10 days later
I knew he was hurting, but calling and coming to the precinct four times last week hadn’t helped. Tracy at the front desk had just warned me that Danny Whitman was on his way up. He would demand answers—answers that I still didn’t have, and I didn’t know if I ever would.
I stared at Rue until he looked up.
“What?”
“You want to take this one?”
Rue shook his head and told me in no uncertain terms that his answer was an emphatic no. He tossed in a few colorful adjectives to get his point across and reminded me that he’d listened to Danny’s complaints for forty-five minutes only three days prior.
“I had him on Friday, and you know it.”
“The hell you did.”
“Anyway, my guts are rumbling. I think I need to head to the men’s room.” Rue scurried away.
“Liar! It’s your turn, damn it.” No sooner had those words left my mouth than a knock sounded on the door.
I sucked in an agonizing breath and remembered what Royce had said. You’re representing the precinct, so be helpful. The man is grieving his murdered sister.
After I called out for him to come in, the door swung open. Before I had a chance to say hello, Danny Whitman was already in prime interrogation mode. With his typical urgency, he dropped down in one of the guest chairs that faced our desks. The second he began, I glanced at the clock—9:37 a.m.
“So, Detective Cannon, what’s the latest? Do you have an update for me? I took the weekend off like Detective Rue suggested on Friday.”
I rubbed my forehead. Nothing I could say would satisfy the man except that the killer had been apprehended and would sit on death row until his day of reckoning—and he hadn’t.
“Danny, I’ve told you countless times that I’d call you if I had anything new to report.”
“Well, I’m here now, and you are the lead detective in Homicide, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I don’t work around the clock. The rest of the detectives take an active role in all homicide cases.”
“So, what do you have to tell me?”
“Nothing. We’ve exhausted every lead, had Forensics dust the entire house for prints without luck, and our detectives have spoken with every person Kim was acquainted with. Nobody saw, heard, or knows of anyone who would want to harm—let alone kill—your sister.”
Danny cocked his head and locked eyes on me. “That isn’t good enough, Detective Cannon. I refuse to let my sister’s murder go without consequences. She deserves better than that. The person who killed her has to be held responsible.”
I raised my hand to stop his yammering. I’d heard it a dozen times. “I promise you, I’ll do everything in my power to find Kim’s killer. Murders aren’t always solved in a week, a month, or even a year. You have to come to grips with that. It’s a fact of life, but in the end, we usually catch the perp.”
“But—”
I cut in. “Please let us do our job. It’s a process and not always one that fits the family’s timeline, but I assure you, we’ll do everything in our power to find the person responsible. Now”—I rattled my fingertips on my desk to disrupt his train of thought—“what time is the funeral?”
He let out a long sigh. I hoped it meant he was going to comply with my request and stop badgering us every other day.
“The church service is at one o’clock, and the burial is at two thirty.”
“Okay.” I stood, and he followed suit. Patting his shoulder, I said we would be there to pay our respects and check out the people in attendance.
Danny left, and Rue returned with a doughnut and a coffee from our cafeteria. I greeted him with a middle finger. “Funny how you came back right after he left and with food in your hand. I thought your stomach was rumbling.”
“I looked out at the hallway from the lunchroom with a perfect view of people walking by. I guess the rumbling was actually hunger pangs.”
I grumbled at him even though I was well aware that Rue had spoken with Danny on Friday. “Kim’s funeral is at one o’clock. We need to watch the crowd closely. Anyone who seems too interested and goes to both the church and graveside services should be checked out thoroughly.”
“Yeah, and we’ll place plainclothes officers in the crowd too. We’ll catch the perp sooner or later.”
My mind went back ten days earlier to when that call had come in. It was a Friday morning, not unlike any other except I hadn’t yet dressed for the day. My phone rang on the nightstand as I was drying off from my shower. With still-wet feet, I cautiously walked to avoid slipping on the hardwood floor as I made my way across the bedroom to my phone. It was Royce. He rattled off an address on East Huntingdon Street and said I was to get there right away. Rue was also en route. I was told it was the scene of a grisly homicide. The first responders were there and had already searched the premises and cordoned off the street.
After I hung up, I dressed and yelled downstairs for Marie to fill my travel mug with coffee. I didn’t have time for breakfast. Minutes later, I rushed into the kitchen and said good morning and goodbye to the family then Marie jammed half an English muffin into my mouth. I nodded a thanks, grabbed the coffee, and headed out.
I clearly remembered arriving at the scene. East Huntingdon was a street filled with turn-of-the-century or older row houses and Victorians. The officer at the front door stared at his shoes as if he wanted to erase what he’d seen inside. As Rue and I stepped up to the door, Officer Petrie shook his head and forewarned us—it was the worst murder he’d ever seen.
I couldn’t have imagined the grisly homicide there until we walked in. I recalled the appearance of the room and the way Kim was displayed as if I’d just come across the scene minutes ago. Although I’d been to dozens of murder scenes in my years as a homicide detective, that one was seared into my memory. “Grisly” wasn’t a good-enough adjective for what we’d seen in the house that morning. None of the neighbors had heard or seen anything, and that could happen only if the perp had a silencer on the gun and committed the murder well after midnight, under the cover of darkness and after everyone on that block had gone to sleep.
Inside, a hush had overtaken the house even though four officers were there along with our daytime forensic team, Billy Tremont and Martin James.
Gloved up and wearing booties, Rue and I approached the officers who surrounded Billy and Martin. They were obviously waiting for our arrival and would begin canvassing the neighborhood on our go-ahead. They stepped aside and allowed us through.
“Holy shit.” When I saw her, I pulled back, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Who in the hell could hate this woman enough to do such a thing?” Rue asked, clearly not expecting an answer.
We were stunned. I’d seen all manners of killing—knife wounds, bullet wounds, and beatings—but I’d never seen anyone shot as many times as Kim Whitman had been. She was tied to a chair with paracord, and the only reason the chair hadn’t tipped over from the numerous shots was because it was butted up against an interior wall, which was coated with blood spray, organ parts, and drip marks. Kim was nude, making every bullet hole easy to see. Rue and I moved in closer and counted. There looked to be seventeen holes.
I winced. “A little overkill, excuse the pun, but what the hell?”
Billy stopped taking pictures and addressed us. “Her nightclothes are on the bedroom floor. It appears that the killer got into the house somehow, took her by surprise while she slept, and for whatever reason, wanted to display her in this degrading way before ending her life.”
I nodded. “Make sure to take all the bed linens and her nightclothes back to the lab with you.” When Tapper Lowe, our county medical examiner, walked in, I turned. “There’s no question about how she died,” I said as he approached the body.
“Jesus.” He scratched the top of his head then scanned the floor. “Any shell casings?”
“Not that I’ve seen. He must have picked all of them up before he left.”
“And how many—”
I knew what Tapper was about to ask. “Seventeen. The killer obviously felt the need to empty the entire magazine on her. He must have used a silencer in order to fire off that many rounds without somebody hearing the shots.”
“Rage killing?”
“Too early to know anything. We literally got here twenty minutes ago.”
Tapper unfolded his portable stool, took a seat, and began the field exam. We stepped aside to look through the rooms after tasking the four officers to start the neighborhood knock and talks. We needed to know something other than the fact that Kim Whitman had been brutally murdered—and with no obvious reason for it staring us in the face. The house hadn’t been ransacked, nothing appeared to be stolen, and there was no forced entry either. Luckily, her phone remained next to her bed on the charger, and we would use that to call every person on her contact list.
“So, will that work for you? Earth to Cannon.” Rue shot a rubber band that hit me in the chest.
I frowned. “What the hell was that for?”
“Because I asked you a question, but it’s obvious you’re on a different planet right now. So, do you want to ride together to Kim’s funeral or not?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Let’s leave at twelve fifteen. That’ll give us time to check out the crowd.”
“If there is a crowd. It doesn’t sound like there’s family in the area other than Danny. The mom and stepdad are dead, and she was his only sibling. Plus, it’s going to be a closed-coffin service. Pretty much a memorial and that’s it.”
I pointed my chin at the mounting stack of paperwork in front of me. “We need to go over everything again. Maybe we missed something.”
Rue groaned. “We didn’t miss anything, Mitch.”
“We must have since we don’t have a perp or a motive. The only thing we do know is that Tapper pulled out a dozen slugs from her body. The rest went through the wall. He’s guessing they came from a nine-millimeter handgun.”
Rue and I spent the next few hours going over the police reports, autopsy findings, and friends and family accounts of Kim, her life, and what she did on a daily basis. She was a thirty-four-year-old single woman—Danny said she was too picky—yet she was outgoing, belonged to a few clubs, and had two close girlfriends. Kim worked side by side with Danny in their bail recovery agency. She handled the paperwork, and Danny posted the bail and went after people who skipped town after being released from jail. Essentially, she handled the books, and Danny kicked in the doors. He’d lost not only his sister but his business partner too. I understood why he was so persistent and impatient. Our role in finding Kim’s killer wasn’t much different from his job chasing down jerks who skipped out on court dates. He would be on the hook for their bond, and a criminal would be in the wind.
I gave the clock a glance. It was time to wrap up, and once again, we hadn’t found anything new. After we called it a day, the night shift would continue working the case.