Bitter Past

by Caroline Fardig

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I found Rich in his chemistry lab again, staring at the same beaker with the same bubbling green liquid he’d been staring at this morning.

  “Have some info for me?” I asked.

  “I do,” he said, going to a different table to gather a file folder and the container I had given him. “The samples themselves are pretty well destroyed from the test, but here’s what’s left of what you gave me. Instead of doing a GC-MS analysis, I went old school and looked at it under a microscope first. I thought it might be some sort of rock dust instead of soil, so I did an acid test.”

  “I don’t care what you did with it. I just want to know what it is.”

  “You’re not being very grateful.”

  I rolled my eyes at him.

  “Your mystery substance is calcium carbonate.”

  “Translation, please?”

  “Limestone,” he replied. “Limestone dust, to be more precise.”

  I thought for a moment. “Who would have limestone dust on his shoes?”

  Rich shrugged. “A quarry or rock yard worker. A landscaper. Or anyone who has recently set foot on a gravel road, parking lot, or driveway in Indiana.”

  I groaned. “So it could be anyone.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Well, at least you’ve answered my question as to what reagent to use. I’m going with Bromophenol Blue. Thanks.”

  “Excellent choice. Now do I get a free speeding ticket or something out of this favor?”

  Laughing, I said, “I’m afraid not. All I can offer you is the satisfaction of knowing you did your part for the greater good.”

  “That’s a shitty reimbursement.”

  I picked up the folder and the container and headed for the door. “Take it up with the Sheriff.”

  Hurrying to my office, I made sure to bring home one of the “special candies” I’d promised my nephew. I had an addiction to the truffles from a local chocolatier in Zionsville and always kept a box of them in my desk. I didn’t dare keep them at home for fear of eating an entire box in one sitting. Stopping by my lab, I grabbed a bottle of Bromophenol Blue solution, having noticed the bottle at the crime lab looked rather old. I pointed my car toward Noblesville.

  It was nearing rush hour, so traffic was horrible. I was late getting to the morgue, and Dr. Berg and DA McAlister were already conferring by the time I got suited up.

  “Sorry, traffic was crazy,” I said, joining them next to Eli’s body.

  McAlister glared at me, but Dr. Berg smiled. He said, “No problem. We didn’t start without you. I performed the autopsy this morning with Detective Sterling in attendance, who was later joined by Detective Baxter. The official cause of death is asphyxiation by strangulation, and I’m classifying it as a homicide.”

  “You’re one hundred percent certain it wasn’t a suicide?” asked DA McAlister, squinting down at Eli’s body as if it might suddenly start speaking to him.

  “Yes. The victim’s hyoid bone has been broken. I believe that he was manually strangled before he was strung up. Ultimately, he died from the hanging. I assume the killer realized the boy was near death and then felt the need to cover it up.”

  A chill crept up my spine. Manual strangulation was an up-close, intimate kind of assault. This murder was personal. I didn’t know how this information would affect the investigation, but it was disconcerting nonetheless.

  The DA nodded. “That broken hyoid will make homicide a hell of a lot easier to sell.”

  Dr. Berg grimaced slightly but continued. “We spoke about the blood underneath the victim’s fingernails. I also found a significant amount of dead skin, which could belong to his attacker if the two were in a struggle. I’ve sent samples to the lab for them to run DNA.”

  I nodded, already having heard about the blood from Baxter.

  McAlister seemed happy to have some hard evidence. “Finally some good news. If we can get a positive DNA match, my case is as good as won.”

  “Yes, I hope so. I’ve put a rush on the test, but you know how that goes.”

  McAlister sneered, “You wouldn’t think it would take weeks to do one simple test.”

  DNA testing was anything but simple, but I understood what he meant. Apprehending suspects could be done in a much more timely fashion if our labs weren’t understaffed, underfunded, and overworked.

  Dr. Berg continued, “I also found wood splinters and fragments of white paint under his fingernails, which is consistent with evidence you found at the scene, correct?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “It seemed as though he scratched the doorframe where he was hanging to try to get a handhold.”

  He nodded. “I swabbed the area around the muzzle imprint on his forehead and the abrasion on his temple, and they tested positive for gunshot residue. He was held at gunpoint and assaulted before he was hanged. Poor kid.”

  Poor kid, my ass. He was a drug dealer and all-around scumbag. His bad behavior finally caught up to him. Granted, maybe what he’d done didn’t warrant a brutal murder, but it now seemed obvious that he’d done something to piss off the wrong person.

  Dr. Berg said, “Not that this is particularly pertinent to the case, but I found evidence of drug abuse. There is a significant amount of irritation in the mucous membranes of his nasal cavity.” He looked at me. “You don’t seem surprised by this, Ellie.”

  I shrugged. “He was a drug dealer. Not a shock that he was his own customer as well. He wasn’t the upstanding student he would have liked everyone to believe, and he may have been into more kinds of trouble than anyone realized.”

  “I see,” said Dr. Berg.

  The DA turned to me. “What, do we think this is a drug-related hit now? You guys are all over the place with your theories on who killed this kid. First it was his teacher and now it’s his supplier? Make up your damn minds and get me a suspect!”

  “Calm down, Wade,” Dr. Berg warned.

  Still grumbling, McAlister said, “I don’t have time for this shit. I’m late for dinner with my wife.” He stalked out of the morgue.

  I heaved out a heavy sigh.

  Dr. Berg smiled. “Can you go home and get some rest now?”

  “No, I have a date.” I yawned. “I hope I can stay awake.”

  Dr. Berg shook his head, chuckling.

  ***

  When I got to the lab, the lights were off and no one was in there, which meant Beck and his assistant had gone home for the day. That was perfect for me, but not cool of them to leave at their regular time considering we were working a murder investigation. They had pulled a double the day before, but so had the rest of us, and we were still hard at work. Then again, they had pulled a double earlier in the week, too, because of the Marais case. They were undoubtedly exhausted and deserved some time to decompress.

  The first thing I did was sit down and get out my case notes for the Vanover murder. I jotted down the information I had received from Rich about the substance on the footprints being limestone dust. I flipped through my notes from the scene and read the section about the out-of-place items we had found on the apartment floor—blue glass rock and pea gravel. The only place in the apartment where we found those two kinds of stones was in the area where the struggle and murder had occurred. If any of the apartment’s inhabitants or frequent visitors had tracked those rocks in on his or her shoes, I reasoned that we would have found them all around the apartment instead of concentrated in the struggle area. The victim was barefoot when he was found, so I surmised the rocks had to have come from the killer’s shoes.

  I Googled “limestone, blue glass rock, pea gravel, Indianapolis.” I got back thousands of hits, most of them pointing me to landscape suppliers in the area. I then searched for “landscape rock, Indianapolis,” which got me a map with dozens of local businesses fitting that description. When I perused the list, a name jumped out at me: Powell Stone Supply. Morris Powell was the name of George Cooper’s opponent in the senatorial race. After a bit of searc
hing, I found that Morris Powell did indeed own Powell Stone Supply and that Powell Stone Supply sold pea gravel and several kinds of crushed limestone rock. And right on their homepage, Powell Stone Supply featured a new-to-the-market landscaping material: “landscape glass,” a soft-edged recycled glass product gaining popularity across the country.

  Something about this information didn’t sit well with me. In fact, it raised more questions than it answered. I spent several minutes perusing local landscape suppliers’ websites and found that Powell Stone Supply was the only one in the area that sold landscape glass in bulk. After printing out my findings, I headed off to find Baxter to run my thoughts past him. He was at his desk, eating a cheeseburger while reading emails.

  When I sat down in the chair next to him, he looked up and said, “I thought you were supposed to be on your date with the rent-a-cop.”

  “Soon.”

  “Don’t forget to fix your face.”

  Frowning, I changed the subject. “Did you find anything interesting at Tristan’s apartment?”

  Shaking his head, he said, “I struck out.”

  “Well, maybe I can give you some good news. I found out what was on our killer’s shoes. Limestone dust, like from crushed limestone.”

  His brow furrowed. “You mean what they use on every rock road, parking lot, and driveway in a thousand-mile radius?”

  “Yes, but considering we also found pea gravel and blue landscape glass at the scene, I’ve drawn a possible conclusion. The killer had recently been at a landscape rock supply yard.”

  “Is there any way Sellers, Vanover, or another student could have picked up those rocks on campus or on the grounds of the apartment?”

  “Ashmore uses mulch in all of the flowerbeds on campus. I don’t know if it’s for looks or so the kids won’t have rocks to throw at each other. And those apartments are crappy. They don’t have any landscaping.”

  Baxter thought about it for a moment, pursing his lips. “Okay, I could go with the idea that the killer brought it with him, possibly from a supply yard. You seem to know something more, though.”

  “Well, I did some digging, and I found out that Morris Powell, George Cooper’s opponent for the US Senate seat, owns a landscape supply business on the north side of Indy. It seems to be the only place in this area that sells landscape glass in bulk.”

  He sat up in his seat. “Powell owns a rock yard?” I could tell from his face that this information was of consequence to him, but he quickly sank back into his chair and feigned disinterest. “Why would Powell have had anything to do with Eli Vanover’s death?”

  “You said yourself that Vasti’s and Eli’s deaths are related. Although I’d have thought that if landscape rock were to be found at a scene, it would have been at Vasti’s, not Eli’s. You heard Cooper swear up and down that his cousin Tyler, Powell’s campaign manager, is trying to set him up for Vasti’s murder in order to ruin his father’s chance at winning the election.”

  “It’s a possibility, but don’t know that I can see Powell as the link between the two murders.”

  “But you have to admit this is awfully coincidental.”

  He shrugged. “Not really. You said anyone could get that blue glass from a fire pit bought at Walmart, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Some random killer off the street could have picked up the fire pit glass and the pea gravel in his own flowerbed, walked across his rock driveway, and headed straight for Sellers’s apartment. And by the way, it’s not your job to draw conclusions on the Vasti Marais case.”

  “Damn it, Baxter, it was a good observation.”

  I got up and stalked away, heading for the restroom to fix my makeup and hair. I didn’t know why Baxter was shutting me down all of a sudden, except that my involvement in the Marais case could do something to jeopardize their investigation. I was only trying to help, but since neither Baxter nor Sterling seemed to want my help, screw them. It made my head hurt to think about Vasti’s case anyway.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I had inadvertently left myself little time to primp. I did what I could to my hair, and it looked better, but not great. On the positive side, my makeup job turned out to be a success, so I no longer looked like I had been punched in both eyes. At seven o’clock I went outside, and Rob was there waiting. When he saw me, he got out of his SUV to meet me and took my hand.

  Smiling down at me, he said, “Hello, Ellie. I was worried this date was never going to happen.”

  “I’m sorry. Things have been nuts since yesterday. Thank you for being so understanding.”

  He led me to his vehicle and helped me into the passenger seat. “No problem at all. I hope you don’t mind, but after you said you wouldn’t have much time tonight, I took the liberty of picking up dinner for us. I thought we could go to Morse Park and have a picnic.”

  I was floored by his thoughtfulness. “That’s perfect. Thank you.”

  He got into the driver’s seat. “I hope you like Maggiano’s.”

  “I love it.” I thought I’d smelled garlic when I got into his vehicle, and that explained it.

  We made small talk on the short drive to Morse Park. It was north of Noblesville, situated on Morse Reservoir, a decent-sized (for central Indiana) body of water. Once we got there, he drove to the end of one of the roads and parked. He got a blanket and our dinner out of the back of his vehicle and led me to a secluded spot in the woods, right on the edge of the water. The sun had just begun to dip down below the tree line, creating a blaze of orange and bright pink streaks across the sky. The temperature had dropped, finally, and there was a nice breeze cooling the air.

  Rob set down the things he was carrying and took my hand. The air between us suddenly felt electric, like the previous times we’d been together. He pulled me toward him and wrapped his other arm around my waist. “You’ll have to forgive me, but I can’t wait another minute to do this.” He leaned down and kissed me, making my body tingle and my knees go weak in response.

  After he pulled away, I said breathlessly, “I’ll forgive you, but only if you do that again.”

  His eyes sparkled as he came back for another kiss, this one even more passionate than the first. Once it was over, he said, “I believe I promised you dinner. But I hope we can pick this up again later.”

  I traced one finger lightly along his square jaw. “Oh, don’t worry. We will.”

  With a smile, he let me go and started getting out the food.

  “It’s beautiful here. I’ve never come to this part of the park before. I’ve only ever hung out at the beach,” I said.

  He gazed out across the smooth reservoir as he spread the blanket out over the grass so we could sit down. “This was my favorite spot growing up. My dad used to bring my four younger brothers and me here all the time. My mother needed some quiet time to herself every once and a while with five boys running around the house. We spent nearly every Saturday afternoon here, exploring every inch of this place.” Taking my hands, he helped me down onto the blanket and then sat next to me.

  “Five boys? Your mother must be a saint.”

  “She is. My dad passed away when I was a senior in high school, so she had to raise my little brothers on her own.”

  I frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that, Rob.”

  “I shouldn’t complain. I had a great childhood with some fantastic memories.” He handed me a container of food, which I opened immediately and started eating. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. “What about you? Did you grow up here?”

  I certainly did not have a great childhood, and my memories were more like nightmares. Maybe it was for the best to steer the conversation away from that topic. “In this area, yes. We moved around a lot.” I changed the subject away from me. “So…five boys in the house? I get tired sometimes with only one.”

  He wrinkled his forehead as he poured me a glass of wine. “You have a son?” Once he’d served me, he got out his own food and started eating.


  “No, I have a nephew. He and my sister live with me.” Children could be a big turn-off to some men, as my sister had been quick to discover when she started dating again after having Nate. I hoped Rob wasn’t that kind of man.

  “That’s not a bad deal you have there. You can be the fun aunt and pass him back to his mom for the hard stuff. I have several nieces and nephews, so I’ve become a pro at the pass-off.”

  I was happy to hear he at least didn’t run screaming when children were mentioned. “That works most of the time. Nate’s a pretty good kid, and he’s only three so there’s not a lot of hard stuff yet. Besides, having them around is a lot more fun than living alone.”

  “You sound like me. I’m always taking in my brothers when they need a place to stay. My middle brother’s girlfriend kicks him out of the house at least once a month.” He shrugged. “I made a promise to my dad that I’d look out for them.”

  Rob Larson was looking like an excellent prospect, but considering my track record of poor choices in men, I was wary. “You take in stray brothers, you own your own business, and you’re very understanding when it comes to being stood up on a date. Nobody’s that nice.” There had to be something wrong with him.

  Rob flashed his signature smile at me and took my hand. “I really am that nice. I even call my mom once a day.”

  A mama’s boy. It wasn’t the worst thing a man could be, but it wasn’t necessarily attractive, either. “Once a day, huh?”

  “Why—don’t you?”

  Removing my hand from his and taking a swig of my wine, I replied, “I’ve spoken to my mother a grand total of one time since I was eighteen years old.”

  After I said that, I winced, berating myself for taking skeletons out of my closet for no good reason. Normally I didn't talk about my mother at all, but between my exhaustion, the wine, and my surprising comfort level with Rob, I shared more than I intended.

  His voice softened. “Don't you think it's about time you get in touch with her, Ellie?”