Page 3 of Crosshairs
“Did you come up with that name, Lois?”
She beamed for a moment. “Why, yes, I did.”
“Well played. Descriptive without being too campy. You could give lessons to theDaily Newsor thePostabout variety and imagination when naming a killer.”
“Thanks, Bennett. It would be an even better story if you could give me a few details.”
I shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you, Lois.”
“We heard the victim was well-known.”
I shrugged again. I honestly didn’t know anything yet except the victim’s name: Adam Glossner.
CHAPTER 4
THE APARTMENT WAS on the third floor, so I took the stairs. When I stepped through the stairwell door on the third floor, the scene was exactly as I had expected. Cops, medical examiner workers, and tenants all milled around the open door to an apartment. A few doors down, sitting in a chair that looked like it came from the apartment, was a distraught doorman. Several crime-scene techs were getting their equipment ready, and a uniformed patrol sergeant kept nonessential workers and gawkers away from the door.
The sergeant looked up and said, “About time someone from Homicide showed up.”
I smiled at Sergeant Leslie Asher and said, “We show up as soon as we’re called.”
“Touché.” She smiled and said, “I already sent the imbecile who didn’t call you home. What we got isn’t pretty.”
“Talk to me, Leslie.”
“The victim is forty-one-year-old Adam Glossner. Some kind of hedge-fund manager. His wife found the body about two hours ago, when she realized he wasn’t in bed. She said he’d been headed out to the balcony when she went to bed around nine. It’s a single bullet hole visible on the right side of his head. Looks like he sort of bounced off the French door frame and fell on the floor. The two kids are with the wife in one of the neighbors’ apartments. There, you’re up to date.”
I stepped into the apartment and let the videographer and photographer do their job before the crime-scene techs moved in. The body was still on the floor where it had been found. Someone from the medical examiner’s office was waiting outside to take Mr. Glossner.
I paused and said a quick prayer for Adam Glossner’s soul. My grandfather always tells me how important it is to take every life seriously. By extension we must take every death seriously. This isn’t a ritual I treat lightly. But I wish I didn’t have to do it so often.
I felt a pang of sorrow for the victim’s children. I’ve seen too many kids grow up without parents due to homicides. A murder can have ripples in a family for generations.
For a long moment, I stared down at the body and its blood that had seeped onto the gorgeous tile floor. The dark blood clashed with the white tile. It was my deepest hope that Glossner’s wife had been able to get the kids out of the apartment without them seeing the remains of their father.
I could see exactly what Sergeant Asher had been talking about. It was clear Glossner had been standing on the balcony when the bullet struck him. I could picture him spiraling through the door and onto the pristine tile.
I looked out the open French doors. The apartment was on a bend in the road that allowed a view of the balcony from at least five different buildings. I tried to get an idea where the shot had come from. I was at a loss. My boss, Harry, had texted me that he already had cops canvassing the area. Maybe someone heard or saw something.
I walked through the apartment by myself. I could see the family had built a life here. Young kids, good job, the American dream. I hoped the victim had had enough sense to appreciate his family and situation. I’d seen many a Wall Street financial manager work so hard they forgot they had a life outside of lower Manhattan.
The other thing I realized as I stared at the wound on the right side of Adam Glossner’s head: I was not used to homicides like this. I generally dealt with killers who get up close and personal. Even with firearms. Most people feel more confident the closer they get.
Clearly that wasn’t true of this killer.
CHAPTER 5
I’D GOTTEN A decent sense of the crime scene. Now it was time to toughen up and do my least favorite assignment in a case like this: interview the grieving. I nodded to the crime-scene techs filing into the victim’s apartment as I walked out and then down the hallway to the neighbor’s place.
The door was open. I saw a young female patrol officer sitting on the couch next to Victoria Glossner. The officer had a little boy in her lap as the mom rocked back and forth with a girl I judged to be about six years old.
Mrs. Glossner was a very attractive, fit woman of about thirty-five, probably six or eight years younger than her husband. I don’t even notice teary, bloodshot eyes anymore on this job. But I saw how she clutched her daughter and how both the kids looked completely confused. It hit me like a sledgehammer. I remembered talking to my kids when their mother was dying of cancer.We’d had months to prepare for the eventual shock. What do you do when your whole world changes in just a moment?
The patrol officer looked up and saw me. I nodded. Then I tilted my head to the left and the sharp young officer stood up with the little boy still in her arms. She said to the little girl, “Let’s see if we can find something for you guys to drink.”
Mrs. Glossner released her daughter to walk with the officer into another room. I sat across from her in an antique, uncomfortable chair. I introduced myself and told her how sorry I was. It wasn’t an act. I am always sorry in a situation like this.
She said she was okay to talk. “I watch so many of the police reality shows that I know how important the first forty-eight hours of a homicide investigation can be. I don’t know what I can tell you. But I’ll answer any questions you have.”