by Pandora Pine
“Hold on,” Ten sounded shocked. “Are you saying the original detectives never asked to have the other end tested for the murderer’s DNA? How is that possible?”
“We know the touch DNA technology available now wasn’t available twenty years ago. Plus, the fact that wood is very porous, there might be better technology now for testing on that kind of surface for DNA and fingerprints.” Ronan could only pray that advances in technology could provide a break in the case. Right now, they were no closer to solving this case than the original detectives were twenty years ago.
35
Tennyson
In the six months that Ten had been consulting with the Boston Police Department, he’d never made it down to the Trace Evidence Lab. He was expecting it to be dark and gloomy like it was on CSI, but was pleasantly surprised to see it was actually a bright and airy space. He’d never understood how Grissom and the gang got any work done in the near-dark anyway.
Ronan led them to the back corner of the lab where a petite young woman with aqua hair was perched at a lab bench typing so quickly on a laptop that her fingers were a blur of color. Ronan stopped in front of her and seemed to be patiently waiting for her to finish.
“Hey, Ronan!” she said when she looked up.
“Lyric Vaughn, just the lady I was coming to see.” Ronan was all smiles. “Lyric, this is my partner, Tennyson Grimm. Ten, this is Lyric, the BPD’s DNA guru.”
“He must have something really hot he needs my help with if he’s kissing my ass like this.” She held out her hand to shake with Tennyson. Her perfectly manicured fingernails were the exact shade of blue as her hair. “It’s awesome to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you through the department grapevine.”
Ten laughed. “I’m getting an earful now from your Mimi!” He’d never before met such an effervescent spirit. “Let me guess, you got your penchant for brightly colored hair from your grandmother?”
Lyric laughed. Ten could hear she had been aptly named. He couldn’t help wondering if an astrologer had suggested her name. It fit her to a T.
“Mimi’s hair was always some wild color or another. She passed when I was in my early twenties. She lived long enough to see me graduate from Northeastern. It was the proudest damn day of her life.” Lyric sniffled. “I realized then, life was too short to be a brunette. Once I got my job here at the crime lab and read that there were no rules in the employee handbook about hair color, I went to the salon and went for broke. My hair is a different color every eight weeks. You’d know that if you stopped by more often.” Lyric shot Ronan a wicked smile.
“Life’s too short to be a brunette. Hmm…” Ten touched his own dark locks and looked up at Ronan.
Ronan barked out a surprised laugh. “What color would you go for, Ten? Pink? Lavender?”
Ten laughed along with him. “Christ, I’m barely brave enough to pull it back into a man-bun when it’s windy out. I can’t imagine dying it tangerine.”
“Something to think about when we’re on vacation.” Ronan waggled his eyebrows.
“Ah ha! So those rumors are true!” Lyric looked back and forth between the two of them. “Being down here in the lab we only get second-hand gossip. Unless of course one of your colleagues happens to put your exploits on Facebook Live…”
“Oh Christ, is it O’Dwyer?” Ronan rolled his eyes. “I hate that social media shit.”
“Get with the times, Pops. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat are already instrumental in solving crimes. The more you know about them, the more they’re going to be able to help you down the road.”
“Well, thankfully in the Owens case the technology I’m dealing with is a little more old-school.” Ronan set the two-by-four on the lab bench.
“I’d say that’s for sure old-school.” Lyric got up from her seat and snapped on a pair of gloves. She grabbed the bagged evidence and brought it over to a large magnifier with a light. Flipping the switch, she began to examine the wood. “Looks like we’ve got blood and brain matter on this end. Blood looks like it’s been here a while, possibly decades.”
Ten was impressed. Lyric was right on the money.
Ronan grinned. “Exactly. Harold Owens was murdered on Christmas night, 1997. We know that the blood and brain matter belong to him. That evidence was tested back in the day. What we’re hoping you can help us out with is the rest of the wood.”
“Wood isn’t exactly my thing, Ro.” Lyric winked at him over the magnifier. “I’ll tell Katie you said hey, though!” She went back to looking at the murder weapon.
Ronan rolled his eyes at Tennyson. “How’s she doing being home with the baby full-time?”
“Some days it’s heaven on earth, other days she’s wishing she was back on the beat carrying a gun.” Lyric shrugged. “For me, everyday is heaven on earth. Astrid is the best thing that ever happened to us. Being a mother changed my life in ways I could never have imagined and it got Katie off her beat. She’s home safe with our daughter and that’s all that matters.”
Ronan looked like he was about to disagree about Katie being off the police force, but Tennyson was quick to jump in. “Your grandmother is over the moon that you named your daughter after her.”
“I had a feeling she would be.” Lyric wore a wistful smile. “She was the first person I ever came out to. She loved Katie as much as she loved me. I just wish she could have met Astrid too.” Lyric’s eyes started tearing up and she looked away from Tennyson.
“Lyric, your grandmother did meet your daughter. She held your baby’s spirit before it came into this world. She was also in the delivery room when Katie gave birth. Mimi says she guided the doctor’s hand when the cord got tangled around little Astrid’s neck.”
“In the name of the goddess! We never told anyone about that. It was the most terrifying moment of our lives. The doctor and all of the nurses went dead silent for a few minutes.” She shook her head. “A few minutes later when the baby was born, she had a bluish tint to her skin. We didn’t know if she would live.”
“Mimi was with her the whole time.” Tennyson smiled. “She says there was no way that baby was going back to heaven with her.”
Lyric laughed. “That’s Mimi all right! Goddess, that woman was more stubborn than ten packs of mules. Or Ronan.”
Tennyson burst out laughing. “But you always want both of them pulling for your side. Am I right?”
“Gee, thanks.” Ronan rolled his eyes.
“So, let me guess, you want me to look for foreign DNA along the rest of the murder weapon?” Lyric went back to studying the wood under the magnifier.
“Yes. We have three possible suspects and have DNA on file for all of them in case you find something.”
“What are the chances there will be something there after twenty years?” Tennyson asked.
“It’s not necessarily the years we have to worry about, but the other people who touched the opposite end of the weapon. We could find DNA from other people not related to the case at all.”
“Oh, cross-contamination.” Ten nodded.
“I’m impressed.” Lyric laughed.
“Don’t be. He watches a lot of Law and Order.” Ronan elbowed Ten.
“Hater,” Tennyson muttered. “There’s also a blue stain at the other end. We’re hoping to figure out what that is too.”
“I was just looking at that. It was never analyzed the first time around, Ronan?”
“No. Harold Owens was murdered in his living room with only his wife and daughter at home. I’m assuming the detectives working the homicide at the time figured the case was a slam-dunk and they didn’t really do a lot of groundwork, figuring one of the women would either confess or point the finger at the real killer.”
“I’ll take samples and get the results back to you ASAP.” She snapped off the light and looked up at Tennyson. “Can Mimi hear me when I speak to her?”
“Yes, she can. She says she loves the chats the two of you still have.”
Lyric nodded. “I fin
d pink dogwood petals all the time, even in the dead of winter. She loved those trees so much when they would flower in the spring. Is that Mimi leaving me little love notes?”
Tennyson laughed. “It sure is. She says she’s surprised it took you so long to figure it out. The butterflies are her too.”
Lyric gasped. “The monarchs? We always see them when we go to the cemetery to put flowers on her grave.”
“Mimi says those were your favorite when you were a little girl.”
“They were. There was this field by Mimi’s house where milkweed grew and there were hundreds of butterflies there in the summer. It was so magical. Speaking with you is magical too, Tennyson. I can’t thank you enough for letting me hear Mimi’s voice again today.” She walked around the lab bench and hugged Tennyson.
He held on tight. Ten needed the hug as much as Lyric did. “She’s always with you, Lyric. Never forget that.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “This is my card. Come see us at the shop sometime. I know my partners would love to meet you, Katie, and Astrid. Any stories that you can share about this one,” Ten hooked his thumb at Ronan, “are especially welcome.”
“Okay, Nostradamus. Playtime is over.” Ronan grabbed Ten’s elbow and gave it a tug. “Thanks for your help, Lyric. Don’t forget snitches get stitches.” Ronan laughed.
“The two of you are so much more adorable together than the rumors say you are.” Lyric giggled. “I’ll text you as soon as I have results on the wood.”
“It was nice meeting you and Mimi, Lyric!” Ten called as Ronan dragged him toward the door. He had a feeling the wood was going to be the key to finding out who killed Harold Owens at long last.
36
Ronan
Three days later, Ronan was sitting at his desk going through emails when a bedraggled-looking Fitzgibbon threw himself into the chair across from Ronan’s desk. “You look like shit, Cap!” Ronan said cheerfully. “You finally getting some?”
Fitzgibbon raised an eyebrow at Ronan. “No, asshole, Greeley discovered Harry Potter. That little wizarding bastard is keeping us both up all night.” The captain was grinning.
Ronan couldn’t help laughing at his boss. “Are you reading the books or watching the movies?”
“Both. We watch the movie after we finish the book. Now that Greeley’s finished with the detoxing part of his rehab, we’re taking turns reading to each other after his GED homework is done for the night.”
“How’s that going?” Ronan continued to be impressed with Greeley’s progress. The teenager had nearly been killed twice and was almost finished with his ninety-day stint in rehab. He was also taking GED classes while he kept up with all of his group and individual therapy sessions. Ronan remembered just how tough it was keeping up with his own therapy from the time he’d spent in a Florida rehab for his own drinking problem last summer.
“He’s got straight A’s in all of his classes. I’m the one who’s struggling a bit with the situation.”
“What do you mean?” Ronan leaned forward, as if to hear Fitzgibbon better.
“Greeley’s a brilliant kid. He should have had all the advantages in life, but instead, look at all he’s been through. He’s still got a long road ahead of him too, and I can’t help but think what a different life he would have lived if he’d been born to different parents.”
Ronan sighed. He understood where Fitzgibbon was coming from. Greeley’s parents had kicked the teenager out of their house when he’d come out as gay. The boy had fallen into a life of prostitution to keep body and soul together and ended up crossing paths with a serial killer who’d nearly ended his life twice. “Cap, I think everything happens for a reason. Greeley being strong enough to survive his encounter with the killer was what led us to figuring out who the bastard was and to then being able to catch him and stop his spree in its tracks. I know what he suffered was unimaginable, but you were waiting for him at the other end of his ordeal. There is no father better equipped to parent this child than you.”
Fitzgibbon sat back in his seat and seemed to be considering what Ronan was saying. “You really believe that?”
“I do. Look at the progress he’s made in two months. Your relationship gets stronger every day and so does his sobriety. The two of you were meant to find each other.”
“He’s even talking about college. He thinks he’d like to help other kids like him who have a substance abuse issue. Or dealt with life on the streets.”
“God knows there are enough kids like him out there in this world. It would sure be nice to have a good guy out there fighting to save at-risk youth.” Ronan shook his head.
“Where’s your better half?” The captain looked around the squad room.
“He’s down in the crime lab visiting with his new BFF.” Ronan rolled his eyes. Ten and Lyric had been texting each other non-stop since they’d met a few days ago.
“Do I detect a hint of jealousy?” Fitzgibbon snorted.
“God, no. I’m glad Ten’s making friends here. I just wish Harold Owens’ spirit would make a damn appearance.” Ronan was still hoping against hope that the stubborn ghost would show up and put an end to this damn investigation.
“I thought Ten’s gift was working again?”
“It is, but that doesn’t mean Harold’s going to show up like a pizza you called out for.” Ronan laughed. Christ, he was starting to sound like Tennyson.
“That’s one way of putting it.” Tennyson laughed from behind Ronan.
“There you are. I was getting ready to call out the National Guard.”
“Don’t be such a drama queen. Lyric called me down to see her because she has results for us. You were invited to come too, you know.” Ten set a manila envelope down in front of Ronan before he grabbed an empty chair from the desk next to Ronan’s.
“I didn’t want to interrupt the lovefest between the two of you and Lyric’s Mimi.” Ronan grinned and opened the envelope. He pulled out the sheet of paper inside and scanned the results. “Well, this is interesting.”
“What’s interesting is that Lyric didn’t email the results.” Fitzgibbon looked perplexed. “In this day and age of technology, why is she printing out lab results?”
“Should you tell him, or should I?” Ten was biting his bottom lip in an obvious attempt not to laugh.
“Tell me what?” Fitzgibbon looked back and forth between the two of them.
“Way to throw me under the bus, asshole.” Ronan shook his head and turned back to his boss. “I may have forgotten my encryption password.” When the lab and other departments sent sensitive documents, the files were encrypted and password protected. Ronan hadn’t been able to remember his password for the last three weeks and wasn’t in the mood to go through the process of filling out the paperwork to request new credentials, which was why he’d asked Lyric to send him a physical copy of the Owens murder weapon lab results.
Fitzgibbon pulled out his phone and started tapping the screen. “Jesus Christ, Ronan. It’s bigdixx69.”
“What?” Tennyson burst out laughing. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish that I were. I’ll never be able to unsee that.” Fitzgibbon shook his head. “Log in and change it, Ronan. To something appropriate. No dicks, cocks, penises, boners, baloney ponies, love hammers, bald avengers, disco sticks, or one-eyed trouser snakes. I fucking mean it. Something. Appropriate. Now!” The captain sighed, looking up at the ceiling as if hoping for divine intervention. “It’s like working with five-year-olds.”
“How many five-year-olds know about baloney ponies?” Ten asked.
“Jesus Christ, don’t you start.” Fitzgibbon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can we get to the lab results please so I can go back to my office and forget that I know the two of you.”
“You were just saying the other day how happy you were that I was on your team.” Ronan waggled his eyebrows.
“Yeah, that was before I knew about bigdixx69. Now read the results before I request your
transfer back to patrol.” Fitzgibbon smiled broadly as if the thought of Ronan back in patrol was the best news he’d had in weeks.
Ronan picked the single sheet of lab results back up. “Says here that the blue stain Tennyson noticed on the wood is dishwashing soap.”
“You mean Dawn?” Ten asked.
“Sounds like it,” Ronan said.
“There were no discernable prints on the surface of the weapon, but there was DNA found that didn’t belong to the murder victim,” Ronan read with a hint of surprise in his voice.
“Let me guess, it was Maxine Owens?” Fitzgibbon leaned forward in his seat.
Ronan shook his head. “Nope! Good guess though. The DNA belongs to Shawn Owens.”
“Okay, explain that to me.” Ten wore a baffled look. “There’s dishwashing soap from Maxine on the wood, but Shawn’s DNA? How does that happen?”
Ronan exchanged a silent look with the captain. “It can happen a lot of ways. That piece of lumber could have been in the house for years as part of basement building project between father and son.”
“It could have been leftover scrap,” Fitzgibbon added. “Maxine could have picked it up wearing her dish gloves and that’s when the soap transfer took place.”
“But, while both pieces of evidence are provocative by themselves, it still leaves a hole of reasonable doubt big enough to drive an eighteen-wheeler through for either suspect.” Ronan shook his head.
“So, we’re back to square one,” Ten said. “If we arrest Maxine, her attorney will point to Shawn’s DNA on the wood and if we arrest Shawn, his attorney will point to the dish soap.”
“That’s about the size of it.” Fitzgibbon shook his head. “There’s really only one way we’re going to solve this crime.” He and Ronan both looked at Tennyson.
“I’ve got to talk to Harold Owens.” Tennyson’s shoulders dropped.
“We don’t mean to put pressure on you, Ten, but that’s the only way. Whoever the killer is has kept their secret for twenty years. They’re in no hurry to give it up now.”