“The chemistry is simply palpable,” Kay said with a pleasant smile. “Whether Detective... Pryor? Whether Detective Pryor followed you here, or if this was just a happy accident, does it really matter? Jordan, this is an opportunity to discuss with a police detective what you’ve come up with this afternoon... Detective, this is a remarkable young woman. Really quite brilliant. Let’s sit down. Coffee? Iced tea? Soft drinks?”
Jordan and Mark declined the beverage offer, but the wind was out of their argument and they followed the older woman’s instructions and sat, Jordan back in the chair, Mark with Kay on the couch. Jordan, with a few helpful interruptions from Kay, shared what they’d discussed, in particular the wrong-side-of-the-bed and left-handed victim issues.
When she had finished, Jordan looked expectantly at the young detective.
Mark only shrugged. “This is very interesting. It’s what I’d call... suggestive. But I can’t go to my captain with that. At least not yet.”
Jordan frowned. “Why not?”
“Because it’s a closed case.” He gestured with widespread hands. “With our current caseload, he’s not going to let me reopen it on the grounds that the shooter was left-handed, and what side of the bed each was on.”
“What would be enough?”
“Something concrete. Something that puts someone else in that house at the time of the shootings.”
“What about the gun? That might put someone else in the room.”
“The gun was the weapon in the murder-suicide, and was near Mr. Gregory’s hand.”
“But there was no gunshot residue test!”
“Just because it’s not in the report, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. And even if not, it’s too late. Even an exhumation wouldn’t... I’m sorry.”
Kay had begun to cry again. She waved it off, as if they shouldn’t be concerned, but she was crying, and Mark and Jordan exchanged concerned glances, on the same page for once.
Mark said to them both, “This isn’t to trivialize what you’ve come up with. I would encourage you to keep digging.”
“Gee,” Jordan said, “thanks.”
“I’ll help you where I can,” Mark said. “But the department just isn’t going to allot resources for a closed case.”
“You can use a phrase like allot resources,” Jordan said bitterly, “when we’re talking about what happened to Kay’s family?”
“I don’t like it any better than you do. That’s why I’m looking into your family’s case on my own time. The CPD has a budget like every other city service. Money’s only going to get spent on open cases.”
“And my family is an open case?”
“Jordan, you know it is. The case is unsolved. Kay’s sister and brother-in-law is a closed case.”
Why was he talking to her like she was a child? She wanted to kick him. Or slap him. Or something.
“The major problem remains,” Mark said, “that there were no signs of a struggle.”
Kay, confused, said, “Why is that an issue?”
Mark didn’t answer her directly, instead turning to Jordan. “You are obviously more conversant with the file on this than I am. Is there any mention of them being drugged in the police report?”
“No,” Jordan said.
He glanced from her to Kay and back again. “Then, for the new information you’ve found to be impactful, we must assume that two healthy, sane people let a third person march them into their bedroom, go along with instructions to lie on the bed, and simply hold hands and allow themselves to be... I’m sorry, Ms. Isenberg... to be executed, one at a time, without either victim putting up any kind of fight.”
Mark put a hand, very gently, on Kay’s shoulder.
“Ms. Isenberg,” he said, “does that seem possible to you? Does it sound like Walt and Katherine?”
With a tiny shake of her head, Kay said, “No. No, it doesn’t. But I suppose, at gunpoint, it’s hard to know what someone might be able to force you to do.”
“Did Walt love your sister?”
“Yes?”
“Would he have sat still for that?”
“... No. No, you’re right, young man. Absolutely not.”
Mark shrugged. “And, actually, anxiety attacks are a form of depression — perhaps not severe depression, but in this case severe enough for a doctor to prescribe medication.”
Kay said nothing.
Mark turned to Jordan. “Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one.”
She wondered if she’d be dragged back to St. Dimpna’s or maybe tossed in the county jail, should she bonk this obnoxious dipshit with her cycle helmet.
Restraining that impulse, she asked, “Why did you come to see Kay?”
“I’m sorry,” Mark said. “That’s police business.”
Seething, Jordan closed up her laptop and dropped it into her backpack. “Then I’ll leave you to it.”
Mark smiled sickly. “Are we... still on for tonight?”
The question made Kay smile.
Jordan said, “Yes, goddamnit!”
Climbing onto her Vespa, Jordan wished she could be a fly on a Hummel’s nose in that living room. Mark had not come to talk to Kay about a closed case, that much was obvious.
So was one other fact: he had better bring her one hell of a pizza tonight, and if it wasn’t sausage, she would kick his ass.
Chapter Thirteen
On this clear, cool spring night, an apprehensive Mark Pryor approached Jordan’s apartment building, his only defense a Salvatore’s jumbo sausage thin-crust pizza and a six-pack of Coke Zero. He knew she was unhappy with him, the way she had stomped out of Kay Isenberg’s place this afternoon. If the two women had spoken since then, she might be ready to stomp all over him.
He let out a breath, then pushed the intercom button next to her apartment number, its name slot empty.
“Yes?”
“It’s, uh... Mark,” he said into the intercom.
“You have to think about it?” came the sharp reply, then a buzz that sounded equally irritated with him.
She was waiting in the corridor when he got to her floor — jeans, Westlake High T-shirt, hair tied back in a ponytail, pissed as hell. Gorgeous as hell.
“Why the fuck should I let you in,” she asked, arms folded, “after what you pulled today?”
Nice to see you, too.
“Sorry,” he said. He held out the flat box and soda in offering like a Pilgrim trying to appease a cranky Indian. “I come bearing sausage pizza. Best in town.”
Did she almost smile? He wouldn’t bet on it, as she snatched the box and the soda, then retreated into her apartment, leaving the door ajar for him to follow, should he feel he’d had enough SWAT training to dare.
He went into her almost shockingly bare living quarters. On the kitchen counter, to his right, the pizza box and the soda had been deposited. Jordan stood there, arms still crossed, with the coldly accusatory glare of a trooper who caught you doing eighty in a school zone. One sneakered toe tapped to a beat only she heard.
“You think I followed you to your friend’s place,” he said. “I told you — I didn’t.”
Her eyes and nostrils flared, and the words flew out, loud and hard, in what would have been a blur if she hadn’t bitten them off.
“No, but you followed David Elkins after group, didn’t you? What, did you think he wouldn’t tell me? And that’s how you knew about Kay. And how you know about our team without me sharing that yet, and you’re just generally out there fucking working behind my back, aren’t you, Mark? No to the prom, by the way. We won’t be going together this year.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, knowing how lame it sounded.