The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(65)

“So how do you know it was Skinner?”

“Lot of things pointed to random violence, burglary gone wrong.” Zolot ticked the points off on his fingers. “She was killed in the house. The mailman and the cleaning lady both said the door was never locked during the day. She was killed with a butcher knife from the kitchen like a crime of opportunity, like maybe she walked in on the guy. The envelope of petty cash they kept in a kitchen drawer was gone.”

Then he flicked his hand, dismissing those points as if shaking water off his fingers. “All bullshit designed to point us toward a random killing. The most important information is what we didn’t find. No defensive wounds on the victim, so it was likely someone she knew. The knife was left on the scene, but it had no prints, nothing, like it was scrubbed clean. In fact, no unknown prints anywhere in the house. Just a few smears where prints had been wiped, or maybe he wore gloves. Footprints in the blood; there was a lot of blood. But the tread was new, the shoes probably never worn before, cheap-ass sneakers you could find anywhere. No other clues of any kind. Just this perfectly nice woman stabbed twenty-one times.

“That’s what got my attention right there. A thief looking for a quick payday might stab someone once or twice, out of panic, maybe misplaced aggression. But twenty-one times? That’s a fucking crime of passion. That’s a killer who knows his victim, pal. Or a killer who really fucking likes it.”

Peter thought of the reptilian look that had flashed across Skinner’s face. But he didn’t want to interrupt. Zolot kept talking like he’d been waiting to get this off his chest for years.

“So we went deeper on the husband,” he said. “Standard practice, anyway. The killer’s almost always known to the victim, a family member or friend. We talked to Skinner’s secretary. She said he was in the office all day, meetings and calls. He didn’t even go to lunch. I saw the call logs, I talked to the people in the meetings. The man was alibied up the ass, like he’d done it on purpose. I even went through his closet, looking for blood traces on his clothes. Nothing. I have no idea how he did it.”

“He’s sleeping with his secretary,” said Peter. “She might have lied for him.”

“My old partner interviewed her,” said Zolot. “So I don’t know. He could have had time. But it doesn’t matter, he killed her, I know it. I fucking know it. I knew it even before the captain called me to shut it down. My last conversation with Skinner, he shook my hand and he thanked me for my time. Said I know it isn’t personal, I know you have to exhaust all avenues, et cetera, et cetera, with that charming fucking charm of his. And I could tell that he knew that I knew. He just smiled at me, and it was like he’d told me himself, that shit-eating grin was his fucking confession.”

Zolot shook his head. “A lot of cops have a hobby case, something you couldn’t solve, something you can’t quite shake. This was going to be my hobby case. I was going to catch that cocksucker. But the captain called me in and told me word had come down, the case was over. Officially open but forever unsolved.”

“And that’s it? You let it go?” Peter couldn’t see Zolot, this furious bear of a cop, letting anything go.

“Hey, listen, I’m no fucking angel. Twenty years on the job, I’ve crossed the line a few times. I get results so they let things go. But this time the captain told me to sit down and shut up or my past would come back to haunt me. I’d lose my pension, everything. As it is, they transferred me to fucking District Five. The shitheap.”

Peter could practically hear the man grinding his teeth.

“My old partner liked financial crimes. He was made for that rarefied air. Very smooth, no ruffled feathers, he knew how to finesse those high-fliers. Nobody had to tell him to lay off the bigwigs. I always figured he’d retire early and go into corporate security, where the money is.” He shook his head. “Not me, though. No way. Give me a good hatchet murder any day. I can’t stand those fucking money guys. Some sociologist did a study, did you hear about this? There are four times as many psychopaths in finance as in the general population. About the same percentage as in prisons. And these are supposed to be the fucking bastions of our society, the bankers and financiers.”

Zolot had taken them in a loop. They were back at Sobelman’s, walking up to Peter’s truck.

“I don’t know how Skinner did it. It was the perfect fucking crime, except he never managed to get anyone else arrested for it. The best way to get away with murder, if you want to know, is find some other poor son of a bitch to take the rap. But the man killed his wife. Personally. And I’m pretty sure he’s done a lot more than that. The fucking thing of it is, he made money when his wife died. You know what selling short is?”

Peter did, but he wanted to hear Zolot tell it. “No.”

“Selling short is like a bet that the value of something will drop. My old partner could explain the details, I’m just a working cop. But basically that fucker used some proxy buyers with a bullshit derivative product to sell her family company short. Legal but barely. Derivatives weren’t regulated. Apparently there was some expectation that she’d take over as chairman. When she died, the stock dropped, and Skinner made another hundred million.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to do that.”

Zolot gave him a look. “Are you supposed to? No. Can you? In about a hundred different ways. And did I mention he inherited a big chunk of her wealth?”