Page 23 of Stay Awake
“Why a woman?” the captain interrupted.
Lavelle looked at Halliday, the incline of his head inviting her to answer the question.
“We found a long strand of black hair, believed to be from a woman, on a pillow next to the victim,” Halliday explained. “A neighbor saw a woman with long dark hair exit the elevator with a man yesterday morning. We believe that man may have been the victim.”
Halliday handed around packets of printouts of several photos from the crime scene that she’d taken on her phone. Among them was a photo of the victim’s bloodied feet and of the writing daubed in blood on the bedroom window.
“WAKE UP!” The captain read it out loud. “Is it a political statement?”
“We don’t know yet,” said Halliday.
“I think it was a hit,” said Rosco. “How often do we ever find a stabbing victim with only one wound? I’ll tell you how often. Never. There are always several. Sometimes dozens, or more. I don’t think the slashes to the feet count.”
“They don’t. They were almost certainly done postmortem,” Halliday noted. “As far as we know pending the autopsy results, the victim was killed by a single knife wound to the heart. The victim died almost instantly. Blood spatter was minimal. You’re right. It’s rare, almost unheard of, for there to be a single stab wound in a homicide. There’s usually defense wounds, overkill wounds, and sometimes hesitation wounds.”
“Exactly,” said Rosco. “Not too many people can kill a man with one slash of a knife. Not unless they have skills. Ex–special forces. Once we get an ID on the vic, we should look into whether he has any connections to organized crime. We should hone in on the Russians. The Russian mafia recruits former Russian special forces soldiers. Those guys sure like using knives.”
“Knives and poison,” said the captain. “Both seem to have played a role in this case.” He tapped his finger on a photo of the wine bottle that Lavelle said might have been spiked with a sedative. “Do we know what kind of knife was used?”
“The perp took the murder weapon,” Lavelle said.
“Well, there you go!” Rosco added. “A perp so attached to his blade that he can’t bring himself to leave it behind. It adds fuel to the theory that it was a killer for hire.”
“It wasn’t a mob hit.” Halliday’s tone was so emphatic that everyone went silent.
“How do you know?” the captain asked.
“If it was a mob hit, the killer would have used a gun. Two bullets in the head is faster and more accurate than a knife.”
Halliday swapped to a detached tone now that she had their attention. She knew from experience never to show that she was emotionallyinvested in a theory. It was the sign of a cop with tunnel vision, and a cop with tunnel vision was a lousy investigator. She wasn’t blinkered. She just happened to have more information than they did.
“Even contract killers have preferences,” said Lavelle.
“Contract killers do their job and leave. They don’t get sidetracked with art projects,” said Halliday. To emphasize her point, she slapped a photo of theWAKE UP!message under a magnet on the whiteboard.
Lavelle liked the way Halliday stood her ground. He hated when detectives, especially new ones, buckled at the first sign of an opposing opinion and embraced groupthink.
“The writing on the window could have been deliberate. A bum steer,” Rosco remarked. “I’ve seen contract killers fixing crime scenes before to give the impression it’s the work of a serial killer. A slogan in blood on a wall. A mutilated body that looks like it was cut up by a sicko to send everyone on a wild goose chase.”
“I don’t chase geese.” Halliday was firm.
“So what’s your theory?” Lavelle asked.
He agreed with Halliday that it wasn’t a contract killing. There was nothing specific that jumped out at him when he was at the scene. His judgment was based on pure instinct honed by almost two decades working homicides.
“I won’t speculate. It’s too soon to have a theory. We don’t even know the victim’s identity,” she pointed out. Halliday wouldn’t be drawn on theories when there were no witnesses and the forensics information was still being worked on.
She knew about confirmation bias and how airing a theory led some detectives to inadvertently look for evidence that supported their hunch, while ignoring evidence that undermined it.
“Let’s focus on the nuts and bolts of this investigation. Fingerprints, CCTV footage, and identifying the victim,” said the captain. “Follow the evidence.”
He rose to his feet to indicate the briefing was over. “Keep meupdated. I don’t want to find out anything on the evening news that I should have found out first here in this office. Detective Lavelle, stay back.”
The captain waited until the last person left his office and shut the door.
“Jack, what’s your impression of Halliday?” The captain sat back down behind his desk as he asked the question.
“She has good instincts and a real eye for detail. You don’t see that combination too often,” Lavelle said.
