“I thought that was snowflakes,” he said with a chuckle.
Chance: so close I could feel his presence. Comfortable. Warm. Weird. My mind knew he wasn’t there and I wasn’t in my office standing in front of my whiteboard, so why could I feel Chance?
Best not to dwell.
“We’re looking at the wrong kind of groups.”
“Not necessarily, El. Just not looking deep enough.”
That made sense.
“Jane knew her killer. If he abused her, if he was an ex-boyfriend, who would know that?” Then the other thought forced its way to the front of the queue. “What if Jane knew her killer but there was no abuse. Who would know people she’d met recently?”
“A current boyfriend would know her friends and she may have confided in him about historical abuse.”
“A paramedic …”
Matthew Collins.
Time I had another chat with Matthew Collins. Don’t think he shared everything he knew about Jane. Benefit of the doubt might be necessary, though I didn’t specifically ask if she had an abusive fucktard as an ex-boyfriend.
I straightened up as Chance stepped in front of me, obscuring most of the poem. “How you feeling?”
“Okay.” Suspicion mounted as he stayed in front of me. “Why?”
“You haven’t been well. Thought you were looking pale.”
“I’m pregnant, Chance. Nothing to worry about.”
He smiled, not the warmest smile I’ve ever seen from Chance.
“Be careful El, you fit the profile and the killing isn’t done yet.”
“You worry too much, Chance.”
“I saw the letter from Hank. I don’t think I worry enough.” He turned and walked away. He paused and looked over his shoulder. “You’ve got more to lose, you need to be careful.”
I watched as Chance melted into a puddle of denim-colored paint in the doorway.
The scenery beyond the window drew my attention. We were approaching the office and the entrance to the underground parking garage.
“Hey. You’re back,” Mitch said, glancing sideways at me.
“Yeah.”
“Okay?”
“Yep.”
The guard on the gate pressed the button releasing the barrier arm and waved Mitch through.
“Anywhere in particular?” Mitch asked, driving down the ramp into the dark below.
“Delta teams park on the far side by the elevators.”
Several minutes later in the elevator, I found myself questioning the cleverness of steel boxes that moved at speed. Still better than the stairwell. Maybe.
Sandra greeted us with her usual enthusiasm as we approached her desk.
“The happy couple!” she crooned. “How long now?”
“Five days,” Mitch replied, beating me to it.
“Sandra, I need Matthew Collins in here. There are some more things I think he can help me with.”
“I’ll give him a call, O Genie of the White Veil.”
“Ask him nicely and let him know I would like his help.”
“If he refuses?”
“Send a car, I need his help,” I replied. “Get someone from Delta C to pick him up if necessary.” A phone rang, reminding me we had a 1-800 number set up. “Anything on the tip line?”
“Every lunatic in D.C. is on the tip line,” Sandra said, scrolling through comments on her screen. “Uniform are coping with the calls. A few I kicked back to them to investigate but so far nothing useful.” The scrolling continued. She paused. “Hang on a minute. Did someone mention a bloody bag?”
“Yeah, the car thief mentioned seeing someone with a bloody bag.”
“I got something here. A gentleman called in saying that an art gallery near him had bloody bags, cushions, and aprons.”
“His reason for calling?”
“Lonely?”
“Send someone, if our Unsub purchased the bag from a gallery, they might have a credit card receipt.”
“Worth a shot, O Genie of the Underworld.”
“Thanks, Sandra. We’ll be in my office. Kurt said we have a new crime scene.”
She nodded, stuck a pencil in her hair and typed at a frantic pace. “New scene, Jodie Norris. I have an appointment for you with Mallory Steven’s bank manager at half-one this afternoon.”
“Send me a reminder and thank you.” As I was about to walk away, I stopped. “Did Sasha Petrovovich send a report through yet?”
“Just checking … bear with.” I waited while Sandra checked email. “Not yet.”
“Okay, thanks. Better go see Kurt.”
Keys clicked under her fingers. Sandra smiled at me over her screens. “He’s in your office.”
Figures. No one’s ever in their own offices these days.
Kurt looked up from behind my desk.
“Vacate,” I said, motioning to him. “That’s my chair.”
“I’m done printing crime scene photos for your board.” He pointed to a pile of paper sitting in the out tray of the printer in the corner.
“Thanks.”
Kurt passed me and sat in one of the two chairs in front of my desk. Mitch sat on the couch and picked up a book from the coffee table. He didn’t want to be part of the conversation. Not his job. I sat in the warm chair. That never feels right.
“You look like you know something …” Kurt said. “You sharing?”
I nodded.
“There was something I couldn’t grab on to at Jane Daughtry’s home. The poetry felt like something but no one else seems to write poetry and her having my book actually looked like a coincidence.”
Kurt laughed. “Trying to imagine you even considering coincidence as a possibility.”
“I know … not easy.” I sighed and rested my elbows on the desk. “I saw a poem on our way here.”
“I almost don’t want to ask … but the curiosity might kill me … how?”
Letting the crazy out. Never easy.
“I saw a ghostly hand write it on my whiteboard.” My eyes flashed to the board. No poem. Disappointing. “How, really isn’t that big a deal. It’s what it said that’s important and who wrote it.”
“Carry on.”
I stood up and walked over to the board. Could I replicate it? Hope sprang eternal. Pollyanna was alive and well and living in me. Unicorns do exist and shit doesn’t stink.
The whiteboard marker in my left hand drew a line down the board and then wrote. The entire poem emerged, messy but legible.
By the time I’d finished, Kurt stood next to me. “Impressive for your left hand,” he said.
“Surprised myself.”
Kurt read the poem aloud. “What do you want to do?” He turned his head to face me. “Never mind, I know. We’re going back to Jane’s place to find that poem.”
“Yep, and because I missed something. I missed a scent.”
I didn’t really miss it, I just didn’t comprehend the significance. That faint smell of musky wet dirt in the bathroom clothes hamper: now I knew it was relevant.
“Not like you.”
“Nope, but it happens.”
I Googled patchouli. It definitely fitted with the wet dirt smell in the clothes hamper. Discovering the plant was related to mint surprised me.
“Find what you need?”
“Think so, but to be sure I need to talk to Petrovovich.”
“Do it now, we’ve got a crime scene to get to and if you want to revisit Jane’s place, we might have to make that after your appointment.”
Fair enough. Maybe not the best day to have an appointment with a specialist. Timing. Sucking. Again.
I sat back at my desk and called Petrovovich.
“It’s Ellie Conway.” I didn’t wait for him to speak. “There’s a scent I couldn’t place. It didn’t register. A musky wet earth smell, really faint, inside a clothes hamper.”
“Patchouli,” he said without hesitation. “I smelled it too. It’s in my report.”
“Thank you. I needed you to confirm what I thought.”
“You’re welcome. My report will be with you within the hour.”
“Thank you for your help.” I hung up and turned to Kurt. “He said patchouli.”
“Then we should get there as soon as we can and see if we can find the poem.”
“Yep. Also, Sandra is asking Matthew Collins to come back in. If Jane was in an abusive relationship in the past, he might know about it.”
“What about her parents? Or the guy who carpooled with her?” Kurt asked.
I didn’t feel her parents held anything back when they talked about Jane. Possibly she’d hidden it from them.
“I’ll talk to her parents again when I get a chance, if I need to. I’m not keen on telling them something that’ll hurt them more now. She’d dead, that’s bad enough.”
Kurt stood by my desk. “Support groups. We need to revisit that list and look for support groups for victims of violent crime including rape, and groups for people with post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“Yes, we do. I think we’ll find they all have some kind of abuse in their pasts … the houses are so very clean. It’s a control thing, isn’t it?”
“Can be.”
“In this case?”
“It’s possible, Conway. Even though none of the background checks turned up police reports regarding violence, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Rape is still way under-reported.”
Something horrible jumped into my mind. Yes, rape is an under-reported crime. Could a cop be running a support group and if so, how would women hear about it, if they weren’t reporting the crimes?
Because they did report the rape but it never went any further.
Why? The complaint would still be in the system.
Troy Fallon.
“Fallon is homicide now, but what did she do before?” I wasn’t really asking, just thinking aloud while I checked out her service record. I went back seven years and found a brief stint with the Special Victims Unit at Fairfax PD. “Kurt, Fallon was seconded to special victims for six months early in her detective career, to cover maternity leave. She requested to go back to homicide after the six months.”
“Another nail in her coffin.”
Yep.
“I want her case files. I want to know exactly what she did over there.”
“I’ll get Sandra to get everything for you. You get ready, we have to go.”
Crime scene time.
Save A Prayer
Another bathroom.
Another clean house.
Another drained blonde.
Another reason not to shower.
Jodie Norris, twenty-eight, administrator at the Crime Museum.
“Let me do this,” I said to Kurt. “Jodie and I need to have a talk.”
“Yeah, sure, that’s probably the creepiest thing you’ve ever said. I’ll be right here.” He stepped into the open doorway. “In case she reanimates and has a sudden craving for fresh brains.”
A smile crossed my lips. Good thinking. Trust no one, not even the dead. I looked around the room before crouching down next to the shower and Jodie.
“Okay Jodie, this is the thing … you’re dead and I need you to show me what happened, right before you died.”
Nothing happened. I waited. Jodie remained inert. No incorporeal arms moved. Nothing.
Not helpful. From my position, I easily saw a small square of white paper tucked behind a large potted fern on the floor. I retrieved it and read aloud, “‘Trapped behind the line.’”
Kurt came forward with an evidence bag for the note.
“Jodie’s not talking,” I said with a sigh.
Felt like a fail on my part. Maybe she didn’t like me. Perhaps she had already left the building. A sudden rise in my body temperature took me by surprise. Bile swirled in my gut, saliva pooled. I swallowed hard.
“Conway?” Kurt’s tone expressed concern. “Looking a bit flushed. All right?”
I wanted to nod but my head shook.
Traitor.
My vision clouded. A female voice grew stronger as it came closer. From the corner of my eye, I saw shadowy movement. Jodie? The voice told me it was. I could feel her. Cold fingers dug into my back and pulled my flesh apart. The cold climbed inside filling every crevice and organ with trepidation. Jodie walked me through her morning. She got up early, didn’t make coffee because coffee makes her ill.
God.
Images of Jodie throwing up filled my mind.
That was too much for me. Dizziness hit like a sledgehammer.
Nothing.
No Jodie. No bathroom. No noise.
*
Next thing, Mitch’s blue eyes hovered above me. Pretty clever. How’d he do that?
“You in there, El?”
“What if I say no?” I replied, with a groan. Pain radiated from the left side of my head. “Jodie …”
Someone touched my wrist. I couldn’t turn my head, it hurt. My eyes wouldn’t focus.
“What about Jodie?”
I knew that voice. Kurt.
“She was pregnant,” I said, letting the pain in my head take over and push me back into the dark.
I thought I heard Kurt say, “So were you.”
Was I Wrong?
Background noises grew louder and more insistent as the black lifted, revealing soft light and deep gray shadows. I didn’t want to move. There seemed little point trying. I didn’t need to open my eyes to recognize the familiar smells associated with a hospital which assailed me. A deep sadness rolled over me like a fleecy blanket.
The nothingness seemed preferable to reality but I couldn’t get back there. I emptied my mind and waited.
A screen appeared. Mitch’s name and his picture sat above the green call button. I pressed the button. His voice filled my ears. Not my head. It took me a minute to figure it out.
“Open your eyes, babe.”
I don’t want to.
I don’t want to.
“Sleepy.”
“I know. For me, okay? Open your eyes. I need to know you’re okay.” Pressure on my hand. Warmth spread as Mitch’s fingers closed around mine. “Please, El.”
I don’t want to.
Drifting into the dark felt better than moving closer to the light. It wasn’t fair of me. Life didn’t feel very fair. I could justify the hell out of anything in the dark. The noises softened, fading until the nothing swallowed them all.
I breathed. The dark lightened to cream. Heavy black outlines drawn in Sharpie emerged on the cream. A paint box sat on an outlined desk. Watching a brush move and color the scene fascinated me. I recognized the glass partitions and the leather chairs before I saw Chance sitting at his desk. He looked up from his screen. His lips set in a straight line. Uncharacteristic; he always smiled when he saw me.
“You should sit down, Ellie,” he said, motioning to a chair. “I’ll be right with you.”