Dead Broke (Lana Denae Mystery Series Book 1) (2 page)

“The smell does seem to be coming from her apartment,” one of the officers agreed.

“Pff. Seems to be nothing! Ain’t nothing else in the world smells like that. That’s the smell of death. Death, I tell you.”

“Well, we can’t be sure until we have a look inside,” one of the officers cautioned.

Nellie eyed him a moment with just a hint of a contemptuous glare. “How come you guys can’t see the obvious? What in the world are they teaching you these days at police school? Open the door! What are you waiting on?”

“All in due time, Ma’am,” one of them said, speaking calmly and softly. “We’re just waiting on authorization.”

Without trying to hide her disgust, Nellie said, “Whoever did this is laughing at you right now. You know that, right?”

“You think someone killed her?”

“Of course. Makes sense.” Nellie sounded a little annoyed. “You don’t?” she asked, making it clear she wasn’t impressed by their lack of intuitive powers.

“It’s possible she died of natural causes.”

“Well, murder does come naturally to some,” Nellie snipped, not yet willing to admit the possibility of being wrong.

“And that’s why we do investigations,” the other officer spoke up.

Nellie’s indignant look said the elderly woman wasn’t at all persuaded either of them knew the first thing about investigating but she held her peace. Then, noticing the officers wiping sweat beads from the brow, she said, “Gonna be another hot one today. But then, it
is
August. Sure would help if this place had air conditioning.”

“There’s no air in this building?” one of the cops asked with a squint.

“Not unless you buy your own,” Nellie told him. “Ain’t nobody living here got the money for that.”

The two officers shook their heads, thinking that three days without air conditioning in the triple digit summer heat was looking like a possible cause of death—if the woman in the apartment was actually deceased. And if that were the case, it was no wonder the smell had gotten so ripe.

Before either of them could comment on the possibility, the cell phone of one of the officers lit up. Talking briefly, he hung up, looking to the building manager. “Your attorney should be contacting you shortly.”

As if on cue, Mr. Borland’s phone rang. “Hello?” the man answered.

Listening intently a moment, and nodding occasionally as if the person on the other end could actually see him, Borland finally uttered a simple, “Okay.” Pocketing the phone, he quickly produced a set of keys and unlocked the door. Moving aside, he allowed the officers the opportunity to enter the apartment first.

Turning the knob, they pushed open the door until the safety chain caught. But that wasn’t what stopped them. Both officers made a face and recoiled involuntarily. The smell was horrendous! Nellie had been right; this was unmistakably, the smell of death.

Peering through the small crack, nothing of the inside could be seen except the wall to the right. The place was lit by a lone lamp burning somewhere just out of sight.

“Bust the chain?” one of them asked. Without waiting for an answer, he leaned his shoulder against the door until it gave way.

Inside, they found the body. Lying in front of a wooden rocking chair, clad in a soft nightgown, the body was stiff, ashen, and cold. The odd angle of the head and limbs suggested the woman had collapsed there upon standing. She wore an almost puzzled expression.

The officers’ first inclination was the woman had simply died alone in her apartment. The locked door and the fact the woman had called no one suggested death had possibly come in her sleep. The summer heat had apparently gotten to her, they surmised.

Then they saw the blood.

Kneeling to take a pulse, although it was of no use, since the woman was obviously no longer among the living; one of the officers pointed to the clothing. The blood soaked material had dried to a crusty dark mat.

On closer examination, the bullet hole in her chest could easily be seen. Mrs. Wymer hadn’t just died—she’d been killed. Shot. Like Nellie had said, the woman had been murdered!

That’s when they called in their report. Captain Mark Hayden of the Central Precinct immediately assigned the case to his best detective, Lana Denae.

Chapter Two

Ushering everyone away from the doorway, the two officers moved quickly to cordon off the area. “Go back into your apartment,” they told a suddenly intrusive Nellie. Motioning for the other tenants and Mr. Borland to do the same, one officer added, “Detectives will be here soon.”

The word “detectives” was a little misleading, since they knew that Lana worked alone. But it sounded better. Besides, with the Crime Scene Investigator guys running around, no one would know there was only one detective on the scene.

When Lana arrived, she did her best to ignore the smell. Stepping into the apartment, she silently studied the scene for a good fifteen minutes without moving from her position.

“Are you okay?” asked one of the officers.

“I’m fine.”

“You need anything?”

Lana shook her head. “Not right now. I’ll want to talk to both of you later though.”

As soon as the CSI guys showed up, the two officers left. Lana began poking around then, picking through the items in the apartment, studying things from different perspectives, going over the details in her head.

The little she’d learned wasn’t helpful. Perplexing was more like it. And puzzling. As a detective the scene was uniquely fascinating and the details strangely intriguing.

The door had been locked from the inside, safety chain in place. The two small windows were intact, not even cracked, and painted shut. Lana’s search for bullet holes in the exterior walls proved futile. And, she could find no other way in or out of the apartment. Neither she, nor the CSI guys, had recovered a weapon of any sort.

To make things even more baffling, from all indications, no one—aside from the victim—had been inside the apartment at the time of the shooting. Yet, to a rationally thinking person, it was obvious that
someone
had been there. Mrs. Wymer certainly hadn’t shot herself and then disposed of the gun.

So, despite evidence to the contrary—and against all reasoned possibilities—someone had gained entry, shot the elderly woman once, killing her, and then managed to escape. They’d accomplished this without leaving a trace of having been there—other than the dead body.

Although the responding officers had already questioned the tenants on the floor, Lana chose to talk with them again herself. And got the same story.

Most of the neighbors did not have much to add to the story. The elderly couple in 605, while not offering anything useful, did seem to welcome the chance to have someone to talk to.

“I still can’t believe it,” the woman said. “A murder? In our building? It’s usually a very safe place. We’ve lived here for twenty years and nothing like this has ever happened.”

“It does look like a nice place to live,” Lana said, hoping her words sounded sincere. She’d seen the neglected condition of the building, both inside and out.

The husband scowled. “Except we’re stuck in a hundred year old apartment building, in the city, and surrounded by strangers,” he grumbled. “It gets a little stuffy cooped up in here. Can’t enjoy the out-of-doors like we used to when we owned our own place. We don’t even have a lawn anymore.”

“Well, at least they provide the trees for you,” Lana said sweetly, pointing to the potted maple at the end of the hall. She’d noticed one or two of them on every level. “I know they’re artificial but they do add a little color and nice scenery.”

“Oh, those aren’t fake trees, they’re real,” the lady told her.

“Might as well be fake,” griped her husband. “It’s not like they serve any purpose.”

“Now, Henry,” the woman said.

The man glared at his wife. “Trees are supposed to provide shade,” he mumbled. “Hard to do that inside.”

Lana cringed. She’d unintentionally started a spat between the two and now had to transform into the role of peacemaker—something she wasn’t very good at. “It can’t be that bad,” she said with a forced soothing tone. “After all, you still have each other.”

Grumbling, and giving her dirty looks, the couple begrudgingly agreed she was right.

Glad they were somewhat pacified, Lana thanked them for their time and then quickly said she had to be going. “I have a case to solve.”

As they closed the door, Lana turned back to the crime scene. She checked her watch. An hour. That’s how long visiting the all neighbors had taken. And what was there to show for it? Nothing. Another wasted endeavor. She was no closer to a logical explanation of the events that had led to Roselyn Wymer’s death than she’d been earlier.

Lana sighed, at least her Precinct Commander, who was currently on an extended leave of absence, wouldn’t be around for this case. And for that, she was both thankful and relieved. She certainly didn’t need the added distraction of being second-guessed at every turn. Or the hassle of dealing with the man.

Commander Tom Olsen, a curt and ill-mannered man, arrogant and slightly condescending, rarely had a friendly word for anyone. It was no secret he held a special disdain for Lana.

Whether it was because she was a woman or due to the fact she had beaten every one of the records he’d previously held in the department, no one was sure.

In his day, Olsen had been a fine officer and detective. He’d moved up the ranks quickly, eventually becoming Commander of the Central Precinct. No one, including Lana, begrudged him the glory of the coveted position. He’d worked hard to get where he was and deserved it.

Problem was, the Commander was from a by-gone era. Police work, and in particular, detective work, had changed in recent years. Computers and forensic science had opened a whole new world in investigative techniques. The benefits were, without question, enormous.

But Commander Olsen refused to accept these “new-age nonsensical practices” as legitimate. While everyone else readily embraced the wonders of technology, Olsen stayed rooted in the ways of the past. And because of it, he was being left behind. This then produced a bitterness and contempt that he took out on anyone who dared suggest his methods were ineffectual. Needless to say, the man was not well liked among the officers.

With the Commander absent, the usually strained atmosphere at the precinct had drastically improved. Yet, no one was actually celebrating, knowing the man would be returning soon.

When his leave was first announced, Lana had considered resigning while he was on leave to avoid any ugly confrontations with the man. had just wrapped up a previous case. With no current investigations, it would have been the perfect time. But for some reason she had hesitated. And then, this case had come along.

Figuring it would be a routine matter, easily cracked long before she’d have to deal with Commander Olsen again; Lana had decided to take the time to consider her next steps while she worked the case. But her hopes of quickly unraveling the “trivial” details and finding the murderer had been dashed almost from the moment she’d arrived at the crime scene.

Now, two weeks later, as Lana stood in the middle of the room, she wasn’t any closer to solving the mystery than on that first day. She had discovered no new evidence and had little to go on; only what the CSI guys and the Medical Examiner had provided.

The time of death had been placed between the hours of three and five—right around daybreak—on the morning of the sixth; a two-hour window. While establishing the time of death was important, it had so far proved of no use. The only real evidence, the only thing of a tangible nature, was the 9mm bullet the ME had recovered from the body.

The bullet was in remarkably good shape, suggesting the round hadn’t passed through anything else before impacting the body. Forensics had easily determined the brand of ammunition was a common one, distributed to virtually every gun shop and department store in the country. That wasn’t much help. But the fact ballistics tests had determined the bullet had been fired from a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic did provide a glimmer of hope.

That was the extent of their findings. No DNA, other than the victim’s, had been pulled from the bullet—or from the entire apartment for that matter.

At the scene, the forensics team, like the ME, had also been hampered by the lack of physical evidence. They were able to conclude, as Lana had suspected, that the victim, Mrs. Wymer, had been seated in the rocking chair and stood to her feet just before being shot. The trajectory of the single bullet through the woman’s body revealed that she had been slightly hunched over at the time of the shooting—like she hadn’t quite had time to stand up fully.

That suggested her attacker had surprised the woman, Lana surmised. That little tidbit of guesswork didn’t tell her a whole lot but it might prove useful later, she hoped.

Given the known attributes of the firearm and the type of ammunition in relation to the wound in the chest, forensics had provided one last detail; the victim had been shot from a distance of not more than six feet away. Further supporting this was the fact there were no powder burns on the body.

Assuming the lady was facing forward at the time, and following the trajectory, the shot would have come from the direction of the hall. The wall was just over six feet from where the body had been discovered. Yet, repeated searches had revealed no holes in that wall or the door.

That was all the evidence she had to go on.

Lana smiled wryly. Not exactly earth shattering, none of it. She’d figured out most of it on her own.

Running a background check of the victim the next day, provided her with very little useful information as well. Roselyn Wymer was a retired schoolteacher, had no known family, and aside from the usual assortment of utility bills and such had left virtually no financial footprint. For the last several years, it appeared the woman had spent nearly every moment of her life secluded inside her apartment. A check of her phone records had proved just as futile, showing no outgoing calls from her number—other than to her neighbor, Nellie—as far back as a year.