Free Final Appeal by Lisa Scottoline

After all, you’re the cop here.”
    “What’d you say?”
    “You heard me.”
    But she’s right. I did, and it gives me an idea.

10
     

    E XECUTIVE PARKING LOT , says the sign on the steel racks of Samsonite briefcases. It’s the only spark of humor in the grim police station, from the aging alcoholic asleep in the lobby to the battleship-gray paint peeling off the cinder-block walls. Detective Ruscinjki blends in here, with his gray hair and gray eyes. He folds his furry arms behind an ancient typewriter in the bustling Central Detectives’ office and looks up at me. “You sure you’re not with the media?” he asks.
    “No.”
    A black detective in shirtsleeves and shoulder holster walks by, ignoring us.
    He looks unconvinced. “We got lots of calls from the media on this case. Print media. Electronic media. They’d say anything to get past the desk, anything to get the gory details.”
    “I’m not a reporter. I told you, I worked for Judge Gregorian. I have court ID if you want.”
    He leans back in his chair at a long table in the common room. “All right, Miss Rossi, so you’re not with the media. You’re not his lawyer, either, or a member of the family. That means I tell you what I tell the reporters. The case is closed. We have no reason to believe that the judge’s death was anything other than a suicide.” A lineup of battered file cabinets sits behind him, solid as the stone wall he’s putting up for my benefit. Or detriment.
    “I was just wondering how you can be so sure. Is there some physical evidence you found?”
    “Not that I intend to discuss with you. Trust me, it was a suicide. I saw it.”
    I feel my mouth open. “What? You saw Armen?”
    He frowns, confused for a moment. “The judge? I was on the squad Monday night, I got the call. That’s why you asked the desk man for me, isn’t it?”
    “I didn’t ask anybody for you. I just said I needed to talk to one of the detectives about Judge Gregorian.”
    He takes one look at me and seems to sense there was something between Armen and me; he’s not a detective for nothing. “I’m sorry,” he says, softening. “Sit down.”
    So I do, in a stiff-backed metal chair catty-corner to him.
    “Listen to me,” he says, leaning on the typewriter. “I’ve been a detective for nine years now, spent twelve years on the force before that. I don’t rule it a suicide unless I’m one hundred percent. On this one, I was one hundred percent. So was the ME.”
    “ME?”
    “Medical examiner. He was there himself, since the judge was so prominent, husband of the senator and all. They’ll have the toxicology reports in a month, and the autopsy results. But I tell you, we agreed on the scene, him and me.”
    A medical examiner; an autopsy. I can’t even think about it, not now anyway. “What was the evidence?”
    He shakes his head. “I couldn’t tell you that even if I wanted to.”
    “I read a lot about it in the newspapers. They seemed to have plenty of information.”
    “An important man, a case like this, the papers will know a lot. We may have a leak or two, there’s nothin’ I can do about that. But none of it comes from me.”
    “I read in the paper that the gunshot wound was to the right temple. Armen—the judge—was right-handed. Is that the type of evidence you look for?”
    “One of the things.”
    “The papers said the gun was his wife’s.”
    “She kept it in the desk. Felt very bad he used it that way. Cried a river.”
    “The paper also said the doors and windows were locked. So that’s something you look for too, right? In a suicide.”
    “Yes. Generally.”
    “In the Daily News they said it was a contact wound. What does that mean? Like you said, ‘generally’?”
    “Miss Rossi, I’m not going to tell you about this case. I can’t.”
    “Just generally, not in this case. Does it mean a wound where the gun makes contact?”
    Ruscinjki purses his lips; they’re as flat as the rest of his features,