Chapter Four: The Charming Mr. Carlisle

N.Y.P.D. 27th Precinct

Interrogation Room

Friday November 27

Lupo and Bernard were in the interrogation room with Lucinda's husband Vance and his attorney George Preston, while Connie and Van Buren stood outside, watching through the glass and listening.

"Why'd you bring me down here?" asked Carlisle. "Couldn't we have done this at my apartment?"

"Relax, Vance, they're just trying to intimidate you," drawled Preston.

"Sorry you're not enjoying our hospitality," said Bernard. "But you see, we've got a problem, Mr. Carlisle." He held up Lucinda's phone records. "These are your wife's phone records."

"And they show that you called her at 5:27 p.m., roughly five hours before she was strangled to death in her apartment," said Lupo. "Her neighbor told us Lucinda was arguing with the person she was on the phone with around that time. Now we also know that you and Lucinda were going through a nasty divorce—and that she was asking for a pretty big settlement."

"There was a lot of bad blood between you two, and she wanted to put a huge dent in your bank account," said Bernard.

"She had you pegged for infidelity, and the courts tend to side with the wife in divorce cases," Lupo said. "You must've been pretty damn livid."

"Yeah, I won't lie, I hated the bitch, but I didn't kill her!" Carlisle said.

"See, here's what we think happened," said Bernard. "We think that argument you and your wife had over the phone was your breaking point. She just pushed you and pushed you until you finally snapped. So you bided your time for a few hours, and then you paid her a visit at her apartment. You argued some more, and then all that hatred, all that pent-up rage just burst right out of you."

"So you grabbed a hold of her neck, and you wrung the hell out of it," said Lupo.

"Until she wasn't breathing anymore—until she was dead," said Bernard.

"You're wrong—I didn't kill her!" Carlisle insisted angrily.

"Really?" Lupo said skeptically. "Care to tell us where you were Thursday November 19 between ten and eleven p.m.?"

"I was at home in my apartment in bed!" Carlisle answered. "Yes, I argued with Lucinda earlier that evening over the phone, and yes it was a very heated argument, but damn it, I did not kill her!"

"Well you see, here's where we hit another snag, Mr. Carlisle. Your prints were all over your wife's apartment—including on the sill of the window near the fire escape," said Bernard. "How do we know they're your prints? Because fifteen years ago, you did some time for possession. Your prints are in the system."

"Smoking a few joints in college doesn't make me a murderer!" Carlisle said.

"And neither does anything else you have on him," Preston spoke up smugly. "So you've got a record of a phone call. Divorcing partners argue over the phone all the time. The fact that it happened hours before she was killed? Pure coincidence. Oh—and there's an explanation for the prints, too. You see, before my client's wife filed for divorce and kicked him out, the two of them lived in that apartment together. Tenants open and close their windows all the time. So unless you have magic time stamps for all of those prints, you have nothing solid to use against my client. And that, gentlemen, is what we call circumstantial evidence. Well, darn—there went your case."

From the other side of the glass—

"Unfortunately, he's right," Connie said to Van Buren. "Everything we've got on him is circumstantial. We can't charge him. No judge would let it stick. Sorry, Anita. My hands are tied."

"Hey—we've been through this scenario before, right?" said Van Buren with a small smile.

Connie smiled.

"We'll get him or whoever it was," said Van Buren.

Connie nodded.

"You're right," she said.

As she turned to go—

"Connie?" said Van Buren.

Connie turned to her.

"Jack said you handled yourself very well on the stand during Woll's trial. I never got to commend you for that," Van Buren said kindly.

"You're the one who's been fighting cancer. You're the one who deserves to be commended," Connie said warmly.

"Thank you, Connie," Van Buren said, deeply moved.

Connie smiled again.

"Of course," she said. "Keep me posted."

With that, she left the precinct.

***DOINK! DOINK!***

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office

One Hogan Place Centre Street

Manhattan, New York

Friday November 27

Connie entered Mike's office, holding a drink carrier that was holding two warm, fresh Starbucks beverages.

"Hi!" Mike said, lighting up as he usually did whenever she entered the room.

"Hi!" Connie returned happily, closing the door behind her.

"Is one of those drinks for me?" Mike asked.

"No," Connie bantered light-heartedly with a smile. "You have to sit here and watch me drink both of them."

Mike smiled, and she winked at him, feeling a rush of the butterflies.

"Here," she then said, handing him his drink. "You look like you could use a pick-me-up, so I got you your favorite," she added, handing him the triple grande caramel latte she'd bought for him.

"Thank you," Mike said sweetly, taking it.

"You're welcome," Connie said warmly.

She then extracted her drink—a tall nonfat caramel macchiato—from the drink carrier, which she then threw away in Mike's trashcan.

"How'd it go at the precinct?" Mike asked, taking a sip of his latte. "We already know it's not the divorce attorney—Nelson Bryce. He has an alibi that checks out."

"Right," said Connie. "You know, I've been thinking—isn't he the guy with the cheesy firm commercials?"

"'Show the courts you mean business'?" Mike quoted with an adorable smirk.

Connie laughed.

"Yes!" she said. "Those!"

Mike snickered.

Suddenly, there came a knock at the door, and Jack came in.

"How's it going?" he asked them.

"Very well," said Mike. "We're talking about the Carlisle case."

"I just got back from the 2-7," said Connie. "Lupo and Bernard have already ruled out the divorce attorney, as you already know, and they thought they had a case against the husband."

"Thought?" said Jack.

"Well—yeah," Connie replied with a sigh. "But everything they have on him? All circumstantial."

She then relayed to Mike and Jack all the details of Lupo and Bernard's questioning of Lucinda's husband.

"Well," said Jack, "when we hit a dead end, we don't give up. We backtrack and take a different route."