A Killer Missteps

Book 8: A Luca Mystery

by Dan Petrosini

Genres: Police Procedurals; Noir; Crime & Mystery; Crime Fiction; Suspense; Love Triangle; murder

Synopsis

The pain from being abandoned never went away.

After briefly coming back into her life, Joyce's mother is now gone, for good.

Murdered.

Detective Luca knows he shouldn't work directly with a minor, but he's a father, unable to resist the call for help.

What he discovers is revolting, more disturbing than murder.

A Killer Missteps is book 8, in the stand alone, Luca Mystery Series.

Grab this page-turning read now.

Release date: July 8, 2019

Print pages: 250

Sample

Chapter 1

Our home phone rang. I looked at Mary Ann and put my coffee down. She said, “Don’t answer it. Somebody calling this early, it has to be a sales call.”

The only people who called the house line were spammers. The office occasionally would if I didn’t answer my cell. My phone didn’t show a missed call, but I still went to get it. I had to.

An unsettled feeling had descended on me a day ago. As I’d gotten older, my antennae had become sharper. It wasn’t a belief in a mystical power to predict or detect something, but my cumulative experience signaled that something was about to happen.

“Hello.”

It was an internet call. As soon as I heard the way my name was butchered, I said no thank you and hung up.

“Who was it?”

“A sales call.”

“Told you. You know, you’re like a caged tiger.”

I shrugged and sipped my coffee.

“If something is going to happen, Frank, you’ll deal with it when it does.”

I nibbled on the crust I’d cut away from Jessie’s toast. Being a homicide detective was the opposite of fatherhood. While I was on the job, I was dealing with the aftermath of a violent act. It was reactionary. Being a parent was preparatory. We took steps to make sure Jessie was safe, healthy, and behaved properly. We were molding a life.

I didn’t want to tell Mary Ann this feeling was different than past ones. My first hope was that it didn’t involve Jessie or Mary Ann. I couldn’t bear anything happening to them. My other concern was that my cancer would resurface.

I kissed Jessie. “I’m going to head into the office.”

“Okay. As soon as Frannie gets here, I’m leaving as well.”

Our neighbor was filling in since the nanny we settled on had pulled out at the last minute, and we couldn’t agree on who to hire next. “She should be here already. If she doesn’t come or wants to send a sub, don’t go in. We don’t know who they are. I’ll come home.”

“Oh boy, Frank. You can be so dramatic.”

***

Derrick was on the phone. I took my jacket off and picked up the coffee he’d brought me. Derrick hung up.

“We have a body.”

“I knew it.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Who is it?”

“Thirty-five-year-old female, Jill Evans. Ex-husband found her and called nine one one.”

“Where?”

“Her house, out in Lely, on St. Andrews Boulevard.”

“Tell them not to touch anything.”

“Mackenzie is out there. He’s good; we’ll be okay.”

I grabbed my coffee. “Let’s get moving.”

We hopped in the Cherokee with Derrick behind the wheel. I sent a text to Mary Ann telling her we had a corpse. I wanted her to know it wasn’t drama; it was life.

We took Santa Barbara Boulevard until it ended at Rattlesnake Hammock Road, turning into St. Andrew’s Boulevard. Golden letters on a wall announced it as Lely Country Club.

“I thought Lely was gated.”

“Me too. Maybe parts of it are. Dispatch mentioned something like Lely Palms.”

We drove past a short stretch of multifamily units toward the flashing lights of two patrol cars and an ambulance.

They were parked in front of a well-maintained one-story home. A white Ford Taurus was in the driveway. Standing by the garage door were a uniformed officer and a man in a golf shirt.

I opened the car door and heard crying. Across the street four woman were huddled together. Heads down, we ducked under the yellow police tape and signed in with the officer guarding the scene.

The gatekeeper pointed to the garage. “That’s the husband, or ex-husband, as I understand it. He’s the one who called it in. You want to talk to him?”

“Not yet. We need to see the scene.”

“Binino is inside. He’ll fill you in. We’re going to let the EMT guys go, okay?”

Nodding, we put booties on and stepped into the foyer. Its white tile ran throughout the house.

“Hey, Luca, Derrick.”

I pulled out a pair of gloves. “How’s it going, Charlie?”

“All right. You?”

“Not bad. Anybody touch anything?”

“No. I got here first. The husband was here, but that’s it. I kept him inside until the other guys arrived.”

“That’s the way to do it. What do we have here?”

“Female Caucasian, Jill Evans. She’s in the kitchen.”

I turned into the kitchen. A pair of bare feet extended past a small island. Jill Evans was a small woman. She was on her back. Her pink T-shirt was hiked up, revealing an outie belly button. The top button of her clam digger jeans was open.

Her brown hair was a mess of tangles. It appeared that a struggle had taken place.

A checked towel was on the floor, and a new pod of Eight O’Clock coffee had rolled against the cabinetry’s kickboard. A box of Raisin Bran was on its side next to a clean bowl, no spoon in sight.

To the right of the body was a white COACH handbag. Its purse was two feet away. It didn’t contain any cash or credit cards. Was she killed in a robbery? Or had the murderer attempted to stage this poor woman’s death?

I took a long look at the body before crouching. I pointed to her neck.

“See here, Derrick; pressure was applied.”

“Yeah, I see the marks. She was strangled to death.”

“There doesn’t seem to be a wound of any kind, but we can’t be sure. Maybe she was poisoned and clutched her throat in reaction.”

I looked at her hands, no markings. “We’ll see what forensics can tell us. Meanwhile, let’s go over this house, and see what we can turn up.”

We went room by room. It looked like a normal day unfolding: bed unmade, toothbrush wet, yesterday’s clothing on the closet floor. A family room end table had half a glass of lukewarm water on it and yesterday’s newspaper.

None of the windows were unlocked. The open slider to the lanai was a puzzle. Was that how the killer got in? We needed to know.

“Let’s see what the husband has to say.”

“This should be interesting.”

“Let me do the talking. You take down what he says. We’re going to need to document this, especially if he’s involved in her death.”

 

 

Chapter 2

His hand had the structure of a towel.

“We’re sorry for your loss, sir, but we have a couple of questions that can’t wait.”

George Evans was wiry with sandy hair that was thinning. His lips were nonexistent. It was a difficult time for him, but I couldn’t help thinking he looked like the type of man who rarely smiled.

“I understand.”

“Tell us what happened.”

“Well, I don’t know what happened. I came here—”

“What time was that?”

“Just before ten o’clock.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gianelli coming up the driveway. He had two cameras slung over his shoulder. I nodded at him. He winked in return. We’d worked a dozen homicides together. He was a pro; I didn’t need to hold his hand.

“Okay. Go on.”

“I rang the bell, but Jill didn’t answer. I tried again and started to get worried something was wrong. So, I went around back to see if she was there. She wasn’t, and I went through the screen door onto the lanai. A slider was open.”

With temperatures in the high seventies and zero humidity in the first week of March, it wasn’t unusual for doors and windows to be open.

“Did she normally leave the slider open?”

“Jill didn’t like air-conditioning, so yeah, as long as the humidity wasn’t bad.”

“Did you notice anything unusual?”

“No, but I didn’t look around much. I just called her name and walked in. And then, then I saw her.” He hung his head. “She was lying there, and I couldn’t process what I was seeing. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Of course. What did you do next?”

“I shouted for her to get up, and, and then I shook her, but she wasn’t responding. I tried to take her pulse, but she didn’t seem to be breathing. I was going to give her mouth to mouth, but I never did it before, and I figured I should call nine one one first.”

“Is that when you called nine one one?”

“Yes, I tried to tell them what was going on, and they said to give her mouth to mouth and walked me through it. But I wasn’t sure I was doing it right, and it wasn’t working. Then they said to press up and down on her chest to try to get her heart pumping again. But nothing worked.”

“What did you do next?”

“I ran outside for help. To find somebody. Somebody who knew how to do it right because I was doing it wrong.”

“Did anyone assist you?”

“Nobody was outside, so I went back in, hoping maybe she’d woken up.”

“And after you went back inside?”

“I heard the sirens and knew help was coming, so I went out to wait for them. But when they came, they tried but said they couldn’t do anything for her, that she was gone . . .”

“Let’s go back to when you arrived. You rang the bell, right?”

“Yeah, but she never answered.”

“And when she didn’t come to the door, you said you became worried. What gave you the impression something could be wrong?”

“I, I don’t know. I just felt it.”

He was a prime suspect. I couldn’t tell him about my premonitions. “Something had to make you feel that way. You only rang the bell once. She could’ve been in the bathroom or busy.”

“It’s just something I felt, that’s all. We were married for four years. I knew Jill inside out.”

“I understand the two of you divorced.”

“Yes, but we were getting back together.”

“Why did you come here today?”

“Jill called me. She said she had something to talk to me about.”

“What do you think it was about?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you sure? You were married four years and said you were getting back together. You had to know something.”

“No, really, I had no idea.”

“When did she call?”

“Last night, around dinnertime.”

“So it was nothing urgent.”

“No, she said she just wanted to talk.”

“You said earlier that you knew something was wrong, and when I asked about it you said you knew her inside and out. Did I get that right, Derrick?”

“He said, ‘We were married for four years. I knew Jill inside out.’”

“So, what did you think, or what feeling did you get about what she wanted to talk about?”

“I swear I don’t know. She didn’t say much when she called. To tell you the truth, I didn’t like it. She was secretive, if you know what I mean. I felt like it was going to be bad news or something.”

Swearing and saying you were telling the truth in one sentence—my skeptic alarm rang so loud I thought the fire department might be on the way.

“And when you got here, she didn’t say anything?”

“What are you talking about? She was unconscious, on the floor.”

It was worth a shot. “What do you think happened to her?”

“She was attacked, probably that bastard Jafar. He was jealous of us getting back together.”

“Who is that?”

“Jafar Kapur, he was practically living with Jill. Young punk is what he is. He thinks he’s some kind of tech wizard. He even wears those stupid Google glasses. Can you imagine?”

Derrick asked for the proper spelling of the boyfriend’s name, and I asked, “This man Jafar, do you know where he works?”

“Off Old Forty-One, in the technology park. He’s got some start-up thing going there about life extension. It’s a bunch of bullshit, if you ask me.”

I remembered reading something in the paper about it. Who knew if the attempt to extend people’s lives was nonsense or not, but I was rooting for the venture to succeed.

“And where do you work?”

“Cool Zone on J and C Boulevard. I used to have my own HVAC company, but I ran into a rough patch and had to shut it down.”

The forensics van pulled up. Derrick took George Evans’ contact details, and I went to talk with the technicians. We had two crews, and both were methodical. As they were putting their coveralls on, a white Buick SUV pulled up. It was Dr. Bilotti, the county coroner.

 

 

Chapter 3

“Hello, Frank. I was thinking of you last night. I had an incredible Amarone.”

“That the one you told me about at Ferguson’s retirement party? The one that tastes like raisins?”

“So, you were listening. A lot of the flavor profile comes from the fact that after they pick the grapes, they dry them out on mats under the sun. Then, when they’re all shriveled up, they press them for the juice.”

He was moving stiffly. Either his back was bothering him, or he was catching rigor mortis from the corpses he worked with.

“That’s interesting. I have to pick up a bottle or two.”

He took two bags out of his trunk. “If I remember, I’ll bring one in for you.”

“That’s not necessary, but I won’t turn a bottle down.”

“Heard this one isn’t messy.”

“Could be a strangulation, but you’re the pro. The husband found her—”

“No more, please. I don’t want my judgment colored.”

Dr. Bilotti was a great guy off the job, but he moved slower than a slug. Just watching him put his gloves on was enough to make my heart race. Gianelli looked at me and rolled his eyes as Bilotti moved his head over the crime scene at half the speed of a lawn sprinkler.

The coroner knelt by the body and shined his penlight into each eye. There was no life. Bilotti inserted an ear thermometer and recorded the temperature of each ear. He noted the time and the clothing on the body.

“Doc, I photographed the body and the room with a wide angle and took overlapping shots before doing close-ups. I repeated it, centering the body. I took two hundred and eighty stills before using video.”

“Good work.”

“Do you need me for anything else?”

We both knew the answer. “I’d appreciate you sticking around a little longer, and I need somebody to get a thermostat reading.”

Bilotti took out a pad and began sketching the crime scene. Holding his laser measuring device, he began noting the distances between the body and the corners of the room. Then he started jotting down how far the corpse was from the counters and kitchen table. He was just getting started; I knew I had time.

“Doc, I need to use the restroom.”

He turned around. His look turned me into a ten-year-old in front of the school principal. “If you must. Gianelli, photograph the facilities before he uses them.”

I sent a text to Mary Ann to let her know I’d be late for dinner as Gianelli photographed a powder room in need of updating.

Two hours later, my lower back was aching as Bilotti took another look around. “The body can be removed. But nothing else is to be disturbed.”

“Looks like she met her attacker around here, and there was a struggle.”

“You’re on the right path, Frank. I’ll formalize my findings as soon as possible.”

“It was strangulation, right?”

“On the surface, that is how it appears. The autopsy will confirm it.”

***

“This is an easy call, Derrick. Have the entire property taped off. This place is a crime scene. Put in a request for a twenty-four-seven guard. I don’t want the killer or a nosy neighbor getting access.”

“Got it.”

“Make sure the uniforms know, and don’t let them leave until everything is secure and a guard posted.”

“Okay. When you were with Bilotti, I put a call into emergency services. They’re sending over the nine-one-one audio files.”

“Good thinking.”

“They said there were two calls.”

“Two?”

“Yeah, first one was terminated immediately, and the second came in eighteen minutes later.”

“From the same phone?”

“Yes, one registered to Jill Evans.”

“Interesting. You know what? Tell Ferguson to stay here, and make sure the scene is secure. You and I need to go over the audio together.”

***

Derrick closed the door to our office and rolled his chair to my desk. I opened the email with the 911 calls. Both originated from 540-400-1732, a Virginia area code registered to Jillian Evans.

The first call came in at 9:49 a.m. I clicked on play.

“This is nine one one. What’s your emergency?”

I kept my eyes on the voice graph. No movement.

“What’s your emergency?”

Click.

“You think he was having second thoughts, Frank?”

“Could be. He may have wanted to get his story straight. Let’s see what he actually says.”

The second call was made at 10:07, eighteen minutes after the first call.

“This is nine one one. What’s your emergency?”

“My wife, she needs help.”

“What is the address?”

“Six three one seven St. Andrews Boulevard. Hurry! She’s not breathing.”

“An ambulance is on the way, sir. Open her mouth; check for any obstructions.”

“There isn’t any. Please help me.”

“Let’s try giving her mouth-to-mouth CPR. Do you know how to do that?”

“I tried. It didn’t work.”

“Let’s try again. Put your mouth over her mouth, pinch the nose shut. Breathe into her mouth. Repeat. Again. Observe her chest. Is there any movement?”

“No! She’s not breathing.”

“Stay calm, sir. Help is on the way. I’d like you to try chest compressions.”

The 911 operator walked Evans through the procedure.

“It’s not working. Please, you have to help me.”

“Stay calm. Help is on the way.”

Click.

Derrick said, “He sounded pretty frazzled to me.”

“Either that, or he used the time between calls to rehearse.”

“Be tough to do that. He had no idea what the operator was going to say.”

“Maybe, but you watch enough cop shows, and you’ll have a pretty good idea.”

“True. He didn’t cry on the call.”

“We don’t know anything about him. If we find out he cries easily, then we have a frame of reference.”

“If he did it, why didn’t he run?”

“It could be another calculation. He knew he’d be a suspect. If he takes off, he’d have to worry about who saw him there that morning. Remember, there’s no shortage of people who think they can fool us.”

“Maybe the voice graph can tell us something.”

“It’d be nice, but it’s less reliable than a polygraph. Once the autopsy is done, we’ll get a time of death, and see what else pops up.”

 

 

Chapter 4

Doctor Bilotti moved his arms robotlike as he said, “It is my finding that Jillian Evans was a victim of strangulation. There is no evidence that a ligature of any kind was used. This was a manual strangulation, using hands.”

“Male hands?”

“It’s difficult to be certain. The victim is a small woman, and a large amount of force wasn’t necessary. But given the overwhelming majority of female victims at the hands of a male, it would be safe assumption.”

“But she was definitely strangled.”

“Obstruction of the carotid arteries and jugular veins resulted in her death. The cessation of oxygenation leads to anoxic encephalopathy; the brain dies from a lack of oxygen. Petechiae, in the form of two minuscule dots, were found on both facial cheeks.”

“Pitee what?”

“Petechiae, markings from broken capillaries.”

“What about a time of death?”

“Between nine and ten a.m.”

“How certain are you?”

“Beginning signs of livor mortis—”

“Pooling of blood in the body?”

“Exactly. Between that and the corpse’s body temperature, I’m confident death occurred between the hours of nine to ten a.m.”

“Good. Any signs of sexual assault?”

“No, but evidence shows the victim recently had intercourse.”

“The night before?”

“Within the last two to three days.”

“Can you narrow it down further?”

“Not unless I knew how long the male was able to forestall a climax.”

“Anything in her system?”

“The first set of blood panels will be back from the lab in a day or two.”

“What else you can tell me that would help?”

“Either the victim was taken by surprise from the rear, or she had her arms pinned down while the strangulation was unfolding.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I didn’t find anything under any of her fingernails. Excepting in cases where a choke hold is used to cause carotid obstruction, resulting in death in fifteen seconds, a victim will claw at the attacker’s hands, attempting to relieve the pressure.”

“Do you believe it was a choke hold that killed her?”

“I don’t believe so, but it is in the realm of possibilities.”

“Thanks, Doc. Let me know when the toxicology reports came back.”

Going back to my office, I pondered the time of death. Bilotti pinned it between 9 and 10 a.m. There was some wiggle room in it, but it lined up with 911 calls made by her ex-husband, George Evans. From the outset, the likelihood it was him was high—no, it was stratospheric.

***

It was the first homicide involving strangulation since I’d moved to paradise.

“We were overdue for one, Derrick.”

“A murder?”

“No, a strangulation case. One in every nine violent deaths is by suffocation or strangling, and it’s especially common in domestic violence cases.”

“That’s probably what we have here. The husband is suspect number one. By the way, phone records confirm she called him the night before like he said.”

“Okay. But we can’t discount the possibility of a robbery. Bilotti said there were no signs of sexual assault, so if it wasn’t a break-in or walk-in, it had to be someone she knew.”

“St. Andrews is a busy road. If it was a robbery, someone had to see something.”

“The time of day fits with a burglary. Thieves like to operate when no one is home, and it could be they figured the house was empty. They gain access through the lanai, enter the house and encounter her. She begins to scream, and they silence her.”

“We’ll canvass the neighborhood to see if any of the neighbors might have heard something.”

“If they did, they should have called it in. Either they weren’t home, or the road noise from Rattlesnake Hammock Road obscured it.” I pointed to the map taped to the whiteboard. “No homes back up to her side of the street. It’s all preserve.”

“I’ll check with the landscapers and pool guys.”

“Check with the county; see if any meter readers or inspectors were in the area. And garbage pickup, I didn’t see any cans out that day, but double-check it.”

“You think someone could have walked over from the back of Manor Care Health?”

“At this point, if some kind of robbery is involved, we have to look at every possible place they could have come from. I don’t see them parking in the driveway and ringing the bell.”

 

 

Chapter 5

I pulled into the technology park on Old 41 and circled to Building C. A large, orange sign with an offbeat font read Xtended Living. It looked like something that should have been in Silicon Valley. Not that I’d ever been to California.

Workstations, each with two monitors, covered the entire space. The music playing was loud and by Garth Brooks. More people here had tattoos than at Fort Myers Beach on a weekend.

I recognized Jafar Kapur from his driver’s license photo. He was talking to a kid with a neon-green slug in his earlobe. Jafar knew I was coming, and with my sports jacket, he didn’t need to be an internet whiz kid to know who I was. Jafar smiled and waved me in. We went into his office, which was small and messy.

Thin, Jafar’s teeth were LED-like.

“Welcome to Xtended Living, Detective.”

His right index finger was clipped at the first knuckle. “I read about this in the paper. It’s a fascinating idea, and believe me, for my sake, I hope you hit it out of the park.”

“For decades, the scientific community has been focused on treating disease, illness, and keeping people healthy. I wondered why so few efforts were being made in the longevity field. I’m convinced that if we focus on why someone lives to a hundred and fifteen, we can identify and amplify those traits.”

“How far away are you?”

“We have already identified microbes and polyphenols that help and are easy to adapt through a dietary regime, and if people would get regular exercise, simply walking instead of driving at times, they could add years to their lives.”

Mary Ann was right, I needed to lose weight. Maybe I could get a bicycle. “We’ll have to figure out how to pay for longer retirements.”

“Yes. The work we are doing on telomeres is incredibly promising. If it goes the way I believe it will, people will be working into their late eighties.”

I hoped Jafar had nothing to do with the murder of Jillian Evans; we needed him.

“I have no idea what telomeres are, but it sounds fascinating. I’d like to continue this, but I have some questions concerning Jillian Evans.”

His sunny disposition crumbled. “I can’t believe what happened. It feels surreal.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Kapur. How long did you know her?”

“A bit less than two years. She was separated from her husband, and one day she was struggling to load her car with a case of water at the supermarket. I helped her, and we hit it off, like it was meant to be. It was so unexpected but natural.”

“I understand you were essentially living together.”

“I still have a home, but we spent most of our time together.”

“Where is your house?”

“Spanish Wells. I walk back and forth from here when I’m there. It’s just over two miles away.”

This guy was shaming me. “What about her husband, George Evans? He claims they were in the midst of a reconciliation.”

He shook his head. “He was no good for her. He couldn’t provide for her financially and left her with a mountain of debt when his so-called business folded.”

“Was he seeing her romantically?”

“Look, George didn’t get it. He kept coming around, saying he needed to talk about this or that issue, or it was something about the divorce.”

“Do you believe he could have done this to her?”

“Absolutely. Jill told me he became physically abusive with her when they were married. She said that was the primary reason she decided to leave him.”

“When she said he became physical, can you expand upon that?”

“She didn’t talk about it. As you can imagine, it was painful for her, but I know he struck her at least once.”

“You’re certain he struck her?”

“Absolutely.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about George Evans?”

“I didn’t know him other than through Jill. He didn’t like me, and I get it, but he was dark, a negative person. Not a good one to be around.”

“Where were you the morning of March fifth?”

“Right here. I left Jill’s house at eight.”

“And you came straight here?”

“Yes, but I did get my café mocha from the Starbucks by her house. I can’t function without one. I don’t know where’d we be without caffeine.”

“I need a good two cups to get moving.”

“Caffeine has other benefits besides acting as a stimulant. It contains many antioxidants and seems to help protect your brain from dementia.”

What do you know, we have a miracle drug on our hands.