Takeover - Lisa Black [3]
The third bedroom served as an office. With a twinge of envy, Theresa examined the heavy rolltop desk. “What is this, mahogany?”
“You’re asking me?” Paul said. “My taste runs toward Formica.”
“Not true—you bought me that walnut bench last month.”
“Rachael picked that out.”
The idea of her daughter perusing tasteful furniture made her feel proud and old at the same time. The cache of papers in the rolltop came as a welcome distraction. “This seems to be a loan form. Maybe they have money troubles, if they’re applying for a loan?”
Paul picked up a stack of business cards and held them toward her. “I don’t think so.”
She glanced at the cards. The words “Federal Reserve Bank of the United States of America” framed the upper edge. “He’s a bank examiner. I see—Ludlow doesn’t apply for loans—”
“He approves them.”
Frank leaned in the doorway behind them, fingering a cigarette. “That’s all I need. The murder of a freakin’ employee of the federal government.”
Paul explained his partner’s mood to Theresa. “The oral boards for the sergeant’s position are up this week. Frank might be the boss of the whole Homicide unit by the end of the month.”
“And you’ll have to break in a new partner.”
Frank snorted. “‘Gee, good luck, Frank, I’m really rooting for you, seeing as you’re my flesh and blood and all.’ No, the only thing she cares about is poor Paul having to work with a rookie.”
Her older cousin had always been cynical, but now his voice held a bitterness that surprised her. He must be edgier over the promotion than she would have thought possible. “I’m sorry—congratulations, really.”
“Forget it.”
“I know you’ll get it. No one else has more time in Homicide than you do, do they?”
He stared at his feet for so long that she thought he wouldn’t answer. “McKissack got there a year and a half before I did. He’s a moron, too, but that’s neither here nor there in the political world. Anyway, forget it. Find anything else in that desk?”
Paul would not be deflected. “Maybe this is exactly what you need to get the inside track away from McKissack. A nice high-profile fed case—provided we wrap it up before your interview, of course.”
“Sure.” A smile flickered on Frank’s lips, gone before it could settle. “That gives us, let’s see, thirty-four hours to find out who killed Mr. Bank Examiner.”
Theresa felt a sudden chill of worry. “He works at a bank—”
Paul followed her thoughts. “And now the wife and kid are missing. But that makes no sense. If they were kidnapped to pressure him into robbing his own bank, then why kill him?”
Frank supposed, “Maybe it’s got nothing to do with the bank, and she killed him. Then she panicked, fled with the kid.”
“That might be preferable,” Theresa said. “Because if Theory A is correct, then with the bank executive dead we’ve got a kidnapper out there who has no reason for keeping Mom and baby around—”
“And every reason to get rid of them,” Paul finished.
Theresa’s boss, Leo, peered at the dead man on the gurney as if he were something Theresa had picked up at a garage sale on her way to work, using Leo’s lunch money for the purchase. “What is this?”
“Mark Ludlow. Murdered on his own front stoop.” She held a small but brilliant flashlight up to the gashes in the dead man’s scalp, prodding gently with her other hand. She didn’t want to disrupt the wound pattern or disturb any traces the weapon could have left behind before the pathologist had a chance to examine him, but she might not have another chance before the body was cleaned just prior to the autopsy. The man had died quickly, since his hair was matted but not saturated with blood; his heart had stopped beating early on, stopped pushing the liquid out of the broken capillaries. This told her that he had not bled to death but that the compressions to his skull had halted his brain from directing even involuntary muscle movement, like breathing.
The trace evidence department supervisor took a morose sip of coffee, surrounded by ten other gurneys, each bearing a