“I was doing a favor for Chuck Demeter; he’s on the burglary desk.” He shook his head. “Talk about no good deed.”
“That’s when you met Chloe.” He nodded. “Do you always date your crime victims?” Dale’s face darkened. This wasn’t good. “Look, you might have to take the stand. If you can’t even handle my asking you questions like that, you’ll get shredded when the DA gets in your face. So let’s try that again. If you’ve dated other victims, some of them might come out and say you used your position to push them into it.”
He exhaled, but his expression was pained. “No, I’ve never dated a crime victim before.”
“But since you’ve been working in Homicide for the past ten years, I’d guess victims are off the table. Hopefully. What about witnesses?”
He shook his head. “No. No one.”
“Tell me about that burglary.” From what I’d heard, the burglar had been Suspect Number One. Our first strategy would be to dig up evidence that showed the police should’ve stuck with that theory instead of zeroing in on Dale. “Was there forced entry?”
“No. The girls had a small balcony with a sliding glass door where they kept a few potted plants. They said they liked to leave it open to let in the air, and they forgot to lock it when they went out that night. When they got home, they found it pushed open wide.”
I could relate. I left my windows open all the time. Even in my office. “What’d he take?”
“Just jewelry. But it looked like pretty nice stuff. Chloe had photos. A diamond necklace, two-carat diamond studs, a tennis bracelet. I can’t remember exactly what she said it was worth. Something like ten grand, I think.”
“Did you believe it was worth that much?”
Dale shrugged. “Seemed about right to me, but that’s the insurance company’s problem. I just take the report.”
“Did they have anything else? Like a TV, a laptop, a stereo?”
“Yeah, but they weren’t high-end, and it would’ve been tough to get anything big over that balcony. It didn’t seem like a planned hit to me. The building’s nothing special. Neither is the neighborhood. You wouldn’t go there thinking you’d find anything worth stealing.”
“So you think this guy happened to spot the open sliding glass door and decided to take a chance?”
“Yeah. That’s why I had the place dusted from top to bottom. The job was strictly amateur hour, so I figured he had to have left prints.”
“But he didn’t.”
“I think he probably did. The print guys just couldn’t find any that were usable.”
