“I bet I look like twenty miles of bad road,” she said.
“Not hardly.” Diana studied Tori. She’d been shot, yes. She’d lost blood. Yet somehow she held herself together enough to allow her vanity to come into play. The woman in 561D was one of those women with nerves of platinum and an unbending concern for how things appeared.
A man appeared in just inside the doorway and Diana motioned in his direction. It was Eddie Kaminski.
“She’s resting comfortably, but she can talk, Detective,” she said, walking out the door and past the detective.
Kaminski knew that the victim’s recollection of the crime would be most accurate closer to the event, rather than later. Tori Connelly’s doctors told him that she was on pain medication and fluids, but was lucid and given the circumstances would be able to share what she knew about what had transpired.
“Ms. Connelly,” Kaminski said, ducking into her room. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”
She barely looked at the man in a seasonally questionable black overcoat, dark slacks, and a rumpled white shirt.
“Ms. Connelly?” he repeated, this time a little louder, but modulated for the hospital setting. “I’m Detective Kaminski, Tacoma P.D. I’m here to talk about the shooting.”
She moved her lips. Her eyes fluttered.
“Yes,” she said.
He found a place by her bedside. Not so close as to invade her personal space, but with the narrowest of proximity to hear her words. Tori Connelly’s hair was swept back and her skin quite pale. Her eyes rested in charcoal hollows. She was fine featured. Despite her ordeal, however, she was an attractive woman.
She looked up, eyes damp. “There was so much blood. Everywhere.”
He nodded. “Yes, there was.”
She lowered her eyes and then looked out at the Tacoma skyline. “He didn’t make it,” she said, more a statement than a question. “My husband, I mean.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not.”
A tear rolled from the corner of her eye, leaving a shiny trail as it traveled to the white linen of the hospital pillow.
“But you did,” he said.
She held her words inside a moment.
“Yes, yes, I did.”
Kaminski took out a notepad and started writing. He’d given up the idea that he could remember every word uttered by a witness. It wasn’t that he was struggling with early-onset Alzheimer’s. It was simply the recognition that a notation was a safeguard against forgetting when it came time to tap out the report.
“Did he suffer?” she asked.
Kaminski stopped writing and looked up. “The coroner doesn’t think so. Death was instantaneous or thereabouts.”
She stayed quiet for a moment and then let out a long breath. “That’s a blessing.”
“I’d like to talk about what happened. From the beginning, if you don’t mind. I know you’re exhausted.”
He didn’t really care that she was tired, but he’d come off a two-day sensitivity training workshop that had him primed to all but hug a felon.
“We’d been out to dinner,” she said. “It was just one of those lazy evenings. We never expected anything to happen.”
“Of course not,” he said. “Where was dinner?”
“Oh, a little Italian place on Pacific we’d never tried before, and we’re never going back.” She caught her mistake. “I’ll never go back. No, I won’t.”
His stare bore down on her. “Anything happen at dinner?”
“What do you mean? Happen?”
“Out of the ordinary? I’m just trying to capture what happened before the shooting.”
She stared at him. “Did we argue? Is that what you’re hoping for, Detective?”
Kaminski was taken aback by her sudden shift to an undeniably defensive tone. “No, that’s not what I was inferring, Ms. Connelly.”
“Implying,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“Implying, not inferring.”
“Fine. Okay.”
“I want to know if Alex suffered long, or at all. If he was able to say anything.”
The detective hated this part of his job. More than anything. “I’m sorry, Ms. Connelly, but your husband was dead at the scene. I thought you knew.”
She looked away, toward the window.
“I knew. I just wanted someone to say it to me.” She looked at Kaminski, her hollow eyes now flooded. “I knew when I ran out that door that I’d never see him again. Never again.” The words tumbled out. “I loved Alex so, so much.”
“I know. I need to know what happened,” he said.
Tori looked at him, almost pleadingly.
“I don’t want to relive it.”
“You are the only living witness,” he said. “You want us to catch the killer, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“Tell me. I’m here to help you,” he said.
She told him that she was in “another room” when she heard a commotion and the “popping” sound of a gun.
“I mean, I know it was a gun now, but honestly, I thought it was a champagne cork popping. Alex could be like that, you know. Surprising me.”
“I’m sure he was a good man. I’m sorry for your loss. Then what happened?”
“I went into the living room and a man was standing there by Alex. I screamed and he started to run to the door.”
“How’d you get shot?”
She looked at him, irritated and emotional. “I’m getting to that. Do you mind?”
“Not all, please. Just trying to help, Ms. Connelly.”
“Then it was over. He ran out the door and I followed. I went over to Darius’s place and he called for help.”
“What did your assailant look like?”
“It happened so fast,” she’d said. “I think he had dark eyes, but they might have been dark blue or green.”
The response could have not been more ambiguous.
At least she didn’t say “red,” thereby ruling out an albino assailant, he thought.
“Could you determine his ethnicity?”
She looked at the reporting officer, almost blank eyed. “Not really. He had on a mask.”
This was the first time she’d mentioned a mask. Kaminski underlined that.
“Ski mask?” he repeated.
The wheels were turning now. Tori was retrieving some information. A pause, then an answer. “Not sure. More like a panty hose. I could see his face, but his features were smushed by the fabric.”
“Had you seen anyone in the area who matches—to the best of your recollection—what you saw that night?”
The question was bait, and usually good bait. A suspect frequently takes the suggestion and runs with it.
“He looked like a gardener.”
“A man who delivers groceries.”
“A