“What’s this?”
“Two tags.” She’d been up late running them through a database she had access to as a licensed PI. “One comes back to a shell company called FC Incorporated. The other is an individual, Andre Markov. I believe Ollie was watching him in the days before his murder.”
“Watching him?” Spears asked.
“Doing a background search, probably some surveillance.” Kira glanced at Diaz. “I don’t think Markov is the gunman. I looked up the guy’s mug shot. He doesn’t look like the man I saw, and his height is wrong.”
Diaz’s eyebrows arched. “So he has an arrest record?”
“Yes. But, like I said, he wasn’t the guy at Brock’s house. And I have reason to believe he was in Channelview when Shelly Chandler was killed last night.”
“Why do you think that?” Diaz asked.
“Because his car was there. That’s where I got these tags.”
Spears watched her for a moment, then picked up the business card and studied the info Kira had written down. “So you don’t think Markov is a suspect—”
“I didn’t say that. I don’t think he’s the shooter,” Kira said. “I do think he’s involved somehow. I thought you could do some background, see what comes up.”
Spears looked from Kira to Jeremy. “Both of you do background checks, too, if I’m not mistaken.”
“True,” Kira said. “But you have more tools than I do. You can dig deeper.”
“Does this Markov have anything to do with the package that Shelly Chandler mailed to Ollie Kovak right before his death?” she asked.
Kira nodded.
Diaz crossed his arms. “We’d like you to tell us about that.”
“Sorry.” Kira smiled thinly. “I would, but that’s confidential.”
“In other words, it has to do with a legal case you’re working on,” Spears said. “The Quinn case, I assume?”
“That’s right. My work product is privileged.”
Spears muttered something about lawyers.
“We’ll check out Markov,” Diaz said. “But any idea why Kovak would have eyes on this guy?”
“Ollie was working exclusively on the Quinn case,” Kira said, “so I believe it’s linked to that. Before his death, Ollie was trying to identify Ava Quinn’s real killer.”
Spears looked annoyed. “Her real one? As opposed to the made-up one we arrested?”
“Our investigators say her husband did it,” Diaz said.
“I’m aware,” Kira replied. “And I know a defense attorney who plans to show a jury otherwise.”
Spears tapped the business card on the table. “Thanks for the vehicle tags. We’ll check these out.”
She looked at her partner, and they stood to leave. Kira and Jeremy stood, too.
“Let me know what you find out,” Kira said, although she doubted they would. Kira was holding back info, so why shouldn’t they? Given that she was working for Gavin Quinn’s defense team, her cooperation could only go so far. Still, Kira wanted to help them as much as she could.
“We’ll be in touch.” Spears looked at Jeremy. “In the meantime, watch your back.” She nodded at Kira. “Hers, too.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE BULL pen was nearly empty when Charlotte returned from a grueling three hours at the ME’s office.
Big surprise. Not many of her coworkers chose to spend a summer weekend holed up in the office. Even Diaz, who was almost as dogged as she was, had knocked off for the day, citing “plans,” which could mean anything from drinks with his cop buddies to a hot date.
Charlotte had no such diversions in her future—just a long night ahead of her trying to forget the grisly images of a twenty-eight-year-old law student on an autopsy table.
Charlotte dropped her keys onto her desk and sank into her chair with a sigh. Shelly Chandler’s death had been up close and personal. Very up close, according to the pathologist. It looked like she’d been approached from behind and turned around to find herself face-to-face with her killer, right there at her own back door. Her last moment must have been terrifying, and Charlotte got angry just thinking about it.
Yet no one—not one of the apartment residents police had interviewed—reported hearing a gunshot, leading investigators to believe the assailant had used a suppressor.
Just like in the Oliver Kovak case.
“You’re here.”
She turned to see Lacey coming from the elevators.
“I am, unfortunately. Working on the Kovak case. Why are you here?”
The CSI looked like she’d just come off a baseball field. She wore a dusty blue uniform and a ball cap, and the tops of her cheeks were pink.
“Got called in for that house fire in Meyerland. Three fatalities.”
Charlotte cringed. “I heard. Kids?”
“Yeah, and I’m hearing rumors it was arson.”
“Damn. That’s awful.”
Lacey dropped a file onto her desk. The folder had a white envelope paper-clipped to the top. “That’s from Grant.”
Charlotte brightened. “Already?” Their fingerprint examiner was notoriously backlogged, and she hadn’t expected to hear from him today.
“He asked me to hand-deliver it. Said you’ve left him about a hundred messages?”
“I may have left a few.”
“The envelope’s from me,” Lacey said. “I put the crime-scene video on a flash drive for you. I tweaked the mockup to show where he tears his glove climbing over the fence.”
Lacey was always thorough, which was why Charlotte liked working with her.
“Thanks.”
“Sure.” She sighed. “I’m off to analyze carpet samples for accelerants.”
“Good luck.”
Lacey walked away, and Charlotte cleared the clutter off her desk and opened the file from Grant. He’d put a beautiful eight-by-ten glossy of the fingerprint on top.
Damn, she loved that man. Too bad he was married.
Grant was a legend in cop circles for his ability to get a print off anything. Fabric. Leather. Human skin. She’d once seen him develop a thumbprint off an electrical cord that had been used to strangle a thirty-year-old mother while her children slept in the next room. The print was only a partial, but it had generated a hit in the system and led police straight to the killer’s door.
Charlotte studied the photograph. The print was bright yellow against a purple backdrop, suggesting he’d developed it using fluorescent powder and then photographed it with an alternative light source to create maximum contrast. Even from such a small scrap of latex, he’d been able to get an amazing level of detail. It probably helped that people left better prints when they were nervous and sweating, and people fleeing murder scenes tended to be both.
Charlotte slid the photograph aside and skimmed the report.
No match with the FBI database, which contained fingerprints from more than seventy million subjects in the criminal master file. Also, no DNA hits.
Grant had scrawled a handwritten note beneath the typed report. He drew a zero with a line through it and added, “Still trying a few more things. More TK. —G.”
Charlotte chewed her lip. Grant could get creative. And clearly, her case had his attention, which was good.
What wasn’t good was that anyone with a record like Andre Markov’s would have his prints in the system, and possibly his DNA, unless the sample hadn’t been entered yet due to bureaucratic logjams—which were known to happen.
At any rate, the prints would be there, so whoever had murdered Ollie, it wasn’t Andre Markov.