A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(8)
Levi turned around. “You’re not making her sound less like a serial killer.”
“You were the one who raised her as a suspect in the first place!”
“I-”
“Levi,” Dominic interrupted gently. “The reason you had to start your own investigation last year was because the LVMPD has never been on the right track when it comes to the Seven of Spades. That’s still true today. You’ve said yourself that the task force is concentrating on all the wrong suspects because they’re ignoring one of the most vital parts of the profile-the killer’s personal connection to you.”
Levi pressed his lips together. “The profile says the killer respects and admires me. That doesn’t necessarily mean I have a relationship with them.”
“But it’s the likeliest scenario.” Martine had spread the folders out on the desk, and she leafed through them as she spoke. “The intensity of their focus on you, the personal details they know, the way they’ve repeatedly risked exposure to help you-that’s not the behavior of a person who only knows you from afar.”
“I didn’t even meet Leila until months after the Seven of Spades’s first round of murders.”
“It doesn’t matter. I consulted with Rohan about this-he says that even if the Seven of Spades was only initially drawn to you because you were one of the lead detectives on the first murders, the connection they formed with you during the case would have driven them to establish a relationship with you under their real identity.”
Expelling a noisy breath, Levi slumped against the wall. Dominic wanted to hug him, but he knew Levi wouldn’t want to be touched in this mood, so he stayed on the floor and stroked his hand through Rebel’s fur instead. He couldn’t begin to imagine how painful it must be for Levi to put his friends and colleagues under a microscope like this.
Dominic pointed to one of the armoire’s doors, which held the paper listing their top five suspects for the Seven of Spades, none of whom the task force had considered. They all fit the official profile, though - able-bodied adults, intelligent and well-educated, working in law enforcement or related fields in positions which allowed freedom of movement throughout the day, each with a personal connection to Levi, and all but one with a history of significant trauma. Further, none of them had been present for any of the Seven of Spades’s phone calls, nor the live murder of Carolyn Royce.
“We put together our own suspect pool weeks ago because we knew the LVMPD was going about it all wrong. Maybe we should go through the top suspects again, break them down individually.”
Levi nodded, pushed himself off the wall, and resumed pacing. “Going from least to most likely, then. Kelly Marin.”
Martine swallowed a mouthful of pad thai. “She was positioning herself as your protégé when the first murders occurred. She was involved with and interested in the Seven of Spades case from the beginning, and most importantly, she leaked the story to the Review-Journal after being explicitly ordered not to.”
“She’s also remained loyal to you ever since, including harassing me at your request.” Dominic couldn’t quite keep a sour note out of his tone.
Levi shot him a weary glance. “You said you forgave me for that.”
“Plus,” Martine said, “she was the responding officer when you found Quintana’s body in your apartment, even though we found out later that there was another unit closer at the time.”
“Counterarguments?” Dominic asked.
“She’s too young,” Levi said immediately. “I don’t buy that she’s had enough experience to leave flawless crime scenes or know her way around the surveillance equipment used to spy on us, let alone how to finesse security systems or hire a contract killer like Nick Bryce. And do we really think she has the emotional maturity to be so smoothly manipulative?”
Dominic agreed that it was kind of a reach. The primary reasons Kelly was under consideration were the news leak and Levi’s mentorship. “She’s also the only one on the list who never experienced a traumatic event, at least as far as we know. That means no trigger to become the Seven of Spades, according to Rohan.”
They knew far more about their suspects’ histories with trauma than they should have, thanks to Internal Affairs detective Valeria Montoya. She’d done extensive background research on personnel throughout the LVMPD and DA’s office before turning the information-most of which had been well-guarded secrets-over to Levi. That insider knowledge was one of the things that gave Levi and Martine a leg up on the task force.
“Moving on, then.” Martine pushed her food aside and scrubbed her napkin over her mouth. “Sergeant Wen.”
Still striding restlessly around the room, Levi said, “He’s been uncharacteristically heavy-handed about the Seven of Spades from the start. He refused to hear me out when I argued that Keith had been framed, he dismissed the card the killer left in my hotel room as a practical joke, and he suspended me when he found out about my side investigation, all without ever giving me a fair chance to state my case. Then, when the Seven of Spades was trying to isolate me from everyone last month, Wen was the one who kicked me off the task force and later suspended me again.”
Dominic kept the ball rolling. “We know for a fact he was aware of the assault on Sergei Volkov’s compound in advance, which means he would have had plenty of time to set up the Seven of Spades’s intervention. And after that whole clusterfuck, he put in a good word for me with McBride, which ended up saving my job.”