Lethal Legacy

by Louise Hendricksen

  Lethal Legacy

  Louise Hendricksen

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  1

  Murder spawned a stench all its own.

  Dr. Amy Prescott flipped a switch, casting the murky kitchen into stark relief and gasped. Blood ! Blood everywhere+obscene sprays, spatters and splotches.

  Mai Nguyen’s blood.

  Mai, wife of Dr. Cam Nguyen, Amy’s colleague, her trusted friend.

  Amy sagged against the doorjamb. “Poor little Mai.”

  Wind moaned a dirge through the house. Somewhere in the distance, Amy fancied she heard a woman sobbing.

  Dr. B.J. Prescott put his arm around his daughter. “You sure you want to be in on this?”

  Amy sighed wearily, then glared at Sheriff Fred Boyce, who had wedged his stocky body in the doorway. “Cam didn’t kill her and I intend to prove it.”

  Boyce narrowed his eyes and thrust out his beefy chin. “Nguyen’s in jail and he’s gonna stay there. The man was covered with her blood. What more do ya want?”

  B.J. ran the heel of his hand over the strip of gray hair fringing his bald pate and said in a controlled voice, “He’s an M.D. There’s no way you can treat a bleeding patient without getting some on you.”

  “Might a known you doctors would stick together.” Boyce leaned on a counter, putting his hands behind him to grip the edge.

  Amy, stooping to slip white paper booties over her shoes, caught his movement. “Don’t touch that,” she said sharply.

  Boyce straightened and dropped his arms, his face turning red. “Where the hell do you get off telling me what to do?”

  Amy, her voluminous white coveralls a contrast to the blood-spattered room, faced him squarely. “We’re here to investigate a murder. Or have you forgotten that?”

  B.J. put his hand on his daughter’s arm in a calming gesture, then stepped out onto the back porch and retrieved his and Amy’s forensic kits. “We’ll need a copy of your prints and those of your deputy and the paramedics.” Then he sat down on the edge of a chair, bending over his midriff to tug on his shoe covers.

  Sheriff Boyce grunted and shifted his feet. “No need of those paramedics even being here. The woman was dead.”

  Amy lifted her gaze from the viewfinder of her camera. “Cam’s attorney told me she was conscious when Cam found her.”

  “That’s what Nguyen says. I figure he started battin’ her around and she fought back. He grabbed a knife out of that rack over there,” he gestured toward a slotted wooden block, “killed her, dragged her into the bedroom, then called the paramedics to make it look as if he’d just come home and found her that way.”

  B.J. took a box of tacks and a ball of string from the pocket of his white coveralls. “Did you find the weapon?”

  Boyce hooked his thumbs over the belt of his khaki-colored pants and rocked on his heels. “The way I see it, he washed the knife and stuck it back where it come from. I took all of ‘em in as evidence.”

  Heaving an exasperated sigh, Amy raked her fingers through her short-cut brown hair. “So now your prints are all over the knife rack.”

  “Watch it, girl.” The sheriff pointed a stubby finger at her. “I’ve about had it with you.”

  B.J. caught his daughter’s eye. “Let’s divide the kitchen into quadrants. We’ve got a whopper of a job ahead of us.” He swung around to Boyce. “I assume you took pictures of the body before you let them move her.”

  “Pictures! When the hell was I gonna take pictures? Christ, Nguyen had a holt of her and wouldn’t let go. Had to pry him loose.” The man folded his arms obstinately. “Ain’t got a camera, anyway. Wheeler ain’t full a rich folks like you got in Ursa Bay.”

  B.J. didn’t bother to respond. He fastened a loop of string around a tack, pushed it into the baseboard, and tossed the ball of string to Amy.

  “Well,” said the sheriff. “I guess I’ll let you two get on with whatever it is you do.” He let out a short, derisive laugh, turned, and left the house.

  “Thank, God,” Amy breathed. Edging around the room, she knelt, stretched the line her father had thrown her taut, and fastened it at the base of a cabinet.

  Having gone through the procedure many times before, B.J. and Amy worked with practiced precision. As soon as they finished, B.J. plugged in a small evidence vacuum and started cleaning the floor.

  Meanwhile, Amy took pictures of bloodstain patterns on the cabinets and floor, following the tracks where Mai’s slender fingers had slid down the white wall, the dark trails on the gleaming blue vinyl floor-covering.

  Visions of the murderer dragging Mai feet first, her long, black, blood-wet hair streaming out behind her, rose in Amy’s mind. The room tilted, started to spin. She staggered to a chair and put her head down between her knees.

  B.J. switched off the vacuum. “You okay?”

  Amy shook her head. “Lord, I’m nearly four months along. I thought I’d be over it by now.”

  B.J.‘s eyes turned a frosty blue and his lips thinned. “You wanted to be a mother.”

  Amy jerked upright and glared at him. Did he have to start in on her now, of all times? Always, the same old theme. She’d been hearing it ever since she’d told him she was pregnant with Nathan Blackthorn’s child. “Skip it, Dad. I’m not in the mood.”

  B.J. shook his head, then turned on the vacuum and went back to his task of collecting, packaging, and labeling a filter disk for each quadrant.

  Amy gritted her teeth. Lectures and looks, she’d had her fill of them. Good God, a woman over thirty ought to know what was right for her. She snatched up the ball of twine. “I’m going to start on the living room,” she said, gesturing to him over the hum of the vacuum.

  Amy moved through the doorway and assessed the scene, letting her mind absorb each detail. One drape dangled from a twisted rod, letting in a slice of bleary light and the rata-tat-tat of wind-driven rain on the glass. On bare flooring, a porcelain table lamp lay in a fragmented starburst of opalescent blue. Nearby, a white satin chair had been pushed over on its side. By the front door, an askew Oriental carpet, blue and white in squared lineal patterns. Each article a reminder of Mai and her impeccable taste.

  Amy shook herself and began to section off the space. She had to keep her wits about her today. Had to stay in control of her emotions.

  Slowly, painstakingly, Amy and her father worked their way through the rambling one-story house. According to forensic theorists, a murderer always brings something to a crime scene, even though it may be microscopic in size, and takes something away. At this scene, they were at a disadvantage. No documentation had been done at the time of discovery and too many people had been allowed to come and go since the murder.

  It was after one o’clock when B.J. peered into the master bedroom. “What do you make of all those archaeology books in the study?
They sure look technical.”

  Amy shut off the vacuum. “I have no idea. Cam never mentioned any interest in archaeology during our residency together.” She rose, stepped over the twine she’d strung, and set the vacuum down in the hall. “Maybe they belonged to Mai’s father. This used to be his house.” She frowned and chewed the edge of her lip.

  “Does Mai’s father still live in Wheeler?”

  Amy looked up in surprise. “Didn’t I tell you? He was killed in a hit-and-run last June. They never did find the driver.”

  “Hmmm, I don’t remember hearing about it,” B.J. said. “What was his name?”

  “Chantou Pran. Intelligent man. I met him at Mai and Cam’s wedding.”

  “Mai have any other family?”

  Amy shook her head. “Her mother died in Cambodia shortly after Mai was born.”

  B.J. inspected a white oak highboy. Cam’s shorts, T-shirts, socks, and sweaters dangled from half-open drawers and littered the floor below. He moved on to a mirrored dresser. A cultured pearl necklace and a tangle of gold chains spilled over the edge of a teak wood box. “He went through everything, but didn’t take the expensive stuff. Why would he do that?”

  “There’s also no sign of forced entry.”

  B.J. stroked his graying mustache and Vandyke beard. “Do you think she let him in?”

  “Might have. Country folks aren’t as suspicious of strangers as city folks.”

  “He might not have been a stranger.”

  “Possible.” Amy removed her glasses, rubbed her weary eyes, and pointed to a dent in one of the bed pillows. “Looks like Mai was in bed. She must have gotten up to answer the doorbell.”

  “Right. There’s a peephole in both doors. So, it’s likely she did know the guy.”

  Anguish twisted Amy’s features. “Unless she got up when Cam let himself in.”

  B.J.‘s eyes softened with compassion. “Have to consider the possibility, kitten.”

  “I know, I know,” she said softly.

  B.J. blew several puffs of breath along the dresser’s gleaming top. “Got some weak prints here. Let’s fume it.” He readjusted his respirator.

  Amy donned a self-contained breathing apparatus. Since learning she was pregnant, she’d taken more care than usual not to inhale the various elements they handled on the job.

  B.J. wrapped his hand around the glass fumer to heat the silver iodine crystals, while Amy readied the Folmer-Graflex print camera. “All set?” he asked. When she nodded, B.J. squeezed the fumer’s air bulb. Purple smoke floated out of the glass tube and spread across the dresser top. Brown latents popped up all over the polished surface.

  After taking the views she needed, Amy laid a flexible sheet of silver over the latents, iodine reacted with the silver, creating near perfect prints. Buoyed by their success, she turned to another area of the room. When she tired, she sat back on her heels and watched her father.

  With practiced ease, B.J. dusted night stands and louvered closet doors with bichromatic powder. Using hinged, transparent lifters, he transferred prints to three-by-five-inch index cards. When he glanced up and saw her observing him, he smiled. “About done?”

  “Getting there.” Amy groaned, caught hold of a chair, and pulled herself up. Her back ached, her feet hurt, and she had a catch in her left side, but she wasn’t finished yet.

  A tired sigh escaped her lips as she hooked the strap of her 35-millimeter camera around her neck. Better get on with it. She labeled a paper evidence bag and put on a pair of latex gloves. In a corner, she picked up Mai’s wadded nightgown and dropped it into the prepared sack.

  As the green satin gown slithered through her fingers, images of a man repeatedly stabbing Mai flashed through her mind. Goose bumps skittered along her arms and she shuddered.

  Despite the room’s spring-like decor of pale peach and willow green, an evil aura pervaded the atmosphere. She could smell the fear, feel the terror, the terrible pain.

  With an effort, Amy pulled her thoughts together. First, she snapped pictures of marks where Mai’s blood-soaked nightgown had struck the wall and slid down, then she focused on dark encrusted pools of blood on the parquet floor.

  When she finished, she glanced out the window and noticed Sheriff Boyce sitting in his patrol car, eating his lunch. “Sheriff! That’s a laugh. Some example of law enforcement,” she muttered, slamming her forensic kit closed. “No pictures. Not even a sketch of the room or an outline of where she lay.” She swung around to her father. “Dammit, Dad, we don’t even know if Mai was raped.”

  B.J. put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “Easy, honey. The coroner agreed to have her body transferred to our lab. We’ll have a lot more answers when we do the postmortem tomorrow.”

  2

  Amy sat on a high stool surrounded by glass-doored cabinets lined with instruments, electric saws, and large glass jars containing various preserved organs. Ceiling and wall vent fans hummed. The red on lights of an overhead camera and microphone blinked. Below, on a steel autopsy table equipped with running water, lay the body of Mai Nguyen.

  Strips of toweling covered her breasts and pubic area, her modesty respected for the moment. Except for plum-colored bruises, purple-edged gashes, and patches of dried blood, Mai resembled a diminutive porcelain statue, with perfect proportions and exquisite features. So young, so gentle, what could possibly have provoked someone to kill the poor woman?

  As Amy leaned over to take a scratch pad from a drawer, a wave of nausea washed over her. Perspiration beaded her forehead, broke out between her breasts. “Damn, damn, damn,” she muttered, gripping the edge of the counter. Morning sickness was a complication she hadn’t foreseen. Wetting a paper towel with cold water, she dabbed her face.

  B.J. finished laying out his instruments and eyed her with concern. “Feeling okay?”

  “Not really.”

  He rested a hand on her shoulder. “Isn’t it about time you saw someone?”

  “I have an appointment in Seattle tomorrow.” She moistened her dry lips. “Do you mind if I don’t assist?”

  “The coroner can help. Time he learned to do a proper post anyhow.”

  Amy ran over the familiar procedure in her mind. An inch-by-inch inspection of the body with a high-power magnifying lens; a careful combing of pubic hair, examination of the vaginal vault; slides and samples from under fingernails and from every orifice. A total body fuming with cyanoacrylate inside a vinyl tent to bring out fingerprints. Another inspection, this time in the dark with the aid of an ultraviolet light; a head-to-toe dusting with black fingerprint powder, and a final going-over with a high-intensity light.

  After all this, her father would pick up a scalpel to make the “Y” section. A clean slash from each clavicle to the base of the sternum, then another from sternum to pubis.

  She gazed over at Mai’s body. “Use barium sulfate in the knife wounds and take plenty of X-rays. If it doesn’t give a good outline, pour some melted Wood’s metal into them. That may give us the size and shape of the blade.”

  B.J. grinned and laugh lines fanned out over his ruddy cheeks. “Yes, Dr. Prescott, I believe I know the routine. Now go on about your business. Kibitzers make me nervous.”

  Amy made a face at him and went upstairs to her apartment. While drinking a cup of herbal tea, her mind wandered as it frequently did to Nathan Blackthorn. Nathan had given her some terrible-tasting concoction the night she was poisoned. If he were here, maybe he’d have an Indian remedy for nausea. But he wasn’t here and never would be. The thought caused a throbbing ache deep in her chest.

  Foolishness. She seized the phone, called Cam’s attorney, and asked him to arrange for her to meet with Cam. That done, she took the elevator down to the office and buried herself in paperwork for a couple of hours. By ten o’clock, she felt strong enough to make the thirty-five-mile trip to Wheeler.

  The jail was on the first floor of the red-brick courthouse. After passing by offices marked City Clerk, Housing Aut
hority, and Public Works, she approached a glass door. Large black letters trimmed in gold assured her she had arrived at the sheriff’s department.

  She opened the door quietly and peeked inside. Two once-white fixtures in a twelve-foot, water-stained ceiling provided feeble illumination. In front of a gray metal locker flanked by two file cabinets sat a man in his middle twenties. He had his chair tipped back and his ragged athletic shoes propped on a pulled-out drawer.

  When Amy closed the office door, the man hastily lowered his feet and bent over a stack of papers on me desk. She approached a counter that bisected the room. After she’d stood there for several minutes, the young man raised his head, pushed thick-lensed glasses farther up on his long nose, and brought her into focus.

  “You want something?”

  “I’m Dr. Amy Prescott, one of the investigators on the Nguyen case. I came to talk with Dr. Nguyen.”

  The man pushed aside a flap of lank, blond hair. “No visitors allowed.” He got up, turned his back to her, and started pawing through a file drawer.

  Amy stared at him with disbelief. “Young Man?…”

  He wheeled around and marched over to the counter. “The name’s Pierce, lady.” He puffed out his skinny chest. “Deputy Duane Pierce.”

  Amy managed a smile and stuck out her hand. “Good morning. Deputy Pierce. Jed MacManus, Dr. Nguyen’s attorney, called Sheriff Boyce this morning and got permission for me to see Dr. Nguyen.”

  “Nobody told me,” the man whined.

  “Is Sheriff Boyce in?”

  Deputy Pierce gestured widely about the room. “Do you see him?”