“You gonna kill yourself, you gonna revise your will. That ain’t very suspicious.”
“But then I met the daughter.”
“Their daughter?”
“She broke into the house, looking for something. She’d pocketed the mail but she might’ve been looking for something else. Maybe she got the Luminux bottles. She didn’t want anybody to find them. I didn’t search her. I didn’t think about it at the time.”
“What’s this with the drugs? They didn’t OD.”
“Well, maybe she got them doped up, had them change their will and talked them into killing themselves.”
“Yeah, right,” LaTour muttered. “That’s outa some bad movie.”
Tal shrugged. “When I mentioned murder she freaked out.”
“Murder? Why’d you mention murder?” He scratched his huge belly, looking for the moment just like his nickname.
“I meant murder-suicide. The husband turning the engine on.”
LaTour gave a grunt — Tal hadn’t realized that you could make a sound like that condescending. But he continued, “And, you know, she had this attitude.”
“Well, now, Tal, you did send her parents to the county morgue. You know what they do to you there, don’tcha? Knives and saws. That’s gotta piss the kid off a little, you know.”
“Yes, she was pissed. But mostly, I think, ’cause I was there, checking out what’d happened. And you know what she didn’t seem upset about?”
“What’s that?”
“Her parents. Them dying. She seemed to be crying. But I couldn’t tell. It could’ve been an act.”
“She was in shock. Skirts get that way.”
Tal persisted, “Then I checked on the first couple. The Bensons? They were cremated right after they died and their estate liquidated in a day or two.”
“Liquidated? It was a crime scene. They can’t do that.”
Tal said, “Well, everybody kept saying, it’s only a suicide…the town released the scene.”
LaTour lifted an eyebrow and finally delivered a comment that was neither condescending nor sarcastic. “Cremated that fast, hm? Seems odd, yeah. I’ll give you that.”
“And the Bensons’ lawyer told me something else. They were atheists, both of them. But their suicide note said they’d be in heaven forever or something like that. Atheists aren’t going to say that. I’m thinking maybe they might’ve been drugged, too. With that Luminux.”
“What does their doctor—”
“No, he didn’t prescribe it. But maybe somebody slipped it to them. Their suicide note was unsteady, too, sloppy, just like the Whitleys’.”
“What’s the story on their doctor?”
“I haven’t got that far yet.”
“Maybe, maybe, maybe.” LaTour squinted. “But that gardener we talked to at the Benson place? He said they’d been boozing it up. You did the blood work on the Whitleys. They been drinking?”
“Not too much…Oh, one other thing. I called their cell phone company and checked the phone records — the Whitleys’. There was a call from a pay phone forty minutes before they died. Two minutes. Just enough time to see if they’re home and say you’re going to stop by. And who calls from pay phones anymore? Everybody’s got cells, right?”
Reluctantly LaTour agreed with this.
“Look at it, Greg: Two couples, both rich, live five miles from each other. Both of ’em in the country club set. Both husbands have heart disease. Two murder-suicides a few days apart. What do you think about that?”
In a weary voice LaTour said, “Outliers, right?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re thinking the bitch—”
“Who?” Tal asked.
“The daughter.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’m not gonna quote you in the press, Tal. You—”
“Okay,” he conceded, “she’s a bitch.”
“You’re thinking she’s got access to her folks, there’s money involved. She’s doing something funky with the will or insurance.”
“It’s a theorem.”
“A what?” LaTour screwed up his face.
“It’s a hunch is what I’m saying.”
“Hunch. Okay. But you brought up the Bensons. The Whitley daughter isn’t going to off them now, is she? I mean, why would she?”
Tal shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s the Bensons’ goddaughter and she was in their will, too. Or maybe her father was going into some deal with Benson that’d tie up all the estate money so the daughter’d lose out and she had to kill them both.”
“Maybe, maybe, maybe,” LaTour repeated.
Shellee appeared in the doorway and, ignoring LaTour, said, “Latents called. They said the only prints on the gun were Mr. Benson’s and a few smears from cloth or paper.”
“What fucking gun?” he asked.
“I will thank you not to use that language to me,” Shellee said icily.
“I was talking to him,” LaTour snapped and cocked an eyebrow at Tal.
Tal said, “The gun the Bensons killed themselves with. Smears — like on the Whitleys’ suicide note.”
Shellee glanced at the wall poster behind the desk then back to the detective. Tal couldn’t tell whether the look of distaste was directed at LaTour himself or the blonde in a red-white-and-blue bikini lying provocatively across the seat and teardrop gas tank of the Harley. She turned and walked back to her desk quickly, as if she’d been holding her breath.
“Okay…This’s getting marginally fucking interesting.” LaTour glanced at the huge gold watch on his wrist. “I gotta go. I got some time booked at the range. Come with me. Let’s go waste some ammunition, talk about the case after.”
“Think I’ll stay here.”
LaTour frowned, apparently unable to understand why somebody wouldn’t jump at the chance to spend an hour punching holes in a piece of paper with a deadly weapon. “You don’t shoot?”
“It’s just I’d rather work on this.”
Then enlightenment dawned. Tal’s office was, after all, on the Unreal Crimes side of the pen. He had no interest in cop toys.
You’re the best at what you do, statistician. Man, that’s a hard job…
“Okay,” LaTour said. “I’ll check out the wills and the insurance policies. Gimme the name of the icees.”
“The—”
“The corpses, the stiffs…the losers who killed ’emselves, Tal. And their lawyers.”
Tal wrote down the information and handed the neat note to LaTour, who stuffed it into his plaid shirt pocket behind two large cigars. He ripped open a desk drawer and took out a big chrome automatic pistol.
Tal asked, “What should I do?”
“Get a PII team and—”
“A what?”
“You go to the same academy as me, Tal? Post-Incident Interviewing team,” he said as if he were talking to a three-year-old. “Use my name and Doherty’ll put one together for you. Have ’em talk to all the neighbors around the Bensons’ and the Whitleys’ houses. See if they saw anybody around the houses just before or after the TOD. Oh, that’s—”
“Time of death.”
“You got it, my man. We’ll talk this afternoon. I’ll see you back here, how’s four?”
“Sure. Oh, and maybe we should find out what kind of car the Whitleys’ daughter drove. See if the wheelbase data match.”
“That’s good thinking, Tal,” he said, looking honestly impressed. Grabbing some boxes of 9mm cartridges LaTour walked heavily out of the Detective Division.
Tal returned to his desk and arranged for the PII team. Then he called DMV, requesting information on Sandra Whitley’s car. He glanced at his watch. One p.m. He realized he was hungry; he’d missed his regular lunch with his buddies from the university. He walked down to the small canteen on the second floor, bought a cheese sandwich and a diet soda and returned to his desk. As he ate he continued to pore over the pages of the crime scene report and the documents and other evidence he himself had collected at the house.