Bitter Past

by Caroline Fardig

  “No harm done. I’ll see you tomorrow, Ellie.”

  Relieved, I hung up and sat down on the tailgate of the SUV. Now that I was away from the scene and had a chance to take a breath, I realized how sore I was from crouching and being on my feet all afternoon. I had grown unaccustomed to the physical stress this job put on my body.

  Baxter approached me. “What the hell happened? You darted out of there like a woman possessed.”

  “Sorry. I’d just remembered I stood up my date for dinner tonight.”

  “Oh.” Something flashed in his eyes for a moment, but then was gone. “I had one of the deputies go out and grab us some burgers. Hope you’re not a vegetarian.”

  “Not even close. While we’re waiting, I’m going to go find a restroom.”

  Not thinking, I unzipped my jumpsuit and let it fall to the ground. Baxter’s face reddened, and he moved to stand very close in front of me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Creating a human shield. It seems that you’re not wearing any pants.”

  “Oh, shit!” I yanked my jumpsuit back up and looked around. “Tell me no one saw me.”

  He turned and scanned the parking lot. The gawkers and newshounds had for the most part gotten bored and dispersed. It was mainly law enforcement officials, and they were all deep in discussion.

  “Nope. I think you’re good.”

  Good other than the fact that Baxter had seen me with my pants down. He was quite a gentleman about it, though. Sterling, being every bit as mature as my nephew, would have chanted, “I see London, I see France” to the entire town. I wondered how they got on as partners, being such complete opposites.

  After a much-needed dinner break and a short conference with the Sheriff to relate our findings so far, Baxter and I re-entered the apartment, ready to get back to work. We were confident we had found all the evidence related to the murder, but we still had to search every inch of the room for anything we might have missed.

  Baxter helped me measure the room so I could have accurate dimensions for my sketch. After dividing up the room into four quadrants, we each took two of them, scavenging through the mess and collecting anything that struck us as out of place or interesting. We collected and separately bagged all the clothing we thought had been in the area of the struggle. Once that was picked up, we went over the carpet again. There were numerous hairs on the floor, but we collected only the ones in the struggle area. Both of our writing hands were cramping from filling out an obscene amount of evidence tags—one for each piece of evidence we collected—and logging each piece of evidence that needed further testing on a lab request form. Once we had everything up off the floor in the path from the body to the exit, Baxter vacuumed the area with our special sweeper.

  He handed me the filter attachment that had collected the debris. “Does this kid even own a vacuum cleaner? Look at how much crap I picked up. This is disgusting.”

  After emptying the filter’s contents into a bag, I sat back on my heels and removed and discarded my gloves. “I know. In the back of my mind, I keep thinking we’re spinning our wheels. All of this trace could have been here since the beginning of the semester. Maybe even earlier than that, depending on when Tristan moved in here, and whether the super bothered to have the apartment cleaned between renters.”

  “Are we finally done with the collecting?”

  I looked around the room. “Almost. How about our vic’s cell phone? We didn’t find one here during our search, and the Doc said there wasn’t one in his pockets, so it’s not on its way to the morgue with him.”

  “I thought college kids wouldn’t go anywhere without their phones—even the morgue.”

  Rolling my eyes at his stupid joke, I said, “They don’t go anywhere without their backpacks, either. Did we miss that, too?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t see one.”

  “In that case, will you sweep the apartment one more time looking specifically for the victim’s phone and backpack? And could you run the UV light over the place and swab for blood and any other bodily fluids you might find?”

  He made a face and glanced around the room. “I’m afraid to run the UV light over this place. And what will you be doing while I’m doing the dirty work, Bossypants?”

  Smiling, I said, “My specialty. Dusting for fingerprints.”

  Baxter grabbed the UV light, goggles, and a fistful of swabs out of the kit and started his task. I went behind him, armed with a brush, magnetic fingerprint powder, and print tape. To our surprise, the floor was devoid of any bodily fluids, but when he shined the light on the couch, he groaned.

  “I don’t even want to know what’s happened on this couch,” he said.

  I counted several fluorescent stains. “It’s a college boy’s apartment. I think we both know what’s happened on this couch. You have to swab it though, because it’s part of the scene.”

  Grumbling, he set to work on the couch while I dusted for prints on the front door of the apartment. After I’d finished dusting, I noticed to my dismay that there were too many prints on the doorknob, door, and frame to count.

  “This sucks,” I said, starting to get tired and crabby.

  Baxter had moved on to taking samples of the blood on the doorframe. “It can’t be worse than cleaning up some other guy’s jizz,” he muttered.

  I didn’t know whether he meant for me to hear that or not, so I ignored his comment. “I enjoy fingerprinting, but I forgot how much I hate trying to grab prints off doors. There are so damn many on here.”

  “Have fun with that.” Baxter boxed up his samples and disappeared into the hallway leading to the bedroom and bathroom.

  I finally got all the latent prints I could off the door and dusted several other surfaces throughout the apartment. Baxter appeared in the living area empty-handed.

  “The only thing I found that might be of interest in there is a laptop belonging to Tristan Sellers,” he said.

  “We probably can’t take a computer without a separate warrant.”

  “Right. I doubt there’s anything damning on there, unless he was Googling ‘how to kill someone with a jump rope.’ ”

  I wrinkled my nose at him. “Too soon.”

  “Come on, I’ve been pretty good about the jokes today. If Sterling were working this scene with you instead of me, do you think he would have been such a gentleman?”

  “If Sterling were working this scene with me, it would have turned into a double homicide, straight up.”

  He laughed. “You two need to kiss and make up.”

  “Did you have to say it like that? Now I have a very unwanted visual. Thanks,” I grumbled. “Hey, instead of giving me a hard time, why don’t you bag and tag the pull-up bar? I’m almost finished with the fingerprinting. After that, I think we’re done here.”

  “Hallelujah. But you know we’re far from finished. We have to do our pre-autopsy meeting with Dr. Berg, and then we have to go over everything with Sterling and the Sheriff.”

  “I know. I’ll just be happy to get out of this nasty pit.”

  While he gathered up our evidence, I printed the doorframe where Eli had been hanging, again coming up with hundreds of prints, most of them partials like on the front door. It wasn’t surprising, given that this doorway was in a high traffic area of the apartment, a place inhabitants would have to pass through multiple times a day to get from room to room.

  We grabbed the bins of evidence and let the officer outside know we were leaving for the night. Martinez had been replaced, as it was well past midnight and his shift was over. Baxter and Sterling would be pulling double shifts tonight. I figured I’d be lucky to get home in time to shower and drive back to campus to teach my first class in the morning.

  Baxter drove me over to the parking lot of the science building to get my car. I followed him straight to the Sheriff’s station, where my old lab was, if you could call it a lab. There was much more sophisticated equipment in the criminalistics lab at Ashmor
e, which I intended to use as much as I could to analyze the evidence for this case. It would be better for the chain of custody to keep the evidence in-house once it got to the station, but some tests were going to need more technology than the station’s lab could offer.

  We checked our evidence in and went to change out of our coveralls. I remembered my skirt this time, waiting to remove my jumpsuit until I was safely inside the ladies’ room. Splashing some water on my face, I steeled myself for the long night ahead of me. Welcome back, Ellie. Agreeing to work this case had not been one of my better ideas.

  Baxter had a cup of coffee waiting for me when I emerged. “I thought you could use this,” he said.

  Accepting it, I replied, “Thanks. I haven’t been up this late in years. If I fall asleep, smack me.”

  “Surely it won’t come to that,” he said, chuckling. His laughter died quickly, and his face became serious. “Ellie, when you said you had a date tonight, it wasn’t with Dudley Cooper, was it?”

  “No, of course not. We’ve never been more than friends and colleagues. Given the present circumstances, though, I think it’s best if I sever my ties with him.”

  He seemed relieved. “Good. I think he could be dangerous, so I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

  “Dangerous? No. With us both being mixed up in your other murder case, I just don’t want to muddy any legal waters for him or for me. I’m not staying away because I’m afraid of him.”

  “Well, maybe you should be. We have enough evidence to arrest him for Vasti Marais’s murder. There’s a warrant out for him, but he’s in the wind. We’ve contacted his lawyer and his family members, and none of them will tell us where he is.”

  My heart sank. Cooper was officially wanted for murder. My mind was reeling from the thought of it, and what made it worse was that he ran. I thought back to his conversation with his cousin Tyler this afternoon. I simply couldn’t believe he ran. Only guilty people ran. Could I have been wrong about him?

  Baxter must have misinterpreted my silence, because his expression darkened. “Do you know where he is? Because if you do and you’re not telling me, don’t think I won’t bring you up on obstruction of justice,” he said, a sharp edge to his voice I hadn’t heard before.

  Shocked by what I was hearing, and especially by how fast Baxter turned on me when given the chance, I gasped. “Really? After what we’ve been through this evening, you’re threatening to slap charges on me? What the hell, Nick?”

  “Do you know where he is or not?”

  “No! The last time I saw him was before noon today. His cousin Tyler Harris came to school to give him the keys to the family’s lake house and to suggest that he go and stay there for a while, but I never heard if he actually went.” I shook my head. “I tried to get Cooper to go to the police on his own, but clearly I didn’t convince him. He was upset about an altercation he had with Tristan Sellers in the middle of the science building, and probably wasn’t thinking—”

  “What kind of an altercation?” Baxter demanded.

  “Tristan was screaming at him about how Vasti’s blood was on his hands.”

  His face darkened. “And you didn’t think this was something you should have told me?”

  Raising my voice to match his, I replied, “I was a little preoccupied with processing a crime scene! You don’t have to be such a dick about it.”

  He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “Fine. Just…go on.”

  “After the thing with Tristan, Cooper told me the police were searching his place. That’s when Tyler showed up, gave him the lake house keys, and informed him that the police had moved on to searching Mayor Cooper’s gun collection for the weapon that killed Vasti. Cooper stormed out, and I haven’t seen him since.”

  “Where is this lake house?”

  “On Lake Monroe. I realize that’s not a specific answer, but that’s all I know.”

  “And he hasn’t tried to contact you?”

  Remembering the messages on my phone, I said, “Actually, he has. He called me several times tonight, but my phone was in your vehicle, so I missed the calls.”

  “When were you planning on telling me this?” he cried. “You’re a smart woman—you had to know we were looking for him.”

  “What crawled up your ass? It’s not like you’ve kept me up to speed on your investigation of Vasti’s murder. I’m not a mind reader.”

  He closed his eyes, and I could tell he was trying not to let his anger consume him. “I’m going to need to see your phone.”

  Fuming, I plucked it out of my purse and threw it at him. “Knock yourself out.”

  I stalked away from him and down the hallway, headed for the break room’s vending machine. I fed my money into the machine and punched in the number for my choice of snack. Ripping off the wrapper, I took nearly half the Snickers bar in one bite, muttering curses as I chewed. Damn Baxter and his holier-than-thou attitude. Was it my job to inform the police every time I had a conversation with Dudley Cooper? Especially when they were intentionally keeping me out of the loop of their investigation? To be fair, it was none of my business, plus I was a witness, so they technically couldn’t discuss the case with me. Regardless, Baxter didn’t have to treat me like a criminal.

  When I was halfway through my third candy bar, Sterling came sauntering into the break room. He took one look at the mess of candy wrappers on the table and smirked. “I heard you and Baxter had a little spat. Figured I’d find you here.”

  “The last thing I need right now is you, Sterling,” I grumbled, my mouth full of Twix this time.

  “Stress levels are running high enough around here without us having to deal with one of your hot-headed fits.”

  “Did you come in here to pick a fight with me?”

  “No, I came in here to tell you it’s time for us to go meet with Dr. Berg over at the morgue. Now clean up your shit and get your ass over there.”

  He turned to leave, and I flipped him off.

  “I saw that, Matthews,” he called on his way out the door.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sterling and Baxter didn’t offer to give me a ride over to the morgue, so I went by myself. I didn’t want to be around them anyway. When I got inside, the two of them were suiting up to go into the room where the autopsy would be conducted. With no help from them, I found protective gear for myself and donned a surgical gown, mask, and gloves. I followed them to the table where Eli’s body lay. Dr. Berg and the District Attorney, Wade McAlister, were already there waiting. This meeting was the initial conference to discuss the preliminary details of the case before the autopsy was performed. The coroner, the prosecutor, the lead detectives, and the lead crime scene technician were required to be in attendance.

  Dr. Berg greeted us with a solemn, “Good evening.” To him, the morgue was a sacred place. Everyone knew better than to screw around or tell jokes in Dr. Berg’s morgue.

  DA McAlister, looking like he’d been dragged out of bed, threw us a glare. He was dressed in sweats and his normally slicked-back hair was tousled, making him seem almost approachable until he opened his mouth. “It’s about time you three got here,” he barked.

  Grimacing, Dr. Berg said, “Let’s begin. The autopsy for Elijah Vanover will be at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Detectives, at least one of you will need to be in attendance. As I told you at the scene, I’ve determined the preliminary cause of death to be asphyxiation by strangulation. Notice the lacerations on his neck from the ligature and the blood underneath his fingernails, which I suspect is his own. Our victim was trying to get out of the noose he was in.” He pointed to Eli’s temple. “We spoke about this abrasion at the crime scene. I believe it was made by the side of a handgun.”

  Baxter said, “The scene did show some signs of a struggle.”

  Dr. Berg nodded, pointing to the middle of Eli’s forehead. “See this contusion here? I think it’s a muzzle imprint, as if someone had a gun pressed to the victim’s head or jabbed at him wit
h it. The force it took to make this muzzle imprint and the placement of it are inconsistent with a self-inflicted wound, as is the abrasion on the temple. Between that and what the Sheriff told me about the scene, I’m fairly certain this will be classified as a homicide, pending autopsy.”

  I glanced at Baxter, who gave me a sheepish look. My crime-scene theory that the victim could have been coerced at gunpoint didn’t seem so stupid now.

  Disbelief on his face, DA McAlister said, “This kid was found hanging and we’re going with homicide based on a little pistol-whipping? How the hell am I going to sell that to a jury?” The DA often seemed more interested in how he could win a case than in justice actually being served.

  Sterling grunted, “We’ll get you your damn evidence, McAlister.”

  “Get me a suspect, too, if it’s not too much trouble,” the DA fired back.

  Dr. Berg ignored both of them, continuing, “I’ve sent the jump rope, which I’ve determined to be the murder weapon, and the victim’s clothes to the lab. I believe that Beck Durant is working on them as we speak.”

  Sterling turned to me and raised his eyebrows. “Becky is handling evidence? What the hell’s the point of having you around if not to keep his bumbling paws off it?”

  Glaring at Sterling, I replied, “I’m here to see that this case doesn’t get screwed up, not to put anyone out of a job. Durant can handle most of the analysis. He’s not totally incompetent.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  Dr. Berg stepped in. “If you all are finished, get out of my morgue.”

  We all headed for the door to the changing room. Stripping off their gear and slamming it into the trash, Sterling and McAlister both stormed away. Baxter took his time. He was looking tired and drawn.

  I stopped Baxter before he exited the room. “Hey, Nick, I wanted to say I’m sorry about before.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. You’re doing me a huge favor here, and I was a total ass to you.”

  “It’s okay. My claws came out, too.”