Lakshmi typed away. “What subject?”
Caitlin smiled. “ ‘Special Agent Foreman—please confirm.’ ”
She heard the swoosh sound of Lakshmi’s electric volley being bumped into the ether.
“Think it’ll work?” Mary said.
A far-off boom announced the superiority of Channel 2’s weather predictions. Definitely more rain on the way.
“Time will tell.”
Caitlin glanced back at the coroner’s van. Two techs carried a collapsible awning toward the penalty area.
Five minutes later, Lakshmi pointed toward the parking lot. “It worked.”
Special Agent Antoine Foreman jumped over a fence. “Who talked, Bergman? Your boyfriend?”
“I don’t know what you mean. Are you confirming Lakshmi Anjale’s story?”
“ ‘An unnamed source working with the Bloomington Police Department?’ If your fuck buddy Greenwood said something to you about this case, I’ll make sure he loses his badge.”
Caitlin nullified Foreman’s anger with calm. “Wasn’t Greenwood, but I’ll give you a hint. It’s a journalist working with the Bloomington Police Department who just happens to have an amazing ass and several awards to her name.”
“Who told you the body was dumped here between Friday and now?”
“Mary and I were sitting here Friday afternoon; Paige Lauffer’s body wasn’t. There was no break in the rain until today, so no one played soccer or cut the grass.”
“That doesn’t mean this isn’t the crime scene.”
Caitlin shrugged. “Kind of a weird place to kill a girl. Easy enough to dump her, though. Pull in, back up, toss the body. Sloppy, like someone was in a hurry. Maybe the police were raiding their property. Can you speculate whether the boys from the Bro-duce Organic Farm had anything to do with Paige Lauffer’s death?”
Foreman shook his head. “You’re done with the BPD. Renton may feel like eating your shit, but I don’t have to.”
“So you’re confirming that Paige Lauffer’s death is related to David Amireau and possibly the disappearance of Angela Chapman?”
Foreman stopped, his lesson learned. “There’ll be a press conference tomorrow morning. I don’t want to see you until then.”
Lightning flashed over the parking lot, filling in the shadows as Foreman walked away. Caitlin started counting. Seven seconds before the thunder.
Mary let out a sigh. “Go ahead and print, Lakshmi. You’ve got your confirmation, from the FBI no less.”
Lakshmi started giggling.
Caitlin looked over. “What’s so funny, giggle-puss?”
“He said ‘fuck buddy.’ ”
That accent got her again. The trio laughed all the way to the car.
CHAPTER
53
THE NEXT MORNING, Mary’s toes nudged Caitlin from the opposite end of the couch. “Remind me why we’re here instead of at the press conference with Lakshmi?”
Caitlin opened the box of BPD Chapman files on the coffee table. “That girl can handle the conference with one arm tied behind her back, or at least in a cast. This is the Chapman mother lode, and judging from Foreman’s attitude last night, our access is on borrowed time.”
The massive, unbound volume made Caitlin’s sexual assault report look like a cautionary pamphlet. Whatever the BPD had done wrong in their investigation, they hadn’t neglected their paperwork.
“You think Amireau killed both girls?”
Caitlin shook her head. “I think Chapman overdosed, Michelson disposed of her body to protect his drug empire, and Amireau suffered a life of public shame for two years, only to finally snap and kill Paige Lauffer.”
Caitlin flipped through her pages. She had Greenwood’s initial reports, basic summary info, pictures of Chapman’s apartment, and full schematics of Michelson and Amireau’s place at the Villas.
Mary dove in as well. “What are we looking for?”
“Detectives look at the pieces to string together a narrative. Chapman goes missing, they assume she’s run away. No personal items absent, the story changes to foul play. We’re looking for anything that didn’t follow that narrative, or did but was omitted from common knowledge.”
“So everything?”
“Relax, Lubbers. You’ve got two hours and then you’re free to go teach or whatever it is you do with your days.”
Mary stuck her tongue out. “Usually I grade the homework, not do it.”
They read in silence for ninety minutes.
Mary broke the silence with a guttural “Huh.”
Caitlin looked over. “Got something?”
“Greenwood’s got a note here. Only two words: See Shepherd. That mean anything to you? I haven’t found anyone in the interviews named Shepherd.”
Caitlin felt a flutter in her chest. “Shit, I might know.”
She opened a browser window, typed a query. “The other night, when Lakshmi was all high, I asked her who she talked to at BPD before Greenwood.”
“Jerry wasn’t the first detective?”
“No, his wife had just died and he was on leave. They brought him in as soon as they knew it was something serious, the second day, maybe the third. I asked our little doper who the first detective was, and she said, ‘Sheep man.’ ”
Mary dove back in the box, started flipping through pages. “ ‘Sheep man,’ as in high talk for Shepherd? If he was the first detective on the case, shouldn’t there be something in here, an initial report or something?”
“Sure should.” Caitlin joined her, going through the box from the other side. She stopped, pulled out a sheet of paper. “Here it is, an initial investigation report.” She scanned through the typed document. “No way.”
“What?”
She handed the sheet to Mary. “It’s signed by Chief Renton, not Shepherd.”
Mary took the page, started reading. “Have you ever even talked to a Detective Shepherd?”
“That’d be kind of hard.” Caitlin swung her computer Mary’s direction, the results from her search at the top of the screen. “Detective Chris Shepherd died almost two years ago from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
Mary dropped the report to read the obituary in front of her. “There’s no mention of suicide here.”
“Maverick let it slip the first day I met her. Greenwood tried to play the whole thing off, something about an older cop facing down early-onset Alzheimer’s.”
“Did he really have Alzheimer’s?”
“As in, did the initial investigator on the biggest case in the history of the Bloomington Police Department have issues with his memory that may or may not have affected his job performance? If so, did a possible mental lapse allow crucial evidence to become corrupted, go missing, or be overlooked entirely?”
Mary’s juicy secret smile had to match Caitlin’s own. “And how did every news outlet, from the tiny student paper to the national broadcast networks, miss this little gem of a story?”
“Only one way to find out.”
CHAPTER
54
BESIDES THE ADDRESS, two things told Caitlin she’d found the right place—the sign next to the driveway that read “Piano Lessons” and the beautiful sound of live music marching out the open window.
At one minute till the hour, the music stopped and the front door opened. A good-looking woman in her mid-sixties waved. Caitlin grabbed her sheet music and hurried up the driveway.
Isabelle Shepherd had the kind, patient eyes of a woman no doubt loved by everyone she met.
Caitlin handed her a stack of cash and four pages of music. “Thanks for squeezing this in.”
She looked at Caitlin’s beginner rock series. “You say you played when you were younger?”
“Up through middle school, then a little at college.”
“Well, ‘Imagine’ should be a piece of cake.”
Caitlin followed her into a stylish great room centered on a black grand piano. Various framed happy-family images covered the firepl
ace mantel. A large color print of Detective Chris Shepherd in his uniformed prime occupied the central spot of honor.
Isabelle placed Caitlin’s sheet music atop the piano and took a chair next to the bench. “Now, why are we desperate to imagine there’s no heaven?”
Caitlin sat at the keys and built upon the story she’d told the woman over the phone. “I made a bet with a man that I had more talent than I may actually possess, and I’m not about to lose for lack of effort.”
“You have a date tonight?”
“Yep, someone I’ve met recently who is single, has a great job, and has a piano in his living room that he cannot play.”
Isabelle flashed those kind, understanding eyes. “Well, in one hour I think we can get you to the point where you can play and sing without stops.”
Caitlin found middle C, tried her first attempt at greatness. She remembered how to read the notation and what the finger placement guide numbers meant, but faked some bad choices. Isabelle stopped her, explained the perceived mistakes, and Caitlin tried again. Five more passes, and she could get all the way through without stopping.
“You’re doing great, Caitlin. Ready to try singing?”
Caitlin took the opportunity for a break. “Not yet. I think my need to pee might be making me better than I am.”
She excused herself to the bathroom, returned to find Isabelle coming out of the kitchen with a cup of tea.
Caitlin stopped in front of Detective Shepherd’s photo. “Is this your husband?”
“Yes, that’s my Chris.”
“He’s with the BPD? My date’s with a cop. Maybe they know each other.”
“They might have,” Isabelle said and sipped her tea. “My husband died two years ago.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Isabelle picked up a Kodachrome-colored image of a college-aged couple in formal wear from the late sixties and handed Caitlin the frame. “Here we are the year we met. He’d just pinned me.”
Caitlin noticed a trio of matching Greek letters over the door of a familiar local building.
“Were you a Tri Delt at IU?”
Isabelle nodded, walked back toward the piano, and placed her hand over her heart. “Let us steadfastly love one another.”
Caitlin returned the frame to its home and went back to the piano.
Isabelle watched her. “Out of curiosity, have you ever dated a police officer?”
“No, but I like when they wear the uniforms.”
The woman’s once-welcoming eyes now looked tired and distant. “It’s a strange kind of life, even in a town as small as this. They’ll never tell you everything they do, and you’ll never be sure they’ll come home at the end of the day.”
“Oh God, was your husband killed on the job?”
Isabelle set her tea aside. “My husband shot himself.”
“I’m so sorry.” Caitlin paused and gave the woman a chance to stop her, either by words or body language, but saw nothing. “Was he sick or something?”
“They said he might have had some plaque on the folds of his brain, but I don’t think that would have scared Chris. I think he was haunted by something he saw or did. He never told me. The police have their own fraternal secrets.” Isabelle must have noticed Caitlin’s stunned expression. “Now I’m sorry. Here you are ready to go on a date, and I’m depressing the heavens out of you. Which officer do you have the date with? I may know him.”
“Jerry Greenwood.”
The woman’s pleasant smile returned. “Oh, Jerry. I’m sure you know about his wife. She passed two months before Chris.”
Caitlin nodded. “We’ve talked about her some.”
“As far as I know, he’s a great guy.”
Caitlin suddenly wanted out of the house. Sharing sheets with guys like Greenwood or Martinez to get preferential treatment had never bothered her, since both sides knew the score and got to enjoy the benefits, but lying to a widow felt cheaper somehow, dirtier. If Chris Shepherd had indeed shot himself because he’d let Chapman’s murderers get away, the public would soon find out, and innocent Isabelle would have to deal with his mess all over again.
Isabelle nudged Caitlin’s arm. “You know what? Jerry’s got a great voice. You should say you’ll play if he’ll sing.”
Relieved, Caitlin shut her sheet music and stood. “That’s a good idea, and that saves me half an hour to get ready.”
Caitlin thanked the woman for her time, moved across the room, but stopped for one last look at the smiling girl who’d just been pinned—as in given the pin of her boyfriend’s fraternity. She couldn’t see the design without magnification, but a simple web search in the car validated her hunch.
In his last bio on an archived copy of the BPD’s website, Detective Chris Shepherd included his status as both an alumnus of Indiana University and a brother in Delta Omega Tau—the same fraternity as David Amireau and Kieran Michelson.
CHAPTER
55
CAITLIN FOUND LAKSHMI in the Daily Student newsroom. “Walk me through Saturday morning, when Angela disappeared.”
“Again?” Lakshmi looked up from her keyboard, distracted. “I’ve got deadlines on both Paige Lauffer and the Bro-duce farm updates.”
“They can wait, Lakshmi. The initial report is gone.”
Lakshmi turned her way. “Wait, what report?”
“From Chris Shepherd, the detective on the scene. There’s a typed version, but it’s signed by Chief Renton, not Shepherd, so who knows if he even wrote it. I have the whole Chapman file—”
“What does it say about me?”
“Focus up, Miss ‘I’ve-Got-Deadlines.’ Greenwood and Maverick gave me a practiced lecture, then you gave me the time line of the night before, but I need to know your version of what happened from when you calleSd the cops until when Greenwood took over.”
“My version? You mean the truth.”
“Yes, sorry if—”
“Whatever.” Lakshmi swiveled her chair toward Caitlin. “So I woke up around ten, felt bloody awful. Basic hangover aches and pains, but a horrible feeling that stayed around no matter how much coconut water I drank.”
Caitlin knew the rejuvenating power of coconut water, but Lakshmi’s low feeling sounded more like a chemical side effect. Maybe she hadn’t been lying when she told the BPD she’d been too high to go out with Angela, Kieran, and Dave. Caitlin tried to remember: Had Lakshmi told her they’d been smoking pot, or had she just assumed that?
She made a note to circle back if it mattered. The rest of Lakshmi’s story matched the BPD account: the texts, her visit to Angela’s apartment, her confrontation with Amireau and Michelson.
“They played dumb, so I called the cops and they gave me Shepherd.”
“Describe him.”
“Just an old white man who didn’t care. I yelled, threatened him with social media. When that didn’t work, I played the girl card.”
Caitlin laughed. “You cried?”
“That he responded to. He even agreed to let me ride with him.”
“Anything to reassure the little lady.”
“Exactly, so he sends a squad car over to Angela’s, and we drive to the boys’ apartment. At this point, Kieran and Dave were both there.”
“How did they act?”
“Like I was mental. But Shepherd saw Dave’s black eye and said it’d be easier on everyone if they told us about the night before.”
“Did Shepherd write anything down?”
“No, he accepted everything they said, which was that Angela walked home around two AM. They didn’t mention being high the night before.”
“I’m sure you didn’t either.”
Lakshmi looked like she’d just taken a slap.
Caitlin moved on. “Then what?”
“We walked through the woods to Angela’s. At this point, I’m freaking out, but Shepherd’s easy-breezy beautiful. He even put his arm around me.” Lakshmi must have caught the look on Caitlin’s face. “Not in a sexual way, b
ut like—”
“Like a father would do, comforting his little girl?”
“Not my father,” Lakshmi said, “but yes, I suppose. Either way, it made my skin crawl.”
“Because he sounded like he didn’t believe you,” Caitlin said, well aware of the feeling, “and worse, like he felt bad for you.”
“Right. So we get to Angela’s and she’s not there. Shepherd checks with all the neighbors, none of whom have seen her.”
Caitlin made a note. “So he finally took you seriously by five-thirty.”
“Not at all. He drove me home, said he’d let me know if they found anything, but to keep calling Angela’s friends and family to see if she turned up.”
“Which you did?”
“Nonstop. Doris got in her car, drove to the station, and screamed bloody murder until they took action. I got called back into the station around ten PM that night to give an official statement.”
“When did Greenwood get involved?”
“Monday morning. At least, that’s when he asked me back into the station.”
“Almost two days missing at that point.”
“And no one was watching Dave and Kieran. They could have done anything they wanted to Angela.”
* * *
“Caitlin.” Doris Chapman’s seven-thirty voice had a started-at-three boozy slur. Her T-shirt and sweat pants combo shouted abandonment, not fitness, a stark contrast from their first meeting. “You didn’t have to drive all this way.”
Caitlin took to the couch and watched the broken woman refresh her tumbler from an ornate bar cart.
“Can I get you something? I’m tired of drinking alone.”
“Whatever you’re having.”
Doris poured eight fingers of whiskey into a second glass and wobbled back to the couch. “What’s going on? Did Amireau kill Paige Lauffer?”
Caitlin took a polite sip. “I don’t know. The FBI is in charge of the Lauffer investigation.”
“Guess I’m not the only one out of the loop.” She visited her glass like she lived at the bottom.
Caitlin noticed a stack of packed moving boxes next to an empty china cabinet. “So the unofficial separation became official.”
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