Titania Falling
Chapter 11 - All this coil is long of you
::
"Nice car." Ian Kovalenko's file suggested he'd likely be at this restaurant. Not only was he here, but the car they were looking for was as well. "You know, you just don't see cars like this much any more."
"You two need something?"
"Ian Kovalenko?" Angell produced her badge from a pocket and held it out to him. Danny did the same. "We just have a few questions."
"Like how'd you get those scratches on your face?" Danny shrugged when Kovalenko turned and glared at him. "Seems like a good place to start."
"My wife." He held up his hand to show off his wedding band. "She got a little... frisky."
"Your wife's name Andrew Landon?" Angell asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Never heard of him."
"Funny, seeing as he had your DNA under his nails."
"Under his nails? You know where that little pissant is?" Kovalenko rose angrily, glaring at them both.
"Hey," Angell said as she raised her badge again. "Don't give me a reason to arrest you. We know where he is."
"In the morgue," Danny supplied, leaning back on his heels. "With, you know, your DNA. And it seems like you do know him. Looks like Detective Angell might have that reason to arrest you after all."
"Listen, I didn't do nothing to him. H--," Kovalenko pointed to his cheek, "did this to me."
"Let me guess, you were trying to shake him down for money."
"Money he owes us," Kovalenko said.
"Money he didn't have."
"Doesn't matter. It was due."
"Where were you the night before last?" Angell asked him, crossing her arms. "Around 11:00."
"Here, big poker game in the back room."
"Any witnesses?"
"Several."
"We'll need their names."
Kovalenko stood, taking the notebook Angell offered, and started writing. "Listen. I don't kill people no more. Yeah, I rough them up from time to time for Mr. Jagodowski, but it's because they deserve it. But killing? That's off limits. Don't do it."
"We get it. You turned over a new leaf, you're a humanitarian now," Danny quipped. "We're still going to follow up on this."
::
"So, what have you got there?" Stella asked Hawkes, putting on her glasses as she leaned over his shoulder.
"Fingerprints," Hawkes replied as he carefully lifted another print from the bank statements they'd brought back from Landon's apartment. "Someone trashed our vic's place. The only thing left undisturbed was the table with these papers."
"So you think they may have something to do with what happened?"
"I hope so. We've got two sets of prints. Assuming that one set matches Landon's reference sample, the second may lead us to his killer."
"Or his accountant."
"I don't think this guy had an accountant." He smiled over the page at her. "How's your case going?"
"That's why I'm here. Our victim died of serotonin syndrome. According to Sid it's fairly rare."
"And so you want to pick my brain," he sat back in his chair, placing the prints he had lifted so far on the scanner so they would search while he and Stella talked. "It is fairly rare compared to other illnesses and drug interactions. The symptoms are fairly characteristic but also easy to mistake for other medical conditions. And there isn't a straightforward lab test; you need to test the blood for the different possible agents that can cause the reaction. That said, with the number of MAOIs and SSRIs on the market these days, it is becoming more prevalent. Doctors have to be very careful about prescribing those drugs. Just going off the meds could cause a reaction."
"She had Zoloft and Paxil in her system, as well as St. John's Wort and LSD." Stella pulled out the tox report Sid had brought up and showed him the amounts in Ariana's system. "We're pretty sure she willingly took the LSD, but we're not so certain about the St. John's Wort. The glass she drank from was the only one with any trace of it, and it had two sets of prints."
"Did she have prescriptions for both meds?"
"No, just the Zoloft. We don't know where the Paxil came from yet."
"But the people at the party were mostly friends, or at least people who knew her."
"There were a few that got invitations from other partygoers, but most there were invited by her roommate." Stella paused, her brow furrowed. "You're thinking that the person who gave her the St. John's Wort knew she was on an antidepressant."
"Assuming the person who gave her the cup knew what they were doing and about her Zoloft prescription, just it and the St. John's Wort would have been enough for a mild reaction."
"Which would be?"
"Agitation and nervousness, insomnia, tachycardia, and low blood pressure. She may have felt less coordinated than usual, as well as confused. Things that would have caused her to go into the hospital, where it would have been diagnosed." Hawkes paused, then said, "The thing about serotonin syndrome is that all of the symptoms can easily be symptoms of something else: virus, neurological disorder, or the psychiatric condition she had been prescribed the medication for getting worse."
"What about the Paxil and LSD in her system? What would they have done?"
"There really isn't enough Paxil here to do too much if she hadn't taken the LSD or St. John's Wort. It could have contributed to a mild reaction, but nothing a short hospital stay wouldn't take care of. The reaction may have even been mild enough that she wouldn't notice and not go." Hawkes pointed at the numbers for the LSD in her system. "Ultimately, it's the combination that killed her. The person who gave her the cup may or may not have known she was going to take drugs at the party or about the Paxil, but the addition of the LSD and St. John's Wort to the prescription drugs is what pushed this into a fatal reaction."
"So if our killer knew about the drugs, he was trying to kill her; if he didn't, it was probably just an accident?"
"Assuming he knew what he was doing."
"That can be a pretty big assumption," Stella said, finger tapping on her lip as she thought to herself. The computer beeped behind them, and Hawkes turned to look at the results.
"I was right - one set of prints does match Landon. The other set... I need to show this to Danny and Angell. If you'll excuse me--" He was out of the room before she could respond.
"I have something," Hawkes said as he stepped into the office. Danny was just hanging up the phone with a disgruntled look on his face.
"Good, because Ian Kovalenko's alibi checks out. We've got nothing on him, other than the fact that Landon owed his boss a lot of money. Too bad, because I really liked the guy for it. It would fit - Landon didn't pay up, so they decided to make an example of him for the other guys who owe them."
"Well, I don't have anything on that. But I do have fingerprints."
"Where?"
"On the bank statements and on the table." He handed the report he was carrying to Danny. "And we have a match."
"To the super. You know, Angell mentioned that he was acting squirrelly."
"We should go talk to her."
"And him."
::
The look on Angell's face when they told her about the prints was victorious. The look on the super's face when a black and white brought him in for questioning was anything but. Tucked away in interview room #7, Angell quickly and carefully laid it all out for him.
"You want to tell me what happened, or do you want me to tell you?" she asked, leaning over the table opposite him. "Because I can tell you what it looks like to us, and that would be 20 to life for you."
"What?" he cried out. He nervously glanced at the large window Danny and Hawkes stood behind, then looked back to Angell. "I didn't do nuthin' to him. Like I told you and the other useless cops, I saw some guys pushing him into a car. And they didn't look too friendly, neither."
"You see, that's interesting." Jess pulled out a report that she pushed across the table to him. "According to this you saw him getting into a car you didn't recognize with people you didn't know. And then when he didn't come home that night, you decided to call missing persons. I already checked around - you didn't report a kidnapping like you said you did. You called missing persons and put in a report that you had to know sounded like he went out for a few drinks and crashed at a friends' place. Something that would fall through the cracks until you needed something to cover your ass."
"I reported what I saw."
"You reported something that made you sound like a concerned citizen, one of the good guys, not someone who'd trash one of his tenants apartments when he didn't come home. Tell me, did you do that before or after you called the cops?"
"I didn't do anything wrong."
"No? How'd you do it, Clive? How'd you manage to make it look like a suicide?"
He jumped up, furious. "Do you really think I wanted him dead? No! With him dead I'll never get my money!"
"Get your money?" She settled into the seat opposite him, motioned for him to sit back down, and said, "Do tell."
"He got behind on his rent, too far behind. When I delivered the eviction notice he begged me for some help. He said he was about to win big. He offered to take me on as a partner, 50/50 split, if I'd just help him out. I-I was stupid and agreed. But I made him promise that he'd pay me back, on top of the split."
"And?"
"And then I started paying his rent for him. Out of my own pocket. I thought he was legit. Then I saw those guys grab him. I knew he couldn't be winning - he was losing. I was going to call the police and report it as a kidnapping, but I'm not stupid. I'd have to tell about the gambling, and then I'd never see my money again. So I reported him missing, said I was concerned because he went out with those guys and never returned. I even gave a good description of them, but no one took me seriously."
"Probably because you were lying to them."
"I wasn't lying. I just was... omitting a few things."
"Lying by omission?"
"Listen, I just wanted my money! That was my life savings that I lost, between what I gave him and what I used to pay his rent."
"Which is why you tossed his place."
"Yes! And it wasn't even breaking and entering. His name may have been on the lease, but I manage that apartment building and am within my rights to enter any apartment there. Plus, I had been paying for it - it was practically my apartment!"
"Practically? You trashed the place, destroyed most of his furniture even." She leaned back and watched him closely. "Why didn't you take anything? Big screen TV, gaming system people would give their right arms for, but you left it all behind."
"I-I was going to go back for it. After you told me he was dead. I just - when I found those reports from the bank, it was like a punch in the gut. He'd been taking out all of this money, but none of it had been used to pay me back. He'd cheated me. I'm the closest thing he's had to a friend since he was kicked out of diving, and he's been cheating me all along. I, well, that's when I knew I'd never see my money again. I was just so angry, I tore some stuff up and left. I didn't know he was dead until you called about the missing persons report. I figured that you'd think the thugs were the ones who trashed the place, and I could go in and get what was left after you were done."
"Uh-huh."
"But I didn't kill him. You have to believe me on that. I may have been mad at him, but if I had the choice between killing him and never getting my money back or not killing him and maybe getting it back - I wouldn't kill him. Look at me now, I'm ruined."
"That's the least of your worries. If you're lucky, the state'll be putting you up for a few years." Jess stood and left the interview room before he could answer. Danny and Hawkes met her in the hall, looking about as optimistic as she felt. Shaking her head, she leaned her shoulder against the wall. "I don't think he did it."
"Neither do I," Danny said. He folded his arms across his chest and continued, "All we've got is his fingerprints in the apartment."
"And his confession to breaking in," Hawkes added.
"Yeah, but he's got a point. If he wanted his money back he wouldn't kill the guy. He's never going to get it back now."
"Not to mention that even with the confession, a good defense lawyer might get the fingerprints thrown out. As super he can enter a tenant's apartment if necessary. We just have no way of proving, right now, that he didn't enter with permission."
"We have to go back to the apartment." Hawkes looked thoughtful. "There is something that we're missing."
"Okay, so we go back to the apartment."