Bitter Past

by Caroline Fardig

  “Fire away, Detective Baxter. I have nothing to hide.” Anytime someone said he had nothing to hide, he definitely had something to hide.

  “Let’s start with your relationship with George Cooper.”

  Powell laughed, rocking back on his heels. “Oh, George. He’s one tough customer. Good guy, though.”

  “Has there ever been an instance where either of you crossed the line with a campaign strategy?” asked Baxter.

  “With Election Day approaching, his commercials have been getting more…catty. But I wouldn’t say he’s necessarily crossed a line. Mud-slinging is an age-old political tactic, but it’s one I don’t happen to participate in,” Powell said, his expression as pious as a choirboy.

  “I’m not talking about bad PR.”

  Cocking his head to the side, Powell replied, “I don’t follow…”

  Baxter got out a headshot of Vasti Marais that was taken on the slab at the morgue and showed it to Powell. Powell shrank back, horrified by the image. I didn’t blame him—it was a graphic photo. Vasti’s beautiful face was discolored and distorted from her body having been allowed to decompose outside in the heat.

  “Do you know this woman?” Baxter demanded. I thought it was difficult to recognize her from the photo, but I was sure he was using this one in particular for the shock value.

  “No,” Powell breathed, his face white. “Who is she?”

  “Her name is Vasti Marais. Does the name ring a bell?”

  Powell wiped a hand down his face. “She’s the woman George’s boy killed. Such a tragic story.”

  I said, “A perfect story someone could use to damage George Cooper’s political career.”

  Powell tried to muster his smile back, but faltered. “I…I haven’t used the story against him.”

  “On the news yesterday, you weighed in on the situation,” Baxter said. “I believe you said something about the apple not falling far from the tree. That maybe someone who raised a murderer shouldn’t be trusted to represent our state in Congress.”

  Powell started backpedalling. “I might have spoken out of turn there—”

  I cut him off. “You did more than speak out of turn. You slandered a man who hasn’t even been formally charged with a crime yet.”

  As Powell fought to keep his composure, Baxter said, “It seems awfully convenient that George Cooper’s credibility took a major hit right before the election…and right when you were trailing him by a few points in the polls.”

  Trying to appear nonchalant, Powell waved his hand as if to dismiss Baxter’s comments. “A few points is nothing. Polls have a wide margin for error. I’m not worried.”

  “Mr. Powell, I’m going to lay it out for you.” Baxter gestured to the piles of rock we had been examining. “We found blue glass landscape rock, pea gravel, and limestone dust at Vasti Marais’s murder scene and also at another crime scene. The killer was careful to leave enough evidence to point to Dudley Cooper, but maybe wasn’t quite clever enough to realize he’d left behind something to incriminate himself.”

  “I sell a lot of rock, Detective. Many of the homes in the area have a combination of those rocks in their landscaping. It could have come from anywhere.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, but you’re the one who stands to gain,” Baxter pointed out.

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” Powell insisted, his demeanor changing from frightened to angry.

  “Maybe you instructed Tyler Harris to do your dirty work.”

  “No!” Powell cried. “Tyler is a good kid. I would never ask him to do anything like that.”

  “Would you ask one of your other employees? Or hire someone to carry out the hit?” I asked.

  “No!” Powell shouted, his face red. “I had nothing to do with that girl’s murder, or any other crime for that matter! And I resent the fact that you’ve come to my place of business and accused me of such things.” He narrowed his eyes at us. “Wait a minute. Are you on George Cooper’s payroll? Did he have you come over here to question me to try to ruin my reputation?”

  “No, sir. We answer to the Sheriff, not George Cooper,” Baxter said, not at all ruffled by Powell’s accusation. “We simply followed the evidence, and it led us to you.”

  “I hardly think a few rocks could link me to a murder. I’ll have to run that one past my lawyer.” Straightening up to his full height, Powell said, “Speaking of my lawyer, if you want to talk to me again, you’ll have to go through him.” He turned on his heel and marched back toward his office.

  I turned to Baxter. “Well, you certainly rattled his cage. What do you think?”

  “I think he’s another slimeball politician, but he’s right—a few rocks are not going to tie him to either murder. Besides, he doesn’t seem the type to get his hands dirty. Let’s go talk to Harris’s girlfriend.”

  Getting out the pill bottles I had brought, I said, “Hang on. I need to grab a few samples.”

  Baxter’s phone rang, and he walked several feet away from me to take the call. I crouched down again and shined my flashlight on the ground. The stacked wall of stone opposite the bulk rock stalls had all but blotted out the afternoon sun in this area. I got out some tweezers, collecting samples of the blue glass rock, pea gravel, and limestone. For good measure, I also got out my scale and took a few more photos to document the size of the rocks.

  The sound of a nearby tractor was practically deafening, but I happened to hear Baxter shout, “Ellie! Look out!”

  Startled, I began to hop up, but Baxter crashed into me, pushing me back and tackling me. My breath whooshed out of me as we landed hard against the pile of blue landscape glass, the jagged stones digging into my back and bare arms.

  He scrambled up and pulled me with him. “Are you okay?”

  Wincing as I tried to straighten my aching back, I took and shallow breath and wheezed, “Ugh. Next time, buy me dinner first.”

  Rolling his eyes, he grumbled, “You’re welcome.”

  “What the hell happened?” I asked, flicking off dirt and pieces of the blue glass that had stuck to my skin and clothing.

  As we’d fallen, I’d heard a loud clattering sound. A white cloud of dust hung heavy in the air around us. When it cleared, we could see a pile of huge landscape stones spilling out of a broken cage in the place where I’d been standing seconds ago. I froze, a cold chill washing over me.

  Baxter’s face became ashen as he surveyed the mess of stones on the ground. He glanced up to the top of the stack from which they had fallen. His eyes flashed with anger. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think that pallet fell on its own.”

  Bending over to catch my breath, but more so Baxter wouldn’t see the terror I knew was all over my face, I took a good look at the stones. That load could easily have killed me if Baxter hadn’t been there to push me out of the way. I shuddered. Someone was trying to send us a message, and it was pretty obvious who it was.

  While I was trying to hold back a panic attack, Baxter took off around the side of the wall from where the rocks had fallen. Seconds later, he returned, a disgusted look on his face. “This part of the lot is suddenly deserted. What do you want to bet that if I asked the workers if they saw anything, they’d all play dumb?”

  My breathing still ragged, I said, “And if we asked Powell the same question, we’d get the same response from him. Let’s just go.”

  We trudged back over to Baxter’s SUV. I stopped Baxter before he got in, having him step on a big sheet of lifting tape to capture the limestone dust that was all over the soles of his shoes. For good measure, I swabbed his shoes as well, trying to take my mind off what could have happened back there.

  Once we were on the road again and heading south, I felt Baxter’s eyes on me. “What?” I asked. My hands were shaking, but at least I could breathe again.

  “You look pale. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I crossed my arms so he wouldn’t see my hands and changed the subject. “Where do we have to go to find
Tyler’s lady friend? Some old-money mansion on Meridian?”

  He regarded me for a moment before replying. “No, she wants to meet at a bar east of downtown.”

  “East of downtown? I hate to be rude, but that’s not exactly a classy part of Indy.” A memory popped into my head. “Come to think of it, I lived there for about three months when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure my mom was dating a drug dealer at the time. I was little, so I had no clue what was going on, but I remember plenty of strangers coming and going at all hours and lots of shouting. The dealer guy was nice, though. He bought me toys and he didn’t hit me.”

  Baxter’s eyes widened, but he didn’t respond. After that, we didn’t talk much on the way to our destination, only making stilted small talk about the weather and the Colts’ upcoming home game.

  The houses got smaller, older, and closer together as we neared our destination. On a particularly rundown street, we parked next to a small cinderblock building with metal bars on the windows. The neon sign next to the door had once said Eastside Bar, but several letters had burned out. This did not seem like the kind of place where any friend of Tyler Harris’s would hang out.

  I moved to get out of the vehicle, but Baxter placed a hand on my arm. He said, “I’m sorry I clammed up earlier. You’ve never said anything like that before, and it caught me off guard.”

  I studied his face. It radiated pity. That was one thing I didn’t want, especially from him. “I didn’t say it so you’d feel sorry for me. I was only making conversation. Trust me, living with a drug dealer wasn’t even close to the worst thing that happened to me as a kid. It’s not a painful story to bring up. You seem interested in my past for some reason, so I threw it out there.”

  He sighed. “I’m not trying to pry. I just think if we’re going to work together, we need to get to know each other so we can understand where we’re coming from. I want you to feel like you can talk to me.”

  “You know, you’ve always asked a lot of questions about me, but I’ve not heard you talk about yourself at all.”

  “Sorry, I guess that’s the detective in me. What do you want to know?”

  I didn’t want to know anything. I’d only wanted to change the subject away from myself. “We should probably go inside before we get carjacked.”

  “Right,” he said.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his face fall. Why did he care about getting to know me since we were only working this one case together? Once I’d finished gathering and examining the evidence, we probably wouldn’t ever cross paths again, except maybe at the trial. In my opinion, even if we were going to keep working together, we didn’t need to get in each other’s business. He did not need to know my entire life story.

  The inside of the bar wasn’t much better than the outside. The Eastside Bar must not have gotten the memo about Marion County’s smoking ban, because the air was rank with cigarette smoke. The place was about half full—much too busy for a bar in the middle of the afternoon. Most of the people looked like they’d been here for a while.

  Baxter stopped a weary-looking waitress and asked if she knew Ginger LaGrange. She pointed to a tall woman with long, red hair standing at the bar with her back to us. When the woman turned around, both of our jaws dropped.

  Baxter whistled. “Tyler Harris’s girlfriend is a dude.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Do you think he knows?” I whispered.

  Baxter’s eyebrows shot up. “I would hope he’d know the difference.”

  “Ginger is beautiful. I can see how a person could be mistaken.”

  “Oddly enough, I agree.”

  Ginger LaGrange was a gorgeous black man, tall and statuesque, with flawless makeup and an expensive red wig cascading down past his shoulders in silky waves. The only giveaways of his biological gender were an Adam’s apple the size of a golf ball and an unmistakable bulge protruding from his skin-tight dress.

  When we approached him, Baxter said, “Ginger? I’m Detective Baxter. We spoke on the phone.”

  “Hello, Detective,” Ginger replied.

  Baxter pointed to me. “This is my…partner, Ellie Matthews.”

  “Hi,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You, too. So you’re here to check out my baby Tyler’s alibi?” Ginger had a low but feminine voice. Besides the obvious, I might not have known that she was a he.

  “Yes,” replied Baxter. “Can you walk me through this past Saturday night, starting at about seven PM?”

  “Tyler had to go to a big shindig his mother was throwing, so of course I wasn’t welcome.”

  “Does his family know about your relationship?” I asked. It didn’t pertain to the case, but I wanted to know.

  “Of course not, dear. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to go public as a couple, at least as long as he stays in politics.” Ginger smiled, but there was a hint of pain in his eyes. “Anyway, he got to my place around nine, and he stayed all night.”

  “Do you have any proof that he was there?” asked Baxter.

  “Just this hickey he gave me,” Ginger replied coyly, holding back his hair to reveal a small, fading mark on the side of his neck.

  Baxter blushed, and I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. The man couldn’t even discuss a hickey without getting embarrassed.

  Ginger snapped his fingers. “Oh! I remember something. Tyler was so adorable in his little tuxedo; I simply had to take a picture of him. Will that work?” He flipped through some photos on his iPhone and after finding the one he was looking for, handed the phone to Baxter.

  I looked over Baxter’s shoulder to see Ginger’s photo, and sure enough, there was a selfie of Tyler and Ginger, timestamped at 9:03 PM on Saturday night.

  “Where do you live?” Baxter asked Ginger.

  “Right around the corner.”

  After thinking for a moment, Baxter turned to me. “It’s impossible to drive here from Carnival Cove in under thirty minutes, especially in Saturday night traffic. The coroner puts the time of death window between eight and ten that night, and according to Sellers, she was shot around eight forty-five. If Harris was in this area at nine oh-three, there’s no way he could have killed her.”

  “I’d have to agree,” I replied. I said to Ginger, “Thank you for your time, Ginger. You’ve been a big help.”

  “You’re welcome, sweetie. I’d do anything for my Tyler.”

  Baxter and I left the bar and began the drive back to the station. He looked over at me. “I guess both of us lost the bet. Ginger is neither a wife nor a daughter.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. I did not see that one coming. I have to say, though, I’m jealous of Tyler. Ginger is crazy about him, is a total knockout, and has great fashion sense. He’s the total package.”

  Baxter chuckled. “Except that he has a package.”

  “You’re going to have to knock it off with the bad puns, Nick. Seriously.”

  “Come on. You set that one up for me. You should have known better.”

  ***

  Back at the station, I headed to the lab to finish working on the fingerprints from the Vanover crime scene. Amanda was sitting at the AFIS computer, hard at work, and Beck was sitting at another computer, surfing the Internet.

  “Hey, guys,” I said, stowing my purse in the closet and putting on a lab coat. “Amanda, thanks for entering all those fingerprints. Have you been working on them this whole time?”

  She glared at the back of Beck’s head. “Yes, the whole time. I only have two left. As soon as I’m finished, I have some things to go over with you.”

  “Great. Thanks.” I turned to Beck and asked in a fake sweet tone, “Beck, is there anything you worked on today that you can give me an update about?”

  Not looking up from his gossip site, he said, “I give my updates to Sterling. If you want to know something, ask him.”

  I walked over and spun his chair around to face me. “I wasn’t so much asking for an update as trying to find out if you�
��d done any actual work today, and it doesn’t seem like you have. You know we have two active murder investigations here, and we only have one possible suspect? The evidence needs to be worked and processed as soon as humanly possible.”

  “Well, if you weren’t out gallivanting around with your new boyfriend all the time and pushing the grunt work off on us—”

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” I said. “I’ve been out collecting new evidence and comparison samples, plus helping question witnesses and persons of interest. If I’m not at my real job or sleeping, I’m working this case. I’m helping you here, not the other way around.”

  He got out of his chair, trembling with anger. “You come in here and act like you own the place. Well, you don’t. This is my lab, and I’m in charge.”

  I threw my hands in the air. “So do something. Be in charge.”

  Growling, he said, “I need a smoke,” and stormed out of the lab.

  Amanda smiled. “I thought he’d never leave. Now you and I can get some work done. Take a look at this.”

  I wheeled Beck’s chair over next to her and sat down to study her screen.

  She said, “The good news is I got hits on many of the fingerprints you lifted from the apartment. The bad news is that the only matches I got were Eli Vanover, Tristan Sellers, and Amber Corelli, the girl who found the victim. Other than that, there were several other contributors, but none of them popped up in AFIS. Sorry.”

  I thought for a moment. “Have Dudley Cooper’s fingerprints been input into AFIS yet?”

  “Yes, I entered them yesterday right after he was brought in.”

  “That means none of these prints are his,” I said, my spirits lifting.

  “Correct,” she said.

  I dialed Baxter, and when he picked up, I said, “You and Sterling need to see this. We have the fingerprints finished from the Vanover scene, and Dudley Cooper’s prints are not a match.”

  “We’re on our way,” he replied.

  A minute later, Baxter and Sterling came striding through the door to the lab. Sterling pushed his way in front of Amanda and me, saying, “I want to see this for myself.” After looking at the screen, he muttered, “Damn. Unless the DNA under Vanover’s fingernails comes back as Cooper’s, we don’t have a case.”