She turned toward me, her chin jutting out like it did when she would get angry as a child. “Yes. How is who I’m seeing a problem for you?”
My heart sank. I had to tread lightly here, otherwise my headstrong little sister would dig in her heels and never let go of this fool. “Normally, I’d be happy for you.”
“But…” she said, her tone petulant.
“But, considering his reputation—”
“He’s done nothing wrong.”
“Maybe not legally, but ethically it’s wrong to hit on students. And it’s against school policy,” I said. What was with these grown men around here who couldn’t keep their hands off the female students? I had no interest whatsoever in my young male students—I saw them as children.
She waved her hand. “He’s not hitting on students. He’s just being friendly. Besides, he’s not a teacher.”
“He lives in a dorm full of students. That’s worse.”
She fired back, “He’s in the all-male dorm. It’s a moot point.”
“Yeah, because they kicked him out of the co-ed dorm for making advances at the female students. He’s a creepy, weird little man. I don’t understand what you see in him.”
“Oh, because you have such great taste in men!”
“So you’re telling me that Tony Dante in no way has ever made your skin crawl? Not once?” I asked.
“No! He’s nice and attentive.”
“Right. I saw him being nice and attentive to a girl over at Fenton Hall just a few minutes ago. She didn’t seem to appreciate it.”
“Now you’re just being a bitch.”
“And you’re being an idiot. He’s my age!”
Rachel stood up. “I’m done with this conversation. You are not my mother, and you can’t tell me what to do!”
“Fine!” I hopped up as well, fighting back tears from her stinging comment. “But don’t come crying to me when he breaks your heart…or worse.”
“Trust me, I won’t,” she replied, turning on her heel and stalking into the daycare building.
I stood there for a moment, silently cursing stupid Tony Dante for driving a wedge between my sister and me. I had to do something to break the spell he had over her, but I didn’t know what.
***
When I got to the station, I was even madder than before, having stewed over my Rachel problem the entire drive. I headed straight for the lab, hoping to throw myself into my work and clear my head.
Beck was missing again, but I found Amanda sitting at one of the tables sifting through the vacuum filter mess collected from Eli Vanover’s apartment. She looked up and said, “Hey, Ellie.”
“Hey,” I replied.
“Are you okay? You look…angry.”
“Sister troubles,” was all I said.
Amanda nodded. “I have two sisters. Drama queens, both of them.”
“Ever wanted to murder one of their boyfriends in cold blood?”
She didn’t bat an eye at my outburst. “Only all the time.”
I smiled, feeling not so alone in my problems. I put on my lab coat and went to evidence to get the clothes that had been on the floor of Eli Vanover’s apartment during the struggle leading to his death. Amanda had processed them already, but I needed to make a second examination. Setting the paper bags out on my worktable, I opened one bag and began to process the piece of clothing inside. I caught a whiff of the garment, even through my mask.
Turning to Amanda, I said, “You weren’t wrong about these clothes. They do smell like pot and cheap cologne.”
She laughed. “I don’t know if college boys use toxic cologne to try to mask the pot odor, or if they actually think girls like the smell of it. Either way, it’s not achieving the desired effect.”
“You’d think they wouldn’t be so clueless.”
Amanda sobered. “Speaking of clueless boys…I have a date tonight.”
“That’s great.”
She paused. “I thought I should tell you…it’s with Jason.”
I assumed as much, considering our conversation about Sterling last night. I felt her hesitation in telling me, so I wanted to set the record straight once and for all. “I don’t want this to be weird. I shouldn’t have stuck my nose in your business yesterday. I’m honestly happy for you guys.”
She smiled. “Thanks. And you’re sure you have no feelings for him, right?”
That was laughable, but I kept my amusement to myself. “I never did.”
We both went back to our work, and soon after, I got a call from Baxter.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“In the lab.”
“You didn’t tell me you were here.”
“Because I don’t have to check in with you.”
“You’d better be nice to me or else I won’t tell you the big news.”
“What big news?”
The doors of the lab burst open, and Baxter stood there, grinning ear-to-ear. He held up a file and announced, “I know who killed Vasti Marais.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
My mouth dropped open. “Who?”
“Guess.”
I thought for a moment. “Morris Powell.”
“Guess again.”
“One of Morris Powell’s henchmen?”
Baxter chuckled. “I don’t think he has henchmen.”
“Right. Because that pallet of rocks jumped off the stack at me all by itself.”
“Rocks?” asked Amanda.
Grimacing, Baxter said, “Ellie had a close call at Powell Stone Supply yesterday. A load of rocks mysteriously toppled down from a nearby stack and nearly hit her.”
I added, “Luckily, Captain America here saved me.”
Baxter rolled his eyes. “Anyway, because of that incident, we ran background checks on all of the Powell Stone Supply employees, but they came back clean. I’ll give you one more try.”
“Okay…George Cooper,” I said.
His face fell. “How did you know?”
“I’m right? I was just throwing that out there to be funny.”
“No, he’s our guy. And, man, did we catch a lucky break. Preliminary DNA reports just came back on the cigar we found at the scene. It wasn’t a match to Dudley Cooper, but the DNA turned out to be a male familial match to him.”
I nodded slowly. “He’s an only child and has no living uncles or grandfathers on his dad’s side, so by default that places George at the scene. Nice. Does George have an alibi for the time Vasti was shot? I saw him leave the fundraiser just before I did.”
“No alibi. He says his butler had the night off, and he was home alone.”
Amanda gasped. “Are you saying Mayor Cooper let his son go to jail for a crime he committed? No way.”
“It’s true. Sterling went back over Vasti Marais’s phone records and started looking into the calls made to the entire Cooper compound, not just Dudley’s line. They have three landlines—one for the main house, one for Dudley’s guest house, and one dedicated line for George Cooper’s home office. You can probably guess which one we were looking at.”
“She and old George really were having an affair,” I said.
Baxter said, “We need better evidence of it, though.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed, remembering something I had been meaning to tell Baxter since lunchtime. “I may have a witness.”
Baxter wrinkled his brow. “How do you have a witness?”
“The guy I’m dating, Rob Larson—”
“The rent-a-cop?”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Rob’s firm provides security for George Cooper. After Mrs. Cooper accosted me at lunch today, Rob told me he’d seen Vasti coming and going from the Cooper house, and it wasn’t to visit Dudley.”
“Do you think he’d testify to that?” asked Baxter.
I nodded. “I think so.”
“Then you know what you have to do…” he said, trailing off with a frown.
I got a sinking feeling in my chest. “But
I’m not working the Marais case.”
His face softened. “We all know the two cases are connected. It’s only a matter of time until we have enough evidence to prove it. You’re involved up to your eyeballs in both cases as it is. You being in a relationship with a key witness could kill our chances in court. It sucks, but you know the rules.”
I sighed, my eyes filling with tears. My bad luck with men had struck again. I had finally found a great guy, and now I had to dump him because of this damn job that I didn’t even want to do.
“I’m sorry, Ellie,” he began, but I pushed past him and out the door.
Stripping off my lab coat, I flung it onto the hallway floor without slowing down. I flew out the front doors and into the parking lot, only to realize I’d left my purse with my car keys in the lab. I couldn’t even get the hell away from this place. That was the last straw. I sank down next to my car and covered my face with my hands, sobbing.
A few moments later, Amanda appeared over me. “I didn’t think you’d get far without this.” She handed me my purse. “Come on. We’re going out for dinner.”
Wiping my nose on my sleeve, I looked up at her. “But you have a date tonight with Sterling.”
She shook her head. “Jason and Nick just broke their case wide open. Do you honestly think he’s going to give our date a second thought?”
“Probably not.”
“Nick said they’re waiting for the arrest warrant to come through, then they’re picking George Cooper up. They’ll be busy all night, and they don’t need us, so we’re going out.” She held her hand out to me. Grateful for her empathy, I took her hand, and she hauled me up off the ground.
Amanda drove us down to Fishers to a new sushi place. Once we had ordered our food, she said, “I’m so sorry you have to break things off with the man you’re seeing because of the job.”
Playing absentmindedly with my chopsticks, I muttered, “Me, too.”
“It’s hard enough to find a nice guy out there, and even harder to find a guy willing to go out with a woman who has anything to do with law enforcement.”
I nodded. “I had the same problem when I was working for the department. We must intimidate them or something. Like they think we’re going to arrest them at any moment. We couldn’t do that if we wanted to.”
“I had a date tell me once that he thought women shouldn’t be allowed in any facet of police work because we’re too emotional and our menstrual cycles cloud our judgment. You can imagine my response.”
“Wow. Did you get ‘emotional’ and slap some sense into him?” I joked.
Amanda chuckled. “No, but somehow I managed to spill a full glass of water in his lap.”
Throughout dinner we traded stories about our sisters and our ruined relationships. It was nice to get to know Amanda away from the lab. More importantly, it was nice to have someone I could vent to about the murder case. Baxter was easy enough to talk to, but a lot of times I felt like he didn’t get me. After Amanda and I finished our food and lingered over a pot of tea, I was ready to go back to work.
When we got to the station, the parking lot was packed with news vans. Amanda barely found a place to park, and the media circus at the front door was so crazy we opted for slinking in through the back entrance. On the way to the lab, we heard shouting coming from the main lobby.
“What the hell is going on out there?” I asked.
Amanda replied, “I don’t know, but I’m dying to find out.”
Bypassing the lab, we continued down the hallway, stopping short of the lobby. We weren’t the only ones who had come to eavesdrop. Half of the department was standing either just inside the lobby or in the connecting hallways. We had to push our way through to be able to see who was making the commotion. Mrs. Cooper was standing in the middle of the room, screaming at Baxter, who didn’t seem to be fazed by her verbal abuse.
“You’ve already taken my son, and now you’ve taken my husband! You have nothing on either of them! I demand that you release them both this instant!” she cried, her face bright red and her entire body trembling.
Behind her stood several men in suits, either George Cooper’s lawyers or political campaign staff—all of them looked equally weasel-like to me. I craned my neck around the corner a couple of inches more and froze. Rob was standing off to the side, his posture rigid. I could tell he was stressed out, poor guy. When he saw me, his eyes locked on mine and a slight grimace passed over his face.
Pressing myself back against the hallway wall, out of his sight, I murmured to Amanda, “This could get awkward.”
“It’s already awkward,” she said, gawking at the show.
Baxter was speaking quietly to Mrs. Cooper, trying to calm her down, but it wasn’t working. She was still yelling.
I said, “See the guy out there who doesn’t look like a lawyer?”
She raised her eyebrows. “The hot one?”
“Yeah, that one. He’s the one I have to dump.”
Aghast, she said, “It would kill me to have to let that guy get away. Now I really understand why you’re so upset.”
Peering back around the corner so I could see Baxter and Mrs. Cooper going at it, I heard Baxter say, “Mrs. Cooper, you’re welcome to sit in our conference room until your husband is available for visitors.” She started to speak, but he held up a hand to silence her and continued, “Mr. Larson, we’ll need to take a statement from you. Legal team, you may meet with Mayor Cooper in Interrogation Room Two.” Before anyone could disagree, Baxter turned and ushered Mrs. Cooper and Rob into the other hallway, toward the conference rooms. The lawyers followed a deputy to the interrogation room.
The small crowd dispersed, and Amanda and I headed for the lab. Actually, Amanda headed for the lab, and I made a detour to the break room.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Tonight is going to require a shitload of chocolate.”
“You just had dinner.”
“It’s either this or I go find a fifth of vodka.”
She smiled. “I’m coming with you, then. I wouldn’t want you to have to drown your sorrows in chocolate alone.”
When I was on my fourth candy bar and beginning to feel queasy, Baxter came into the break room for a cup of coffee. “Working hard?” he asked, gesturing at the pile of candy bar wrappers between us.
Amanda held up her half-eaten candy bar. “We’re toasting the demise of Ellie’s relationship with the hot guy. Want to join?”
“As fun as that sounds, I’m going to have to pass. Sterling and I are about to start our interrogation. Now that we have probable cause, I need you guys to go to the Cooper house and search for the Timberland boots we found prints of at the Vanover scene. I’ll get Deputy Martinez to drive you over. Amanda, can you grab a kit and meet him at the back entrance? And…um, Ellie, can I speak to you in private?”
Amanda nodded and headed out of the room, leaving me alone with Baxter.
“I told Larson to wait in one of the conference rooms. You need to go talk to him. Now that he’s part of this case, you can’t be seen with him in public.”
The candy bars in my stomach were threatening to come back up, but I managed to fire back, “And what if I refuse to break things off with him?”
He seemed sympathetic to my situation, even though he was the one pushing me to do the thing I didn’t want to do. “I get that you’re unhappy about this. I would be, too. But you know there’s no other way. Do you want the Sheriff and the DA coming down on you?”
“Not especially.”
“Get it over with now, and it won’t be a problem. I do have some good news for you, though.”
“Oh, yeah?” I replied, unimpressed.
“When Sterling was looking through the phone records of the Cooper compound, another number popped—Eli Vanover’s.”
“You’re kidding.”
Smiling now, he said, “Everything is falling into place to nail this guy. I think we did it.”
I nodded
and stood, trying to muster a smile.
He threw an arm around my shoulders, guiding me out of the room and down the hall. “Drinks are on me tonight.” When we got to the door of the conference room where Rob was waiting, Baxter gave me a pat on the back. “Let me know if you find the shoes. Good luck.”
I took a deep breath and tried not to feel sorry for myself. When I opened the door, Rob stood and rushed over to me, taking me in his arms and hugging me tight to his chest.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes. All hell just broke loose for me,” he said. “The Coopers are beside themselves. George insisted I drive Mrs. Cooper over here, and she proceeded to scream at me the entire way. She thinks you and I are working together to pin this on her husband.”
It took all I had to push away from him. “That’s why I came in here to talk to you.” Running my hands through my hair in frustration, I said, “Rob, I’m being forced to break things off with you. It’s not my decision. Our relationship could hurt the case against George Cooper.”
He stared at me, dumbfounded. “Why? I didn’t think you were working the girl’s murder case.”
“The two murder cases are connected, and besides, I found Vasti Marais’s body. Like it or not, I’m involved in the entire mess. And now that you’re going to be a witness for the prosecution and I’m working for the prosecution, we can’t be seen together in public.”
He frowned. “So we’ll keep our relationship a secret. I don’t want to walk away from what we have, Ellie.”
Shaking my head sadly, I said, “Too many people know about us already—most importantly, Mrs. Cooper. Her lawyers will have a field day with this as it is. We have to make a clean break because we’ll have to answer for it in court. I’m not going to lie on the stand. It could jeopardize every case I’ve ever testified for. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t sound very sorry,” he said, his eyes showing hurt.
“This is killing me, and I’m trying so hard to hold it together,” I whispered, a single tear escaping down my cheek. “I have to get back to work. Goodbye, Rob.”
As I made a move to leave, Rob grabbed me and kissed me like he’d never see me again, which was likely. I kissed him back, tears flowing from my eyes. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I pulled away and rushed out the door. Wiping the tears from my face, I hurried to the back door and out to the waiting cruiser.
Bitter Past Page 24