“Thanks Doc.” Lucinda turned to leave.
“Lieutenant, you gonna get that bastard?”
“You betcha, Doc.”
“Hurry up. I’m tired of doing all these autopsies just to make you happy.”
Lucinda laughed. “You can’t fool me, you old buzzard.” Then she made a hasty retreat before he could respond.
“Doctor Ringo,” Lucinda said.
Audrey spun around from the lab bench with a pipette balanced on one ear and sticking out from her red hair giving Audrey the look of the absent-minded professor. Lucinda and Ted exchanged a glance and bit their lips hard to keep from laughing out loud.
“What do you do want?” Audrey asked.
“Dr Sam said you might have preliminary information about the fingernails’ scraping.”
Her face squeezed tight in distaste. “That old fart doesn’t know anything about forensic lab work, but this time, he’s right, I do. We found more of the course fibers that seemed to be from a pair of heavy work gloves in the woman’s scrapings. The man’s, on the other hand, look like nothing more than common debris.”
“The little girl?” Lucinda asked.
“Ah-hah, Lieutenant,” Audrey said with a grin. “That’s where I have something interesting for you. It appears as if she had latex residue and skin cells under her fingernails. I’d say she scratched the back of her perp’s hand while he was wearing latex gloves.”
“Her perp? You think two perps are involved here?”
“I wouldn’t bet my life on two perps but with two different kinds of gloves being used at the scene, it sounds like two perps to me. However, I have no scientific basis for drawing that conclusion.”
“You said you found skin cells, too?”
“Yes.”
“DNA profile?”
“Lieutenant, you are aware, aren’t you, that DNA is not magic?”
“Yes, Audrey. I certainly am.”
“Good, Lieutenant. It would be so nice if we could just wave a magic wand over the test tube and have a profile for you instantly. The analysis of DNA however, is a science and since it is a science we get our results by using scientific procedures. And scientific procedures take time.”
Lucinda rolled her eye. “Yes, Audrey, how much time?”
Audrey ignored her and busied herself with something on the lab bench.
Lucinda sighed. She thought about not giving into Audrey’s unspoken demand but did it anyway. “Dr Ringo, when do you think you’ll know something about the DNA?”
“We’ll have a preliminary profile in two days. Do you have a sample for comparison?”
“Not yet.”
“It would be very useful if you could make that a priority.”
Back in the conference room, Lucinda asked Ted, “What do you think about Audrey’s two perps theory?”
“Not many serials work in pairs. And, do you see any evidence of two perps in any of these other crime scenes?” he asked sweeping his arm past all the photos arrayed around the room.
“But just because I don’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. If it were two perps and Spencer is one of them, could Rita be the other one?”
“Just who is Rita?”
“That’s the big question, isn’t it?”
Thirty-One
The moment Lucinda parked the car in front of the Spencer house, she opened the door and stepped outside. She bent down to talk to Ted. “Wait here, I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Where’re you going?”
“You don’t want to know. Just keep an eye out for Kara.”
“What does Kara look like?”
“I don’t know.”
“But how will I know if it is Kara or Rita?”
“Ask Charley. Back in a flash.” Lucinda straightened up and walked to the front gate. Ted rolled down the car window. “Where are you going?”
She waved but didn’t say a word. At the back of the house, she found what she wanted – a trash can. She pulled on a pair of gloves and lifted out the top plastic bag. Opening it, she shifted the trash from side to side until she spotted an empty bottle of Fat Tire Beer. She pulled it out and bagged it. She rummaged around until she saw a second bottle and bagged that, too.
She returned the contents she’d removed back into the receptacle, took off her gloves and dropped them in with the rest of the trash. She put the lid back on top and returned to the car where she placed the two evidence bags in the footwell of the back seat.
“What’s that?” Ted asked.
“Beer bottles.” Lucinda slid into the front seat.
“Spencer’s?”
“Not sure. But it’s highly likely. I doubt that Charley or Ruby are drinking beer.”
“It could be Rita or a neighbor or anyone.”
“Yeah, but it could be Spencer. I’ll give them to Audrey, and we’ll see what shakes out.”
“You’re planning on letting Audrey believe these are legitimately obtained, bonafide samples from your suspect, aren’t you?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“You’re dancing on the edge, Lucinda.”
“Yeah, it’s fun. Isn’t it?”
Ted laughed and shook his head. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
Lucinda pointed to the damaged side of her face. “Wanna bet?”
“So your face has more character. So what?”
Lucinda snorted. “Character? Yeah, right.”
A petite woman with dark curly hair crossed the street in front of their car. She approached the gate to the Spencer yard looking right at them with the squinted eyes of a suspicious woman.
Ted reacted first. He opened the car door, stepped out and said, “Kara?”
She spun around to face him and walked backwards away from him with her hands held out in front of her body.
Ted pulled out his ID and flipped it open. “Police, Kara.”
Her shoulders slumped as she exhaled her relief. “Yes, officer, can I help you?”
“Can we go inside and talk?”
“Sure,” she said turning around and heading up the stairs.
As they walked up the sidewalk Lucinda whispered to Ted, “You take the lead on this one.”
Ted nodded in agreement.
They all sat down in the living room. “Charley will be home in a minute,” Kara said.
“We’ll make this quick, Kara,” Ted reassured her. “We just need to know when Dr Spencer got home last night.“
“Between five and five fifteen.”
That can’t be right, Lucinda thought. “Are you sure?” she asked, casting Ted a grimace of apology for the intrusion.
“Oh yes, absolutely. I’d only been home about half an hour when he called.”
“He called?” Ted asked. “Dr Spencer called last night?”
She nodded. “He said something had come up and wanted to know if I could come over and watch both of the girls for a couple of hours.”
Lucinda looked at Ted and raised an eyebrow.
“When did he get back home?” Ted asked.
“It was after ten. I’d already put both the girls to bed.”
“When he came back to the house, was he alone?”
“No,” she said pursing her lips.
“Who was with him?”
“Some woman.”
“Did you recognize her?”
“Never saw her in my life.”
Lucinda interjected again. “What did you think when you saw her, Kara?”
Before that moment, Kara had focused all of her attention on Ted. Now she turned and had her first good look at Lucinda. Her blue eyes widened as she took in the ravages of Lucinda’s face. She swallowed hard. “I thought it was far too soon for him to be having a woman visitor at that time of night. And besides, she looked cheap.”
“Did you catch her name?” Ted asked.
“No. She rushed down the hall and into the kitchen without even saying hello. Dr Spencer hustled me out the front door. If it wasn’t for C
harley and Ruby, I wouldn’t come back here at all.”
“If you see her again, will you give me a call?” Ted said, handing her his card.
“No problem,” she said.
Ted and Lucinda stepped out on the front porch just as Charley opened the gate at the sidewalk. Her somber demeanor transformed into all smiles. ‘Lucy! Lucy!’ she said as she ran up the sidewalk.
Lucinda sat down on the top step and held out her arms. Charley threw herself into them.
“I”ll wait in the car,” Ted said.
Lucinda patted the step next to her. “Sit down a minute, Charley.”
“Is Aunt Rita here? Did you talk to her?” Charley asked.
“She”s not here now. And I came over here right after I talked to you but no one was at home.”
“Oh.”
“But I”ve not given up on the Aunt Rita thing. I”ll find out what the deal is with her, okay?”
“Okay.”
Lucinda pulled out a business card and said, ‘I”m writing my cellphone number on the back of this card, Charley. Can you put it in a safe place?’
Charley nodded and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans. “I”ll put it right here with my mommy and I won’t lose it.”
“If Rita shows up again or you need me for any reason, call my cellphone, all right?”
She reached up and touched Lucinda’s face. “Maybe my daddy could fix your face. He’s a doctor. You want me to ask him?”
“He’s not the right kind of doctor, sweetie.”
“Well, will you ever go to the doctor?”
“Maybe. Maybe later. Right now, Charley, I’ve got work to do.”
“Catching the bad man?”
“Yes, Charley. I need to catch the bad man. Run inside now.” She watched as Charley opened the door, waved and shut it tight. How will I face her after I arrest her father and take him away from her, too?
Thirty-Two
Returning to the station, Ted went straight to the conference room. Lucinda dropped the beer bottle evidence at the lab for DNA analysis. Then she rode the elevator to the top floor to see if the district attorney was back from court.
She knocked on the open door of Michael Reed’s office. “Can I have a word with you?” she asked.
He looked up from his desk. “Just getting ready to head out and go home, Lieutenant. It’s been a long day.”
Lucinda folded her arms, leaned against the door and stared.
“Okay. Okay. Don’t look at me like that, come on in and have a seat. Who do you want me to execute today, Lieutenant?”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t act surprised, Pierce. Every time you’ve ever come in to my office, it’s been to argue for a death-penalty charge against one scuzzball or another. So who is it today?”
Lucinda was speechless. Is that true? she wondered. Her mind raced through the visits she’d paid to the district attorney. It might be, she thought. But it never crossed my mind.
Reed rattled through the papers on his desk and slid on his reading glasses. When he found the paper he was looking for, he scanned over it and looked at Lucinda over the top of his spectacles. “Don’t tell me you want the death penalty for that Wagner woman you just brought back from Baltimore?”
“No, sir, I do not.”
“That’s good to hear. I don’t think I could make that one stick,” he said with a laugh.
“In fact, I don’t want you to stick with the murder charge at all.”
“You what?”
“I don’t want Julie Wagner charged with murder.”
“Let me get this straight, Lieutenant Pierce – the ardent advocate for the death penalty, the unwavering proponent of the strongest penalty possible, the curse of killers everywhere – wants me to lower the murder charges against someone who’s confessed to murder?”
“Did you see the report I filed about her confession?”
“Yes. Interesting story.”
“I checked out every detail of her story at the house. I can’t find any inconsistencies. You might be able to make an involuntary manslaughter charge stick but not murder.”
“Involuntary? I might consider voluntary manslaughter.”
“If I were the defense attorney, I think I could build a strong case for self-defense.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time. It’s one thing to build a case. It’s another thing to convince a jury. I’ve beaten those claims before. I haven’t been reelected twice because I’m soft on crime.”
“I know your next re-election bid is a little ways down the road yet, but I don’t think you want to scare away the votes of all the women who are sympathetic to claims of domestic violence, do you? Once the media latches on to her story of imprisonment and her fears for her safety and the safety of the baby she’s carrying, you know they are not going to let it go.” Lucinda could tell that the statement had hit home. Politicians are so easy.
“I’ll tell you what, Lieutenant. I’ll make you a deal. You talk to Frances Wagner about the possibility of dropping the murder charge down to manslaughter. You talk with her about this and see what she has to say. After you talk to the victim’s grieving mother, you come back here and tell me if you still want me to lower the charges. If you do, I’ll give the request serious consideration.”
“You’ve got a deal.’ She turned to walk away without another word. Cover your ass at all costs, DA, she thought.
“Lieutenant, how’s the investigation going in the Spencer homicide?”
Lucinda turned back to face Reed. “It’s moving along.”
“Any suspects?”
“One.”
“The husband?”
“Yes.”
“If you take that route, I don’t want to hear from you until it’s nailed down tight. He’s a prominent citizen – a veritable pillar of the community. Some people call him a saint.”
“I’m aware of that, sir.”
“Keep in mind, Lieutenant, I won’t be facing any pro bono rubes on this one.”
Lucinda spun around and left without a word. She knew that politics formed an indigenous presence in any district attorney’s office. Still, it always gnawed at her every time that fact got up in her face. She took some comfort in knowing that in this office, with this district attorney, truth and justice trumped politics almost every time. She said a quick prayer that the Spencer case would not be an exception.
Thirty-Three
“Hey, Ted,” Lucinda said as she entered the conference room. “How’s the investigation into Spencer’s background going?”
“I’ve made lists of former neighbors, classmates and colleagues. And I’ve enlisted a small battalion of volunteers to help with the calls. A few calls were made this evening, but so far no indications of any aberrant – or even slightly suspicious – behavior in Spencer’s past.”
Lucinda sighed.
“But,” he added, “there are still a lot of calls to make. Somebody’s got to know something.”
“No red flags at all, yet?”
“There is one. I can’t quite understand what the problem is, but we backtracked Spencer all the way to when he was nine years old. Before that, we can’t find anything. It’s as if he and his family popped into existence at that moment in time.”
“Does it look like they intentionally covered their tracks before then?”
“That’s what it looks like. The summer before Evan Spencer entered fourth grade, he and his parents moved into a home on Peakland Place, an upscale address in Lynchburg. His mother, Lily Spencer, still lives there today. Dr Spencer – Evan’s father Dr Kirkwood Spencer – was an OB/GYN. He was about twenty years older than his wife – a bit long in the tooth to be the father of nine-year-old. Five years after they moved into Peakland Place, Kirkwood Spencer died of a massive heart attack in the middle of delivering a baby at Virginia Baptist Hospital.”
“It should be easy to figure out where he went to medical school,” Lucinda said.
“It shoul
d be but it’s not. I cannot find any past for him before he set up his practice in Lynchburg when Evan was nine.”
“That makes no sense at all.”
“I know it. I turned it all over to a crackerjack researcher down in Vice. She’ll start digging first thing in the morning. If he had a life, she’ll find it.”
“Have you looked at the canvassing reports from the Linden Street scene yet?”
“Skimmed over them,” he said. “Doesn’t seem to be anything there.”
Lucinda grabbed the stack of paperwork and a city map. She sat down and marked an “x” on the spots where patrolmen interviewed residents. She noticed something interesting and walked over to her partner. “Ted, look at this.”
After she explained the marks on the map, Ted asked, “Okay, so what’s the question?”
“See this street here,” she pointed to a road running parallel to Linden. “The witness saw the perp running this way toward Poplar,” she said tracing the movement with a finger through the backyards of the houses facing in opposite directions. “If anyone was looking out of the front window from one of these houses on the opposite of the street, they would have seen him emerge.”
“And no one’s talked to them?”
“Not yet,” Lucinda said with a grin.
“Let’s go.”
They arrived in the neighborhood around the same time of day that the witness had spotted the killer scurrying past the houses. They knocked on four doors and conducted four fruitless interviews. At the fifth house, they heard a loud thud as they stepped on to the stoop. But when Lucinda rang the doorbell, there was no response. Ted pulled open the screen and rapped hard on the wooden door. Still nothing.
“Odd,” Lucinda said. “There’s a car in the driveway.”
“Maybe whoever lives here got a ride from someone.”
“Maybe,” she said walking to the driveway. She laid a hand on the hood of the car. “Warm.”
Without another word, they walked together around the house looking for anything that seemed disturbed or out of place. “There’s no screen on that one window,” Ted said and pointed with his finger.
The Trophy Exchange (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery) Page 15