by Lauren Carr
The order was meant for her.
Sherry doesn’t know me very well, does she? If she’s looking for a fight, I’m her girl.
Three hours later, Detective Cameron Gates was in the forensics lab offering to buy Priscilla Garrett lunch in exchange for a favor.
Her purse hanging by its strap off her shoulder, Priscilla asked, “What do you want?” Her low voice resembled a growl.
“I need for you to run a set of fingerprints through AFIS. We need for it to be a broad search to include the international database.”
Priscilla shifted her weight from one high heel to the other and cocked her head at the detective. “For that you want to buy me lunch? What’s the other half of the equation?”
“It’s Jane Doe’s prints. Victim Number Four. The Oliver Cartwright case.”
“Do you want to get fired?” Priscilla shouted before Cameron shushed her.
She pushed the forensics officer back down into her chair. “It’s evidence.”
“From a closed case,” Priscilla said.
“That’s a lie. Until her killer is caught, the case is open. It was never closed.”
“Bixby says the case is closed. Cartwright did it.”
“No, he didn’t,” Cameron said. “Bixby wasn’t on that case. I was. Gregory and I said from the get-go that it was a copycat. Jane Doe was a body dump. Cartwright’s murders weren’t. Now, I’ve found in the autopsy report that Jane Doe had European dental work. Suppose she was European? That would explain why no one here has reported her missing? Can you run her fingerprints through AFIS again and check the international database for me?”
A wide grin crossed Priscilla’s face. Her plump painted lips parted to reveal bright white straight teeth. “Why do you want to put a bullet in your career?”
“That’s not why I’m asking you to run these prints,” Cameron said. “Jane Doe was a woman just like you and me.” She pointed the corner of the case file at the picture Priscilla had of her teenaged daughter on her desk. “Suppose it was you. Suppose you were found dead in a field and no one bothered trying to find out your name. You just didn’t come home one day, and your family never found out what happened to you, because politically it didn’t fit into some bureaucrat’s agenda.” A sly smile crossed her lips. “Making Bixby look bad would be an added benefit.”
Priscilla looked around the lab to see how many of the technicians had returned from lunch. Time was ticking away. “How wide do you want me to cast the net?”
Cameron slipped the folder into her hand. “Let’s go for broke. Run a full search of the whole database. Thanks, Priscilla. You’re doing the right thing.”
“Haven’t you ever heard that good guys finish last?”
When Cameron turned to leave, Priscilla cleared her throat and held out her hand. “Lunch.”
Cameron slipped a ten-dollar bill into her palm.
“Have you seen the prices at Panera Bread lately?”
“Does he ever blink?” At his desk, Officer Eric Foster clutched his submarine sandwich close to his chest to protect it from Gnarly, who was perched and ready to pounce.
From the moment Spencer’s newest rookie officer had taken his lunch from the bag, Gnarly sat motionless like a statue. Refusing to lose sight of his target, he willed the food to come to him.
“Nope.” Mac answered the officer while keeping one ear in the direction of Bogie’s office where the deputy chief and David were meeting with another officer, Brent Fletcher.
When they had arrived back at Spencer police headquarters, David rushed Bogie into the office to talk to him in hushed voices. Then, they called in Officer Fletcher from where he was out on patrol. A few minutes later, Fletcher retrieved a folder from the file room, and returned to Bogie’s office where they closed the door again.
The desk sergeant, Tonya gave up a portion of her attention from a report she was working on to tell Officer Foster, “Gnarly doesn’t beg. He demands.”
“You can stare at me all you want,” Eric told the German Shepherd. “You’re not getting my sandwich.”
“That’s what you think,” Mac said. “You’d be surprised how strong his will is.”
When the three emerged, David and Bogie were flushed with excitement. Bogie waved a case file over his head. “We found Victor Gruskonov!”
“Where?” Mac asked.
David laughed when he answered, “He’s dead. That’s why we couldn’t find him.”
Bogie draped a leg over the corner of an empty desk. “The same morning that Ramsay was found murdered, we got a call about a car submerged in the lake. It had come around that blind corner on Spencer Lane and collided with a six-point buck.”
Fletcher added, “Buck went through the windshield. Killed the guy before he hit the water.”
“The car had to have been flying,” Bogie said. “It turned end over end and landed upside down in the lake.”
David explained, “It was a rental car that was picked up at Dulles International Airport on Sunday.”
Mac snapped his fingers. “Victor Gruskonov was renting a car and coming out to see Ilysa. That’s why you got that funny look in your face when Neal said he was renting a car.”
“Exactly!” David was nodding his head.
Bogie said, “No one ever told us during our original investigation that Gruskonov was renting a car.”
“That’s what happens with cold cases,” Mac said. “Little details that witnesses had thought were unimportant come out; and, suddenly, everything gets blown wide open.”
“Like today,” David said. “When Neal mentioned the rental car, I remembered that this John Doe had his accident the night of the murder—”
Bogie said, “The same night they were waiting for Victor. All this time we’ve thought he’d slipped in, in the middle of the night, to kill Ilysa and steal the painting—He was dead all along.“
Mac asked Fletcher, “Why didn’t you know—”
The officer held up his hands. “The guy in the car was using a fake ID. Charles Smith from Miami. We could never identify him. We ran his prints through AFIS and there was no hit.”
Bogie said, “This guy had short hair and no beard. He’d changed his appearance and had a different name. But it was him. Now we know. We sent the picture that was on the fake driver’s license to the state forensics lab for comparison to our photo of Gruskonov. One and the same.”
Mac was shaking his head. “That doesn’t make sense. This Victor guy was supposed to be a big wig agent to a famous painter. Why would he be using a fake ID?”
“Doesn’t make sense at all,” Bogie agreed. “Something certainly is fishy here.”
David recalled Neal Hathaway saying that Victor had been held up with some business, which explained his late arrival. “Sounds like fishy business to me.”
Mac began pacing. “Was he killed coming or going from the Hathaway place?”
Fletcher shook his head. “The accident happened with him heading north on Spencer Lane. He was heading toward Pelican Court, not away.”
Bogie told Mac, “That was my first question, too.”
“Even if he did kill Ilysa,” David said, “He didn’t have time to fence the painting and it certainly wasn’t in his vehicle.”
Mac asked Fletcher, “You’re certain the accident was an accident?”
The police officer laughed loudly, “The only way it would have been murder was if that deer was a suicide buck.”
“Victor Gruskonov didn’t do it,” Mac said. “He didn’t kill Ilysa and he didn’t steal the painting.”
“Okay! Here! Take it!”
Their conversation came to a halt when Eric tossed the last of his sandwich, wrapper and all, onto the floor in front of Gnarly, who pounced on it.
Mac said, “I see he broke you down.”
“I’ve never seen a dog like him,” Eric said. “No whining. No pawing at me. He just sat there, staring at me like—It’s like he was hypnotizing me into giving him what he wanted.�
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“Which he got,” Mac noted.
“Really, Eric? Gnarly hypnotized you into giving him your sandwich?” David chuckled. “He’s a dog.”
While watching Gnarly lick his snout after finishing the sandwich, Eric shuddered. “He’s a creepy dog.”
In the corner of West Virginia’s northern panhandle, the phone inside the stone house on the cobblestone boulevard of Rock Spring rang at the same time that Joshua Thornton was picking it up to call Cameron Gates.
“Dad, where have you been?” his daughter Tracy demanded to know. Her tone of voice sounded like that of a parent to a child who had missed his curfew.
Joshua was about to report that he’d been out to the store buying ice cream after getting a haircut when he remembered that he didn’t have to answer to his children. “I was out.”
“Doing what?”
“This and that.”
“Dad, I’ve been calling you all day and getting your voice mail. Then, when I tried your cell, it went straight to voice mail like you had your phone off.”
The worry in her voice overriding his rebellion, Joshua said, “I’m fine. Stop worrying about me. I can take care of myself.”
Her tone also softened. “I know that, but you aren’t as young as you used to be.”
Resisting the urge to defend his still youthful status, Joshua assured her that he had been eating regularly; getting a lot of sleep; and, if he was lucky, going out to dinner with a female friend. After hanging up from talking to Tracy, the doorbell rang.
Carrying a pizza box and a liter of soda, Detective Cameron Gates breezed into the foyer as soon as he opened the door. “Man, do I owe you. I think I’m going to have to sleep with you after what I found out today.”
When Admiral spotted Irving at the end of the leash hanging from Cameron’s wrist, he ducked behind Joshua like the Irish Wolfhound-Great Dane was small enough to hide.
Joshua was still getting over the astonishment that she—and her skunk cat—were there when she thrust the pizza box into his hands. “After ten years, we finally got a break in the case, and it’s all thanks to you.” She kissed him on the lips.
When she pulled away, she noticed Admiral eyeing Irving, who was twirling around his giant front legs while purring loudly. “Oh, you have a dog.” She asked Admiral, “What’s your name, big fellow?” Her tone sounded like she expected the dog to answer.
“His name’s Admiral. He’s a big chicken.”
“How dare you say such a thing about such a dignified looking beast.” With the dog’s chin cupped in her hand, she cooed, “That name suits you. You’re a grand and handsome man indeed. I see you met Irving. Irving loves dogs. As a matter of fact, he likes dogs more than he does other cats. I think he believes he is a dog.”
Sitting at Admiral’s feet, Irving meowed as if to say hello.
While Admiral stared down at Irving with puzzlement on his big face, Joshua reminded Cameron that she had mentioned Irving had issues. “But you never told me exactly what they are. Should I be worried about him?”
“No.”
“Since he’s in my house I think I have a right to know.”
Her nose wrinkled. Embarressment crossed her face. “Irving suffers from separation anxiety.”
Joshua burst out laughing.
She dropped down to detach the leash from Irving’s harness. Freed, the skunk cat resumed twirling around Admiral’s legs. The dog sucked up enough courage to sniff him.
“Are you serious?” Joshua asked. “Cats don’t get separation anxiety.”
“It’s rare, but some do.”
“You have to care to get separation anxiety and cats don’t care.”
She sighed with disgust. He could see that she had had this conversation with other people before. “Irving cares. That’s why he gets anxious when I leave him alone.”
Seeing that he had offended her, Joshua swallowed and forced himself to stop laughing. “What does he do?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.” She yanked the pizza box out of his hands and headed down the hallway toward the back of the house. “Where’s your kitchen? I forgot to get napkins. I hope you like the works. I got everything on the pizza.”
Joshua led her down the hall into the country kitchen at the back of the house. Along the way, she rattled off about her visit to the forensics lab to clandestinely make her request to re-run the prints, and then the call she received later with the news of a hit.
Joshua flipped open the lid of the pizza box to reveal that Cameron wasn’t joking about getting everything on the pizza. It was loaded with everything from pepperoni to sausage to ham to pineapple to anchovies.
This is not a woman who worries about her waistline.
“You’re a girl after my own heart,” he told her. “I can’t remember the last time I had a pizza with everything.” He went for the plates while she pulled paper towels off the roll to use as napkins.
“You like?”
With an enthusiastic laugh, he nodded his head. “Very much so. With a big family and everyone liking and hating different stuff, I’ve given up on everything years ago.” He served the pizza on two plates while she poured the soda into glasses. “Don’t keep me waiting. Continue. Forensics ran Jane Doe’s prints through the international database this time and you finally got an ID. Who is she?”
They sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Sensing that Cameron would be an easy touch, Admiral perched next to her. The Irish Wolfhound-Great Dane’s head was above table level. Irving took a spot on the other side of her chair.
“Ilysa Ramsay,” Cameron said. “Immigrant from Scotland. You’ll never guess who she’s married to.”
“I hate guessing.” Joshua wiped his mouth with the paper towel after a string of cheese that refused to be bitten off dripped down his chin.
“So do I,” she said. “So I’ll tell you. Neal Hathaway. Big muckity-muck CEO.”
He stopped in mid-bite of his second bite, took the slice of pizza from his mouth, and asked, “Ilysa Ramsay? Was she an artist of some sort?”
“I don’t know,” Cameron shrugged. “All I know is what the AFIS database had in their report and that was from her passport. Scottish immigrant. Came over after marrying an American, Neal Hathaway in early 2003. She was killed June 2003—”
Cameron raised her voice to call after him when he jumped up and hurried down the hallway with his pizza in his hand. “—so they weren’t married long at all. My question is why didn’t he report her missing?”
Seeing that she was now talking to Admiral and Irving, who were both more interested in her food, she picked up her slice of pizza to chase after her host. The animals formed a line behind her. She found Joshua tapping away on the laptop at his antique oak desk in the study. The pizza crust was clutched between his teeth.
She asked, “Is it something I said?”
He took the pizza out to say, “Very much so. Did you look up Ilysa Ramsay?”
Cameron slipped onto the corner of his desk. Her slender legs hung next to his arm. “I only got the ID a couple of hours ago. Priscilla had to call me on the sly when Bixby wasn’t around. Why? What do you know about her?”
Joshua slid the laptop around for her to see the screen where a news website announced, “Artist Ilysa Ramsay Slain.” The date on the article read, September 7, 2004.
For the first time since Joshua had met her, Cameron was speechless. The slice of pizza lay limp in her hand while she stared at the screen. Her brow furrowed. One eye squinted. “They can’t be the same person … No way can they be the same person … We have her body and the fingerprints say she’s Ilysa Ramsay.”
Joshua sat back in his leather desk chair. He entwined his fingers across his chest. A smirk crossed his face. “You, yourself just asked why her husband didn’t report her missing. Maybe she wasn’t missing.”
Cameron hopped down from the desk. The pizza slice flapped in her hand while she gestured. “We have a body and it has Ilysa
Ramsay’s fingerprints on it.” She stopped and stood up straight. “Could immigration be wrong?” Her voice was calm. “Do you know if AFIS has ever made a mistake?”
The thought had never come into Joshua’s mind. With no answer coming to his lips, he shrugged. “People make mistakes. Not computer databases.”
“I never had this happen before.”
Joshua smiled. “What? You never had a murder victim that had been killed before?”
“What do I do?”
Joshua stood up and placed his hands on her shoulders. When his eyes met hers, he had to force himself to keep his mind on track in order not to be pulled into thoughts of kissing her. “Do what you do best. Investigate the case.”
“Call Neal Hathaway,” she said.
“And ask him what? Why didn’t you report your wife’s first murder?” He shook his head. “If it were me, I’d call the police investigating the second Ilysa Ramsay’s murder to find out how sure they are that they have the right victim.”
They turned back to the laptop. Joshua was aware of her hair brushing against his cheek when they squeezed together to read the article.
“Deep Creek Lake,” she said. “That’s the second address we have the the Hathaways. It’s Neal Hathaway’s summer home.”
“According to this article, that’s where his wife was murdered.”
“Deep Creek Lake. I’ve never been there.” She turned to him. “Sounds like a great excuse for a road trip.”
“There’s a wonderful mountaintop resort there that I know you’ll love.” He moved in closer to her. “It’s got a breathtaking view of the lake and mountains.” She smelled sweet, like lilacs.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “I’d love to see it sometime.”
“I’d love to show it to you.” Her eyes pulled him in. “They have a rose garden maze. We can get lost in it ... alone ...together ...”
“What exactly do you have in mind?” Her mouth was close to his. “The two of us ... at this mountaintop resort ... alone ...”
He hesitated. That’s exactly what I have in mind ...What am I doing? I’ve only just met this woman.