The Truth Seeker

by Dee Henderson

  “It’s important.”

  “I know it’s important to you. And I’m happy that you’ve found something you and Dave can share. But it doesn’t mean I have to share it too.”

  “Why are you so absolute in not talking about what the Bible says?”

  Lisa didn’t want to have this conversation. She didn’t want to pit herself against Kate, against Marcus . . . against Jennifer. A conversation with Quinn was one thing, but family . . .

  She understood like no one else in the family what it meant to die, to return to dust. The process began when the last breath was taken, and while she had never said as much to Kate, she knew what the Gospels, the first four books in the New Testament, said. Mark and Luke both said Jesus breathed His last; Matthew and John said Jesus gave up His spirit.

  Jesus had hung on a cross for hours and died. The Bible said that explicitly. And if that was true, she knew what had happened to Him five minutes later, an hour later, three hours later, a day later. She didn’t know the exact entomology of which flies lived in Palestine, but they would be cousins of those she understood very well from here. She knew the basics of Jerusalem two thousand years ago at the time of Passover: crowds, dust, heat—and flies. There would be no body left to resurrect three days later, not a body recognizable as the man Jesus.

  Maybe if the Bible tried to argue He died for a few minutes, even an hour . . . but days—

  Lisa knew from bitter experience that life ended forever with that last breath.

  The old memory returned, a sharp stab, coming back in color and texture and terror. Lisa raised a shaky hand to adjust her shirt neckline. She silently cursed as she tried to shove the memory back into the past and get that floating dead face out of her mind. She was normally so careful to skirt everything that might brush against the memory, and instead she’d walked herself right into it.

  She took deep breaths, slowly calming down. She’d had enough of this conversation. Kate was not one who did subtle, not unless it was on the job where she would willingly make small talk for hours if it was necessary to negotiate a peaceful conclusion to a dangerous situation.

  “People don’t rise from the dead,” Lisa replied bluntly, knowing it would end the conversation for now. And just to make sure it stayed ended, she reached down and turned on the radio.

  “It’s been abysmal without you around, Lisa.”

  Her boss rose to greet her with a welcoming smile. Lisa walked slowly into his office, returning the smile. Ben Wilcott was in his late fifties, had overseen the state crime lab for the last eleven years. “Thanks, Ben. I almost got caught up on my reading thanks to your contributions—though I think the doctors were a little startled to see copies of the NIJ Journals and FSA Bulletins on the bedside table.”

  “I know how hard it is to go cold turkey from work, and I’d like your opinion on those National Institute of Justice proposed protocols.”

  “I took notes,” Lisa replied, having anticipated the request. “And the Forensic Science Academy has another seminar scheduled on fiber collection and analysis. I think it would be a good idea to send Kim.”

  “I’ll get it arranged. Can I get you something? Coffee? A soft drink?”

  She’d worked for him too long not to know when something was coming that she wasn’t going to want to hear. “I’d love something cold.”

  He brought her back a cold soda and one for himself, then settled in the chair beside her rather than behind the desk. “Classic looking cane.”

  Lisa spun its white ivory handle and burnished mahogany wood. “Stephen’s contribution.”

  “I was surprised the doctors okayed you coming back this soon, even for desk duty.”

  She smiled. “They were afraid I meant it when I said I’d go sailing if they insisted I take a vacation. Seriously, I’m looking forward to being back.”

  “Gloria was asking about you.”

  She sipped at the soda, wondering where this was heading. Ben was walking one of the wooden nickels his granddaughter had given him through his fingers, and he only did that when he was thinking about something during a meeting unrelated to the topic at hand or when he was waiting for the right time to mention some news. “Is Gloria here today? I was surprised not to see her at her desk outside your office.”

  “Funding came through to move the police file archives into the new cold storage warehouse. She’s in her element cataloging and organizing the move; making it happen has been her personal crusade.”

  “That’s wonderful news. That funding has been held up for, what? Two years? How’d you ever get it to happen?”

  “Actually, that’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  She lowered her drink, her smile flickering.

  “The new police commissioner wants a reexamination of all unsolved murders over five years old in light of new forensic techniques. I told him I’d do it . . . ”

  “ . . . if you got funding to combine the archives.”

  “Exactly.”

  She could see a rushing train coming her way. “Ben, one of the lab guys, Peter—”

  “I need more than a good technician. You spend a good portion of your days out at the crime scenes, and you’ve worked directly with cops, you can interpret the case notes. You’re on desk duty for the next several weeks anyway, and you know better than anyone what evidence is worth the time to analyze.”

  “Don’t do this to me.”

  “Sorry, it’s done.” He gave her a sympathetic smile. “Don’t worry, it’s not Siberia. And I’ll owe you one when it’s done.”

  Bribery still worked. She considered him and wondered how hard she could push it. “A new mass spectrometer?”

  “I’ll see what I can work into next year’s budget.”

  Whoa. She should have thought larger; that had been a fast yes. He was serious enough about this she might have been able to wrangle another technician slot.

  “You’ll do it?”

  She rubbed her eyes, hating this proposition with a passion, remembering her last visit to the police archives. The files were in poor shape, only a fraction of the records had been computerized, most cases had to be located from incomplete and fading handwritten indexes. And the older the case, the more disorganized the evidence. She owed Ben more than one favor, but still . . . “You’re asking for a miracle. Those cases are cold for a reason.”

  “Anything you need, ask.”

  “A vacation is sounding better all the time—”

  He laughed and got to his feet. “Thank you, Lisa. I knew I could count on you.” He offered his hand to help her up.

  She accepted, already dreading the next few weeks. She was getting exiled, graciously, but exiled.

  “I took the liberty . . . you’ll need a place to work. There is a lot of material.” Ben’s executive assistant, Gloria Fraim, pushed open the door to the task force room. Basically, it was one large open room located one floor below the laboratories. It could be configured to suit the needs of the particular situation from a large disaster to a multiagency case.

  A series of worktables, a whiteboard, and a light table had been moved in. Metal shelves on rollers lined the inner wall; they were stacked with black boxes two deep. The boxes were worn and sagging, the writing on the ends barely visible because the black ink had faded.

  Lisa rubbed her finger in the dust on one of the box lids. This case hadn’t been worked in years. She scanned the row of boxes. “These are all the cases?”

  “Sorry, only about half. We’ve been setting aside the unsolved murder cases as we find them.” Gloria walked over to the other side of the room and pulled the blinds up on the wall of windows, letting in the sunlight. “I asked for you.”

  “Did you?” Lisa smiled; she should have guessed. “I don’t know if I should thank you.”

  “Before this is over you will,” Gloria promised. “You’ve always enjoyed a challenge. Some of these cases that haven’t been solved will break your heart.”

  “What shape
are the files in?”

  “Photograph film is brittle, paper yellowing. About what I would expect. Stop by the cold storage records room in the next few days and take a look at the entire project. It’s quite impressive. We’re bringing over the archive files in batches, transferring the most vulnerable of the records to CD-ROM, using charcoal to deal with the odor and moisture in the paper files, indexing and computerizing the cases records.”

  “Massive doesn’t begin to describe that project.”

  “We’ll get it done on time, although I’m afraid you’ll have to deal with the murder cases in their original shape from the police archives. We’d need to hold them up several weeks to take them through the charcoal process.”

  “I’ll talk to Henry about the ventilation and get some air filters in here before I start opening decades worth of history. It won’t be a problem.”

  “Is there anything else I can arrange to be brought in for you?”

  Lisa looked around the room that would be her home for the next few weeks. It had the essentials: quiet and space. She smiled. “You know me, Gloria. I’m sure I’ll collect things as I need them. I’ve just got a larger office to fill up with my toys.”

  They shared a laugh, for they were both pack rats. Gloria a neat packrat who knew where everything could be found; Lisa was more one to pile and make it fit. “I could use a good assistant to help get these case files entered in the NIJ database.”

  “Diane Peller. She’s already begun working on it.”

  Lisa nodded. Diane was good.

  “We’ve changed the locks on the room; you’ll hold the only key.”

  “Thanks.” It would save her having to move the files and evidence she was working on to a vault every night. “Get the log and let’s review the inventory here. I’ll sign off and take over chain of evidence responsibility.”

  Janelle Nellis, dead at age forty-two, found murdered in her garage. The case was fourteen years old. Lisa held the X-ray film up to the sunlight coming in the windows. Shot in the back from close range, one bullet hitting her left lung, the other nicking her heart. The ballistics report said it had been a .22.

  Lisa sneezed and gasped as pain tore through her chest. It eased slowly and she took a cautious breath, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

  She moved the desktop air filter closer. She had chosen one case at random to look through while she waited for Kate to arrive. After barely half a day, she was exhausted and ready to go home. She had badly misjudged how much energy she would have.

  Pushing away the sense of fatigue, she spread out the dozens of crime scene photos on the table. The struggle that had occurred was obvious—part of a storage shelf in the garage had been pulled away from the wall, cardboard boxes were crushed. Janelle had tried to get away from whoever had shot her.

  Her body had been found at 7 A.M. by a neighbor. She had last been seen alive at 6 P.M. the evening before leaving work at a deli shop eight blocks from her house.

  “Okay, Janelle. What can you tell me?” Lisa started reading the autopsy report. It was an old College of American Pathologists format, and she had to flip through the report and the attached documents to tug out information that on current forms had their own designations. It was strange to realize just how little toxicology had been available fourteen years ago, and the radiograms she had in the medical examiner’s packet were faint and minimal in number. Even in a murder case film had been deemed too expensive to do more than the basic X-rays.

  Establishing time of death would be the key to solving a murder case like this and it was annoyingly broad in the autopsy report. Sometime between 10 P.M. and 4 A.M.

  She frowned at that finding. A death discovered less than twenty-four hours old in an open garage on a summer night: state-of-the-art technology today could pin down time of death to within two hours using entomology evidence, temperature of the body, a careful exam of rigor formation. She read the autopsy report with care, looking for clues she could tease out of the narrative. If the doctor had made detailed notes he may have given her the evidence she needed, not realizing how significant an observation would be years later.

  This wouldn’t be such a bad assignment if she had chosen it for herself. This lady deserved justice. The more she read, the more interesting the case became. The bullet slugs had been recovered; she had an old evidence tag number. If she were lucky she might still be able to find them in the ballistics vault.

  “So this is where you are hiding.”

  Quinn startled her.

  “Welcome to my new office,” she replied dryly, closing the file. She had a comfortable chair. She was waffling on her opinion of the rest of the assignment. “You’re my ride home?”

  “Yes.”

  Lisa saw Kate’s handiwork. “I should have guessed.” She gathered up the case photos and autopsy report, then returned everything to the evidence box. “Could you put this box back on the shelves with the others?”

  “Sure.”

  He looked curious as to what she was doing in here but didn’t ask. Lisa got to her feet, leaning heavily on the cane until she could straighten.

  “Do you need to get anything from your office?”

  “No. I’m ready to go.”

  She locked the doors to the room and pocketed the key. They went down to the lobby and she signed out while Quinn returned his guest ID. He held the outer door open for her.

  “So how was the first day back?” he asked as they stepped into the hot afternoon sun. The only relief was the hope of rain; the sky to the west had the heavy dark look of potential thunderstorms.

  “An experience.” Lisa grasped the handrail, determined to walk down the stairs rather than use the ramp.

  “Plan to tell me about it?”

  She reached the bottom of the stairs, and they began the slow walk to the parking lot. Quinn’s stride was so checked he was barely moving so as not to outdistance her. “I’m stuck in the dust bowl of history. They’ve got me reviewing cold cases for at least the next month.” He indicated his car and opened the passenger door for her. She lowered herself carefully inside. “Thanks.”

  She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, relaxing into the warmth of the seat. It felt wonderful against her aching back. “This was not the day I envisioned when I left for work this morning.”

  He pulled into traffic and broke the silence several minutes later. “You going to kick this depression?”

  She opened one eye to confirm that smile she heard. He was gorgeous when he smiled. She closed her eyes again. “Eventually. Just let me enjoy the bad mood for a while.”

  His chuckle warmed her heart. She needed someone who would accept with lightness what could at times be for her a slow transition away from work.

  “Could I interest you in an early dinner?”

  She was tempted but accepted reality. “Not today. Just home. I want a nap.”

  “Another time then.”

  She forced herself to stir. She’d be asleep if she left her eyes closed for long. “When are you heading back to Montana?”

  “You don’t want me to stick around?”

  It had just been a question, but he had made it something more. Quinn was joking, he had to be, but she wasn’t sure. “Quinn—”

  “Relax. My flight is Sunday.”

  She grimaced; she was stumbling over her words again. “You’ve got a beautiful home, your ranch.” She had enjoyed her one visit to his ranch even though it had been under stressful circumstances. That expanse of land gave Quinn roots, something she could admit privately that she envied. He could afford to leave the ranch for his job because he always had it there to return to.

  “It’s beautiful no matter what the season. Anytime you want to sell that Sinclair, let me know. I’ve got just the place for it.”

  It wasn’t often she heard envy in his voice. “I picked it up by chance over lunch one day,” she said with a slight smile and a small shrug.

  “By chance.”

&
nbsp; “I liked it.”

  “Remind me to tag along when you window-shop someday.”

  Early dinner, stick around, tag along someday . . . He was definitely asking for something that she was hesitant to consider. He’d turn the force of his personality in her direction and she’d end up caring, try to please him, then manage to fail miserably at it.

  “What else do you splurge on besides art? And travel? I noticed some interesting reading on your coffee table. Zimbabwe is next?”

  “Only if the college anthropology team goes for a dig next year. Otherwise I’m planning to stay stateside for a while.”

  “Got anything planned?”

  “Some serious backpack trekking. Fossil hunting. Caves. Everything I won’t be doing for a while. I had tentative plans to go rock climbing next month.”

  “They’re only postponed.”

  Postponed for months. Somehow she didn’t think her back was going to tolerate hefting sixty pounds of tent and gear while she walked for ten days and fifty miles anytime soon.

  The air conditioner ruffled her hair, sending tendrils across her face. She used both hands to push it back. She shouldn’t have cut it so short; at least when it had been long she’d been able to secure it in a ponytail. Quinn adjusted the vents upward.

  “Tell me about this new assignment.”

  Work—she could handle that topic. “Ben wants me to review the old murder cases to see what new forensic tests can do with the evidence. He’s using it as a way to get funding to combine the archive files. I know it needs to be done, but . . . ” She was whining. She shut up.

  “You were hoping to get back into the field.”

  “Crazy, I know, but yes, I was.” She bit her lip and looked at him, wondering if he would understand. “I need to. Does that make sense?”