Chapter 3: The Victims
Tuesday, July 24th.
Yusuf Pasha's widow, Arzu, had a face soaked with tears and puffy eyes when she answered the door of her apartment. She'd clearly been crying for hours. "You're the police?" she asked.
"I'm Detective Goren, this is Detective Eames. We'd like to ask you some questions about your husband," he said gently.
She nodded. "Come in." She looked at Goren hesitantly as he walked by, and stood back further than necessary.
When Arzu spoke, she kept her eyes fastened on the ground. "Forgive me, I don't have much to offer for guests. Would you mind some coffee?" She seemed to have just thought of it, and went to the kitchen before they could accept or decline. Through the door, they saw two children at the kitchen table. One of them slowly spooned breakfast cereal into his mouth while tears streamed down his face. The other one stared at the detectives with wide eyes. Arzu said something to them in Turkish, then started making the coffee.
Goren stepped closer to Eames. "She's not comfortable around men she doesn't know," he whispered. "You should take charge of the interview."
"Okay," she whispered back.
Arzu returned with the coffee in small delicately painted ceramic cups on a matching tray. Goren took one and asked, "Did your husband keep any papers, a journal, letters, anything like that?"
She looked surprised and suspicious, but she nodded. She placed the tray on her coffee table. "I'll be right back." She returned a minute later with a small box. "I don't think it matters anymore," she said, trying to convince herself that she was doing the right thing by handing over her late husband's private records.
Goren put on gloves before taking the box to a desk in the corner of the room.
Arzu sat down on her threadbare sofa and took the tiniest possible sip of her coffee, as though ingesting anything was torture.
Eames tasted the coffee, which was strong and gritty and sweet. "I know this is difficult to talk about. I'm very sorry for your loss, and I promise we'll do anything we can to find your husband's killer."
Arzu sputtered a choked sob.
With a wince of sympathy, Eames continued. "Did anyone threaten him recently?"
"No." She shook her head as fresh, fat tears slid down her face. "No one even knew we were here. If Yusuf had seen anyone we knew from before, he would have told me. We would have told the government and moved somewhere else."
One of Arzu's children - the little girl with the wide eyes - came into the room. "Mommy, I don't like breakfast. I want daddy."
Arzu spoke falteringly in Turkish.
"No he's not!" the girl shouted. "You're lying! I want to see daddy now!"
"Go finish breakfast, Keyif," her mother begged.
The girl balled her hands into angry fists and marched back to the kitchen.
"Tell me about what happened in Cyprus," Eames asked.
Arzu blinked rapidly. "It doesn't matter now," she said in the same tone of voice she'd used for the papers. She glanced up for the first time. "Yusuf gave testimony against a terrorist group. To keep me safe...I was pregnant with our son at the time...he agreed to testify if we could go to America, where his old friends couldn't find us. But there was something he didn't tell them. The bomb maker told them, but they didn't believe him. He knew about the terrorists because he...helped bomb a building in Lefkosha several years before. Four people were killed. But he became a different man when he married me. He was a good man. And the people after him, they couldn't have found us. Most of them are now in prison or dead."
"And the family of the bomb victims," Eames prodded gently, "did any of them threaten your husband?"
She nodded. "After the trial, a man...the son of one of the dead. He told Yusuf he would suffer for what he did. I don't know the man's name. His father's name was Zabat. He was an important man with money. The son could have done this." Sobs punctuated her speech as she concluded, "I can think of no one else."
"Thank you, Mrs. Pasha."
A baby started crying in the next room. Arzu's head snapped toward the sound, but instead of going to her baby she collapsed in tears into her hands. "What am I going to do now? Three children, no work, no family to go to, no money...What am I supposed to do?"
Eames took a card and wrote a name and phone number on the back. "I have a friend who helps women in situations like yours. She's a social worker who volunteers at a women's shelter. Give her a call."
Arzu nodded as she took the card. "Forgive me...I have to feed my baby." The infant's wails were becoming more insistent.
Goren stood from the corner desk, where he had been so silent he'd faded into the background. He carried a few letters in evidence bags.
"Do you mind if I take these to look at later?" Goren asked about the letters in his hand.
"Take them, please, if they will help."
As they walked out of the apartment, Eames rubbed her head, trying to stave off an impending headache. "Just a few of the many reasons I'm not having kids," she said.
Goren didn't say anything. He was examining one of the letters through the plastic.
"Find anything interesting?"
"Most of it was in Turkish," he replied. "And nothing looked like a threat. But it gave us away for Pasha's widow to ignore me and open up to you." It struck him suddenly that Eames could have brought up her own experience losing a husband as a way to connect with the witness, but she hadn't. Nor did she seem shaken by the woman's outburst of grief. He wondered.
Water gushed from the cab as it was hauled from the river beneath a bridge a few miles from the crime scene.
Minutes later, Goren and Eames arrived.
"So much for the ransom," Eames said as she looked over the blue, bloated body still strapped in the back seat. She compared his face to a photo she had of Craig Hart. "Single gunshot wound to the forehead. He must have seen it coming."
Goren nodded, but his attention was on the other body, a petite woman with dark brown hair. She was unbuckled, and sprawled across the floor between the seats. "Gunshot wound to the stomach." He climbed into the cab, careful not to disturb anything, and poked his gloved fingers into the waterlogged wound.
Eames, who was by no means squeamish, had to look away. She fastened her eyes on the river. "It looks like the killer smashed out all the windows before pushing the car into the water. Probably thought it would wash away more evidence. With how isolated this place is, he probably didn't worry about someone hearing." She glanced briefly at the woman's gunshot wounds. "But I'm surprised no one heard the screams."
"It probably hurt too much to scream," Goren said. "And it would have taken her a while to bleed to death. The killer watched her suffer. She was the primary target."
"You're sure?"
"There are glass shards in the wound. The first shot wasn't aimed at the driver; it was aimed at her. One of them vomited. Probably Hart, it's on his side of the car. No purse or wallet. There's no jewelry either. She has tan lines from a ring on her right hand, a bracelet on her right wrist, and a watch on her left wrist. Hart had a watch. The killer didn't want us to identify them."
"Or it was a robbery."
"If it were a robbery why did the killer run over Pasha?"
"If the woman was the target, why did the killer run over Pasha?" Eames retorted challengingly.
"I haven't figured that out yet," Goren admitted.
She was starting to get tired of his attitude. "There's no 'I' in 'team', Goren," she said a little irritably.
He glanced up. "There is...if you spell it phonetically."
She sighed and rolled her eyes. Then she noticed something beneath the front seat. "What's that?"
Goren looked down where she indicated, then shifted his position so he could reach the item without disturbing the body. "Looks like a shopping bag." He handed it out to her.
The soaked paper bag was crumbling. Eames carefully eased out the smooth, heavy object inside it. A violet shimmer caught the sunlight. "Lotion bottle, not even opened yet."
"Is there a receipt?" Goren asked.
She took a small rectangle of paper from the bag. The ink was hopelessly smeared. "It's not legible, but it doesn't matter. Check out the brand." She held the lotion bottle so he could see the writing. "Fujibana's. It's a high-end boutique. There's only one in the city."
"They might know our mystery victim's name. Otherwise, we can only hope her prints are in the system."
Wednesday, July 25th.
Of course the victim's prints wouldn't be in the system, Eames thought as they entered the fancy shop the next morning. No way she would be that lucky.
Fujibana's Beauty Boutique was a wash of violet and mauve. Women in Prada and Versace browsed the sparse, artistically displayed products on glass shelves. Eames was almost afraid to touch anything lest she leave a smudge.
"May I be of assistance?" asked a woman with tightly braided brown hair. She was only distinguishable from the customers by being less expensively dressed.
"Yes. I'm Detective Alex Eames, this is my partner Detective Goren. There was a woman in here Monday morning. Who was working then?"
"I was," the woman answered.
"Did you see her?" Goren asked as he showed her a photo of Jane Doe.
The woman recoiled from the picture of the body. "I'm sorry, I'm no good at all with faces."
"She bought a bottle of wisteria scented lotion," Eames added.
"Oh yes, I remember her," she said. "She was wearing a red beryl ring, gold, with a maple leaf filagree, and diamond accents."
"So you're no good with faces, but you can remember that much detail about a ring?" Eames asked.
"You never forget a gem like that."
"Are you sure it was red beryl?" Goren inquired.
"Definitely. Jewelry is kind of a passion of mine, especially with rare gemstones. You think I plan on working in a place like this for the rest of my life?"
"Did you get her name?"
"No. She paid with cash. I asked her if her ring was custom made, and she just scoffed and said of course it was. She must have had a sugardaddy, as she didn't seem to have the...refinement to pick a ring like that out for herself."
"At least we can get a description of the ring out to pawn shops," Eames said as they left the building.
"I think we can do better than that," said Goren. "There can't be too many designers in New York that carry red beryl. It's one of the rarest gemstones in the world. Jewelry-grade red beryl is only mined in one place: the Wah Wah mountains of central Utah."
Eames stared at him. "You know that off the top of your head how?"
"I read a lot," he said dismissively.
They spent the next hour calling the top jewelry designers in the city. After one such call, Eames wrote something down and said a hearty "Thank you," before hanging up the phone and turning toward her partner with a toss of her hair.
"You found her," Goren surmised.
"Remember Ferdinand Smith?"
"The billionaire entrepreneur who died last year? Yeah."
"He had that ring made for his much younger wife Monica."
"Who's been fighting a lawsuit with her stepson over the Smith estate," Goren recalled.
Eames looked thoughtful. "Maybe we should call that stepson down to the station. We need someone to ID the body."
Cameron Smith, son of the late billionaire Ferdinand Smith and stepson of the recently deceased billionairess Monica Smith, had no trouble identifying the body. "Yes, that's her," he said with certainty and no other visible emotion. "I'd recognize that petulant face no matter how many bullet holes they put in it."
"You don't seem too upset over your stepmother's death," Goren observed.
"Monica was a horrible human being. I'm not surprised someone finally got this sick of her. And no, honestly I can't bring myself to pretend to be sorry."
"Really, because some people might think you're acting a little...suspicious," Eames said.
"I didn't kill her. God knows I wanted to kill that bitch, but I didn't."
"She married your dad at the end of his life, disinherited you. And she was younger than you, too, which meant you'd probably never get a penny of your father's money if you lost the lawsuit you were fighting against her. An expensive lawsuit, as I understand. Her death cleans that mess up pretty well," she continued. "Gives you one heck of a motive."
"If I wanted her dead, I would have made it look like an accident. Probably one of her boytoys got tired of her dallying."
"Did she ever...dally with you?" Goren asked. "Her young, attractive stepson?"
Cameron Smith scoffed. "Even if she was interested, there was something about her scowl I found strangely unenticing."
"Thank you for your help, Mr. Smith. I'm sure we'll be in touch with you again soon," Goren said.
He nodded at them, and left.
Goren and Eames looked down at Monica Smith's body. "I don't think he did it," Goren said. "I think he seriously considered putting a hit out on his stepmother, but I don't think he would have let anyone else get caught in the crossfire."
"Maybe not," Eames said. "He wouldn't have been quite so open if he didn't think he had a solid alibi, but he could have easily hired someone."
"Still...we should look into her...'boytoys' and anyone else she may have had emotional ties to."
"And check her financial records. With as much money as she inherited, someone besides her stepson could have had a stake in her death."
"A bullet to the gut is a bit too personal for a money motive."
"Some people take money very personally."
He brought his hand to his chin and rubbed his thumb against his lips.
Eames tilted her head to watch him. It wasn't the first time she'd noticed him doing that. She wondered if it was just something he did while he was thinking or if it was some kind of self-calming technique.
"The killer wanted to watch her suffer," Goren said. "That takes a lot of anger." He started to walk past Eames, and paused at her shoulder to say, "It wasn't about money."
Their next stop was Monica's mansion, an ostentatious brick building on Staten Island.
"There's no accounting for taste," Eames mumbled when the housekeeper let them in.
"Actually there is," Goren countered. "She displays obviously expensive furnishings and decorations...without consideration to the entire effect. She...is proud of the wealth she's inherited, but she's blind to the...refinements of wealth. New money." He shrugged. "For some people, conspicuous consumption provides a high. This is exactly the kind of decorating you'd expect from that type of personality."
Eames picked up a photo of Monica and her late husband. "He looks happy," she said of the elderly man. "She looks impatient."
They didn't find anything helpful until they reached her bedroom. On her nightstand was a small pink leather book. Eames opened it. "Men's names, addresses, and phone numbers. Looks like her stepson wasn't kidding about Monica's boytoys."
"The books on her shelf..." Goren shook his head disapprovingly. "She has a few hardcover classics, but they don't look like they've ever been opened. Fashion magazines, self-help books, high school yearbooks..."
"Does her terrible taste in books really help the investigation?" Eames asked with an amused smile.
"It helps us get an idea of the kind of person she was, which may tell us why someone wanted to kill her."
"Shall we put out an APB on hostile librarians and college professors?" she asked sarcastically as she dropped the address book into an evidence bag.
Their search didn't yield anything more illuminating. As they were wrapping up, Goren got a call.
"Goren...You found something?...Really?...We'll be there in an hour." He turned to Eames. "That was the ME," he said. "She has a surprise for us."