Picking Up the Pieces

If you like, you can call any murder case a jigsaw puzzle turned out of its box.  All you have to do is pick up the pieces and fit them together.  Always assuming that none of them is missing….

Whenever someone dies, there are always things that have to be done. One of the most straightforward duties ought to be contacting the next of kin.  And at least in the case of Tracy Vetter’s death this was, indeed, true.  The Vetter clan was obviously known to the police (in the best possible way, though that only made the notification all the harder); so no time was wasted checking through the files for an address.  Captain Reese went straight to her father’s new home to break the news that she’d been shot, and accompanied Richard Vetter to the hospital, where they sat heavily in the waiting room while the doctors did their best.  Her mother turned up later, silent and white.  The two did not speak.  Eventually they were let in, for a bit, she wringing her hands and he with gritted teeth.  Then, quite a while later, Vetter stormed back out to lambaste the Nine-Six, its officers in general, and its commander in particular.  That was how Reese learned the really bad news.  He held his tongue.  The man’s grief was palpable and understandable, his reaction predictable:  Reese had had a fat file on him for years.  The Commissioner had meddled in Tracy’s life in life, and clearly planned to meddle in the investigation of her death.  Mercifully, there was no doubt whodunnit, which, in the end, curtailed the worst of it.

Reese drove back to his office from the hospital.  He already knew there would be an internal inquiry into the fatal incident—not to mention scrutiny by the S.I.U., given Dawkins’ death in custody—but “sufficient unto the day” and all that.  For now, if word had not preceded him, the detectives’ squad would need to be told of Tracy’s death.  Then he’d need to go over to break the news to her partner, Nick Knight.  And after that, there would be paperwork and publicity.

Or before.  He was not at all surprised to find the press already at the door when he arrived at the station.

(He snuck in the back way.)

After passing along the sad news to those currently around and, via the desk sergeant, to the rest of the shift, Reese headed over to 101 Gateway Lane.  He’d never been there, but the address was on file; and, given that Tracy’s partner was not at the hospital, it was the obvious place to look for him.  However, the door went unanswered; and, as Reese did not know the entry code, he could not let himself in.  It was frustrating, for he knew what he ought to do in the situation and felt a deep (albeit reluctant) obligation to perform his duty, however painful.  So he dithered on the step for an absurdly long time before deciding that Knight had probably gone to bed and was sleeping the sleep of the just.  Or else someone—either at hospital or station—might already have phoned, in which case the man might be slumped on the sofa blind drunk.  In either case, there was nothing to be done about it.

Reese got back in his car, and sat thoughtfully for rather a long while, deliberately taking the time to settle himself.  Eventually, it dawned on him that the sun was well above the horizon.  Tracy had been shot hours ago; she’d lingered in hospital; his shift must be long over.  He could go home.  It was not, after all, as though there were a hot trail to follow:  Tracy’s killer was known, and also dead.  There were formalities, but no urgency.

He confirmed the time by his watch; then he phoned the precinct, where he left a message for the incoming shift that someone should contact Knight before the civilian review board’s interview.  “Remind him to put on a good suit and tie,” he said, thinking of Knight’s black leather jacket.  Then he started the car and headed for home and bed.  Indeed, he had no compunction about leaving his phone turned off in the hope of getting some consecutive hours of uninterrupted sleep.  Only when he came in the following evening, therefore, did he learn that, shortly before noon, Dr. Lambert’s body had been found down an alley by a garbage collector.

“Oh, damn, as if we needed that on top of everything else,” he muttered, not quite enough under his breath.

“Sir?” said Lipinski uncertainly.

“Who’s on it?” he said more loudly, and was told the names of the day shift detectives who’d caught the case.  “Has anyone told Knight?”

Whenever someone dies, there are always things that have to be done.  When it came to notifying Detective Vetter’s next of kin, it had been straightforward.  In Natalie Lambert’s case, things immediately proved more complicated.

For a start, she had never updated the personnel file she had filled out when she’d been hired by the Coroner’s Office.  This meant that her official next-of-kin was her brother, Richard.  Reese had not at the time put one and one together, Lambert being a common enough name; but he knew, of course, that Crown Counsel Richard Lambert had been murdered a couple of years before.  It had not only been prominent in the news, it had been the talk of every precinct:  not just the Two-Seven but Castle Frank as well, which was where Lieutenant Reese had been stationed at the time, before his promotion and transfer.

Despite the oddity of a slashed throat, the pathologist’s death had seemed to the first responders to be obviously a robbery, for her handbag had been found only a few feet away, the money and cards gone.  This assumption was confounded by the senior pathologist from the Coroner’s Office, who arrived—rather shaken by the death of a colleague—to assure the police that there was too little blood at the scene:  Dr. Lambert must have been killed elsewhere and the body dumped.  Fortunately, her keys had still been in her bag.  In consequence, by the time Reese got to her apartment, an Ident team had already taken possession of the place.

He was out in the hall, struggling on a pair of bootees, when Grace Balthazar turned up.  Reese recognized her immediately.  Once upon a time, in his not-so-long-ago detective days, he had himself gone on official business to the Coroners Building.  She had put on a few pounds since then.  (So had he.)  She was still eminently recognizable as a fine figure of a woman.  “Not a traffic accident, then,” she said, seeing the investigators through the open apartment door.

Reese explained—an abbreviated explanation with only half his attention, as he kept an eye on the team.  “We also need to find her next of kin,” he finished.

“Well, you might have asked me!” Grace said indignantly.  “She has a sister-in-law.  Or, being literal, probably the nearest blood relative would be the daughter; but she’s too young.  They moved to Vancouver.”  And then, before Reese could ask, “I don’t know the exact address; but her name is Sara … Sara Lambert.”

“Got the address book!” said one of the Ident team, holding it up in gloved hands and sliding it into a bag.

“And where’s her cat?” asked Grace.  Without waiting for an answer, she commandeered her own booties and a pair of gloves, donned them, and turned back.  “Well, help me find him,” she snapped.

Reese forbore to say that a police captain has better things to do.  He headed through to the living room and began to work his way around the busy forensic investigators in a systematic search of the apartment.  Grace—savvier in the ways of cats—checked first inside the bedroom closet, and then got awkwardly down on her knees to peer under the bed.  “I think he’s here,” she called.  Reese came through, fumbling a small flashlight from his pocket.  Crouching down, he shone it underneath and saw, backed almost to the far side of the bed, a fluffy grey-and-white cat.  Eyes and snarl gleamed in the beam.

“I’ll go round the other side,” he said, hauling himself up.

Pinned between two strange humans, Sydney backed away as far as he could.  Swearing a little under his breath, Reese manhandled the bed away from the wall to get at him, only for the cat to make a panicked dash for the door.   He eluded Grace’s grab, and bolted out of the room.  In the hall, he was snatched up by a quick pair of gloved hands and held firmly as he struggled; but he still managed to score through the investigator’s baggy garb before Grace whisked his carrier from the closet and imprisoned him securely.  Reese hurriedly left for the precinct knowing cat and investigation were in good hands, and devoted the rest of his shift to the minutiae of command.

One of the most straightforward duties ought to be contacting the victim’s next of kin.  No budget, however, covers a cop flying all the way from Toronto to the west coast in order to notify them in person.  It was a pair of Vancouver police officers who got the call to that duty; and, when they came to the door, Sara Lambert was still at work.  Amy cautiously, on tiptoe, peered through the peephole, saw the uniforms, and opened the door.  She gave them her Mummy’s phone number; and they waited with her until Sara had driven home.  Only then did they pass on the news.

“Aunty Natalie, too?” Amy murmured, wide-eyed.

Sara asked for details that were not forthcoming, got on the phone to the number she was given, and spoke to the switchboard at the 96th Precinct.  Here, she met with the usual run-around; but she did eventually get through to Reese.  “I can’t just drop everything,” she informed him.  “I’ve got a daughter.  I’ve got a job.  And I’ll need a place to stay … unless the apartment will be available?”  Fortunately, by the time she arrived at Pearson and took a cab to the precinct, it had become clear that—wherever the murder of Natalie Lambert had taken place—it had not been at home.  She was therefore allowed to collect Natalie’s key; and, although she had rather a long wait until Captain Reese was free, he did offer to drive her to the apartment.  To her credit (as Reese later said to Detective McCabe), however appalled she looked as she walked into the place, she made no remonstrance about the condition in which the search had left it.  The principal thing on her mind seemed to be the cat.

“One of her colleagues took it,” Reese told her.  “Grace Balthazar.”

Sara nodded.  “At some point, I’ll be going over to Natalie’s office.  I’ll make a point of seeing Grace.  Thank you for reminding me; I should talk to her anyway, of course.  She was probably Natalie’s closest colleague; and I’ll need to arrange the funeral:  she could maybe help:  I don’t know who to notify.”  She sighed.  “Sydney.  That’s his name.  Perhaps she’d like to keep him.  Permanently, I mean.”  Wryly, she added, “I certainly hope so.  It would be the simplest.”

Clearly, she had no intention of taking the cat back to B.C.

Reese stayed in the doorway as she walked slowly round the living room, taking in the fireplace with its ornaments, the full bookcases, the pictures on the walls, and the open glass doors to the dining room, with its classic suite of dark wood furniture.  She looked, he thought, stunned and overwhelmed by the whole situation.  Finally, she turned back to him and, with a little wave of her hand round the room, said uncertainly, “I’ll have to start here, of course, going through Natalie’s things, deciding what to take back home. None of the furniture.”  She shook her head.  “I can’t possibly ship it:  I’ll need to look into charities.  For the clothes, too:  we’re quite different sizes; and I don’t fancy….”  She left that thought dangling for a moment before continuing briskly, “Also … Captain Reese, I should maybe have a word with one of your detectives.  I met him a while back, when my husband died—he was very kind, certainly, but also I got the impression that he and Natalie were friends outside work.  Detective Knight.  Natalie mentioned him several times when we talked on the phone; and I gather he was transferred to your precinct?”

“Knight?” Reese said blankly.  Then, after rather too long a pause, he said in a rush, “He’s not around right now.  Yes, of course, I’ll tell him—if he’s available….”  And he left it there.

Whenever someone dies, there are always things that have to be done; but when the someone in question is merely mysteriously missing, complications breed innumerably.  “Has anyone told Knight?” Reese had asked, in all innocence.  Well, they’d phoned; they’d driven by; and eventually they got a court order to enter the loft.

So Ident went over that, too.  With the proverbial fine tooth comb, as they say.  They found signs of disturbance and traces of blood; and in a dumpster in a nearby alley was found a curious twisted stake—a sort of shillelagh, apparently, but with the end sharpened.  It had been cleaned with bleach; but there were still traces of blood, though no match was ever made.  It was pointed out, though, that Dr. Lambert’s throat had been slashed, which was incompatible with any wound the shillelagh might make.  So it might have no connection with the case at all.

Or it might mean everything.  Where was Knight?  (Or where was his body?)

There are always things that have to be done, whether someone is dead or goes missing.  One of the most straightforward duties ought to be the notification of the next of kin.  The Vetters, after all, had been easy to tell; and Sara Lambert not that hard to trace.  But when it came to Knight, there was no one.  There was no name in his Personnel file, though there should have been; he seemed to have no close friends (except Dr. Lambert, of course); and not only was his current partner dead but so was his previous one.  Detective Schanke’s wife could only say that she thought she remembered her husband saying that his partner knew the proprietor of the Raven; but the then owner of the nightclub, one Janette DuCharme, had sold it leaving no forwarding address.  There was a lawyer’s number in the phone book, but he proved to be dead also; and, while they could (and did) inform Knight’s investment advisor, he wasn’t precisely what one could call “next of kin”.  He did provide them with a copy of a will; but that simply led back to the vanished DuCharme woman.

“To solve a puzzle, you have to pick up the pieces, sort them out, fit them together, and see the pattern emerge,” Reese said privately to his wife.  “I don’t even know if we have one case or three!”

“Sometimes,” she said sensibly, “the simplest answer makes the best sense.”

“This is simply chaos,” he replied, “and no sense at all.”