They waited until Turley had pulled himself together enough to continue. Mike leaned forward, his face a mask of compassion; only Steve knew what his partner was really thinking and he managed contain his amusement.
"I know how difficult this must be for you, Mr. Turley, the shock… but I need to ask. What, exactly, did you do when you found your wife?"
Turley pulled his face out of his hands and stared at the lieutenant, his eyes red and moist but, surprisingly, no tear stains on his cheeks once again. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, did you try to get her out of the tub, try to revive her?"
The bereaved husband shook his head, frowning. "No… no. She was dead. There was no point, was there?"
"You knew she was dead without checking?" Steve asked from his position behind his partner, and Turley's eyes changed focus, his frown deepening.
"Well, ah," he stumbled, his eyes flicking back to the lieutenant briefly, "well, she wasn't moving, and her face was in the water. And I saw that hole in the wall where the towel ring had been…" He shrugged helplessly, looking at Mike again. "Oh my god," he whispered loudly, "do you think I could've revived her?"
Mike smiled grimly, shaking his head, and reached out to touch Turley's knee in comfort. "Probably not… but, well, I know if it had been my wife, I would've tried…"
Turley's stare turned inward and his face crumpled. "Oh my god, oh my god," he started to repeat over and over. He buried his head in his hands again and his entire body started to shake.
Mike looked up at the uniformed officer and nodded as he got to his feet. "Mr. Turley, this officer here will help you move your things into this room when our, ah… our people are finished in yours. We'll leave you alone for now, but we'll probably need to talk to you again after your wife's -… well, after the coroner determines the cause of death."
Turley's head snapped up. "It was that damn towel ring. I'm sure of it. She probably fell and tried to stop herself, and that damn ring pulled out of the wall." He started to sob and covered his face again.
Mike looked at Bowerman again and raised his eyebrows, then gathered Steve with a nod and led his partner out into the hallway. After Steve closed the door, he looked at the older man and shook his head. "You don't believe him, do you?"
Mike shook his head sharply and snorted. "No. Do you?"
"No. But I gotta admit, he's a better actor than I thought he would be. He's got that fake grieving thing down really well."
"Yes, he does," Mike agreed as they returned to 1521. The door was being held open with a wooden stop and the two forensics techs were still hard at work in the bathroom. When the two homicide detectives stepped into view in the doorway, one of them looked up and nodded.
"How's it going, fellas?" Mike asked with a smile.
It looked like the entire room was covered with fine black fingerprint dust. The tub was still full, the ring lying on the bottom. One of the techs pointed at the hole in the tile wall. "That would seem to be the culprit, Lieutenant. Looks like she might have taken a fall and grabbed it."
Mike pursed his lips, his hands in his pants pockets, and nodded. "Yeah, looks like it, Don." His eyes raked the small room. "Okay, fellas, we're gonna let you do your thing. Make sure we get your report as soon as you're finished."
"You got it, Mike."
"Listen, ah, can you make sure the door is locked when you leave. I'm gonna have the hotel keep this room off limits for the foreseeable future until we release it."
"Okay, will do."
Steve followed his partner out into the hallway again. "So what do you want to do right now?" he asked as they headed down the corridor to the bank of elevators.
"Well, I'm gonna have a talk with Bernie. I have a couple of questions. Why don't you take a stroll down Powell?"
"You mean retrace Turley's jogging route?"
"Yeah," Mike nodded as he pressed the Down button. He looked at his partner with a mirthless smile. "I want to know if he killed her before or after his run."
# # # # #
Powell was extremely steep as it headed south towards Union Square. Steve was walking slowly, trying not to aggravate his still iffy back muscles. His recovery from the bone bruises incurred during the earthquake had been steady and promising, and he didn't want to set progress back in any way. As he watched the cable car rumble by him, he was grateful he was walking downhill. And he would grab a cab back to the Hall when he was finished so he didn't have to attempt that torturous uphill climb to the top of Nob Hill on his return.
The knowledge that Turley had gone out of his way to introduce himself that morning to both the desk clerk and the doorman was churning around in his mind. It stood to reason that if Mrs. Turley had been murdered by her husband and he was using his jogging as an excuse to be out of the room when she had her 'accident', then it was imperative that he was noticed. And the fact that he had specifically jogged to Union Square, a popular tourist spot, mid-morning, probably meant that he would've made sure he was noticed there as well.
The problem, as Steve figured it, was where would he have done that. Making himself noticeable on the street would have been fairly easy to do, but finding those random witnesses would be a problem, both for the police and Turley to use as an alibi. So, he figured, it was probably done in an establishment that could be easily located for confirmation.
At that hour of the morning, diners and cafes would be the logical places, the inspector thought, and, figuring that Turley would pick someplace neared Union Square as it would add credence to his cover story, as he crossed Sutter Steve started looking for eating establishments on both sides of the street.
He spotted a small coffee shop on the other side of Powell and crossed at the light. He pulled his badge out of his pocket as he opened the glass door and stepped inside.
# # # # #
Mike knocked on the opaque glass door and waited for the "Come in!" before entering. Bernie was at his desk, filling out a form, when the lieutenant stepped closer to the desk. "What brings you down here, Mike? I haven't had a dead homeless guy recently."
Mike snorted. "Yeah, that one's on a back burner right now, I'm afraid. We've run out of leads."
The medical examiner looked up, frowning. "Jeez, sorry to hear that. I thought you guys were getting somewhere with that one."
Mike grimaced, tilting his head. "Yeah, we thought so too, but we hit a brick wall. Hopefully something will drop into our laps before another body winds up on your table."
"Yeah…. So, ah, what can I do for you?"
"That, ah, that drowning at the Mark…?"
Bernie's eyebrows shot up. He reached across the desk and picked up a metal medical clipboard. He flipped it open, his eyes quickly scanning the top sheet. "Yeah, I got the initial report here. A woman drowned in one of the bathtubs. A fall." He looked up at the detective. "You don't think so?"
Mike smiled mirthlessly. "Let's just say I have my suspicions. When do you think you'll get to her?"
Bernie snapped the clipboard shut. "If you think it's suspicious, I'll get right on it. What do you want me to look for?"
"Well, from the scene, it looks like she was taking a bath, started to get out of the tub and might of slipped and grabbed for the towel ring on the side tile wall. The ring came out and it looks like she fell and hit her head on the tub and drowned."
"And you don't think that's what happened?"
"No, I don't. She's a small woman, barely bigger than my Jeannie, and I don't think she could pull that towel ring out of the wall… unless there was some kind of… construction flaw. And we're talking the Mark here, right? Not a motel in the boonies somewhere."
The coroner nodded.
"Bernie, how long does it take for bruises to come out after someone dies?"
"You mean antemortem bruises - bruising that would happen right before a person dies?"
"Yeah."
Bernie shrugged. "Depends. Sometimes 24 hours, sometimes a little longer. Not everyone bruises the same way."
Mike frowned. "So we have to keep the body for a least two days, hunh?"
"You think that might be a problem?"
The detective raised his eyebrows and nodded. "Yeah, I do. The Turleys are from St. Louis, as he keeps telling everybody," he snorted, ignoring Bernie's confused frown as he continued, "and I have a sneaking suspicion he's either going to try to have his wife cremated as soon as possible, or he's going to ask for her body to be shipped home immediately. I need you to make sure that doesn't happen."
"Well, I'll do the best I can, but if he shows up here with a court order, I won't have a choice. Unless you can get the D.A. to prevent that from happening."
Mike pursed his lips, nodding slowly. "Well, guess I'm gonna have to pay Gerry a visit."
# # # # #
After two diners and a coffee shop proved disappointing, Steve opened the glass door to Stella's Bakery; the warm and inviting aromas of fresh bread and dark roast coffee washed over him and he smiled with pleasure. His badge in his hand, he approached the young woman behind the counter.
"What can I get you this morning?" she asked brightly with a beaming smile that wavered slightly when she saw the badge. "Oh -!"
Bestowing upon her his most charming smile, he chuckled quickly and raised his other hand. "I just want to ask you a question, that's all."
As her brows started to knit with worry, he glanced at the glass display case. "Ah, I'll have a cup of coffee and, ah," he took a half-step to the side to study the offerings, "and one of those butter croissants, please."
"Sure," she said a little unsteadily, "ah, what would you like in your coffee?"
"Oh, ah, a little milk, no sugar, please."
As she moved away to prepare the coffee, she asked, "What would you like to know?"
"Ah, yes, have you been working here all morning?"
She nodded as she poured the dark coffee into the cardboard cup. "Sure have. I opened up. The bakers," she nodded over her shoulder towards a room in the back, "they come in at 2 to start the baking and I arrive at 7 to open up." She poured a little milk into the cup.
"Ah, this is going to sound like a silly question, but around 9, 9:30 this morning, did a man in his thirties, dressed like he was jogging, come in here for a cup of coffee or a pastry?"
Her eyes suddenly lit up. "Oh, do you mean Mr. Turley from St. Louis?"
Steve frowned momentarily then smiled. "Ah, yeah, that would be him, yes. So he was in here?"
"Oh, yeah. He got a coffee and a Danish to go." She crossed back to the counter and put the steaming coffee down in front of him. "He was a real sweetheart. He was so excited to be here. Said it was his first time to San Francisco and he couldn't wait to take his wife to see The City from Coit Tower."
