicions be taken seriously if he was always breaking down? “God, I’m sorry. I told myself to stop doing this, stop blubbering.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, then took out a hankie and blew his nose. “I keep reading the autopsy report.”
“Not a good thing, Forrest. You gotta let it go.”
“I know, I know. But the tox results. People kept suggesting she was on drugs, but she wasn’t. I just can’t wrap my head around what was going through her mind with a hungry baby still sitting in her high chair.”
“How’s the job, Forrest? You have a little girl to think of. You can’t risk jeopardizing your financial future by spending all your time going on…”
“Wild goose chases?” Forrest finished the sentence for him.
“Put yourself in my detectives’ heads, Forrest. You read the police report, all the eyewitness statements. What other explanation could there have been?”
Forrest stared at the steam coming off the coffee while his eyes filled. “You know a day doesn’t go by that Savannah doesn’t ask for her mommy. The one day I dread is when Savannah no longer says her name or looks around the condo for her. How do I keep Marti’s memory for her? I should have taken more pictures, you know?”
Robinson didn’t have any answers for him. The case was closed, ruled a suicide. He couldn’t assign any man hours to the case again. Tonto and Cochise, the two mourning doves, pecked at the window and damn if it didn’t feel as though they were talking to him. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a business card.
“Why don’t you give her a call? She’s an outside consultant we use from time to time. She’ll look into it as a favor to me. She won’t charge you. If there’s anything worth finding, she’s the one who can do it. But you have to promise me. You focus on your daughter and your job and leave the worries to Sam Casey.”