Casual dress, she noted—so he’d changed from work before he’d come here.
“Dallas. I’m sorry, but I needed the best. Martin deserves the best.”
“Okay. Step back, Webster.”
“Sorry,” he said again. “Roarke, I appreciate you coming. I know you weren’t on the roll, Dallas, but … It looks like suicide, but not in a million years. Not in two million. I need to tell you—”
“Nothing yet.” His grief aside, she cut him off. She had to. “Nothing. I want you to stay out of my way. I’ll talk to you after I look at the scene and the body.”
“Just let me—”
“No. Officer, stay with the witness. Where’s the body?”
The uniform stepped forward, gestured. “In there, Lieutenant. The MTs examined the body, but didn’t disturb the scene. My partner and I arrived approximately four minutes after the nine-one-one.”
The apartment opened into a living area, with a short foyer holding a catchall table. She noted a bag on it, a six-pack of upscale brew inside.
“I—”
“Not now,” she told Webster, and moved into the living area with its sofa and plumped pillows, a recliner, a wall screen, some floral prints on the wall, a pair of shoes by a chair.
Neat enough, not obsessive. Lived-in, and lived long.
A kitchen area tucked behind a half wall to the left with a small dining area. It sparkled clean, no question, but still more lived-in and lived long to her eye. A bowl of summer fruit on the counter. Mugs on an open shelf above an old-model AC, a cooktop over a stove beside it.
Someone probably cooked on it.
And to her right, as she stepped forward, what might have been a small bedroom at one point and now served as a den/office.
There, at a desk painted black, Captain Greenleaf slumped.
“I—”
“Later, Webster. I need to examine the body and the scene, and you need to step back.”
Roarke handed Eve her field kit. “Why don’t we take a walk,” he said to Webster, “and you can tell me. We’ll let the lieutenant do what’s best for your friend.”
“I haven’t contacted Beth yet—his wife. I didn’t want—”
Eve turned at that. “Where is she?”
“A ladies’ night, a regular thing. She would’ve left about eight-thirty, I guess.”
“Okay, let’s leave that for now. Take a walk.”
“Dallas—just let me say this, damn it. I know what it looks like, but it’s not.” Grief soaked him. Face, body, voice. “It’s just not.”
“Let me see what it looks like, then we’ll talk. For now, stay out of the way. You want me to stand for him? Let me stand for him.”
She walked into the crime scene and, to discourage any more conversation, shut the door behind her.
Greenleaf slumped in his desk chair like a man taking a quick nap—though he wouldn’t wake from this one. On the floor by the chair lay a police-issue stunner, and she could see the marks from it on the side of his neck.
Deep marks, she noted. Deep enough to break and burn the skin.
On the wall screen, the Mets and the Pirates battled it out. Bottom of the seventh, 0–1, and the Pirates with a man on first. Since his chair faced the screen, logically he’d watched at least some of the game, or had intended to.
He had a data and communication unit on the desk, still running. The message on the screen read:
Beth, I’m sorry, but I just can’t go on this way. Too many good cops’ lives ruined, their families broken. My fault. Forgive me because I can’t forgive myself.
“Yeah, Webster, I see what it looks like.”
She opened her field kit to formally identify the body, and pressed Greenleaf’s left thumb to her Identi-pad.
“Victim is identified as Greenleaf, Martin, retired captain, Internal Affairs Bureau, NYPSD. Age seventy-six, resident of this address.”
She took out her gauges. “Time of death, twenty-one-eighteen.”
She crouched down, recorded the weapon. “A police-issue stunner recovered on scene on the floor, right side of the chair. Identifying code has been removed.”
She checked it—on full—then set her first marker for the sweepers.
“The victim sat with his back to the doorway leading from the living area of the apartment and facing the wall screen. Both the wall screen and the computer activated. No visible signs of struggle, no visible signs of violence to the body but the stunner burns, which indicate direct contact with same at the throat. The stunner is set on high.”
She shifted to change the angle of the recording.
“Victim has a wrist unit, left wrist, and a band style ring on the third finger of his left hand.”
Carefully, she checked Greenleaf’s pockets. “Wallet, right front pocket of his trousers, containing…” She flipped through.
“ID, license to drive, credit card, four photos, and … thirty-six dollars in cash. A ’link, passcoded,” she said after trying to access, “and a glass of unidentified liquid, with ice…” She bent close, sniffed. “Smells like tea, lab to confirm contents, on the right side of the computer screen. The glass is about half-full, on a coaster.”
Maybe he added some courage to the tea, she thought. But.
Why does a retired cop intending to self-terminate get himself some iced tea, turn on the ball game, and use the comp to write his last words when there’s an actual pen and a pad of paper on the desk?
“What appears to be a suicide note on the monitor of the D and C on the desk. Current information indicates the victim was alone in the apartment at TOD.”
Wouldn’t be the first cop to end his watch by pressing a stunner to his throat, and wouldn’t be the last, she thought.
And yet, it was all pretty damn tidy, wasn’t it? A note that says basically nothing before he offs himself while his wife’s out. Married a long time, she considered. Would he want her to come home and find him like this?
Depends on the marriage, she decided, so she’d go down that road.
Closed window—closed and locked—and the aging temperature regulator pumped and buzzed some. Made some noise along with the color commentary on the game.
His back to the door. And the ball game on-screen. Ice melting in a glass that was likely tea.
She went through the desk, found his memo book. Appointments listed for the next several weeks, a note to remind him to buy flowers for his wife—anniversary in ten days, dinner booked at a swank place nearby.
He had 47 years! inside a big heart.
She stepped out, walked through the apartment, into the bedroom. Seriously clean but a little less tidy, with signs of someone hurriedly dressing—or someone who’d changed their mind about wardrobe a couple of times.
Some facial enhancements and grooming tools on the bathroom counter, another discarded pair of shoes—female, this time—right next to the closet door.
And two windows leading to a fire escape. One locked, one not. Curious, she walked through, checked all the other windows. All locked. Just that one, in the bedroom.
She went back, opened it, peered up, peered down.
In the closet, a shared one, she found Greenleaf’s clothes, very organized. His wife’s—she assumed—not as much.