“How did you see that?” Troy asked.
“Jane told me,” I replied, dropping the paper into my hand. I handed Troy the forceps and inspected the paper, no bigger than a piece from a memo cube, white, and folded in quarters.
“What is it?” Troy ignored the comment I made about the dead woman talking to me.
Wise lady.
“Paper,” It contained four words. “‘Don’t take it personally.’”
“Pardon?”
“That’s what it says, ‘Don’t take it personally.’” I showed her the note.
“Wonder what it means?”
“Nothing good,” I replied. “Good things are not usually hidden in a crime scene.”
I held the note carefully by one corner and took an evidence bag out of my pack. Troy took it and opened it up, allowing me to drop the note into it.
I wrote the date, time, and Jane Daughtry’s name on the chain of custody form printed on the evidence bag then added a description of the evidence and signed my name. I dropped it into my bag. My gut told me this would be our case, so I’d generate a case number back at the office.
Turning to Jane Daughtry’s body, I started by counting and inspecting stab wounds. Most of them appeared shallow. The deep, life-ending gashes were down her wrists.
Did someone want this to look like suicide? All the wounds could’ve been made by the victim, with none in difficult to reach places. But why would someone repeatedly stab themselves? Where was the blood? Who took all the sleeping pills?
“There isn’t one drop of blood anywhere … why?” I said.
“The shower was running hot when uniforms arrived. The shower head is removable and high-powered. You can see water drops high up on the walls.”
“Disregarding the suicide idea for the moment, someone cleaned up.”
Which didn’t rule out suicide; family members have been known to clean up after suicides. If you intended to murder someone, killing them in a shower was a good option. It confined the mess and made it easier to clean up.
“So we have a clean killer?”
Be nice if all killers were so considerate.
What was missing? Smell. If the killer cleaned, he did so with water not with bleach or any other cleaning product. I breathed in through my nose. No residual chemical smells. I took a closer look at the cleaning products I’d seen in the cabinet under the sink and pulled out two spray bottles and a cream cleanser, all hypoallergenic non-scented cleaning products. One of the sprays was for glass, the other a general bathroom cleaner.
“This stuff might have been used on the surfaces,” I said, checking each bottle for a residual smell, just in case. Sometimes non-scented wasn’t.
Replacing the bottles, I noticed a roll of paper towels behind the stack of cleaning cloths. I opened the swing-top trash can next to the vanity. Scrunched paper towels.
“So the Unsub hosed down the shower and the body, then wiped over all the external surfaces with paper towels and cleaning product?” Troy said, writing in her notebook.
“Maybe. Or Jane cleaned the bathroom earlier.”
It’s never straightforward. People complicate things.
I bent down to Jane and said, “I’ll find out what happened here.” And smelled a warm scent rising from her skin. A fleeting, ethereal image filled my mind, of Jane stepping into the shower, reaching for shower gel from the caddy on the wall. My eyes swung to the caddy. No shower gel.
So where was it?
When I looked up, Troy was watching me.
“Do you always talk to the dead?”
“Yes. She’s the only one who knows what really happened here, apart from the killer and Jane won’t lie.”
“I suppose,” Troy said.
“There’s no shower gel or soap in the shower,” I said, breathing in the same scent again. It reminded me of something, a perfume I’d smelled before.
Troy wrote in her notebook. “That’s odd. But you found hypoallergenic cleaning products so maybe she’s allergic to soaps and so forth.”
I didn’t really want to say I saw her reach for the shower gel before she died.
“Or, the killer took it,” I said.
“A trophy?”
“Possibly.”
“What are your thoughts?”
“I think our Unsub is just getting started.” The note created a special kind of disturbance in the force. One that told me we would see more notes and more death. “There’s something familiar about this scene. I’ll get back to you.”
Bits and pieces of the crime scene and Jane’s home swirled in my mind. What happened to the missing sleeping pills? How many sex offenders lived in the area? Any sexual aspect to the killing? What happened to the shower gel she’d used? And I knew without a shadow of a doubt that the Unsub had left some kind of evidence in the house, we just had to find it. Every contact leaves a trace. There is no exception to that rule.
A female voice I didn’t recognize spoke from deep within my head, telling me to start with the prescription bottle. I checked the bathroom cabinet again. That bottle was the only one from that particular doctor and the only one facing the wrong way. Using my phone, I photographed the label.
That’s All
“Where are you?”
I closed my eyes for a moment and rested against the car, gathering strength from Mitch’s voice to tell him I would be late home. Things I’d discovered back at the office didn’t bode well for a speedy case resolution. The earlier feeling that the Unsub was just getting started wouldn’t go away.
“El, where are you?” Mitch said again.
“Ox Road, Fairfax. I’ll probably be late home tonight. Sorry.”
Mitch didn’t even sigh. “How late?”
“Dunno?” I tried to cover my disappointment, without success. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Ellie, you all right?”
“Uh huh. I just want to be home with you.” I did my best to let a smile fill my voice. “I’ll see you when I see you.”
“How come I can’t get an image of you right now?”
Because for now, I don’t want you to?
“This is not a nice case. Best you don’t see it.”
That was weak. Since when do we investigate nice cases?
“You sure that’s the reason?” His voice lightened. “You all right, not getting cold feet?”
I laughed. “My feet are quite warm.” I wriggled my toes inside my boots.
Yep. Warm. No cold feet here.
“Smart ass. As long as you’re okay.” His smile bounced. “Miss you.”
“I am okay. Hey, my place or yours tonight?”
“Yours.”
“Good.”
“Be safe. Three things.”
I smiled. “Three things.” The three things made my smile widen. Love. Want. Need.
Mitch hung up. I felt bad; it was easier when I mentally took him with me. But not this afternoon. I didn’t want him seeing what I saw or knowing what I know, yet. I felt mean for shutting him out.
Complicated? You betcha.
I pocketed my phone and stared at the semi-detached houses in front of me. I knew from the aerial photographs I’d seen of the subdivision that there were sixteen houses in total. All the houses outwardly identical, all backed onto a large grassed common area, crisscrossed by paths and containing raised flower beds, trees, and park benches.
Pleasant. Probably a really nice place to live. If you liked neighbors close by.
Crime scene tape fluttered in the warm breeze. Police cars with lights still rolling lined the curb in front of my car.
A black Chevy Suburban pulled in behind mine. Sam, Lee, and Kurt piled out and approached.
“What have we got?” Kurt said.
“A murder,” I replied, standing up straight. “I want you to view this scene. I need your eyes.”
“My eyes are at your disposal,” Kurt said with a small smile.
Sam tipped his chin at me. “Where do you want us, Chicky Babe?”
“Do a door-to-door for me, Sam, I’m not buying that no one in this subdivision saw anything.”
“You got it,” Lee replied. He and Sam walked toward the home on the left of the crime scene tape.
“Shall we?” Kurt motioned me to join him as he walked up the path.
Yes, let’s. I can hardly wait to get back in there.
The police officer guarding the door handed us disposable booties and latex gloves. I led the way to the body.
Kurt took a few longer strides until he leveled with me. “Talk,”
“Jane Daughtry, twenty-six-years-old, works for us.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, she works for human resources, a civilian.”
“Okay. What else?”
“Another FBI employee made the nine-one-one call,” I said. “Apart from that tidbit of information, it looks like the Unsub gained entry through an open window in the living room.”
I stopped at the open bathroom door. From the hallway, I could see part of her body slumped in the shower.
“I counted seventeen stab wounds, no blood. The shower was running when the first officer arrived on the scene.”
Kurt stepped into the room. Moments later he came out and beckoned to me. “What haven’t you told me?”
So much.
“Wish you’d brought me coffee,” I replied with a small smile. “What I know is not going to make this easier or make you happy.”
“Figured that,” he said. “Just tell me.”
“Jane wrote dark poetry. She had a signed copy of my book – signed by Mac.”
Kurt’s eyes met mine. “You okay?”
“Yes.”
Gathering facts, leaving emotions to flounder in the dark where they belonged.
“I found a loose piece of paper in her notebook. It said ‘Don’t leave me.’ She pointed me to a small piece of paper hidden behind the vanity.” I waved a finger to where I’d found the memo. “And that said ‘Don’t take it personally.’ The handwriting didn’t match hers from the notebook.”
Facts made it easier.
“She had a new prescription for a month’s worth of sleeping pills three days ago, not her usual doctor by the look of the label. There are ten pills left.” After a slight pause, I plowed on. “I saw her reach for shower gel – there’s no shower gel here.”
Kurt’s eyes never left mine. “You saw her?”
“Yes.”
“All right.” He thought for a few moments. “Who did she think was going to leave her?”
“No idea. No reference to a name anywhere.”
“Who wrote the words ‘Don’t take it personally’ and hid it?”
“No clue. My money is on the Unsub.”
“What happened to the pills?”
“I kinda hope she took them and never knew what happened to her, but somehow I doubt it.”
“I’ll check out the doctor and the pharmacy, if you like?”
“Please.”
“Missing shower gel is interesting – unusual trophy?” Kurt commented.
“Maybe he liked the smell of it,” I let the words wander in my head. I felt sure it was something to do with the smell but I couldn’t prove it, yet. “Opinion?”
“She probably bled out.”
I figured that.
“Anything else?”
“No defensive wounds. I doubt we’ll get anything from under her nails but we’ll try.” Kurt’s mouth set in a grim line. “She may well have had sleeping pills in her system but no one would swallow seventeen tablets willingly, unless it was suicide.”
“This isn’t a suicide, Kurt.”
“How far away are the crime scene techs?”
“Maybe another ten minutes, depending on traffic.” I’d called them twice that morning and twice in the early afternoon. In a perfect world, techs would be available as soon as I picked up the phone. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need crime scene techs.
He nodded. “There were a lot of stab wounds on the woman’s body but they appear tentative, the wounds on her wrists, however, were meant to kill.”
“Her name is Jane,” I said softly. “Jane Daughtry.”
“What’s going on here?” Kurt tapped my head with his index finger.
“There was a similar case in Winchester two months ago.”
“How similar?”
“Very. Access gained through an open window, sleeping pills unaccounted for, and the victim stabbed multiple times and found in the shower, water running.” I sighed. “No defensive wounds, a similar pattern to the stab wounds and the fatal wounds were downward slashes to the wrist.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Yes, I thought so. It was deemed a suicide by the coroner.”
“How did you find it?”
Fair question. Suicides weren’t usually loaded onto the violent crime database, ViCAP. It’s one of the first places I look when a murder or violent assault feels like I’ve seen or heard something similar before.
“There was a discussion about it on a LEO forum. The local cop wasn’t convinced it was suicide but no one listened.” I’d listened but couldn’t offer much in the way of help at the time.
Kurt waited. It’s like he knows me.
“I gave him a call and told him what I found this afternoon. He’s sending the case file.”
“Was there a note at that scene?”
I nodded. “It was considered to be a suicide note. The investigating officer read it to me over the phone.” I flipped my notebook open and handed it to Kurt. “Two separate lines.”
He read aloud, “‘Everything that came before. Lies fragmented on the floor.’” And looked at me. “What does that sound like to you?”
“Part of a poem …”
“Not loving this, Conway.”
“Me neither.” I pulled out my phone and called Sean O’Hare. “Hey, it’s me. I need scene guards.”
“Give me the address and the invoice goes to Delta A?”
“Yes, thanks.” I rattled off the address and hung up.
Sam and Lee met us at the front door.
“You’re not going to like this, Chicky,” Lee said. “We didn’t get much. No cars reported that didn’t belong over the last week. Except a neighbor told me this was Jane’s week to be collected for work. Last week she left earlier and drove her own car. This week, a man in a red Ford Taurus picked her up. The neighbor recognized the car … alternate weeks it picks her up for work. No one saw anyone hanging around.”
“Emilio Herrera drives a red Ford Taurus,” I replied. “That fits with what he told me about them carpooling.”
Sam turned a page in his notebook. “Jane went out a lot, according to neighbors. Not noisy. Nice girl with nice friends. She broke up with her boyfriend a few weeks ago.”
That was worth looking into.
“Name?”
“Matthew Collins.”
“Let’s find him,” I said. My phone rang. I glanced at the screen before answering the call. “Sandra?”