The North Face of the Heart - Dolores Redondo Page 0,50
state warehouse pending disposition.”
“All right,” Dupree said and checked his watch. “We’ll get on that as soon as we finish with Detective Nelson. He’s calling us in two minutes. Agents Emerson and Tucker will join us on the line from Miami.”
Brad Nelson came on the line as scheduled. Dupree summarized the situation. “The Andrews family murders in Galveston appear to fit the profile of a series of murders we’re investigating. The FBI is treating this as kidnapping and murder. Your former chief, Captain Reed, sent us the case files and offered Galveston’s cooperation; we hope you’ll give us a hand. It goes without saying that this conversation must remain absolutely confidential.”
“Fine, y’all go ahead and do whatever you want!” Nelson’s response dripped with scorn. “It’s none of my business anymore. Hasn’t been for months, in fact.”
“Detective, this is Assistant Inspector Salazar.”
Nelson answered her questions in a bored tone: Yes, that goddamned violin. He saw it right away, part of the interior decoration. Trivial. CSI teams don’t go around impounding violins as evidence. No traces of an intruder were found, no hairs, no prints, nothing at all to suggest somebody else had been in the house.
“Detective Nelson, this is Agent Johnson. Were you aware Mrs. Andrews was an interior decorator and had done the work on their new house herself?”
“Pleased to speak with you, Johnson. Yeah, Joseph explained all that, and he claimed his mother wouldn’t have used a violin. Said it would clash with the ‘aesthetic sensibility’ of the room. Said violin lessons were the last thing in the world that’d interest his little brother . . . But the thing could have gotten there any number of ways. Remember, Junior wasn’t living in Galveston at the time. Any other family member could have brought it home. His mother was volunteering with the repertory theatre.”
“The fact that a family member insisted it didn’t belong in the house should have rung a bell,” Johnson commented, applying a little pressure. “Okay, he wasn’t living there, but he knew them better than anyone else.”
“It did raise doubts. I sent a crime tech to dust the thing down for prints a second time. It was clean. I even considered examining it a third time, but it was stolen.”
Dupree’s voice was steely. “This was after you authorized the professional cleanup of the crime scene.”
Amaia glanced at him, impressed. He comes across as a gentleman, but don’t let that fool you.
Nelson sighed into the phone. It rattled like thunder. “Look, I know what y’all are up to. I’m sorry for the boy, I understand what he’s going through, and it’s a shame. That’s why I kept taking his calls. But I’ve seen plenty of cases like this. He’s got survivor’s guilt. On one hand, he wasn’t with them; on the other, he wants to deny it happened at all. He’s grasping at straws. That’s why I sent my tech over there. Not because I thought our work was shoddy, but so I could give Junior a definite answer once and for all. But there was nothing—nothing at all—to suggest that any person outside the family had been in that house. The gun was inches from the father’s hand, and he had powder residue on that same hand. Ballistics confirmed his pistol had fired the shots. It was an open-and-shut case.”
“What kind of violin was it?” Amaia asked.
Nelson’s reply was less aggrieved now that he’d made his case. “That I can tell you. Because of the boy’s complaints about the violin, I didn’t just order it dusted for prints; I had a full report drawn up. It was an ordinary violin, the kind used for teaching, the type anybody might buy for a teenager who is taking lessons. Made in the USA, available in any music store for about seventy bucks.”
Amaia probed further. “Detective, did you find the bow?”
The question obviously took Nelson aback. “The bow?”
“It’s a long, thin piece of wood, slightly curved, with strings along the length, used to stroke the violin and produce the sounds.”
“I’m perfectly aware what a bow is,” he growled.
“Well, then? Did the team find one?”
Another of those thunderous sighs into the phone. “No. No, we didn’t find one. But I hardly think that means anything . . .”
She kept at it. “Tell me how the violin disappeared.”
“It didn’t disappear, it was stolen!” he exclaimed. “And that was after the lab examined it a second time, so if you’re trying to make that out to be important, you’re completely off track.