I hadn’t thought that far ahead. My normal answer to the “will you come back” question had always been an automatic no. But if the killer struck again and I worked the scene, it would give me another crack at finding the bastard who killed Jenna, which I wanted to do more than anything.
“Uh…maybe. Probably.”
Relief washed over her face. “That would be great. I feel like I’m up for it, but I’d really like to have you by my side instead of Beck. Every time he and I go out to a scene, I get this horrible feeling he’s going to miss something, which inevitably will become my problem. So I run around like a lunatic, doing my job plus looking over his shoulder. And worse, he’s making the big bucks for being the head criminalist!”
I chuckled. “Trust me, he’s not making big bucks. But I get where you’re coming from. I’ll see this thing through. But after that, I’m going back to being only a mild-mannered college professor.”
“I’ll take what I can get.”
I headed over to see the evidence clerk and checked out the clothes Jenna had been wearing when she’d been found. After I brought them back to the lab, Amanda and I divided them up and began our examinations.
I took the white peasant top out of the paper bag and laid it out on my workstation. In the bright lighting of the lab, the top wasn’t as white as it seemed. It certainly wasn’t a new garment. The fabric was yellowed around the inside of the neckline and at the armpits. The multicolored embroidery pattern across the front of the shirt was picked and unraveling from wear. I didn’t find any hairs or fibers on it—not that I’d expected to. Dr. Berg would have found and removed any trace during his initial examination. Like we’d noticed at the scene, there was no visible sign of blood on the garment. That didn’t mean there hadn’t been blood on it at one time. It could have been bleached away, but the shirt smelled musty and like it hadn’t been washed in a long time. There could have been other bodily fluids on it, though, like saliva or semen or sweat, any of which could have belonged to the killer.
I went to one of the cabinets along the wall and found a UV light. I turned out the light over my worktable as well as the overhead lights in my end of the lab. After changing into a new pair of gloves, I shined the UV light on the shirt. A couple of smudges illuminated slightly, which I thought could have been swipes of sweat or saliva. After examining the front and back of the shirt, I circled the area of the stains with a Sharpie, cut out pieces of them, and placed the sample pieces in separate small manila envelopes. I filled out an evidence tag for each as well as a lab request form for the DNA analysts at the Indiana State Police lab in Indianapolis.
Our lab didn’t begin to have the equipment necessary to process DNA or anything much beyond fingerprints, so we sent out most of our evidence to the state lab. With the ever-present backlog of every law enforcement lab in the country, it would take close to a month to get the results back. This evidence wouldn’t necessarily point us toward a suspect, assuming our killer was even in CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System, which I doubted, since his fingerprints weren’t in AFIS. However, it could turn out to be the concrete evidence we’d need at trial to tie the killer to the victim.
I repackaged the garment and sealed the evidence bag again. After stripping off my gloves, I turned the lights back on and began examining the boots. I noticed that Amanda was now working on the underwear. We would both have to process each piece of clothing to check each other’s work, and although I hated to ask, I needed to know what I was getting into so I had time to mentally prepare before I began my examination of the underwear. Sexual assault had been a worry in the back of my mind, which would probably continue to nag at me until I learned the results of the autopsy examination.
I cleared my throat. “Um…did you find any evidence of…”
Amanda looked up from what she was doing. “I know what you’re thinking, and you can relax. I did an acid phosphatase test, and there’s no semen here. Unless he used a condom, I don’t think Jenna was raped.”
I smiled. “That’s at least some good news.”
“However, I’ll warn you the underwear is pretty bad otherwise. I’m thinking she may have had them on for a while during the time he was holding her prisoner, and also probably when she died. There are stains on top of stains. It’s an awful thought, but not as bad as sexual assault.”
“Right.”
My spirits lifted somewhat, I set the leather boots out on my workstation and examined them the exact same way I did the shirt. As Dr. Berg had mentioned, there was straw inside the boots, which I removed with tweezers, placed in a plastic pillbox, and labeled. On the outside of the boots, I saw a few visible stains, which were likely from normal wear. (Not Jenna’s normal wear, as I assumed the killer got these boots secondhand, like the peasant top.) Nothing illuminated when I used the UV light on the boots. But there could be fingerprints.
Lifting viable fingerprints off the soft leather would be a challenge, but it was one I was more than willing to take on. In the areas where the leather was smooth and devoid of decorative stitching, I dusted with black fingerprint powder. Then I put the boots under the bench magnifier to take a look.
I let out a little yelp as I found what seemed to be a decent print.
Amanda popped her head up from what she was doing. “Was that a good noise or a bad noise?”
“You said our killer’s prints are tented arches, right?
“Right.”
I sucked in a breath. “Then it’s a fantastic noise. I’ve got a tented arch on this boot, if I can get it off.”
Her eyes lit up. “Ooh! Do we get to use Mikrosil?”
“That was my next move.”
She abandoned her workstation and watched as I squeezed some gooey white Mikrosil silicon base out of a tube and then added the hardener out of a smaller tube.
“Don’t you just love playing with the Mikrosil? It’s so much more fun than straight tape lifting,” she said.
“I agree.”
Mikrosil is a silicone casting material used to make casts of small tool mark impressions and also for pulling latent fingerprints from curved surfaces where tape lifts don’t work well. In this case, the fingerprint was on the toe of the boot, which I could never get a piece of flat tape to smooth out over. Plus leather was already a difficult surface to pull fingerprints from, so Mikrosil was a better choice, anyway.
I mixed the base and hardener together with a clean wooden stick and applied the resulting material over the fingerprint I’d found. The Mikrosil would harden in about twenty minutes into a putty-like consistency, and when I peeled it off, it would bring the fingerprint dust with it.
Rather than literally watching something dry, I set the boots aside and went for the bra Jenna had been wearing. It was a beautiful, lacy thing from Victoria’s Secret, and seemed to match the underwear Amanda had already processed. I wondered if Jenna had bought the set purposely for what was supposed to be a romantic weekend getaway. I couldn’t even imagine how she must have felt when she realized her fantasy weekend was turning into a nightmare.
The left shoulder strap of the bra was stained dark brown from what I assumed was blood. It made sense, considering the wound on Jenna’s neck was on the left side. I knew it was more than likely Jenna’s blood, but it still had to be processed, so I moistened the tip of a swab with distilled water and rubbed it over the strap. The swab came back tinged with blood, and I placed it out of sight in a cardboard swab box to dry. I didn’t plan on sending the sample to the lab for DNA analysis, but at least the evidence was there if needed.
The idea of sexual assault still weighing heavily on my mind, I turned the bra inside out and shut the lights out over my workstation. With a UV light, I searched the surface of the inside of the bra cup carefully. Saliva stains would fluoresce under UV rays, and while the presence of saliva wouldn’t prove sexual assault, it could prove that some kind of sexual activity had gone on, and it could prove who had done it. When I found no signs of any stains, I br
eathed a sigh of relief. It bothered me enough that Jenna had been held against her will and killed, but adding additional assault to that, especially sexual, made me feel ill, and worse—vengeful. I had to keep a cool head through this, or I could miss key evidence.
I repackaged the bra and went back to take a look at the Mikrosil on the boots. “Hey, Amanda. It’s time to peel off the Mikrosil. You want the honors?”
She grinned. “You know I do.” After changing her gloves, she came over to my workstation and picked up the boot, gently peeling back the silicon cast. She held it out to me. “It’s perfect. And I know from looking it’s that bastard’s print. Want me to go run it through AFIS and make it official?”
I glanced at the door, which had just opened. A weary-looking Baxter ambled through, giving me a tired wave. To Amanda, I said, “Yes, if you don’t mind. You’re going off shift at seven, right?”
She nodded. “Yes. Finally home to sleep. Beck should be getting here around then.”
“Looks like I’m going to breakfast now, then I’ll come back. I can’t say I’m looking forward to alone time in the lab with Beck.”
Amanda snorted. “No, I can’t imagine so. Enjoy your breakfast.”
As she headed to the office to run the print, I said to Baxter, “Give me two minutes.”
He leaned against the doorframe. “Take your time.”
I repackaged the boots and bra and resealed the bags they’d come in. After ditching my gloves, lab coat, and mask, I hurried to grab my purse and met Baxter at the door.
“Have any good news for me?” he asked as we walked down the hall.
“Sort of. We know that the same person handled the poem, the flowers, and the boots Jenna was wearing.”
“And I assume the bad news is that you still don’t know who that person is.”
“Correct. But when you catch the guy, we can at least tie him to the crime.”
Baxter stopped before we reached the front door of the station and turned to me. “Would you rather talk here about the case or discuss it over breakfast? If you’re needing breakfast to be a total break from everything, I can certainly respect that.”
It would be nice to have a break from thinking about the case, but it was also one topic I knew I could handle talking about with him. If we didn’t talk about the case, I felt like our conversation could easily veer into some personal territory I wasn’t up to hashing out with him just yet. I did want to put our previous argument behind us for good, but this morning was not the proper time to get into it for either of us.
I shook my head. “It’s fine to discuss the case. I think we need to focus on it as much as humanly possible right now.” We began walking again, out into the cold morning air. It was six AM and the sun wasn’t even thinking about rising yet. “Any news on Judge Richards’s granddaughter?”
His face fell. “No.” We got into his vehicle, and after a moment, he admitted quietly, “And it’s really starting to get to me.”
My heart wrenched. This was what made Baxter such an excellent detective—his empathy for the victim and his all-consuming drive to see justice served. The problem was that sometimes he beat himself up when progress was not being made to his liking.
I reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “I can see that, and I get it. I want to nail this sick son of a bitch as much as anyone, and all the dead ends are frustrating. We’ll get him, though. I’m sure of it.”
He pulled his arm away and started the car. “Right. I just hope we find him before it’s too late for another young woman.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
We rode in silence to Mabel’s Coffeeshop, where we’d gone one early morning after our last all-night investigation. Mabel’s was old and dingy, in a rundown building in downtown Noblesville. But you couldn’t beat the omelets or the coffee, or the fact that it was always open early.
They’d made a sad attempt at Christmas decorations. There were colored twinkle lights haphazardly nailed up around every window. Limp strands of red tinsel garland were strung around from one stained ceiling tile to another so unevenly that it had to have been done by a drunken person. The ancient wood paneled walls were dotted with yellowed cardboard cutouts of Santas, angels, and snowmen like the ones that had adorned my elementary school classrooms.
Baxter glanced around, clearly underwhelmed by the décor as well. “Merry effing Christmas,” he muttered under his breath as we slid into the cracked pleather booth.
I had to admit, the place mirrored both our moods. The holiday season, which should have been joyous and filled with fun and excitement, was always covered with a shroud when there was any kind of death investigation to contend with. I’d forgotten about that part of the job since I’d made the move to teaching.
After we’d placed our order, Baxter said, “Sterling and I have spent the night wading through the case files the Sheriff and Frank suggested we should look over.” He ran his hands through his dark blond hair. “We’ve come up with a lot of nothing. There are no similarities between these deaths and the old cases. The causes of death are different than the ones our victims suffered. The situations are different. Not all the victims are even women. There were only a couple of cases where children were involved, and the kids weren’t harmed in any way and didn’t have to ‘endure’ anything like the second poem said, aside maybe from a parent being put in jail.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
I thought for a moment. “How about the vehicle or the barn? Did you find any BMV or property records tying anyone involved in those cases to a silver Corolla or a farm in the area?”
“No. And most of the people don’t even live around here anymore. A few of them are locked up, so that leaves even fewer possibilities. I feel like I’ve wasted my night.”
Our waitress brought our food—two steaming stuffed omelets with a greasy side of hash browns.
As we dug into our breakfasts, I said, “I understand. While we did get some fingerprints, they’re useless until you have a suspect to compare them to. We can collect all the evidence we want, but if it doesn’t point us in the right direction, we might as well have nothing.”
Around a mouthful of eggs, Baxter said, “The guys watching the surveillance tape from the mall assure me they’ll have some kind of better footage of the guy soon so we can try to ID him.” He swallowed. “They have a pretty far away clip of a guy talking to a woman in the parking lot. She collapses against him, and he helps her into his car and drives off. It took him only seconds to abduct her.”
I sucked in a breath. “Is the car a silver Corolla?”
“Yes.”
“So you have footage of the killer kidnapping Michaela Richards? That’s fantastic. Did it show a license plate?”
“It did. That plate was reported stolen last week.”
My shoulders slumped. “Ugh. Smart. Masking a stolen car with a different stolen plate.”
“Exactly. I’m telling you—this guy has thought of everything.”
“He clearly knows he’s not in AFIS or CODIS, because he’s leaving fingerprints for us to find. That’s arrogance at its best. He’s assuming we’ll never catch him.” I was beginning to have the sinking feeling that I wasn’t smart enough to outwit this guy. I hoped someone was.
“I agree. He took a big risk by holding Jenna Walsh for so long before he killed her. Maybe wherever he’s holed up is so remote that there’s no chance he’ll be stumbled on.”
“True. You know, he’d promised her a romantic weekend vacation. I wonder at what point it turned. I mean, did he immediately kidnap her at six PM on Saturday night, or did he keep up the charade for a while?”
Baxter regarded me for a moment. “You’re worried about what she had to endure in those forty-eight hours, aren’t you?”
I sighed. “Yes. Amanda didn’t find any signs of sexual assault on the underwear Jenna was wearing.” I wrinkled my forehead and added, “Not that you could tell a whole lot from it. For as much detail as the guy went into to po
se her and redress her, he steered clear of cleaning up the inevitable bowel mess.”
Baxter had just shoveled a forkful of hash browns into his mouth. He groaned and swallowed hard. “Come on. No shit talk at breakfast, Ellie.”
“Sorry. Nate is nearly four and hasn’t quite mastered the art of potty training. Human waste no longer fazes me.”
“Well, it fazes me, so can we talk about something else until I’m done with my food?”
I shrugged and took a big bite of my omelet. “Whatever,” I mumbled.
His phone beeped, and he put his fork down to scroll the screen. “Hallelujah. We have a photo of that bastard’s face. Finally. Now all we need to do is find someone who can ID him.”
He turned his phone toward me, and when I saw the grainy image of the young man on the screen, I dropped my fork.
“Uh…” I breathed. “I think you’ve found her.” My heart hammered in my chest, and suddenly I felt light-headed.
Baxter leaned across the table. “Are you saying you know this guy? Who is it?”
“I… His name is Hunter Parsons. He’s an Ashmore student… Seemed to be a nice enough kid…” I trailed off, totally in shock.
“You’re sure.”
“Um…yeah. He’s wearing the same coat, hat, and glasses he had on when I met him, and that’s definitely his scruffy beard and hair.”
While I was talking, Baxter had slid out of the booth, tossed some bills onto the table, and had his phone out, speaking to someone. Grabbing me by the arm, he dragged me out of the booth and out of the coffeeshop. Before I could get my bearings, he had me in his SUV, lights and siren on, and we were speeding toward Carmel.
I finally got a grip on myself enough to register what he was saying into the phone. He was speaking to Sterling, ordering him to mobilize the entire county and meet at Ashmore to apprehend Hunter.
Once he’d hung up, he turned to me, his face ashen. “You’ve met this guy? How do you know him? Is he a student in one of your classes?”
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