by Megan Goldin
‘Are you aware that a cyclist found the body first?’ I said. ‘I took his statement at the scene. If memory serves, the cyclist said he opened the car door and leaned across the front passenger seat. That might explain the prints you found.’
‘I saw that in the report,’ said Dennis. ‘I asked the cyclist to come in yesterday to run his prints against those from the scene. I can tell you with complete certainty that these partial bloody fingerprints were not from the cyclist.’
‘Maybe they were from the cops, the first responders?’ Will squatted down so he could get a good look at the location of the prints in the car. They were marked with fluorescent stickers.
‘We’ve ruled out everyone who attended the scene,’ said Dennis. ‘This morning there were no matching prints on the database. By lunch, the system found a match. So we don’t need to guess. I can tell you for sure who was in that car after the accident.’
‘Who?’ Will and I both asked in unison.
‘This is the strange part,’ Dennis said. ‘The prints belong to Julie West.’
‘As in, Matthew West’s wife? I brought in her prints last night for analysis.’
‘Yup, and good thing you did. The system flagged that Julie West’s prints were a match to the bloody prints here in Alexander Henderson’s car. We have two partials with about ninety per cent certainty that they are Julie West’s. As the prints were formed into Henderson’s blood, the logical conclusion is that Julie West was here in the car with him after the accident.’
‘Do we have other forensics that put her in the car?’ asked Will.
‘No,’ said Dennis. ‘There are no hairs, or blood, other than the victim’s own. No other prints.’
‘What about traces of the drug? What’s it called?’
‘Scopolamine,’ said Dennis. ‘We checked all over the car. There are no traces in the car. Mike took another look at Henderson’s body and found a fresh needle mark. Henderson was apparently a recovered drug addict. The needle marks on his body were old. All except one. Mike believes the scopolamine was administered by needle.’
‘Did you find a syringe in the car?’
‘No,’ said Dennis. ‘We found joints in the car. There were faint traces of cocaine and other drugs in the carpets, heroin included, probably from his past use. But no scopolamine and nothing that he might have used to administer it.’
‘Do you think that Julie West injected him with scopolamine after the accident to make sure he died?’
‘I suspect the accident was caused because the drug was already in his system,’ he said, carefully. ‘Maybe she met with him earlier, administered the drug and then tailed his car in her own. When he crashed the car, she climbed out of her vehicle and made sure that he bled out, or blocked his airways to speed things up.’
‘Or maybe,’ said Will, who delights in playing devil’s advocate, ‘maybe it was more innocent than that. Maybe Julie West was a passenger in the car and she fled on foot after the accident because she was afraid her husband would find out she was with her ex-boyfriend.’
‘It’s unlikely,’ Dennis responded. ‘We would have found more fingerprints if she’d been in the car for any amount of time. Prints on the safety belt, for example. Not to mention traces of her blood. Not to mention traces of her blood. If she’d been in the car when the accident happened then she would have been seriously injured, given the speed at which the vehicle was travelling when it hit the tree. The physical evidence we have indicates only that Julie West was present at the scene of the accident. That’s all. It’s up to you guys to figure out how she was involved in Henderson’s death. And why. Because one thing is for sure, this was no ordinary car accident.’
‘What do you think?’ said Will, looking at me. ‘Should we bring her in for questioning?’
‘There’s too much we don’t know yet.’ I shook my head. ‘We need to find out more about her relationship with Henderson. Were they in touch recently? And did she have access to scopolamine? Let’s not show our hand before we have to.’
‘Come on, Mel,’ said Will. ‘This woman is tied up in the death of two people. She was the last person to see her husband’s first wife alive. And now we find out she was at the scene of her ex-boyfriend’s fatal car accident, in which he crashed a car into a tree while loaded with a near-fatal dose of a rare hallucinogen.’
‘You don’t need to convince me, Will,’ I said. ‘The trouble is that, as things stand, everything we have with regard to Julie West’s involvement in the Henderson case is circumstantial. It would be a hell of a thing to prove murder, given it looks like a car accident. That’s reasonable doubt right there.’
‘You’re right,’ Will conceded. ‘We’re on a stronger footing with the Laura West murder. I’m really starting to like Julie West for that case. She was having an affair with Matthew West. She wanted his wife out of the way. Not to mention his money. So she killed Laura West. A year later she is the second Mrs West, living in a palatial home and never having to work another day in her life. A jury would buy that in a second.’
‘Except for the fact there’s not a single piece of evidence that puts her at the scene of Laura West’s murder, or ties her to the body,’ I pointed out.
‘It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it,’ Will observed as we walked out of the garage. ‘We have Julie West at the scene of Alexander Henderson’s suspicious car accident, but we have no motive or definitive means of murder. On the other case, we can pin a motive and opportunity on Julie West for Laura West’s murder, but we don’t have any forensics to show that she did it.’
‘And then there’s the question of why she’d want her ex-boyfriend dead after all these years, a boyfriend she had around the time of Laura West’s murder. It makes me think there’s a connection between the two deaths,’ I said.
‘Scopolamine is not an easy drug to get hold of. Not in these quantities,’ Dennis said. He set the alarm code for the garage and bent down to lock the door. ‘It isn’t sold on the street as a recreational drug. The killer would have bought it over the internet, maybe through multiple purchases over months to accumulate this quantity. There would be a paper trail.’
He popped a fresh piece of nicotine gum into his mouth.
‘You’re suggesting there was premeditation in the Henderson death,’ I said. We walked down the driveway to our car. ‘That Julie West planned Alexander Henderson’s murder over a long period of time, hoping to use the scopolamine to kill him in what would look like a standard DUI car accident. If she was that thorough, then Laura West’s murder was probably equally well planned.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying,’ said Dennis. ‘It seems to me that Julie West plans meticulously. If we can find evidence that she planned Laura West’s murder then that may be enough to build a case against her with what we already have, even if we never have forensic evidence that ties her to Laura West’s body.’
‘Or,’ I said, ‘it might be enough to get her into an interview room and push her into telling us herself.’
Chapter Forty-Four
Julie
The first notes of Tchaikovsky fill the studio. The girls stand in a row at the barre, in position for their warm-up routine. Emily walks along the line of miniature ballerinas in pink leotards calling out each step in a lilting voice that rises over the music.
Alice’s face is almost comical as she sinks into a grand plié. I rummage in my bag for my phone to photograph her. By the time I find it, the hilarious expression has disappeared. I take a photograph anyway. Alice looks so pretty in her leotard.
‘And a one, two, three,’ Emily calls out. She is dressed in a dusty pink slip dress she wears over tights. Her hair is pinned at the top of her head. Emily moves gracefully among her students as she straightens their backs and moulds their feet into position, all the while whispering words of encouragement. There are bruises under her eyes from lack of sleep. It’s from all the late nights or early mornings she’s spent in bed with my husband. She tried to dis
guise them with concealer but the harsh studio lights are ruthless.
It can’t be easy, studying a graduate degree in psychology and teaching ballet, all while having an affair with a married man.
Poor thing, I think to myself. She might have to drop one of her extracurricular activities. I look up to see her lifting her leg into an arabesque and holding it while the girls copy her, with various levels of success.
The reality is that even tired and run-down, Emily is exquisitely beautiful. She stands on her toes with her leg extended under the adoring gaze of the starstruck girls, their faces filled with genuine awe.
As a mother, I appreciate Emily’s teaching ability and the connection she has built with my daughter. As the wife of the man she’s screwing, I have no sympathy.
Beneath her ethereal smile, Emily’s ambitious. Emily is greedy. Emily covets. Emily needs to learn a lesson. I’ve come to the conclusion that a sprinkle of glass in her bed isn’t going to be enough to get my message across.
When dance class finishes, I wait with the other mothers by the studio doors for the girls to come out. Alice is the last to leave the room. Emily remains inside the studio, packing up while an unruly line of kids in karate uniforms wait by the door for their class to begin.
‘You were great, honey,’ I tell Alice as we walk down the corridor towards reception.
Alice’s white button-down jacket is on the coat rack by the entrance. I hand it to her and then kneel down to untie the ribbons of her ballet shoes. I slip them off her feet, wrap the satin ribbon around both shoes and slide them into my handbag. Next to my gun.
I deliberately take my time helping Alice button up her thick coat so that I can synchronise our departure with Emily’s. From the corner of my eye I see that she is behind the reception desk, changing her shoes. By the time we’re ready to go, Emily is ready too. She leaves the dance school right behind us. Just the way I’d planned.
‘Would you like a ride home?’ I ask Emily when we’re on the street. A gust of wind blows a piece of trash across the sidewalk, right past our legs.
‘It’s nice of you to offer, but really, I’ll be fine,’ she answers, watching the trash roll around like a tumbleweed.
‘It’s no trouble. We go that way anyway,’ I respond with a smile. My heart beats fast. I try not to sound too pushy, but I have to get Emily into my car.
‘That would be great,’ she says after a brief hesitation. She wears a long scarf wrapped around her neck.
When we’re in the car, I pass Alice a hot chocolate that I’ve kept warm for her in a thermos. It’s a standard hot chocolate except I’ve added a liquid antihistamine for children. It will make her sleep. I told the pharmacist we were flying to London for a wedding and I wanted my daughter to sleep on the plane. I don’t usually give Alice medicine unnecessarily, but I’m giving her a half dose, less than the recommended amount. Tonight, just tonight, I need Alice out of the way for a short while. I need her to sleep while I do what needs to be done.
Alice sips the hot chocolate as I pull out of the parking spot. The rush hour traffic is thinning as we cross the main intersection and head towards the university district.
‘Mom, the hot chocolate tastes weird,’ complains Alice from the back.
‘It’s a new flavour,’ I tell her. ‘Limited edition. Drink it up and if you still don’t like it then I won’t buy it again.’
I turn on music. Light jazz. It keeps me relaxed. It keeps Emily unaware. In my rear-view mirror I see that Alice is fast asleep in the back seat, still holding the flask.
I ask Emily about her studies as if I know nothing about her. In reality, I know so many of her secrets. Too many. She says she is studying a masters in psychology.
‘Why psychology?’ I ask. I signal left. The clicking of the indicator seems to mimic my rapid heartbeat. ‘Psychology is very different from ballet.’
‘I’ve always felt that, to be a better dancer, I need to understand the motivations of the various roles that I dance. Like Odile from Swan Lake,’ she explains. ‘Studying psychology has helped me deepen my performances. I’ve always been fascinated by the internal workings of a person’s mind.’
‘Funny you should say that,’ I say, taking a sharp right a little too quickly so that she is thrust to the side by the turn. ‘My husband Matt often says that too. Word for word. He’s a psychology professor at the university. Matthew West. Do you know him?’
‘Oh,’ she says, swallowing. Her face burns. ‘You’re Professor West’s wife. I didn’t realise.’ She says it clumsily, as if her tongue has gone numb.
‘Yes, I am.’ I say nothing for a while. I want her to squirm. I can sense the tension in her body as the reality of her predicament hits her. It must be excruciating. Taking a ride with her lover’s wife. I can almost hear her counting the seconds until we get to her apartment. I locked the doors when we got into the car. She has no way out except through me.
I drive slowly past a row of houses that are indistinguishable in the dark except for the golden glow of lit-up windows. We head along the main road that leads to the university. Her tension eases as I turn towards the off-campus student apartments. As we approach her street, I speed up and drive past it.
‘Oh, I think you missed my street,’ she tells me in a nervous voice.
I ignore her and keep driving until I make a sharp turn down the entrance of Kellers Way. It’s pitch dark here. The canopy of trees blocks out the faint light from the half moon. I turn on my high beams as I drive slowly down the steep hillside.
‘So tell me, Emily,’ I say. ‘How long have you been sleeping with my husband?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she says. Her voice quivers.
‘Honey, he’s practically moved into your apartment. His clothes are in your closet. He has his own shelf in your bathroom cupboard. My God, you’ve even bought his favourite breakfast cereal.’
She flinches as if I’ve hit her. From the corner of my eye, I see her fingers creep towards the door handle until she is surreptitiously trying to open the car door. It holds fast thanks to the central locking. When she realises she is locked in the car, she tries to open the door again. This time desperately.
‘Look, Mrs West, Julie.’ She turns towards me. ‘I don’t know why you think I’ve had an affair with your husband but it’s not true. He’s my lecturer. Nothing more and nothing less.’
She sounds so sincere. I admire her acting ability. She’s a wonderful liar. Convincing. Charming. I might have believed her too if I hadn’t seen the evidence with my own eyes.
‘If that’s the case,’ I say, looking ahead of me as I navigate the dark road, ‘why was he at your apartment this morning?’
‘Professor West wasn’t at my apartment,’ she says in a pathetic whiny tone that makes me want to smack her.
‘Professor West,’ I mock her prissy inflections. ‘I bet you don’t call him that in bed. Don’t lie to me, Emily. I’ve been watching you for weeks. I know everything there is to know about you.’
I turn my SUV off the road and into a thicket of bushes at the bottom of the slope. When we are at a stop, I turn off the engine. There’s a ravine around here. It floods sometimes but not at this time of the year. Alice is asleep. I twist around to take the thermos from her sleeping hands and put a heavy blanket over her still figure. I open her passenger window a fraction to let in fresh air.
‘You and I, Emily, need to have a long talk.’ I release my safety belt. It clicks open. ‘I hope you’re wearing good walking shoes,’ I say as I jump out of the driver’s seat.
I walk around to her door.
‘Get out,’ I order.
‘Please,’ Emily begs. ‘Let’s talk in here. It’s cold out.’
‘Get out.’ She doesn’t budge. I take the pistol from my purse and point it at her chest. The blood drains from her already pale face.
‘Walk,’ I tell her.
Emily climbs out reluctantly. She turns towards me with her palms
outstretched. Pleading. How long have I wanted to see her begging for forgiveness? I get no pleasure out of it. It’s a survival mechanism. She’s not really sorry. Emily has no remorse.
‘Please don’t do this.’ Emily sobs. The crunching of dead leaves under our feet is the only sound as we walk deep into the forest.
Chapter Forty-Five
Mel
The baseball club barbecue was held near the bleachers of the school’s baseball field, where a kids versus parents match was underway. The parents not playing baseball were helping at the drinks table or barbecuing meat on a long gas grill. I had arrived late, following a drawn-out discussion with Will and the district attorney about our next steps, now that Julie West was emerging as the prime suspect in both cases.
Sammy beamed when he saw me standing at the grill in a green apron, holding oversized barbecue tongs. It was the first team barbecue I’d attended in ages. So I was not at all pleased when, ten minutes later, my phone started vibrating like crazy in my pocket. I answered the phone, holding it against my ear with my shoulder while I turned over half-cooked sausages.
It was Dennis, from the lab. I couldn’t hear him properly over the sizzling of two hundred sausages and hamburgers on the grill. ‘I’ll call you back in a second, Dennis,’ I told him. I asked someone to take over my section of the grill and scuttled off to an empty bleacher to call him back.
‘I’m at my kids’ baseball barbecue. What’s going on?’
‘Sorry,’ said Dennis. He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded elated. ‘An item we found by Laura West’s grave was sent to the FBI lab for further analysis, and we just received the results. You’re not going to want to wait until tomorrow to hear this.’
I didn’t have time to play twenty questions while I still had a pile of sausages and hamburgers to grill. Aside from getting dirty looks from the woman who’d taken over my section of the barbecue, Joe was glaring at me from the field, where he was playing first base. Things between us were better, but delicate. I didn’t want to let my kids down by spending the evening on the phone dealing with work.