The 6:20 Man(23)

Her searching look faded and she looked down. “Apology accepted.”

Devine rose, opened his wallet, and said, “I need to grab the train home, and then catch up on some sleep and ice my aches and pains. What do I owe you for the beers?”

She looked up at him. “I invited you for drinks. So I got it.” As he put his wallet away she said, “So, did you kill anybody over there?”

“That was sort of the point,” answered Devine.

He headed to the subway, leaving the woman alone with her margarita, chips, and guac.

And doubts.

About me.

And maybe about herself, too.





CHAPTER





17


THE SMOKE-AND-COFFEE CAR was parked out in front of Devine’s place, and Detective Hancock had the driver’s door open. He was sitting sideways in the seat with his feet on the pavement. He looked up as Devine walked into view.

Hancock stood. As he did, his jacket swung open, revealing a gun in a belt clip holster.

“You prefer the Glock to the Sig?” asked Devine as he drew nearer.

Hancock glanced down in surprise. “You can tell just from the butt of the gun?”

“I can tell from a lot of things.”

“Army stuff coming through again, huh?”

“Army green pours through every pore I have. What’s up?”

Hancock focused on his face. “Whoa, what the hell happened there?”

“Playing pickup basketball at the high school over there and fell flat on my face trying to do stuff I don’t have the skill to do against kids half my age and a lot better than I’ll ever be. Looks worse than it is.”

“Right. Leave that shit to the youngsters. I have some follow-ups. Got a minute?”

“And if I said I’d rather get some shut-eye?” said Devine.

“Won’t take long. Let’s take a walk. You good with that? Nice night.”

Devine started walking and Hancock fell in beside him.

“How’s the investigation coming? Have you found out why she killed herself?”

“She didn’t kill herself. That’s why I’m here with more questions.”

Devine stopped walking; so did Hancock.

“Come again?”

“She didn’t take her own life. This is now a homicide investigation.”

Devine held on to that game-changing word for an eternal moment. “Homicide, as opposed to suicide?”

“This is not for official distribution, you understand,” said Hancock.

“So why tell me?”

“I hope being straight with you will make you straight with me, that’s why.”

“I have been straight with you.”

“Don’t think so.”

“But you guys said suicide,” countered Devine.

“That was the prelim. Things have changed. Homicide can be made to look like suicide, especially for victims who were found hanging.”

“I know,” said Devine, looking off now.

“How?” said Hancock quickly. “How do you know?”

Devine started walking again. “We had a case over in Afghanistan. Guy was found hanging just like Sara. All evidence pointed to suicide. He was depressed. His wife was having an affair with some unidentified asshole. He’d missed out on his next promotion. He was drinking heavily, screwing up. He’d had multiple warnings from the brass, and the hammer was about to come down on his career.”

And his name was Lieutenant Roy Blankenship, thought Devine.

“Damn, a lot to deal with.”

“Yeah. But he didn’t kill himself. He was murdered.”

Hancock eyed him. “Who killed the guy? And why? And how’d they find out?”

“The guy was his comrade in arms. He’d just come back from stateside. Turns out he was the one banging the dead guy’s wife. His motivation was as old as time: He wanted the hubby out of the picture so he could fill that slot and live happily ever after with the missus.”

And his name was Captain Ken Hawkins.

“Shit, talk about betrayal. How’d they figure out it wasn’t suicide?”

“Probably the same way NYPD did.” Devine ran a finger in a vertical line over his neck. “Straight-line ligature mark versus an inverted mark is the key telltale sign. Strangulation always has the first, hanging always has the second, because of gravity’s force on the body. And the dead guy’s fingernails also had rope hemp in them. So what happened was the killer strangled him with a rope from behind and the victim fought back, digging into the rope and getting fibers under his fingernails. That also made for the straight-line ligature because no gravity at work. Then the killer strung him up with the same rope to make it look like suicide. But the Army CID agents found the straight-line under the inverted ligature mark. And the inverted was made postmortem, because the guy was already dead. They can tell when something happens postmortem, but then you know that already.”

“How come you know so much about the details?” Hancock said suspiciously.

Devine knew all this because he had gone over every molecule of the case and spoken with the CID agents multiple times. He knew it wasn’t suicide and had wondered why the CID hadn’t concluded the same thing. He had come to find out it was more military politics than any sort of search for the truth. And Campbell had pretty much confirmed that.