Blood Score Part 10

"According to her phone records, she got one text message on the evening she was killed. She deleted it off her cell, along with the reply she sent."

"That's squirrelly," he said. "Most people don't respond to anonymous callers unless they recognize the number. And deleting all traces of the message, going and coming, sounds like she had something to hide. How often does this number show up on her phone records?"

"So far I've only seen it once, on the day she was killed, but it looks like a dead end anyway. The phone number is an anonymous burner. It's prepaid with no owners.h.i.+p to trace. And on her side of the equation, her phone company doesn't retain text message history. Nada. They only keep that the call happened, not the content. Even if we find the actual phone in the possession of the killer, it's only circ.u.mstantial without the content."

"Sounds like she knew whoever sent it," Gabe sighed. "We could be back to the drug dealer angle as the reason she was in the park. They use burners, but it makes no sense that a dealer would kill off a customer with money. Guess we'll have to wait for tox to come back from the autopsy to see if she was a user."

Not all the autopsy test results were in yet. A toxicology work-up on blood, bile, urine, ocular fluid, and nasal swabs were sent for a.n.a.lysis. The ME also had a few ways to screen for substance abuse, including testing hair follicles to build a timeline of drug use. If trace evidence was found on the body, that got processed separately, too.

With lab results pending, the ME only had preliminary findings. As expected, the manner of death had been ruled a homicide, with the cause of death being exsanguination. She'd bled out after her aorta had been severed, but the efficiency of the single stab wound just beneath her sternum hadn't been the work of someone who'd killed in frenzy.

"Did Schumacher pull anything good off her cell?"

"He said he'd get us an update later today." She thumped her pen on a pad of paper.

"Anything turn up on the BOLO for her missing vehicle?" he asked.

"Yeah, I got a report that her BMW 650i convertible was located on the south side. Stripped and charred. Only the VIN gave us ID. And uniforms canva.s.sing near the crime scene found her empty purse in a Dumpster on Halsted. I was about to post that on our white board."

"Someone tried hard to make it look like a robbery or carjacking, but why leave jewelry on the body? Stealing a vehicle would have been easier on the street, not in the shadows of a park. It's a crime of opportunity. This feels staged."

"So do you think we can rule out Ethan as a suspect? A blind man couldn't have driven her car away from the scene. If TOD happens to coincide with the time witnesses place him at the restaurant, that's another reason to knock him off the list."

Gabe looked up from his work and stared at her. She'd seen those expressive blue eyes show great compa.s.sion, but not for her today. Her cheeks heated and the sensation spread down her neck. Although she found it hard to hold his gaze, she locked her eyes on his and returned the favor. Two could play the intimidation game.

Gabe was the first to back off. He blinked and heaved a sigh.

"I never said I thought fiddle boy actually did it," he said. "Even if his alibi is rock solid, that doesn't mean he didn't hire it done. We gotta stay objective and let the evidence do the finger pointing. That's all I'm saying. Why are you in such a rush to rule out this guy?"

"No reason. My gut tells me he didn't have anything to do with killing her."

"You sure it's your gut doing the talkin'?" This time, he turned toward his computer and didn't look back.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Before Angel had a chance to push it with him, her phone rang.

"Yeah, Ramirez here." She glared at him as she listened. "Okay, we'll be there in five. Thanks."

"We? What's goin' on?" he asked.

"I had uniforms pick up Bryce Peterson this morning. He's the guy who left a message on Olivia's answering machine. I brought him in for questioning. He's in interrogation room five. You in?" She stood and grabbed a file.

"h.e.l.l, yeah. But why did you bring him here? I thought we'd hit him up on his turf."

"I had trouble tracking this guy down. He doesn't have a job, and he's got a record of substance abuse. I thought if we bring him here, we could sweat him. You got a problem with that?"

"Who me? Mr. Sensitivity? You're kidding, right?" He stood and grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. "Lead the way."

The first thing that Cronan noticed about Bryce Peterson was that he had a permanent scowl on his face, like a guy with att.i.tude who had plenty of reason to expect his life to suck. Hostile. Real hostile. With short spiked hair and dark eyes, the kid looked wired. He chewed on a thumbnail with his gaze darting around the room, unable to focus on any one thing. Wearing jeans and a wrinkled black House of Blues tee, he was lean and muscled and looked as if they'd pulled him from bed in a foul mood. Or maybe that was the only way he crawled from the sheets. On a good day, after a shave and a shower and a makeover, the kid might have some appeal to ladies who liked tough guys with a rebellious nature.

"If Olivia led another life, outside her social circle, you think she got into bad boys like this punk?" he asked his partner. "He seems a little out of bounds, even for someone like Olivia."

"Yeah well, maybe that's the point. Opposites attract."

"That I can understand, but this guy looks like a pound mutt. How does he fit? Olivia doesn't seem like a woman who'd rescue a pit bull," he said. "Whatever connection they had, it came through Ethan. He's known our boy the longest."

Cronan stared through the two-way mirror of an observation room with Angel standing next to him in the dark, watching Peterson fidget. Angel hadn't said much while they made Peterson wait on purpose, and he didn't feel the need to fill in the void. Living alone, Cronan had grown used to silence, but for a guy like Bryce Peterson, the wait would seem like an eternity. In his situation, the guy's mind would be working overtime on why he'd been brought in. Angel had made the right call, especially having the uniforms haul the guy to the station.

Cronan had a feeling about Peterson.

He found it hard to picture him with Olivia...or Ethan for that matter. The violinist and the socialite matched. They were educated, traveled in the same social circles and had a similar interest in music. But Peterson struck him as a hanger-on, the kind of guy who hung out with the cool kids hoping their popularity would rub off. And the cool kids kept him around to stroke their egos.

Cronan knew that Angel had done a background check on the guy. Peterson and Ethan had been at Juilliard together. They were the same age and both had played violin. They had to know each other. It shocked him after his partner pointed that fact out. Ethan seemed older and was definitely more refined than Peterson. At some point in his life, the kid in the next room had enough talent to get into the prestigious school for the arts, but he'd lost his drive or let other demons destroy his future. The pressure of more talented peers or the constant barrage of critics could have been the catalyst for his drug abuse. Or maybe his addiction had been the crutch that gave him permission to fail.

Through all of that, Bryce Peterson had stayed in Ethan's shadow. Cronan wondered how much that had eaten at him-to hang out with a constant reminder of how he'd fallen short.

"You seen enough?" Angel asked.

"Yeah, let me stop off at the break room before we go in. The kid looks like he could use some water." He turned toward her. "You take lead. I'll meet you in there."

After the introductions, Angel took a seat and tossed out a few softball questions for Bryce Peterson to get him chatty, confirming what they already knew from his background check to see if he'd lie. He stuck to the truth on the simple stuff, but it was time to get down to business.

"How do you know Olivia Davenport?" Angel stared at Bryce Peterson, slumped in his chair across the interrogation table from her. Gabe stood behind her and leaned against a wall. She caught his reflection in the two-way mirror. With his arms crossed, her partner had his game face on as he stared at Peterson.

"You brought me in here to talk about that little-" Peterson stopped short of name calling and took a pull off the water bottle Gabe had brought him. "What's this about?"

Although he directed his question to her, he kept his eyes on Gabe. Her partner had a way of speaking volumes with his hard to read glare.

"You called her and left a message on her home phone," she said. "You sounded angry. What was that all about?"

"None of your business. It's personal, between her and me."

Gabe s.h.i.+fted his weight and walked behind her. Peterson followed every move.

"Well, now I'm making it my business," she said. "Olivia Davenport was murdered, and you left an angry message on her answering machine. You see me connecting the dots here?"

"Murdered? When? What happened?"

"Let me explain how this works. I ask the questions, and you answer them." She leaned across the table. "Now why did you call Olivia? And why the att.i.tude?"

"That b.i.t.c.h had a mean streak." He heaved a sigh and ran a hand through his short hair, scratching his head. "She got off on doing s.h.i.+t to a friend of mine."

"Give me a name. What friend?"

"Ethan Chandler. We knew each other from Juilliard. He's helping me out. I hit a rough patch."

Without much effort, she'd gotten Peterson to admit he knew the violinist. She'd learned about their relations.h.i.+p from Ethan in their clandestine meeting last night. Angel had made sure his time at Juilliard had been included in his background check so she wouldn't have to explain to her partner how she'd known about their connection.

"So why the call to Olivia? What were you going to talk about?"

He stalled to take a drink of water, hesitating long enough for her to be skeptical of anything he'd tell her.

"I wanted her to break it off with him. For Ethan's sake. I got tired of seeing the games she played, but everything backfired. The more I begged her to let him down easy, the more she dug her heels in. I think she got off on making me miserable."

"So you're telling us you were being a good friend, is that right?" Gabe's low voice echoed in the small s.p.a.ce. "You were looking out after your buddy."

For the first time since her partner had walked into the room, he spoke up. Angel had to admit that his timing had been perfect.

"Well, yeah." Peterson's voice cracked. "I owe Ethan a lot. He's good to me. He gave me a place to stay and helped me into rehab. The guy's real solid."

"You consider Ethan a friend, but not Olivia?" Gabe asked.

"Guess you could say that, yeah." Peterson shrugged.

"Out of curiosity, have you ever been to Olivia's home? I mean, since you didn't exactly get along."

"She would never have invited me. I drove Ethan once, and we picked her up for a charity gig, but I never got past the front door. Didn't want to." He smirked. "He called to tell her we were out front, and she came out to us."

"So you've never been inside, is that what you're saying?"

"Yeah, exactly."

When Gabe was done, Angel s.h.i.+fted gears to keep Peterson off balance and talking.

"Tell me about this event." She shoved a photo across the table in front of him. The photo they'd taken from Olivia's home. "You took the photo. When and where was it taken?"

Angel pretended to know more about the photo than she did. After Peterson looked at the photo, he rolled his eyes.

"That was a charity thing Olivia had put together. She was always doing that kind of thing."

"What kind of thing?"

"She always made a big show and flaunted Ethan like he was a prize bull."

"That must have been tough for you...to sit back and watch her use your friend like that. Was that what she did? Take advantage of him?"

"She used him, sure." He sucked down more water. "Using people, that was her thing."

"Maybe with a blind guy...that's an easy thing to do," she said. "Or maybe he loved her."

When Peterson snorted a chuckle and kept his head down to avoid her eyes, she decided to press him.

"You don't think he loved her?"

"No, I think he did, but that b.i.t.c.h wasn't capable of returning the favor. She didn't deserve a good guy like him." He spun the bottle in front of him.

"Did Olivia do drugs?" she asked.

"What? No, she never did anything in front of me, but that doesn't mean she wasn't into it."

"She never scored anything from you?"

"Oh h.e.l.l, no. I'm in rehab. I'm no dealer. Never have been."

With Peterson knowledgeable of the drug trade, he would know about burner phones, but unless they found him with the phone that had texted Olivia on the night she was killed, they had no way to connect him with any message to Olivia.

"Where were you on Tuesday evening?" she asked.

"Is that when it happened?" He laughed. "She didn't even make hump day? That's ironic."

"What's that supposed to mean? Are you saying she screwed around and cheated on Ethan?"

Peterson glared at her and tightened his jaw, but he didn't answer her question until- "You got firsthand information on that, sport?" Gabe stepped closer to Peterson and walked behind him, forcing him to turn. "Maybe you were the one sticking it to Ethan by getting a piece of Olivia. Is that it?"

"No, that's not the way it was. I swear."

Gabe leaned down and got into Peterson's face to whisper in his ear, "Hooking up with Ethan's girl was easy. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d's blind in more ways than one. What happened? Did Olivia threaten to tell him? She liked playing games. Maybe she screwed with both of you. Around here, we've got a word for that."

"Oh yeah, what's that?"

"Motive." He stood and stepped around the table to face Peterson. "Maybe you're the one Ethan should have watched out for. With friends like you, who needs a conniving girlfriend?"

"That's not what happened."

"If you're telling the truth, you won't mind me taking this to my forensics guys." Gabe reached for Peterson's water bottle, preserving any evidence with a hanky in his hand. "You see, we found fingerprints and DNA evidence at Olivia's place. If the prints and DNA off your saliva match what we found, we'll know you were lying. You still denying you two were making it behind Ethan's back?"

Peterson looked as if he wanted to puke. Angel knew her partner was right. Pulling DNA and prints off the water bottle would give them something to compare against what they'd taken from Olivia's home and her secret stash of s.e.x toys. They'd have all the evidence they'd need to either exclude Peterson as a suspect or prove he lied. If he lied about being at Olivia's place, then what else had he stretched the truth on? From Peterson's expression, Gabe had triggered a reaction.

"That b.i.t.c.h. Even after she's dead, she still gets her way." He chewed on his thumbnail and avoided their stares. "Okay...I was involved with her, but I swear to G.o.d I didn't kill her." His eyes watered. "Ethan is gonna freak. Does he have to find out? I mean, I don't want to hurt him."

"You should have thought about that before you tapped his girl," Gabe said.

"No, it wasn't like that. She came on to me. If you knew Olivia, you'd know she didn't take no for an answer. That b.i.t.c.h had a cruel streak."

"So you lied about not being at her place?" he asked. After Peterson shrugged and nodded, he pressed for more. "If we check your DNA against her play things, are we gonna find you've been looking for love in all the wrong places?"

"She hit on me. The girl liked it rough, and I gave it to her."

Bryce Peterson went on to admit to having s.e.x with Olivia Davenport and told them the wealthy young socialite liked role playing and props. Gabe had grimaced when he heard Peterson's version of the truth. Angel knew her partner hadn't bought into the BDSM set up, but the evidence was mounting.

"She treated me like I was some dumb a.s.s and she was the clever one, pulling it over on Ethan like he was a chump. You ask me, she got what she deserved." He shook his head. "But I didn't kill her. On Tuesday, I was at my rehab group session. You can check. People saw me there."

He gave them the name of his counselor and the address of the rehab center, an alibi they had to confirm.