Lethal Confessions (8 page)

“Murder. Fuck, I can’t believe it.” He gave a shuddering sigh, one that seemed to come from deep inside him. “Okay. I’ll be fine.” Noble sucked in another deep breath, clenching and unclenching his fists as if to loosen his tension.

“I need to inform you that we’ll be recording this conversation, sir.”

He gave a weak nod. “I understand. I can’t stop thinking about what could have happened last night. How in the name of Christ did she end up in Okeeheelee Park? Did someone break into the house and take her?”

Amy held up a hand, silently asking him to wait until she spoke for the record, starting with the date and time. “Interview with Matt Noble, husband of Carrie Noble.” She read out the long case number she’d written down. “Detectives Robitaille and Poushinsky present.” She turned to Noble. “The Crime Scene Unit is on its way to your house. We’ll know more very soon.”

“I can’t stop thinking about some son of a bitch breaking in and raping her, and me not there to protect her.” His voice caught again. “How the hell am I going to live with that for the rest of my life?”

Amy wished she could answer him. She wanted to tell him that she knew exactly what he was feeling, and that knowing the details of his wife’s murder would bring him absolutely no comfort. But she couldn’t, so she focused on the task in front of her and pushed ahead. “Mr. Noble, you told me you last spoke to your wife late yesterday afternoon, is that correct?”

He swiped a hand across the tears that cut a short trail down his bleached-out face. “That’s right. Around four-thirty.”

“Did she give any indication she’d be going out later?”

He shook his head. “No. Nothing like that came up. Frankly, we were too busy yelling at each other to talk about anything else.”

Noble’s candor surprised her, even though he’d spoken of the fight in their phone conversation. “What was the source of your disagreement?”

He let out another heavy sigh. “Oh, pretty much the same old shit. It’s been going on for a long time.”

Amy and Poushinsky waited a moment for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, Poushinsky raised his brows. “Come on, Matt. We need some details.”

“Why’s any of that important?” Noble shot back.

When they didn’t respond, Noble suddenly got the picture. “Oh, shit, you think I killed her?” He shook his head. “You’re fucking crazy. I loved her, for God’s sake. And I was a hundred goddamn miles away.”

“We don’t think anything,” Amy said in a soothing voice. “We’re asking questions that we have to ask. You’ll save us all a lot of valuable time if you just answer frankly and completely. So, why don’t you tell us exactly what you say has been going on for a long time?”

“All right, fine. Things started out great for Carrie and me. We met in high school back in Montana, and got married a few months after I was drafted by the Marlins. Carrie thought we’d be on some kind of rocket ride to the major leagues, with fame and big bucks and all that stuff. But it hasn’t worked out that way. Not yet, anyway.” He exhaled a sigh. “I ran into some arm trouble in rookie ball two years ago, and I’ve been kind of slow coming back. This is my second year at Single A.”

“Did your wife get on you about that?” Poushinsky asked in a guy-sympathy tone.

Sweating, Noble wiped the back of his hand across his brow. “Sure. Carrie’s not exactly patient. Plus, she’s never adjusted to life down here. She misses Montana. Misses her family bad.”

“So, your wife thought you were letting her down,” Poushinsky said. “That must have sucked.”

Noble looked like he’d swallowed battery acid. “God, yeah. I was injured and killing myself to get back in shape, then I’d have to come home and get bitched out by the person who’s supposed to be my biggest supporter. Well, I didn’t have to stick around to take that crap, so I’d just get out—go have some beers with the guys.” He blinked, still fighting back tears. “But that just fucked things up more.”

“When did the game end last night?” Amy asked, changing tack.

He pursed his lips. “About nine-thirty, I guess, give or take ten minutes.”

“What did you do after the game?”

“Took a shower and got dressed. Then I went to a club with a few of the guys. Typical night on the road.”

“Which club?”

“The Fast Lane.”

“And you stayed there until…?”

“Around one, I think. Then I headed back to the hotel.”

“Were you inside the hotel all night, right up until you called home this morning?”

Noble jerked upright in his chair and gave her a resentful scowl. “There you go again, thinking I just whipped home and killed Carrie myself. How did I get home, then? Why don’t you check the rental car companies?”

“We will, Mr. Noble,” Amy said. “Let me tell you one more time that we’re not drawing any conclusions at this stage. None. But you’ve admitted your marriage was in difficulty, and you’d had a fight with your wife a few hours before she was murdered. Under those circumstances, we need to know your exact whereabouts between your phone call with her yesterday afternoon and the discovery of her body this morning. Have I made that clear?”

Noble gave his head an angry shake. “Fine. But, hell, I loved her, Detective. She drove me crazy, but I could never hurt her.”

“Please answer my question for the record,” Amy said. “Did you remain in the hotel in Viera through the entire night?”

He slumped, looking defeated. “Yeah. I was a little drunk, and I fell asleep with my clothes still on. When I woke up, I called home right away.”

They’d check with the hotel’s night staff and the car rental agencies, but Amy had a feeling Noble was telling the truth. “All right. Do you know Kevin Kasinski?” she asked. “He plays for the Lakeland Flying Tigers.”

Noble’s head jerked back up and his brow furrowed. “Kasinski? Yeah. Well, I don’t really know him, but I know who he is. He’s their starting second baseman. We’ve played them a few times. Why?”

Before either she or Poushinsky could say anything, Noble sucked in a deep breath as the realization hit him. “My God, Kasinski’s wife was murdered last month. Are you telling me this is the same guy? What the fuck is going on?”

Amy knew she had to find the answer to that very question, and fast.

Thursday, July 29

1:55 p.m.

When Amy and Poushinsky returned to Sea Chase Drive, the look of the curving street had changed dramatically. The Crime Scene Unit van, along with one of their SUV’s and two PBSO patrol cruisers, had parked in front of the Nobles’ town home. Yellow tape cut down the middle of the concrete driveway and looped around the front of their yard to separate the house from the neighbors on both sides. A few women stood in the middle of the street, talking and gesturing toward the house.

Matt Noble had been pissed when they told him he couldn’t go home until the Crime Scene Unit had completed its work, but said he’d go to a friend’s and start making calls to family. The web of tragedy would soon extend widely as the awful news spread from family member to family member, friend to friend. How many lives would be touched—devastated—by this one perverse act of violence? Amy’s insides churned as the memories of her own family’s tragedy roared back to the surface, the pain of that never-to-be-healed wound laid raw by the victims she’d seen today.

Whatever it took, she had to find this bastard before he killed again. It was her responsibility as lead investigator to bring the killer down, and she couldn’t blow it. Not for those who had suffered. Not for herself. And for sure not for the women who would otherwise die at this psycho’s hands.

Inside the house, she was grateful that the Crime Scene Unit team was the same as the one at Okeeheelee Park. Joe Keswick and Melinda Rodriguez were busy dusting the living room for prints while Aaron Hillier snapped photos. Bobby James was probably upstairs. There would be hundreds of fingerprints. They likely all belonged to Matt and Carrie Noble.

Amy headed straight in toward the fireplace where Melinda was dusting the dark wood mantel with fingerprint powder. “Anything interesting?”

Melinda grimaced. “We’ve barely started. But you might want to take a look at the kitchen. Check out the tea cup. Or mug, to be more precise. Could be something important there.”

Amy motioned to Poushinsky. He’d started a conversation with Keswick, but he caught her eye and followed her to the back of the house.

The kitchen counter was an L-shaped laminate. Next to the stainless steel double sink, a white Florida Marlins mug had a dry tea bag inside it. Melinda had already covered the mug in fingerprint powder. Amy checked the kettle that sat on one of the rear elements of the glass-topped stove. Half full of water. “Looks like Carrie either forgot about making herself a cup of tea, or she was interrupted.”

Poushinsky nodded. “Maybe she got distracted. I do that kind of thing all the time.”

The kitchen, dining room, and small den on the ground floor all seemed totally normal, with their spare, basic furniture. The place was well-lived-in, but tidy. Carrie had kept a clean, orderly house. They could see no sign of any struggle having taken place. That was consistent with the condition of the body.

They climbed the carpeted stairs to the second floor, passing two small bedrooms and a modest bathroom before they reached the master bedroom where they found Bobby James working.

The tech turned around. “Pushy. Amy. I see you finally got to where the action is.”

No trouble figuring out what that meant. The four-poster bed had been trashed. The sheets had been pulled out and bunched up in the middle, one pillow lay on the floor, and four or five bed cushions had been tossed around the room. Two empty wine glasses, dusted and individually bagged, rested on one of the matching bedside tables.

“Wow,” Poushinsky said with a whistle. “Either Carrie was a heavy drinker and a violent sleeper, or I’d say she had a guest last night.”

Amy snorted as she picked up the evidence bags. One of the glasses had traces of lipstick on it. “Not likely a rape scene, is it? More like monkey sex.”

“Sure looks consensual,” Poushinsky said. “But then the guy kills her and hauls the body away? That doesn’t exactly fit the M.O. of the Lakeland killer.”

“Let’s hope he left behind a bucket load of DNA on the glasses and the sheets,” Amy said as she stared down at the bed. “But I’m not holding my breath.”

“Shannon’s killer didn’t have sex with her, and he made sure he didn’t leave any trace evidence. This guy will have used a condom, and wiped down any glass.”

Amy carefully laid the plastic bags back down on the table, troubled by what she saw. “If he left any little goodies behind, CSU will find them. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We can’t be a hundred per cent sure Carrie had sex here last night, no matter how much it looks like it.”

Carrie’s killer
had
to be the same as Krista Shannon’s—unless they were dealing with a copycat. But the chances of that were as thin as a thread. The theory that Matt Noble might have killed Krista for misdirection looked weak, especially given the scene in front of them. And especially after seeing Noble’s reaction to Carrie’s corpse. When he collapsed against her, he’d been dead weight, like he’d been close to fainting. That was pretty hard to fake.

Did Carrie have sex here last night? If she did, it was with someone other than Noble. Was that man the killer? And what the hell was the connection to Krista Shannon?

The autopsy would answer the first question, and maybe they’d get DNA or fiber evidence from the bedroom. Possibly a neighbor saw whoever visited Carrie last night. Scarpelli, Ryan, and Washington would meet her and Poushinsky at HQ at three for a debriefing on the results of their interviews.

But for all their earlier certainty that Carrie’s murder was the work of a serial killer, Amy couldn’t ignore the whispers of doubt drifting through her mind. Maybe Cramer and Knight were wrong about that. There had to be some kind of connection between Krista and Carrie beyond simply being married to ballplayers. A reason for someone to want to kill those two particular women.

She hoped to God there was, because then it might end here, with Carrie Noble. Maybe she was trying to talk herself into that, but the scene in the bedroom didn’t seem to add up with the serial killer assumption. Whatever had happened here, there was no evidence of any violence.

Amy blew out a tight breath, hating the uncertainty. Because, of course, the killer might just be a whack job who for some screwed up reason simply wanted to kill baseball players’ wives. Any he could get his hands on.

The faint crackling of anxiety that had been hovering in the back of Amy’s consciousness suddenly grew to a roar.

Any player’s wife.

Amy didn’t believe in fate, but this case was getting more personal by the minute.

Thursday, July 29

3:05 p.m.

Amy headed straight back to HQ, a single thought racing through her brain. M.L.’s loser husband, Justin Wilson, played for the Palm Beach Cardinals. Different team, but the husbands of Krista Shannon and Carrie Noble played for different teams, too. Whatever this was about, it wasn’t about a particular team.

Poushinsky watched her carefully as they wound through the burgeoning rush hour traffic but kept his mouth shut. Thank God for that. She didn’t want to have to explain her growing—and surely ridiculous—fears about her sister, or tell her partner to mind his own business.

Ever since Carrie Noble was identified, Amy had told herself there had to be something solid connecting Krista and Carrie. That the killer must have known them both—which meant there was a good chance they knew each other. But Matt Noble had denied any knowledge of Krista, and claimed not to know her husband personally, either.

They’d start digging with Krista’s and Carrie’s friends, hoping to uncover a link. There had to be one. Amy didn’t want to believe a guy would be killing women just because they were married to ballplayers. But what, then, was the killer’s motivation? Had he picked Krista and Carrie because they were easy targets?