Something about the color combination of the shirt and shorts struck him as odd; but then, suicide always struck him as odd. He understood how things could pile up on you so much that you’d consider killing yourself—he’d been there, till he licked his gambling jones, anyway—but some of the methods chosen over the years by perp/vics had made him realize that this was one “crime” he could never entirely understand. After all, he had once been called to a suicide where the man had not only killed himself but shot his pet ferret and taken a ball-peen hammer to his cat.
Some suicides were ritualized, some were simple, some included a note, some didn’t. In this case, a white business-size envelope waited on the dashboard.
Warrick wished Catherine were here—he would have liked to have asked her about that odd combination of clothes. He tried to think of a time when he’d seen a reasonably attractive woman wearing purple and orange. Most didn’t wear such a jarring color combo, he decided.
Of course, most women didn’t kill themselves, either. Maybe they were the first two pieces of clothing she grabbed; maybe the explanation was just that simple. Perhaps the combination of colors meant something significant to her or her husband (school colors? wedding?); no way to immediately tell.
“Did you get a picture of that envelope?” Warrick asked.
“I got four pictures of it,” Greg said.
Wearing latex gloves, Warrick picked the envelope off the dashboard.
Unsealed. Flap merely tucked inside.
He carefully extracted the flap and found a tri-folded piece of paper inside, which he also removed. When he had the note unfolded, he held the sheet flat on the hood of the car while Greg photographed it, then he read the typed note.
Charlie,
I’m so sorry but I just can’t take it anymore. The pain was too much to bear. I hope you can understand and forgive me. I will always love you,
Kelly
In the movies, on TV, the typewritten suicide note is always a sure sign that someone is trying to cover up a murder. In real life, Warrick knew, this was not always the case. Some people just did not write out their suicide notes by hand. Often such notes these days were typed on computers, and the suicide just grabbed the paper out of the printer (or left it there) and didn’t bother signing it.
Hell, only a little more than half of all suicides even bothered to write a note….
Carefully, he bagged the sheet of paper.
This one still felt odd, though—peak ages for women to commit suicide were between forty-five and fifty-four, with another large at-risk group over seventy-five.
Kelly Ames appeared to be in her mid-twenties.
Although women attempted suicide twice as often as men, their male counterparts were successful four times more often. High school graduates and those with some college were more likely than high school dropouts to kill themselves, but Kelly had graduated from UNLV. Warrick also knew suicide was more common among women who were single, recently separated, divorced, or widowed. Kelly Ames was happily married—supposedly, anyway.
Although poisoning, including drug overdose, had long been the leading method of suicide among women, guns now held the top spot, in fact used in sixty percent of all suicides.
For this case, the statistics were all against Kelly Ames committing suicide.
What did all that mean?
At this point, nothing. Statistics were numbers, and victims like Kelly were human beings. But Warrick knew he would be watching this one carefully, making sure that nobody was just going through the motions. That this suicide was not by the numbers did not make it murder; it meant the investigators needed to not work by the numbers and to be painstakingly thorough.
“What next?” Greg asked.
“Check the backseat—I’ll take the front, starting with the passenger side.”
“You got it.”
“Then we’ll process the body together.”
Greg jumped to work, going over the backseat with care. Warrick did the same with the passenger seat in front, and when they were done, all they had were two cigarette butts from the ashtray in the front and a gum wrapper that Greg had dug out from under the driver’s seat.
Nonetheless, Warrick was pleased with Greg’s processing—that the body was keeping them company did not seem to bother the young CSI, neither spooking nor intimidating him. For a former lab rat like Greg, this was no small accomplishment.
“All right,” Warrick said. “Let’s do the vic. Who’s here from the coroner?”
“David.”
“Find him and get him over here.”
“On it,” Greg said, and disappeared.
Rigor had set in, so Warrick had to be careful prying the dead woman’s fingers from the steering wheel.
By the time Warrick had managed that, Greg was back with assistant coroner David Phillips in tow. His dark, curly hair receding, the boyish Phillips took a position on the driver’s side, next to Warrick. He pushed his black, wire-frame glasses up on his nose, then jammed both hands into the pockets of his dark blue lab coat. Normally Phillips had a wide, easygoing smile, but not when he was working.
“Where shall I start?” Phillips asked Warrick.
“Time of death?”
“Judging from the progression of rigor—midday. Maybe noon or so.”
“Where was the husband then?”
“According to Brass, Mr. Ames says he was on his way to work. Brass called him at his job; guy’s a second-shift supervisor.”
Leaning the victim back in the seat, Warrick examined the woman’s face. Her eyes were closed, her face was peaceful. High cheekbones; small, sharp chin; full, pink lips; no lipstick. What she did not have was the extremely red skin that comes with carbon monoxide poisoning.
“Pretty lady,” Warrick said to no one in particular. “Something’s not right about this.”
“She is awfully young,” Greg said, not seeing what Warrick had seen.
Warrick cut to the chase. “David, why isn’t her skin red?”
Phillips shrugged. “That doesn’t happen one hundred percent of the time with carbon monoxide death.”
Warrick thought he saw a shadow under the tousled brown hair and he pulled out his mini Maglite and examined the victim’s neck….
A dark spot about the size of a dime.
But whether this was a bruise or even dirt or possibly makeup, he could not tell. Before he took it to the next step, he asked the coroner’s assistant, “Is that a bruise?”
Phillips leaned in through the back driver’s-side door, moving Warrick’s hand slightly to get more light on the darkness on the woman’s throat.
“Could be,” Phillips said. “Can’t tell for sure…yet.”
Warrick grabbed a breath, told himself not to push. “The autopsy will tell us about that, and the lack of redness. Got anything else for us, Dave?”
Phillips shook his head. “No. Check with me later, at the lab.”
Moving the light farther around the throat of the vic, Warrick could not find any more marks, bruises or otherwise; but when he got to the back of the woman’s neck, he said, “Hey, guys! Have a look at this.”
Phillips leaned in closer and Greg came in through the passenger-side rear door, camera at the ready.
“What?” Greg asked.
Warrick used his flashlight to highlight the tag on the back of Kelly Ames’s shirt.
“It’s on inside out,” he announced.
Greg snapped a picture.
“It could mean,” Warrick said, “she didn’t dress herself.”
“Or it could mean,” Greg offered, “she just threw the first thing on because she was distracted and distraught—what kind of state of mind would she be in if the top of her priority list was coming out here to start the car and take one last ride with the garage door shut?”
“That’s a well-reasoned possibility,” Warrick admitted. “Okay, David, your guys can take her out of here.”
Phillips was handling that when
Greg asked Warrick what was next.
“I need to talk to the husband. Let’s clear up some questions of evidence. Come on.”
Entering the house through the attached garage door, Warrick found himself in a tiny mudroom with a washer and dryer. Beyond that lay a galley kitchen and then a small dining area with a round table and four chairs, two of which were now occupied, one by Brass and the other by, presumably, Charles Ames.
A scrawny guy with blond hair, big blue eyes, and a wispy beard, a hollow-eyed Ames sat across the table from Brass. In the living room, near the front door, Sergeant Jackson Weber stood tall, his blond crewcut and matching mustache perfect down to each hair. His face was impassive, his gray eyes unreadable, his presence comforting for investigators, intimidating for anybody else.
“We’re sorry for your loss, Mr. Ames,” Warrick said as he and Greg moved through the small dining area and took up positions, standing on either side of Brass.
Ames said, “Thank you,” but there was no inflection to the words at all.
Warrick introduced himself and Greg, and Ames said, “Call me Charlie.”
“We were just getting ready to start the interview,” Brass said.
Warrick nodded and, as procedure and courtesy dictated, let the detective carry the ball.
“Some of these questions will make you uncomfortable,” Brass said. “But in situations like this, Mr. Ames, they have to be asked. And sooner is better than later.”
Ames nodded, saying nothing.
“Have you and Kelly been having any trouble lately?”
Ames shook his head.
“Has she been despondent about anything?”
“Not that I can think of. Everything’s been pretty good between us, always.”
“Mr. Ames,” Brass said, “taking one’s own life is always done for a reason—it may not seem logical or even sane to the survivors, but there’s always a reason.”
“I know, I know,” Ames said, a little agitated. “But I can’t give you a reason. I didn’t see this coming at all!”
“Nothing going on in your marriage,” Brass gently probed, “that you want to get in front of…and tell us about? Just so we don’t get the wrong idea, later.”
“No!” Ames said. “What do you mean, wrong idea?”
Brass said nothing.
“I told you, Captain—told you, we were happy. She was my best friend…I loved her….”
The man’s head lowered, chin to his chest. Warrick looked for tears. Didn’t spot any.
Brass was asking, “Any friends she might have confided in, Mr. Ames?”
“Maybe Megan—Megan Voetberg. Her best friend. They work together.” He frowned. “Didn’t you tell me she was the one who called you people?”
“Yes,” Brass said. “Any others?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Ames said, and shook his head. “Megan could give you a better idea than me, if there are other girlfriends of Kelly’s who she might’ve opened up to. But honestly, we didn’t keep secrets, we talked to each other, not like some couples…. Captain, I understand this is important, but…but…I’m not really doing very well right now. Can we wrap this up?”
The tremble in the voice, the pain in the face. But still no tears.
Warrick said, “Just a couple more questions, Mr. Ames.”
The man nodded wearily. The color had drained from his face and his lank blond hair lay limp against his forehead. Dry eyes or not, Charlie Ames looked so depressed, he might not have been far from following his wife’s example.
“Did your wife use a computer at her job?”
Ames winced, trying to make sense of the question. “Yes, I’m sure she did—she’s a postal worker. Yes, sure. She keys in zip codes and stuff, over at the encoding station. She worked nights.”
“Did that put a strain on your marriage, working different shifts?”
The husband shook his head. “No—I mean, I can see how you’d think that, but she just got the job. It was like a…probationary deal. If Kelly worked out, they’d give her a raise after six months and eventually a chance to go to days.”
“When would that have come?”
“Another month.”
Warrick had one more question. “Is there a computer in the house?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“We’ll need to take it with us.”
“Take it with…Why in hell?”
“It’s evidence, sir.”
“Evidence?” Ames asked incredulously. “Kelly dies in our garage, and our computer is evidence?”
Warrick said, “Technically, a suicide is a homicide, Mr. Ames—and we investigate that as thoroughly as we would a murder.”
Suddenly Ames seemed a little unsteady. “Guys—I need that PC for my job.”
“What do you do?” Brass asked, even though Weber had probably already told him, from when the Patrolman had called Ames at work.
Returning his attention to Brass, obviously relieved not to be responding to Warrick, Ames said, “I’m second-shift production supervisor for Cactus Plastics.”
“What does your home computer have to do with that?”
“Sometimes I type up production reports and the like. Almost everybody works partly out of their homes these days, Captain.”
Warrick said, “We’ll get it back to you as fast as possible, sir. We have no desire to inconvenience you.”
Ames’s frown dug deep lines in his forehead. “I still don’t get it—why do you need it? I mean, I want to cooperate, but—”
“Your wife’s suicide note seems to have been written on a computer. We’ll need your printer, too. Knowing whether she wrote that note on her work computer, or here at home, might be instructive as to her state of mind.”
Greg gave Warrick a sideways look, knowing that Warrick was, like any magician, using misdirection.
Ames thought about it. “It’s in the spare bedroom. First door on the left…but I better get it back from you people! You gotta sign for it!”
Brass said, “We wouldn’t have it any other way.”
While Weber and Brass stayed with Ames, Warrick and Greg checked out the spare bedroom: single bed coming out from the wall on the right; long, low bookshelves filled with paperbacks running below the window on the wall opposite the door; and a student desk on the left wall with a monitor, two speakers, mouse with pad, and a keyboard on a pull-out shelf under the desktop. The computer tower itself sat on the floor against the right side; on a separate stand perched an inkjet printer.
Greg took pictures of the whole setup, then he and Warrick tore the machine down, taking the tower and the printer with them, leaving the rest. When they had everything loaded in the SUV, they came back into the house.
“Again, Mr. Ames,” Brass said. “We’re very sorry for your loss.”
Ames said nothing and did not rise as the detective and CSIs filed out.
On the front stoop, Officer Weber asked, “You fellas need anything else?”
Brass shook his head. “Nice job, by the way.”
“Yeah,” Warrick added. “I appreciate your not disturbing the crime scene.”
“I got reamed by your buddy Grissom, once, a hundred years ago,” Weber said with a grin, “and I’ve been real damn particular ever since.”
Weber headed to his cruiser, climbed in, and rolled off. David, his guys, and the body were gone already, too.
Turning to Warrick, Brass asked, “What was all that stuff in the house about taking the computer and finding out why Mrs. Ames killed herself?”
“It’s about,” Warrick said, glancing toward the house, “Kelly Ames not killing herself.”
“This is a murder?”
“I can’t go there…yet. Signs are it might be.”
“Share with the class,” Brass said, crossing his arms.
Warrick took only a few moments to collect his thoughts, then went into full oral report mode.
“Okay,” Brass said. “Where does that take us next?”
&
nbsp; “To the post office.”
Brass closed his eyes. He seemed just about ready to drift into a nap when he said, “You really think the U.S. government mail service is going to let us take one of their computers without a court order?”
“Hell no,” Warrick said with a shake of his head and a wide smile. “But we will be able to talk to Megan Voetberg. Then if there’s nothing on the home computer, maybe we can find something on the work computer.”
“Something,” Brass said. “I hate these damn fishing expeditions.”
“Hey, like I said to the husband—Kelly had to write her suicide note somewhere. Or should I say, somebody had to write it, somewhere.”
Brass managed a rumpled grin. “Good point. Let’s go to the post office and talk to this Megan Voetberg.”
“Greg,” Warrick said. “You drive—I have a phone call to make.”
As they wove through the city after dark, Warrick withdrew his cell phone and made a quick call to a freelance computer expert, Tomas Nuñez, who had helped the CSIs on numerous cases in recent years.
“Hola,” Nuñez said, his voice seeming to come from some very deep place inside.
“Tomas, Warrick Brown. Busy?”
“Never too busy for my friends.”
Greg was puttering through the light traffic. Greg’s excessive caution unnerved Warrick, much as Warrick’s own loose yet speed-of-light way behind the wheel unnerved everybody else at CSI.
“Tomas, I’ve got a computer that may have some vital material on it.”
“Where and when?”
“Crime lab. Say an hour?”
“No problem.”
Warrick looked through the windshield; Greg was stopping for a light that had just turned yellow. “Better make it an hour-fifteen, Tomas.”
Nuñez said, “Sure thing, Warrick. Adios.”
They broke the connection and when Warrick looked up, Greg was frowning at him. “Should I have run that yellow? Say it—you think I drive like a schoolgirl!”
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