A Cold Day in Hell Read online

  Copyright Information

  A Cold Day in Hell: A Cold Case Investigation © 2018 by Lissa Marie Redmond.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2018

  E-book ISBN: 9780738754529

  Book format by Bob Gaul

  Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

  Editing by Nicole Nugent

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Redmond, Lissa Marie, author.

  Title: A cold day in hell/Lissa Marie Redmond.

  Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota: Midnight Ink, [2018] |

  Series: A cold case investigation; #1

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017029344 (print) | LCCN 2017038984 (ebook) | ISBN

  9780738754529 | ISBN 9780738754109 (softcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Women detectives—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction.

  | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3618.E4352 (ebook) | LCC PS3618.E4352 C65 2018 (print)

  | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029344

  Midnight Ink does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

  Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

  Midnight Ink

  Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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  Woodbury, MN 55125

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  To my husband Dan and my daughters Natalie and Mary Grace,

  who have watched me hunched over my computer

  for so many hours: anything is possible.

  Author’s Note

  I was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. I have never lived anywhere else and hope my great love for the city shines through. This book takes place in Buffalo, but it is a work of fiction. In the spirit of full disclosure, I took many liberties with locations in this novel. The gated community Lauren lives in does not exist. Garden Valley resembles a neighboring town south of the city, but you won’t find it on a map. Real roles, such as mayor, Erie County district attorney, and the police commissioner are populated with fictional people who in no way resemble any living person. I took great pains to create fictional characters to populate the very real Buffalo that I love. Hopefully my fellow Buffalonians will forgive the literary license I took.

  1

  “You got a man here to see you, Lauren.”

  Detective Lauren Riley put her coffee cup down on top of a mound of paperwork that was inching its way toward the ceiling. It swayed there perilously for a second as she juggled the receiver, then settled. “Did he ask for me? By name, specifically?”

  Linda, the round little secretary who manned the front desk, handled the walk-ins, but she never called upstairs unless she absolutely had to. “Yes, you. By name.”

  “Who is it?”

  She could hear Linda covering the mouth piece with her hand, and then, “He says if I tell you who he is, you won’t see him.”

  Lauren frowned into the phone. “That’s odd. Hold on. I’m coming down.”

  She grabbed her stained World’s Greatest Grandpa coffee mug off its perch before it fell and got up from her desk. She had stolen it from her partner, Reese, who had taken it from Eddie Finestein when he retired. Lauren always made sure to leave a ring of lipstick on it so Reese wouldn’t steal it back. She knew he was too lazy to wash it.

  She walked past the old Homicide files that lined the room, some in boxes pushed against the wall, others in crumbling manila folders written on in fading ink. Stuffed into three rooms on the second floor of Buffalo, New York, police headquarters was thirty years’ worth of unsolved murders in disintegrating files. Ridiculous, she thought as she maneuvered through the clutter. These should all be digitized.

  Other, more modern, departments had been scanning them into computers for years. They had cross-referencing databases, geographic computer software programs, and unlimited travel expenses. In her office, they had duct tape holding the chairs together, mounds of decomposing paper, and computers that were new when Lauren Riley first came on the job sixteen years ago.

  “What’s up?” Shane Reese asked from across the room where he was running a suspect’s record. He had a red Buffalo Bison’s baseball cap turned backwards over his short dark hair. Very unprofessional, but he claimed the hat helped him to think. Lauren knew he was just a baseball fanatic and that the thinking part was questionable.

  “I don’t know. Some guy downstairs won’t give his name and wants to talk to me.”

  “You specifically?” They’d become so in tune as partners that they even asked the same questions.

  “That’s what Linda said.” She absently tucked a strand of blond hair that had come loose from her ponytail behind her ear.

  Walking by him, she looked at the dry erase board where they recorded appointments. High tech it was not, but it allowed everyone in the office to know who was coming or going and when. There was nothing scribbled on the calendar. Monday, June 26th: a total blank. “You could come down and investigate this with me, you know?”

  He smirked as he turned back to his computer. “Good luck with that. I’d love to help you, but I’m overwhelmed right now.”

  “You’re waiting for a pizza,” she pointed out.

  “A man has got to eat. You should try it sometime, slim.”

  “And get that nice middle-age belly you already have?” She poked him in the gut as she walked by. “No thanks. Are you going to help me solve this mystery or not?”

  He shrugged. “I need my pizza. You’re a big girl. Do your own homework. I’ll save you a slice.”

  “Thanks a bunch, partner,” she called as she walked past the hand-lettered Cold Case sign adorning the door to their overstuffed office.

  “Anytime,” he assured her, typing away.

  She mulled over who would come to headquarters but wouldn’t want to give his name. An old witness who crapped out? A snitch? Someone ready to confess to an old homicide? That would make her day. It was rare, but it happened.

  The part that really mystified her was why it was her, in particular. There were only four detectives in the Cold Case Homicide office. Reggie Major and Stanley Polanski worked opposite of Riley and Reese, so there were always two detectives on duty. They all had their own
cases that they were working on, their own witnesses and snitches. There were more than enough old homicides to go around. There was no good reason for anyone not to identify themselves.

  As soon as she passed through the door to the main lobby, everything became abundantly clear. The door hadn’t even closed behind her and she was already reaching for the handle to go back upstairs.

  Frank Violanti was standing there, briefcase in hand, like the evil little troll Lauren regarded him as.

  “Wait! Lauren, five minutes,” he called. “All I need is five minutes of your time.”

  She paused, door still open. “Why don’t you just pull my gun out of my holster and shoot me in the face? It would be quicker and less painful.”

  “Lauren, I know we’ve had our moments across from each other on the stand, but that’s really pretty dramatic. Even for you.”

  She turned to face him, but they weren’t really face to face, since she had a good two inches on him. “You called me a liar with a badge in your last summation.”

  “I was trying to save my client’s life.”

  She let the door fall shut. “You called me a sloppy cop and said you wouldn’t trust me to make you breakfast, let alone handle a homicide.”

  He was backing away from her now, hands up. “Courtroom banter. It’s not personal.”

  She thrust a finger out and poked him in the chest. “You said I tried to seduce your client to get him to confess.”

  “That was his perspective on the meeting … ”

  “You got a lot of balls to come here, to my office, and ask for five minutes of my time, Mr. Violanti.”

  “Just hear me out, Lauren.”

  “That’s Detective Riley. And I don’t have time for you.” She swiped her ID card and the door clicked open. “And by the way, I don’t care how much hair gel you use to spike it up, you’re still not five foot six.”

  Frank Violanti found himself standing in the lobby of police headquarters with the secretary frowning at him from behind her glass-encased counter. Riley had shot him down, but he hadn’t come this far as a defense attorney by taking no for an answer.

  2

  At the age of thirty-eight, Lauren Riley was a twice-divorced mother of two college-aged daughters, working cold case homicides. Raising the girls alone had been hard, but somehow she had managed. Pregnant at eighteen, again at nineteen, and divorced by twenty, her daughters never knew their dad. Ron Riley told her he was going to Florida to work construction when she was six months pregnant with Erin. Said he’d send his first paycheck to cover her travel expenses. Lauren never heard from him again, except to sign the divorce papers. Two years later she got a call from his sister saying he died in a motorcycle accident. No great loss in the long run, but at the time she had struggled. Struggled hard.

  The look on her mom’s face when she moved back home steeled her resolve that she would never again depend on a man for anything. That resolve had been eroded and tested over the years. She made more mistakes. But she had also learned from them, right?

  Now she was single, both her girls were out of state in college, and she was getting restless. She missed having to rush home and help Erin with her science project or take Lindsey to soccer practice. Her life consisted of the job. She suspected finding a good man was highly unlikely. She loved losers. Every single man she’d ever dated was damaged.

  Not that Lauren didn’t look good. She wasn’t beautiful, not in the classic sense. She had natural blond hair that had not darkened with age, the pale skin that came with northeast winters, and only a few lines around her sharp blue eyes. Except for the tiny scar on her forehead where she had been hit with a fishing pole on a call when she first came out on patrol, she had remained pretty much unscathed on the job.

  Her attractiveness came more from the way she carried herself. A quiet confidence that stemmed from shyness as a child and evolved into a cool aloofness that intrigued men as an adult. She’d been blessed with a slim build, verging on skinny at times. She just never ate much. Her mother was the same way, existing on tea and toast down in Florida.

  The pool of eligible men was shallow at her age; everyone came with baggage. In her mind, she repelled good men. Her track record proved that. She figured she was better off waiting for her daughters, now eighteen and nineteen, to meet their own Mr. Rights and do the whole grandma thing. Maybe adopt that golden retriever puppy she never had time for.

  Retire, dog walk, baby-sit. A nice reward after all the difficult years. And never run into slimy Violanti again, she mentally added as she walked back to her office.

  That was her plan.

  But in Lauren Riley’s life, everyone else had plans too.

  3

  “Get off my car, Violanti.”

  He was leaning up against her Taurus, his expensive suit making him look like a little boy who’d raided his dad’s closet. Short, impossibly young-looking, Frank Violanti was a forty-one-year-old cocky Italian who’d made it big as a defense attorney despite the handicap of his height and youthful looks. Since he had already tried and failed with eye-to-eye, he was obviously giving a shot at toe-to-toe. He peeled himself off her car and stood in front of her.

  “I was just admiring the lovely, economical blue Ford you drive. I would’ve pegged you for a nice, chic foreign job.”

  She tried to maneuver around him. “Wrong again, Counselor. My dad was an autoworker. Now go away.” When he continued to block her door, she considered throwing a shoulder into him and forcibly pushing him off to the side. He must have seen the storm brewing in her face and stepped back.

  “Come on. Just listen,” he pleaded with her. “Do you really think I wanted to come here and be abused by you? Do you think I would be here if I didn’t have to be?”

  Lauren clicked the unlock button on her key fob and threw her duffle bag into the backseat, then slammed the door for effect. “Okay. I’ll bite. Why are you bothering me?”

  “I want to hire you as a private investigator.”

  “You cannot be serious.”

  His demeanor immediately flipped to grave, as if he knew this was his one and only chance to convince her. “As a heart attack.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why me?”

  “Do you really need me to say it?” All around them cars were backing out of spots and pulling out of the lot, engulfing them in exhaust fumes. The oppressive summer heat made it worse. Buffalo was in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave. Apparently, hell had done the opposite of freezing over.

  She crossed her arms against her chest. “Yes, because for the life of me, I would think you’d rather stick pins in your eyes than have to deal with me on a professional level.”

  “Nicely put, but the fact is we’ve had three hard-fought trials together.”

  “And you lost every one,” she pointed out with some satisfaction.

  “Exactly. Because you’re good at what you do, and more importantly, juries trust you. When you get on that stand and say why you think someone is guilty, they believe you, no matter how many holes I punch in the case.”

  “They believed me because your clients were guilty.”

  “Maybe,” he conceded for her benefit. “But I just got retained to represent a young man and I’m convinced he’s not guilty. And I think you will be too. I just want you to meet with the kid. That’s all. I think once you meet him, you’ll want to take his case.”

  “What’s he charged with?”

  “Murder second.”

  “I can’t investigate a case for the defense in a murder. I work in the Homicide squad, stupid.”

  “She was murdered in Garden Valley, not Buffalo. Not your jurisdiction. I know you have your private investigator’s license. I would hire you under that.” His face tightened up. “Come on, Lauren, there’s a lot of pressure for the county attorneys to nail this kid. You don’t think I know I’m stickin
g my neck out by even asking you for this? I’m not asking as a friend. I’m asking in the interest of justice, because I think this kid is being railroaded and the real killer is still out there.”

  She was disturbed by the genuine display of emotion he was putting on. It threatened the delicate balance of hate and disgust they had for each other. “Way to play to my soft spot.”

  “I have to use what I can.” Knowing he was making progress, even a little, he grinned his little-boy smile at her.

  Lauren drank him in with the eye of a seasoned bullshit detector. She wasn’t buying it. He had to have an angle. Violanti always did.

  “Who’s the victim?”

  “Katherine Vine.”

  “Whoa, now I get it. Her murder was all over the radio this morning when I was driving in. She was found strangled behind a toy store.” She held up her hands as if to ward off the bad mojo. “You fell into a media shit storm and want me to join you. No way. I wouldn’t touch that case with a ten-foot pole, even if you weren’t the kid’s defense attorney.”

  She opened the driver’s side door to her car and started to get in when Violanti grabbed onto the handle. “Please. Lauren, I’m begging you. Just talk to David. If you think he did it, walk right to the prosecution. Go right to the Garden Valley detective, Joe Wheeler, with everything he says.”

  She paused. “It’s Joe Wheeler’s case?”

  Violanti’s swagger seemed to fail him a little. “He made the arrest this morning.”

  She mulled that over in her head for a second. “Joe Wheeler is an even bigger scumbag than you are. And you can get disbarred for saying things like that to me.”

  “That’s how strongly I believe in David. I’m willing to risk it. He’s just a kid, Lauren. Eighteen years old. Just talk to him.”

  She studied the look on his face for a moment. Sincerity. That was something new. “Why do you care so much about this kid?”

  “Because he’s my godson.”