After several minutes he stood. Who was the first officer? His tone was deep, authoritative. Not cold exactly, but a voice belonging to a man Thea had no wish to confront.
McGowan, someone told him.
Over here, the man beside her called out.
Gallagher turned and started toward them. His features stood out starkly in the streetlight. Even the rain didnt diminish the angles of his face, the broad nose, the full sensuous lips. His eyes were blue, which surprised Thea. Shed thought they would be dark, like his hair. The light color was particularly striking against his grave features.
He wore a suit beneath the overcoat, as if hed taken the time to dress properly before coming out. But his cheeks were roughened with stubble, giving him a sinister appearance that made Theas stomach quiver in fear.
His gaze barely grazed her before he said to McGowan, What happened?
Wait here, McGowan told Thea. He and Gallagher took a few steps away from her, but the wind caught their voices and tossed them back at her. Looks like a dry dive, McGowan told him. DCDS. Detective Cox found a suicide note in her coat pocket.
Any idea who she is?
Not yet. Theres no ID on her, but Cox has gone up to canvass the roof for a purse or wallet, anything she might have dropped before jumping.
Almost inadvertently Theas gaze followed Gallaghers to the roof of the building. She thought she could see someone up there now, and she shuddered as the shadow moved away from the edge.
Who found the body? Gallagher asked.
The building manager. Claims he came outside just before midnight to walk his dog, and thats when he saw the victim lying on the street. He checked for a pulse, didnt find one and then went back inside to call 911.
Great, Gallagher muttered. Probably trampled all over anything resembling evidence. He paused. Just before midnight you say. How accurate do you figure he is on the time?
Fairly accurate, McGowan told him. He says hed just finished watching an old episode of Hill Street Blues, which comes on at eleven, but the closing credits hadnt yet run. He lives with his elderly mother. He says she can corroborate his story.
How soon did you respond?
Torecelli and I were on the scene within ten minutes after we got the call from dispatch. We secured the area and radioed for backup.
The manager couldnt identify her?
McGowan shook his head. Claims he never saw her before tonight. Shes not a tenant, and he doesnt know how she got into the building, unless someone buzzed her in. The outside doors are always kept locked.
That was true, Thea thought. But a policeman worth his salt knew how easy it was to obtain entrance to almost any unmonitored building. If someone wanted in badly enough, all he or she had to do was wait around until someone was either coming or going and slip through the unlocked door, usually unnoticed. Crooks did it all the time.
And so did murderers.
Thea shivered as she studied Detective Gallaghers grim countenance. His gaze traced the angle of the building, studying the windows that faced the street. What about eyewitnesses?
None so far. No defense wounds, either, that we could see. We bagged her hands in plastic because of the rain. Thea knew that normally the police liked to use paper bags, because the lack of air with plastic could alter the evidence. But that was something she didnt want them knowing she knew.
In fact, the less any of them knew about her the better, especially Gallagher. Thea had a bad feeling about him. A very bad feeling.
He turned and observed the street again, watching for a few minutes as the crime-scene unit finished taking pictures and then began scouring the ground around the body for trace evidence.
He glanced at Thea, then at McGowan. Whos she?
She lives in the building. Says she was just getting home from work.
Gallagher nodded vaguely. Might as well chalk the site when CSU finishes, although it wont do much good if the rain doesnt let up. Im going up to the roof. Let me know when the coroner gets here. Establishing time of death is going to be a bitch in this weather.
McGowan nodded and took off, leaving Thea standing alone to face Gallagher. She hoped hed just go up to the roof and forget all about her, but when he turned and started toward her, she saw in his eyes that he had no intention of letting her get away so easily.
Im Detective Gallagher. His gaze was direct, penetrating. If he noticed her trembling, Thea hoped hed blame the cold. And you are?
Thea Lockhart.
Officer McGowan said you live in the building, is that right?
She nodded. I was just coming home from work when he stopped me.
You work around here, Miss Lockhart?
ItsMrs. Im a waitress at a diner near the university. I already gave this information to Officer McGowan.
The detectives piercing gaze met hers. You werent home tonight?
Thea shook her head, shoving her hands even deeper into her pockets. Ive been away since before seven oclock this morning. I didnt see anything.
No strangers lurking around the building lately? No loud arguments, anything like that?
No, nothing unusual.
Gallagher nodded almost absently. I wonder if youd mind taking a look at the body. See if you can identify the victim.
The request was courteous enough, allowing her to decline if she wanted to, but Thea knew she had no real choice. No matter how much she didnt want to look at that poor dead woman, she mustnt do or say anything that might make Detective Gallagher suspicious.
She nodded and followed him over to the victim. The woman was lying on her back, her face surprisingly unscathed from what must have been a horrendous fall. But as Thea looked more closely, she saw the cuts and the terrible bruising that gave the body an almost ghoulish appearance. Her arms and legs were at strange angles, too, the bones undoubtedly shattered.
Ive never seen her before. But Thea had second thoughts almost at once. There was something vaguely familiar about the woman, but she couldnt place her. Which was good. At least she didnt have to tell an outright lie.
As if sensing her hesitation, Gallagher pressed, Youre sure?
She could feel his gaze on her and she tried to suppress a shudder. I dont remember seeing her around here before. Thea paused, then couldnt resist asking, Do you really think she committed suicide? Jumping from a building seemed like such a ghastly way to die, but then, so was a bullet to the heart. A sick feeling rose in Theas throat, but she swallowed it away as she glanced up at Detective Gallagher.
His gaze narrowed on her, and she thought for one heart-stopping moment he might have recognized her. Then he said, Suicides a possibility. Well know more when weve done a thorough search of the area. Right now youd better get in out of this rain. Well be in touch if we need you.
Alarmed, Thea started to ask why he would need to contact her again, but then realized he and the other officers would begin almost immediately the grueling work of talking to everyone in the building, searching for potential witnesses. Goyakod, Rick had always called it. Get off your ass and knock on doors. He would have been a good cop if he hadnt been dirty.
But Thea wouldnt think about that now. Shed become an expert at compartmentalizing her emotions, and right now all she would allow herself to concentrate on was getting away from Detective Gallagher without arousing his suspicions. She was desperate to go inside and check on Nikki.
She took the card he handed her, trying to control the trembling in her hands. But he noticed and said softly, Its rough when youre not used to it.
If you only knew, Thea thought, but aloud she said, Im okay. I just need to be inside, out of the cold.
He nodded. If you think of anything that might help, call me at that number.
Thea stuffed his card deep into the pocket of her coat, knowing all the while that Detective Gallagher would never get a call from her, no matter what. He was a cop, and that was all she needed to know about him. His badge made him one of the enemy.
SHE SEEMED AWFULLY NERVOUS for a bystander, John thought as he watched her at the front door of the building.
She dropped her keys on the stoop, and even from his position several yards away, he could see how badly her hands shook as she bent and picked them up. She started to insert her key into the lock, but then, realizing the door was already unlocked, she hurried inside. A pale blue scarf hid her hair while the oversize coat she wore wrapped her from neck to toe.
But even bundled up like that, John could tell she was a small woman. Petite, he supposed, would be the word. Her thin face was pale and translucent, her featuresdark brown eyes, slightly crooked nose, full lipsalmost fragile-looking.
There was something about her, apart from her obvious attractiveness, that intrigued him. She had the demeanor of a woman who had been badly frightened and was trying her damnedest to hide it. But if she didnt recognize the victim, what did she have to be scared of?
His inherent distrust was working overtime tonight, he decided, scowling. A lot of people were nervous around the police. Maybe the real reason Thea Lockhart triggered his distrust was that she reminded him a little of his ex-wife.
Meredith hadnt cared for cops, either. At least that was what shed said the night she walked out. But then two months later, shed married another one, leaving John to conclude that it was one cop in particular she hadnt cared for. Even though theyd been divorced for nearly two years, her betrayal still rankled.
But Meredith Clark was no longer his concern, and Thea Lockhart was probably just the nervous type, someone who fell apart at the sight of blood. The only woman John had to worry about now was the Jane Doe lying mangled on the concrete.
Wheres the building manager? he asked the officer nearest him. Well need to start knocking on doors ASAP.
Hes on the roof with Detective Cox, the uniform told him. Want me to radio up?
Im headed that way. John took another look at the victim. Had she jumped off the building of her own free will or had she been pushed? In spite of the note found in her pocket, John voted for the latter. His every instinct told him this was a homicide, and if his hunch panned out, the next forty-eight hours would be critical. After that, the trail would start getting cold. If a case wasnt solved in the first two days, odds were good it would never be cleared. John knew that better than anyone.
Hell of a night for a murder, he muttered as the rain started coming down harder.
Chapter Two
The rain peppered Johns face as he stood on the roof, his presence as yet unnoticed. The wind was stronger up here, and he braced himself as he watched Coxs flashlight beam moving about the area.
The roof was surrounded by a concrete safety ledge, about three feet high and six inches wide. Near the stairwell door and to the left, pallets of building materials and twenty-gallon drums had been stacked in preparation for resurfacing and waterproofing the deck, but the rest of the roof was clear and open. But even so, at this time of night and in this weather, the prospect of an eyewitness was pretty dim.
Johns gaze tracked his partners progression across the roof. Roy Cox was a fifteen-year veteran of the Detective Division. He and John had been working together for nearly four years now, and although they couldnt have been less alike in temperament and investigative techniques, the partnership had worked out well. Whereas John was intense, almost obsessive about their cases, Roy was laid-back and soft-spoken, his west-Texas drawl as pronounced as it had been the day hed left El Paso nearly thirty years ago.
He was a tall man, wiry and grizzled, with a handlebar mustache that might have looked more at home on a Texas range than it did on the streets of Chicago. A second man, the building manager, John guessed, dogged Coxs steps, his gravelly voice muted by the rain and wind. John switched on his flashlight, catching the man in his beam. Wide-eyed and startled, he looked like a deer trapped in headlights.
Cox called out, Hey, that you, Johnny boy? Glad you could finally make it. I reckon even you gung ho-types have trouble tearing yourselves away from a warm body on a night like this.
John refrained from telling him that the only female in his bed lately was Cassandra, the temperamental Persian Meredith had left behind when shed moved out. But Cox was his partner, and a nosy one at that; John suspected he already knew. McGowan said you found a suicide note on the victim.
Damn straight we did. Cox walked over and handed the bagged note to John. The words had been typed on a sheet of plain white bond paper.
Short and sweet, John muttered, training his light on the note.
Just the way I like my women. Cox grinned, his face pale in the cast-off glow from his flashlight. Water dripped from the brim of Coxs cowboy hat, the battered one he always wore in inclement weather. Looks like this is our lucky night, Johnny.
What do you mean?
Cox held up a second plastic bag and aimed his flashlight beam on the contentsan expensive-looking beige handbag. Found it on the deck over there by the wall. Victim must have dropped it just before she jumped. Weve IDd her from her drivers license.
Who is she?
Names Gail Waters. She had a press pass
The name hit John like a physical blow. Stunned, he stared at his partner as a shock wave rolled through him. Who did you say?
Cox gave him a quizzical glance. Gail Waters.
Son of a bitch, John thought, trying to hide his surprise.
Cox rubbed the salt-and-pepper whiskers on his chin. Im getting some bad vibes here, Johnny-O. Are you trying to tell me you knew the victim?
I never saw her before in my life, John answered truthfully. But he knew the sound of her voice. Hed talked to her on the phone less than forty-eight hours earlier, when shed called the station wanting to interview him about his fathers disappearance seven years ago. It was a case that had not been solved to this day.
Gail Waters had been a reporter for and the managing editor of a small newspaper on the near north side of town. She specialized in stories involving disappearances and missing persons. Although she was a print journalistand had taken pride in pointing out that fact to Johnshe had also been the co-producer of a cable show called Vanished!, which explored intriguing cases the police hadnt been able to solve.