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The waiter bought a pint and a basket of chips for Slade, and he raised the mug to his lips for the first sip. He looked at the cops sitting around him. “Listen up, guys. We’ve gotta triple homicide in the west end.”
Stoddard stopped his glass midway. His eyes bulged. “Triple? That’s big. Who?”
Slade caught Michaela’s eyes and held them. “Constance Smirkowitz, her twelve-year-old daughter, and a guy named John Traynor, who we think was Constance’s boyfriend.” He reached for his Guinness again.
“Oh my God,” Michaela whispered, “Someone killed a kid? What kind of maniac did this? Who kills a kid?”
“Was this the home invasion that came in a couple of hours ago?” Stoddard asked.
Slade nodded. “Yeah. Far as I know. In the West End. High-end neighborhood. Looks like Smirkowitz’s son, the sixteen-year-old, heard all of the noise downstairs and activated the alarm.” He shook his head. “The family was eating dinner when they were attacked.”
“Why wasn’t the son eating dinner? Where was he?”
Slade fiddled with his silverware “Apparently, someone tried to kidnap the son from school today.”
He glanced at Stoddard and saw the look on his face. “Don’t worry. We’re tracking that down now.”
Stoddard nodded.
“Anyway,” Slade continued as he picked up a chip, “the son wasn’t feeling well, and that’s why he was upstairs in his room.”
Mic mulled this information over in her mind. “What has Dr. Dude done to piss off someone so much they’d try to kidnap his son at school, and then murder his wife and daughter?”
“We’ve gotta couple of theories on that and are still working it up,” Slade said. “Whatever it is, it’s bad business.”
“Yeah, for sure. Photos?” Mic asked.
“Yeah, a bunch.” Slade handed her his phone. “Dr. Altman caught the case and she’s still there along with the crime team boys.”
“Good. Mary’s the best medical examiner we have,” Stoddard said. “What’s she sayin?”
Slade chewed his chip before he answered. “Thinks the perp entered through the back door and the boyfriend... or whatever he was, John Traynor, left the dining room and came into the kitchen to see what was going on. That’s apparently when the perp shot him in the chest. We think the killer used a silencer on his gun. Then the ME thinks the perp entered the dining room with a gun and a knife and came toward Constance. There’s a missing knife from the block in the kitchen."
Mic shook her head. "That sounds disorganized to me. I'd have thought the perp would have had a better plan. There're all kinds of ways a scenario like that could go wrong."
"Yeah, agreed," Steve added. “If I were gonna brazenly walk into someone's house with the intent of killing them, I'd have thought about it a little more. Have a more orchestrated plan.” He scratched his head. “It makes me wonder if the perp even knew who was in the house."
Slade offered a tight smile, drank deeply from his pint and said jokingly, "I’m impressed. You guys are sharp tonight.”
Mic gave him a dirty look, and he smiled at her.
“That's exactly what Mary said, and I agree,” Slade continued. “The killings were not random, and they weren’t well planned. The entire scene in the dining room is chaotic. It’s violent, haphazard, and bloody. Whoever killed Constance Smirkowitz and her daughter either hated them or had a vendetta of some type ... or, it was a crime of passion."
"How so?" Michaela asked, pushing her dark curls behind her ears as she leaned in closer to Slade. “What else did the scene tell you and Dr. Altman?"
Slade shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "Violence, passion, disorder, hate, not random. That's about it. Isn't that enough?” His voice was acerbic.
Mic gave a short laugh and raised her glass. “Yeah, Slade, lighten up. We’ll give you all a couple more hours to solve it,” she teased as she touched him on the arm lightly. “There’s that black Irish temper again.”
Slade nodded. “I've got Charlie Thor running down Dr. Dude's new wife to try and figure out whether she had a part in this or not. We’re also looking at Dude's financials to see if he had any recent money problems. It looks as though the newly deceased Mrs. Smirkowitz had not changed her style of living one iota."
Anger surged through Mic as her eyes flashed, "Why should she? For all we know, she put Dr. Dude through dental school. She also birthed him two children. She deserves everything she has, and more as far as I'm concerned ...or at least deserved. Why is it all you guys think that once divorced that a woman should live with less?"
Lt. Stoddard touched her shoulder. "Pipe down, Mic. Nobody said that, and nobody implied it, so give it a rest."
Mic took a deep breath and gave Stoddard an apologetic look. "Sorry, Lieutenant. You know that's a hot button for me. I've worked far too long at the women’s shelters with their fear, pain, and poverty. Most women are crippled financially when their husband takes off.” She looked around at her former colleagues, her friends, and said, her voice small and contrite, "Hey, guys, forgive me?"
"Sure, Mic,” Slade said, after looking around the table. “We know you work hard for women. We’ll forgive you for another round of Guinness, won’t we, guys?"
Mic sighed deeply and signaled the waiter for fresh round. Then she looked at her friends. "You guys make me sick. I don't know how I lasted there for twenty years."
An old buddy guffawed and said, "The only reason we ever put up with you at the station, Mic, was because we knew that one day you’d own a bar, and you’d give us free drinks.”
Laughter erupted, and Lt. Stoddard raised his glass in a toast. "To Michaela, to the best damned homicide detective RPD ever knew."
"Hear, hear," her friends said as they raised their glasses in a toast.
Mic did her best not to blush, but she could feel it creeping up her neck.
"And,” Slade said, "to Biddy McPherson's, the best watering hole the RPD has ever frequented." He grinned as he raised his glass in tribute.
Michaela knew her face was bright red as she looked around the table at the smartest and bravest men she’d ever known. She stood and raised her glass in respect. "To the best Guinness drinkers in the Richmond Police Department. May you live long, solve crimes, and visit Biddy's forever."
"Hear, hear, I'll drink to that," several guys said in unison and clanked their glasses together.
When the cheering died down, Stoddard turned to Slade. "Is there anything else you need to tell us on these triple murders? Was forensics turning up anything?"
Slade shook his head. "Nope. Too early. No murder weapons located at the scene, so the perp must’ve taken the weapons with him, or at least we couldn't find them, but we did get some good footprints entering and leaving the house. The uniforms are canvassing the neighborhood now to see if anyone saw anything. Charlie Thor will call me with any changes.”
"Dr. Altman say anything else? Did she speak to the order of the killings?" Michaela asked as she shredded her napkin. “Who died first?”
Slade nodded. "Yeah, she thinks the killer shot the boyfriend, went for Constance, but the daughter jumped him, and the killer slammed her onto the floor. It looks like she hit the floor hard because the back of her head was pretty banged up. Lots of blood. The kid took three rounds up close, so the doc thinks, and so do I. The killer shot her on the floor. Also looked as though the kid had a broken rib, so we guess the perp kicked her in the ribs. We don’t know if the kid was conscious or not when she was shot."
Stoddard groaned and shook his head as a look of disgust shot across his face, “Shot the girl three times when she was on the floor? That’s pretty cold.” He slammed his mug on the polished table, and the dark brew spilled over the rim of his mug and spread toward the center, “This isn’t an intruder. These murders are up front and personal.”
Slade nodded, his eyes smoking rage. “Yeah. No question.” He paused for a moment, then continued, "The girl has a bloodied footprint on her chest, so the way I see it, the perp tracked through Traynor’s blood in the kitchen and held the kid down with a foot on her chest when he shot her.”
Stoddard nodded. “Man, that’s cold. To do that to a kid.” He grunted as the other men nodded.
“Anything else?” Mic asked as she looked into Slade’s eyes, conscious of the angry sounds and low conversation from the rest of the police officers at the table as they cursed and discussed the case.
“Perp has a small foot. Man’s size ten- perp wore work boots. Not sure yet.”
Michaela thought about this. "Small feet? That's pretty weird. Most people wear snow boots in this kind of weather." She paused for second. "I wonder if we’re possibly looking for a woman?”
The men quieted down as each considered the possibility that a woman could have murdered two adults and a twelve-year-old child.
Stoddard looked pensive and spoke slowly. "A woman in work boots? Sure, it's possible. I wouldn't have thought that, but it's always possible.”
“Lieutenant, everything about this scene is different,” Mic persisted as she ran her ringers through her curls as she often did when she was thinking. “Time of day, disorganized, chaotic, child murder. It’s a crazy, cruel scene.”
“If a woman was angry, she could've very easily taken charge of the scene, especially if she killed the man in the kitchen,” Slade added.
“Yeah, she used the element of surprise on two unsuspecting adults and a kid,” Mic said “We’ve gotta keep that option open." Mic knocked her pint over with her elbow.
Mic was silent as the waiter cleaned up the table with a brilliant white towel. Mic watched the towel turn color as it sopped up the brown Guinness spills. She turned to Slade and Steve.
“I’m sure it was a woman,” she said. “All of the rage at the scene and killing the girl ...maybe she killed the daughter because it wasn’t her daughter.” She turned to Slade and said, “It’s just a hunch but I wonder if Dude has any long-term woman friends ...women that go back fifteen or twenty years. This feels like a ‘woman scorned’ case to me. Pure jealous rage.”
Lt. Stoddard and Slade McKane stared at each other as Mic watched their expressions light up.
“She’s on to something,” Stoddard said. “No question. The brilliant intuition of Michaela McPherson strikes again.”
Slade nodded. “Damned right. Never left her, even after she retired. I’ll call the ME and Charlie Thor. I’ll tell her what Mic thinks and get her reaction. Dr. Altman rarely misses stuff, and I think Mic’s right on.”
“Yeah,” Stoddard agreed and bottomed-up his pint.