Victor does a slight tick with his head. “Why would anyone be afraid of you?”
“You know, afraid of who I am … my history. Everything I’ve been through. People ask about you, about your family. But when you tell them what I tell them, they get weird. That didn’t happen with him.” I think for a minute. “It also didn’t happen with you.”
“I’m glad,” he says, giving me a heartfelt look. “Because you are a delightful and brilliant young lady. My only regret is that I took so long to meet you.” He rubs his hands together, viewing the setup on the table. “Okay. We’re all set. You ready?”
“No. I’m not ready at all,” I joke.
“Let ’er rip.” He motions for me to hook the alligator clips to the batteries. Within seconds, bubbles form in the buffering solution. “See those bubbles?” Victor asks. “That tells us it’s working.”
Now we wait.
Victor brews a pot of coffee and I make my favorite dessert, a vanilla ice cream and orange juice float. Then Victor busies himself by organizing the contents of his briefcase. He sets out a bag of disposable rubber gloves and a fingerprint kit. I place my crime-scene kit on the table next to his. I, too, have gloves, a fingerprint brush, lifting tape, and cards. I click the switch and shine my ultraviolet penlight at him.
“Where’d you get all of that stuff?” he asks.
“The Internet … or just around the house.”
Victor holds a small spray bottle between his thumb and index finger. “Bet you don’t have any of this.” He spins it so I can read the label.
“Luminol!” I’ve wanted to play with this stuff forever.
“I’ll show you how it works.” He grabs a clean wooden skewer and pokes his finger, drawing a small spot of blood.
I cringe. “Dude, no.”
He scans the kitchen for something to wipe it on. Finally, he kneels down next to a strip of tile by the door and squeezes his finger. A couple fat drops of blood roll out and splatter on the floor. “I’ll clean this up with water and show you what happens.”
He scrubs the spot with a wet paper towel. “It looks clean, right?” But then he spritzes luminol onto a swab and runs it over the area. The tip of the white cotton turns bright blue. “Bam! Blood evidence.”
I jump out of my chair and do a little flailing-arms dance. “I’m not going to lie, that was impressive.”
“It’s very sensitive, too,” Victor explains, tucking the luminol back into his briefcase.
“You have to promise me that you’ll do that again for Spam and Lysa and Journey. Pleeeease?”
Victor chuckles. “No problem.”
While he finishes organizing his stuff, I run upstairs and get my laptop, checking again for Journey, but he’s still not online.
At the thirty-minute mark, Victor points out some early bands forming in the gel. They look like ragged slashes of dark color across the clear gel.
Wow. It’s really working.
“When this is done, I’ll stain it with a blue solution and the bands will show up even better.” He keeps an eye on the process while skimming through my notebook. He zeros in on my notes about the footprint in my bedroom. “I’m impressed that you took the initiative to go to a shoe store to find the style and size of shoe that matched the print you found in your room. That’s some excellent detective work.”
“It didn’t lead to anything, though.”
“That doesn’t mean it won’t at some point. You have to follow up on everything, and you did.”
“What do you do when you can’t figure out how something fits in?”
Victor shrugs. “Some things never drop into place, so at the end of the day you have to accept that they don’t count. That they were scene, not crime. You just hope that you get enough clues that do count.”
It’s been about forty-five minutes since we started running the gel. Victor turns to the page with Miss Peters’s DNA results in my notebook and arranges it next to the chamber. Then, it’s as if he sees something he hadn’t seen before. He places his hands on either side of the chamber and notebook and leans in, studying them both.
I sit up. “What is it?”
Victor’s reaction is small, but I pick up the signs anyway. He rolls his lips together and tightens his jaw. His coffee refill is forgotten. He stares at the process for a long time. After a while he lifts the notebook and studies it by itself.
I stare at the chamber from across the table, but of course it just looks like a big blob to me. I stay quiet for as long as I can. Finally, I’m about to burst. “Did we get a match?”
Victor is distracted. He disconnects the chamber from the batteries and slides the gel out onto a plate. He takes it to the sink and runs water over it.
“The swabs from you and Journey match,” he says. “So you were right about them. And it looks like we were right about Miss Peters, too.”
“What about Chief Culson?”
Victor brings the plate back to the table and retrieves a small, dark blue bottle from his briefcase. He squirts a few drops of that over the wet gel. “No match to Chuck.”
There’s something edgy in Victor’s manner. “You’re not lying to me, are you?”
He gives me a straight-on look but doesn’t deny anything.
I’m not sure he’s lying, but I’m 100 percent positive he’s not telling me the whole truth.
Victor pulls a small ultraviolet flashlight from his briefcase and shines it over the gel. Then he stuffs everything back into his briefcase and carries it to the closet. He grabs his jacket. “I’m going out for about an hour.”
I reach for my jacket, too. “I’ll go with you.”
“You should stay here.”
“Why?” My voice is high-pitched and worried.
Victor gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Erin. Trust me. Everything’s fine. I just want to run over to the station to check on a couple of things.”
“But … what about our tests and everything?”
Victor takes the entire floral foam holder with the samples and sticks it into the freezer. “Just leave everything on the table; it’ll be fine.”
“This stuff can’t be here when Rachel gets home. She’ll flip.”
“Don’t worry.” Victor pauses at the back door. “I’ll be back before Rachel gets home. They’re going to be late, remember?”
I’m boiling with emotion, but keep my face blank. “I’ll stay in the car.”
“I promise, one hour,” he says. My lips tighten, proof that I don’t believe him, so he repeats it. “One hour.”
And then he’s gone.
This sucks.
I’ve done my homework.
Eaten dinner and dessert.
Run DNA.
Now what?
I call Spam, but her phone goes straight to voice mail. This doesn’t surprise me. When she plays her online games at night, she turns off her phone. Lysa’s parents have huge issues with her cell phone. She’s not allowed to bring it to the table during meals, and no calls after eight o’clock on school nights. I can only reach her through e-mail.
I check my laptop again. Still no Journey online. Lysa’s not on, either.
I glance at the clock, hoping Victor will be back soon … only to realize he’s barely been gone fifteen minutes.
I don’t want to think he blew me off. We were getting along so well. Then, out of nowhere, he got that distant look in his eye. I know it very well. It’s the same expression I get from most of the adults who have known me since I was little. It says, I know something terrible happened to you but I’m afraid I won’t know what to say if we accidentally start talking about it … so I’m never going to ever look you straight in the eye again. Instead, we’ll just pretend everything is normal.
From the very first moment I met Victor, he never gave me that look … until tonight. Now I’m pacing the kitchen exactly like him.
He says it helps him think. I think it’s making me paranoid.
I have to do something to stay sane for the
next forty-three minutes and twelve seconds. I sit down with my shoe box full of evidence and take everything out, one piece at a time.
First, the shoe print from my bedroom. I never focused on it before, but it is the right shoe. And even though the heel of the print isn’t as clear as the toe, it does kind of look like there’s a smooth spot on the lower right-hand side, near the heel.
There’s definitely not a smooth spot up by the toe. So for sure this print didn’t come from Journey’s shoe. Realization mingles with fear because there’s a good chance this print was left by the killer! That psycho was bold enough to come into my room late at night. Who would do that? Who could do that?
The chief is dating Rachel, which means he knows the inside of our house. He might even have a key. In fact, Rachel admitted that he was here that very night.
The tie that brought Journey and me together links the murders of Miss P and my mother. Only the killer or someone with access to my mother’s evidence box would know that. Chief Culson had access to my mother’s evidence box.
The fingerprints in Journey’s van matched Chief Culson and the ink on the scrap of paper matched his special pen. Even the phone calls Miss Peters received in her final days were mostly from his private line.
Only the DNA didn’t match. Or at least that’s what Victor wanted me to believe.
Damn! Where is Journey? I check e-mail again. Are they making him work a double shift on his first day?
My frantic mind-hopping takes me from worrying about Journey to remembering that Chief Culson’s gym clothes are here. I peek into Rachel’s room; the gym bag is on the chair. I bring his shoes out to the kitchen. I’m both surprised and not surprised to see they’re also the Michael Jordan brand. What is it with these guys and Michael Jordan shoes?
I’m also not surprised to see they’re a size eleven. These guys are all about the same height, so I guess that makes sense. The soles are pretty worn on both shoes so it’s hard to tell what a print would look like.
I need to do a test.
I set the shoes on the table while I whip up a batch of fake blood. Miss Peters used fake blood for a class one time on latent evidence. I mix about half a cup of light Karo syrup with a few drops of red food coloring. Yummy.
Where should I do the test? Stamping fake blood on paper won’t look the same as a hard surface like a floor. But it has to be a place where Rachel won’t kill me if the food coloring stains a little. My choices are the garage or the back patio.
Grabbing the kitchen flashlight, I leave the shoes on the table but bring the fake blood and a couple of Popsicle sticks. As I head down the stairs, my movement activates the motion detector on our outdoor lights. They blink on, startling me and bathing the driveway in twin pools of light.
I freeze. What if the killer’s watching me?
No, wait. He’s off with Rachel.
Ugh! That makes me feel worse.
Scurrying to the side door of the garage, I swing it open. The creak is a mocking whine and the musty smell engulfs my head like a helmet.
I nervously bounce the flashlight beam around the garage. Everything looks normal. Rachel’s Honda Accord is parked in her spot. With my finger I dab a little fake blood on the floor, but the cement is too slick to get a good impression.
The patio it is.
At the farthest edge of the patio, behind the table and umbrella, I take a leaf from the yard, dip it in the blood, and stamp it on the cement.
It leaves a perfect outline of the leaf and all its veins.
I can test Chief Culson’s shoe here and, according to Victor, as long as I don’t clean the shoe with oxygen bleach I won’t even destroy any real blood evidence.
Just as I’m about to stand up, headlights from a car lurch into the driveway. It’s moving fast and the brakes make a squealing stop.
I’m relieved because for a second I think it’s Victor. Then I recognize the hulking shape of Journey’s van. Even better. He can help me do the shoe print. The driver jumps out, leaving the engine running and the headlights on. But it’s not Journey. I stare, confused.
Principal Roberts?
Truth be told, I’m relieved to see any adult at this point. And at least he’s one I know I can trust. I’m about to throw myself at him when he staggers to the front of the van. His movements are jerky and frantic. He dabs at a dark stain on his forehead. There’s a stream of something dark seeping from the side of his lip, too. He presses a bright green rag to it.
Is that blood?
Wow. Now I notice that his hair is disheveled and the shoulder of his sleeve is torn. He scrubs at a spot on his hand with the bright green rag, which I slowly realize isn’t a rag at all, but the green delivery-person armband Journey was wearing.
Something’s not right.
I duck back down behind the table. That fear I earlier wrote off as crazy paranoia is back like a runaway freight train with no brakes. Victor should be home any minute and I’m not coming out until he gets here.
Just when I think it can’t get worse, I notice how the headlights cutting through the decorative rail around our back stairs cast a long, skinny, shadowy cross that points directly to my hiding place.
For my entire life, this image has been the one thing capable of sending me into a full-scale panic attack. But I’ve worked on it with my therapist. It’s just a shadow, nothing more. Just a shadow. I repeat the mantra over and over in my head and try to loosen my chest so I can breathe.
Once Principal Roberts finishes cleaning his hand, he tosses the armband into a bush. Taking out his phone, he punches in a number, then waits, agitated, pacing back and forth in front of the van.
“Pick up the phone, Erin,” he says out loud, frustrated.
There’s a vibration in my pocket, I slip my phone out just enough to view the screen. It’s Journey. First, there’s an excited flutter. Then I remember—Journey lost his phone. I study Principal Roberts, pacing angrily, phone in his hand, and my stomach sours.
38
Footprints and tire tracks can be left on—and also found and lifted from—nearly any surface.
—VICTOR FLEMMING
I’m home alone.
An angry and aggressive Principal Roberts is storming around in my driveway. He looks like he’s been in a fight. He has Journey’s van and cell phone.
I can’t find Journey. Rachel’s unreachable. Victor is MIA.
I crouch lower behind the table.
Suddenly, Principal Roberts whirls and strides straight toward me. I cower, squeeze my eyes closed, and hope for the best.
The clatter of metal scraping against concrete is deafening.
I peek. He’s grabbed a chair from the other side of the table and turned it around to face the back of the house. He sits down with an agitated thump. His rapid foot tapping on the cement mirrors my terrified heartbeat.
Seriously, what the hell?
I quietly turn my phone off. He’s sitting close enough to me to hear it if it vibrates, and he might try calling again.
Through the gauzy glass tabletop I watch him inspect his hands. He finds more wounds oozing blood. He pulls a folded square of notebook paper from his pocket and uses it to dab at his wounds. After a few minutes and some frustrated grumbling, he pulls a plastic glove from his pocket and slips it onto his right hand. Then he lurches off the chair and heads for our back stairs, mounting them two at a time. At the top, he wrenches open the door without knocking. “Erin? Rachel?” he calls into the house.
When he doesn’t get an answer, he just barges in. Through the window I see him climbing the stairs. I’m shocked. Why is he going up to my room like that?
After a couple of moments, he comes down the stairs. When he exits he’s calm, almost happy. He’s carrying Chief Culson’s shoes. Something flutters from his pocket as he passes in front of me. He’s whistling as he climbs into Journey’s van, revs the engine a few times, and backs out of the driveway before pulling away.
Once he’s gone, I race toward
the house, stopping only to pick up the green armband and the paper he dropped. I get inside but my hands are trembling so violently I can hardly secure the lock.
It’s nine-twenty. Victor should have been back fifteen minutes ago. At this point I figure I’m entitled to call him, and besides, I have new information.
That man was not the Principal Roberts I know. And why does he have Journey’s van and his cell phone? Why would he steal Chief Culson’s shoes? Why did he look so beat-up? I turn my phone back on and call Victor. I immediately hear a cell phone ringing nearby.
I open the hall closet. Victor’s briefcase is sitting on the floor, the top gaping open. His phone is inside ringing and lighting up. Great. I take it out. He’s had seven calls, only one of them mine. I drop the phone back into his case.
Next to Victor’s briefcase is a gym bag and, just visible inside, another pair of white basketball shoes that look to be about the right size.
I grab the shoes and turn them over.
Horizontal rays that cut through a circular tread. These are Victor’s shoes and they’re also Michael Jordan AJ1s.
Looking at the sole of the right shoe, there’s a smooth, kidney-shaped spot near the outer edge, toward the heel. It looks like gum or something sticky got on the sole. The sticky part is nearly worn off now, but the outline of where it was is clearly visible. There’s also a faint rust-colored residue along one edge of the shoe.
Shaky, I drop into my seat at the table. I’m instantly stung by a terrible realization. Oh my god. It was Victor! He did it! He killed Miss P. That’s why he acted so weird and took off suddenly, because I was going to know.
But wait … I wasn’t going to know. I don’t know how to read DNA stuff. And, Victor wasn’t even in Iron Rain until after—
These aren’t Victor’s shoes.
They belong to Principal Roberts. I remember now, he loaned them to Victor.
I lay the shoes and the things Principal Roberts dropped in the driveway out in front of me.
My face is feverish, but my bones have turned to ice. The fear that has been a constant companion my whole life fades. In its place molten anger rises.
Journey’s green armband, stretched out and soaked with blood, speaks volumes. I know it’s a long shot, but I’m hoping all of this blood belongs to Principal Roberts.
To Catch a Killer Page 23