Page 79 of Stay Awake
“None of what you said, even if true, contradicts the possibility that she murdered her friends,” she said, looking up from the report.
“True,” said Regan. “But we never did get to the bottom of some of the other creepy things that went on before the murders.”
“Such as?” Halliday asked.
“The dry cleaner said her clothes were collected by her boyfriend. When I asked him to describe the boyfriend, he said it was a man with light brown hair, tall and thin with a bump on his nose and a gap between his teeth,” he said. “Marco Reggio didn’t look a bit like that.”
“Did you ever speak to the neighbor across the street? The one you thought was spying on the apartment?” Halliday asked.
“Krause chewed me out when I admitted that I’d looked into her stalking claims and that I thought there might be something to it. He insisted there was no stalker. He was certain Liv Reese had committed the murders. She was still unconscious in the hospital at that point, and he was biding his time for her to come out of the coma so he could interrogate her. He planned to get her to confess and charge her with the Decker-Reggio murders.”
Regan added that he’d just earned his shield. It was his first gig in homicide and he had been told to defer to Krause as the more experienced detective.
“We had a big argument. Krause said that by looking into other lines of investigation, I was helping the defense build a case that Liv Reese didn’t murder her friends.”
A future defense team would get all the information gathered during the discovery process, including everything that Regan had turned up in his after-hours investigation.
“Krause said the defense would twist the information that I’d found to make the jury think there were other possible suspects. To create reasonable doubt,” said Regan. “That’s why we had a blowup, Krause and me. I resented his accusation that I was screwing up the case just because I wanted to make sure we arrested the right person. Krause stopped me from investigating further. He said it was our job to find the evidence to prove the Reese woman’s guilt. Period. He didn’t want any time wasted looking for other suspects.”
“Yet Liv Reese was never charged,” Halliday pointed out.
“The prosecutor refused to move forward with an indictment,” said Regan. “She said Krause’s case was all supposition, with little evidence. Meanwhile, I found out the neighbor who’d been watching her apartment with binoculars moved out the day before the murder. It was a short-term rental. He’d paid for a week of rent that he didn’t use, and let me tell you, the rent didn’t come cheap.”
“Sounds like he wanted to get out in a hurry,” said Halliday.
“Fortunately, he was a slob. He didn’t bother to take out the trash. I found a dozen empty beer cans and a pile of take-out containers in the apartment when the janitor let me in. I took the beer cans and gave them to a friend at the forensics lab.”
Regan took out a second file. He went through the papers one by one until he found the one he needed. It was a fingerprint report. He held it up in the air so they could both see it.
“His name’s Joe Chalmers,” he said. “Long record. Breaking and entering. Car theft. One assault years ago. He was cashing welfare checks at the time of the murder. So how could he afford to rent the apartment opposite Liv Reese’s place?”
“Someone else paid for it,” said Halliday.
“I believe so.”
“Did you track down Joe Chalmers?”
“He skipped town. Nobody knew where he’d gone.”
“Maybe we should look for him again,” Halliday suggested to Lavelle.
“Actually, when I heard you were interested in seeing the Decker-Reggio murder file, I looked him up,” Regan said. “He’s back in town. Living in public housing. I thought I’d check in on him sometime.”
“Why wait?” said Lavelle, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair as he stood up.
Chapter
Forty-Four
Wednesday 5:34P.M.
Dr. Brenner’s secretary leaves the reception desk to print an insurance form for a patient who’s just arrived. I take advantage of her absence to slip out of the clinic and head to the nearest subway station, where I rush into a train car a moment before the doors close.
The late afternoon light is subdued and the street smells of fresh rain when I emerge from the subway steps onto the street and walk along the slick sidewalk toward my office.
This mysterious Ted was listed as my emergency contact in my file at Dr. Brenner’s office. Incredibly, the address listed for him is theCulturaoffice.
Natalie’s not sitting behind the reception desk when I go in. Instead there’s a temp with cropped hair and platinum bangs. Her mascara has run and black stains have formed dark pools under her eyes. Track marks of tears run down her cheeks.
