* * * *
“Here's the image of a footprint found at the Thomas Jennings’ crime scene that we released to the media,” Margot explained the next morning at the county police lab. Margot was petite, not much taller than me, with shaggy brown hair and green eyes.
We sat on metal bar stools in front of a huge black microscope. “We thought there was a chance someone might recognize the markings, but so far, no one has. Even though the marks are indistinct, they're unusual. Do you see those interlocking circles? Can you see how the tread pattern fades away at the heel?”
I fiddled with the dial, bringing the image into focus. “Yes . . . I see what you mean. Can't you enhance the image in Photoshop or something?”
“I wish . . . but no. You can't enhance what isn't there and we can't add what's missing.”
“Was whoever the shoe belongs to walking on his toes?”
“Not necessarily. Maybe the ground was harder in that spot. Or maybe he stepped on a sheet of paper that blocked his heel from touching the ground. We can't know why. We focus solely on what.”
“So the footprint is worthless?”
“Maybe, maybe not. When the police find the killer—or at least when they find the person who dumped Mr. Jennings's body—we can compare that person's shoes to this partial print. In other words, it might help build a case, but it's unlikely that it will solve the case. Capisce?”
“Capisce.”
“So, if you were me, what else would you do?”
I thought for a moment. “Can you tell anything from the dirt found in and around the footprint? Maybe the person who left the print brought in dirt from somewhere else.”
“Good idea. When I tested it, I learned that all the dirt is local to the area. There's no clay, for instance, or sand, that might indicate an outside component. What else do you want to know?”
“I heard on the news that there were some silk fibers found at the scene. What color are they?”
“Mostly red, but there's some kind of pattern in the fiber. We don't have enough material to identify it.”
“Is it from a scarf?”
“How can we tell?” she asked.
“I don't know.”
“Me, either. It's the same as the footprint . . . once we have a silk item, like a scarf, we can compare our fibers to it, and if they match, that will help build the case, but until then—” She shrugged and flipped open her palms. “—we've got nada. For all we know, the silk is from Mr. Jennings's sheets.”
“He slept on silk sheets?” I asked, intrigued.
“Apparently not, but I had the detective check it out.”
“I see what you mean. You can't guess.”
“Not exactly. We guess—in the jargon of the business, we say we make working assumptions—all the time. What we don't do is treat an unvalidated assumption as fact.”
“What about ties? Tommy always wore a tie.”
“Not that night, he didn't.”
“How's it going?” Mitch Rogers, Margot's direct supervisor, asked, stepping into the lab. He was tall and broad, with short red hair flecked with gray, and a thick red mustache.
“Great,” Margot said. “Laney's a real whiz! She's asking all the right questions.”
“Margot makes everything easy to understand,” I said, embarrassed at the praise.
“Good, good. That's what I like to hear. So, I've got to brief the mayor in an hour . . . What can you tell me?”
Margot led me down a short hallway, past her cubicle, into a conference room.
“Hang tight,” she said, “I'll be back in a flash.”
“Okay,” I said, looking around.
The off-white walls were scuffed. The tabletop was cheesy-looking fake wood. The chairs were mismatched. Maps of the county lined the walls, along with color photographs of the county's mayors, the governor, and the president. One of the maps was labeled “topographical,” and I wondered what that meant. I sat down, then stood up again, then sat back down. There was nothing to do. I yawned. I had books in my backpack, but I'd left it in Margot's cubicle.
I walked to the door and looked up and down the corridor. No one was visible. From somewhere far away, a phone rang, and I heard a cheerful voice say hello, then okay, okay, then nothing. I stepped back inside. I pirouetted around for awhile, pretending I was a for-real ballerina, then realized how stupid I'd look if someone saw me, and plunked back down at the table.
“Boring,” I said aloud.
I pretended I was a lawyer like Dad. After a few minutes, I ran out of things to say to my make-believe client, and walked to the doorway again. Peeking out, there still wasn't anyone in sight. I stepped into the hallway and quick-walked to Margot's cubicle. I grabbed my fun book, an Agatha Christie, saw my iPhone and grabbed it, too, then scooted back to the conference room.
I looked up topographical, then checked my Gmail account. Only junk. For awhile after Jackie moved, we'd e-mailed daily, sometimes more often, and we'd talked every day before school and after dinner. Then she started telling me all about her new friends and this boy named Zac and I knew she'd crossed over to the dark side and was now as boy-obsessed as Emster. I zipped over to Facebook. Nothing interesting.
I popped over to the club's Web site to see if they'd posted any photos of Dale getting his tiepin—if they had, I knew for sure that Tommy would be in the photos and I wanted to see him again. They had. They were good ones, too. Dale standing alongside Allie and Emster. Dale posing with Burt and Tommy, all three men in full club regalia, beaming. Dale and Allie standing with Tommy and Sally. I stared at Tommy's smiling face for several seconds, then touched the screen as if I could touch his arm. Sally's smile looked forced, like she'd stubbed her toe just before the photographer told everyone to smile.
After several seconds, my mouth fell open and I gawked. I touched the photo to enlarge it as realization after realization ricocheted in my head like pinballs.
“Okey, dokey,” Margot said when she returned a minute later. She must have seen something in my eyes, because her expression changed. “What is it, Laney?” Her voice was low and urgent.
“You said before Tommy wasn't wearing a tie.”
“That's right. He wasn't. Why?”
“There were two club tiepins, though, right? One was in Tommy's coat pocket, or maybe in his car, and the other was at the crime scene.” I glanced at Tommy's photo. Tears stung my eyes. “I'm right, aren't I?”
She paused, her eyes fixed on my face. Her eyes revealed her astonishment. “I can't answer that.”
“I know who killed Tommy,” I whispered.
“Who?” She raised her hand like a traffic cop. “No, don't tell me. Don't say another word.”
She used the phone mounted on the wall to call Mitch and asked him to join us before meeting with the mayor.
As soon as he stepped into the room, she repeated what I'd told her.
“Go ahead, Laney,” Mitch said. “Explain.”
I didn't say anything. I didn't want it to be true. I didn't want to tell. Mitch waggled his fingers, signaling that I was to hurry up.
“Did you see this picture?” I asked, sliding my iPhone across the table. “It's from Monday night. Tommy's wearing his club blazer and tie. That's what made me realize what must have happened. Tommy always wore a tie. Always. It was his thing.”
Mitch looked at the photo, then back at me. “I don't know what you're driving at, Laney, but whatever it is, it's sounding like it's out of my lab's jurisdiction. I'm going to call the detective handling the case.”
He had his BlackBerry to his ear before he was out the door.
* * * *
Detective Wayne Jackson looked and sounded more like a Texan than a New Yorker. He wore brown lizard cowboy boots and he spoke with a twang. He looked friendly, with an easy smile and a relaxed, I've-got-all-the-time-in-the-world manner. We sat at his desk in the squad room.
It was my first time inside a police station. The room was big and open and noisy, w
ith four metal desks lined up against one wall and a row of file cabinets against the other. A huge bulletin board packed with notices was mounted by the door alongside a water cooler and a dusty fake rubber tree plant. Detective Jackson's desk was the third one back from the windows.
He explained that he needed permission to talk to me, so he called Mr. S. and got Cindy Morrison's hotel number in Shanghai. I glanced at the time display on my iPhone. It was eleven ten a.m. That meant it was eleven ten p.m. there. Detective Jackson called and woke her up. After explaining the situation and listening for a minute, he thanked her and handed me the phone.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Uh-huh,” I said, feeling uncomfortable with Detective Jackson listening in.
“I wish I was there, Laney. Are you going to be okay talking to the police?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, then. I'll call you around seven tonight your time.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “Bye.”
Detective Jackson replaced the receiver, then led the way down a corridor and around a corner. He opened a door with a shiny gold “3” on it. The room was small and rectangular.
“I need to check on a couple of things. Will you be all right here for a few minutes?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, hoisting my backpack onto the table. “I've got books with me.”
I couldn't read. I couldn't sit still. I paced. The little room was fifteen steps wide and eighteen steps long. I felt teary one minute and mad enough to hit something the next. Tommy's death was so unfair. All he'd wanted was what he had—Jennleigh's. He was killed because he wouldn't retire. All I wanted was what I'd had too. My parents were killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and if there's anything more unfair than that, I don't know what it is. Mr. Adams says there's lots of unfair stuff in life, which doesn't make me feel better at all.
Detective Jackson came back in the room with a uniformed police officer, a woman with curly black hair and dark blue eyes he introduced as Officer Halson. He sat at the head of the table She sat next to him, across from me, and smiled.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Laney,” he said. “Let me tell you what—”
There was a knock on the door and he called come in. Another uniformed officer, this one an older man, said a Mr. Sturbeck wanted to see me. Mr. S. poked his head in, saw me, smiled, and stepped in.
“Hi, Laney,” he said.
“Mr. S.! I didn't know you were coming.”
“Cindy and I decided we'd feel better with me here keeping you company.”
“Thanks,” I said, and touched his arm.
He sat next to me and patted my hand.
There was another delay while they got Cindy's official permission for Mr. S. to stay in the room, then Detective Jackson switched on the video recorder and a red pinprick-sized light came on. He listed all our names, summarized his two conversations with Cindy, stated the date and time, then asked me to repeat what I'd told Margot and Mitch at the police lab.
“You said you know who killed Tommy,” he said when I was done. “Who?”
I didn't want to say. I hated being here. I hated knowing. My stomach clenched and I thought maybe I was going to be sick. “Maybe I'm wrong.”
“Maybe you're not.”
“It's okay, Laney,” Mr. S. said. “Tell them what you know.”
I didn't say anything, and after a few seconds, Detective Jackson smiled like he wasn't mad at me for stalling, and said, “How about if you start at the beginning.” He leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head, elbows out. “You saw Tommy's photo. What about it caught your eye?”
I looked at Mr. S. He patted my hand again and nodded encouragingly.
“Tommy was wearing a tie in the photo, but not when you found his body. I knew that meant someone took it.”
“How come?”
“Why else wouldn't he be wearing it?”
“Maybe he took it off.”
I shook my head. “Not Tommy. The only time I ever saw him without a tie was at the pool or while he was playing tennis or something.”
Detective Jackson nodded and tapped his pen on the table for a few seconds. “Tell me what you think happened starting from when Tommy left the club.”
“As soon as Tommy left, Burt followed. Somehow Burt got him to stop driving, maybe just by waving him over. They argued.”
“What about?”
“Money. Burt wanted to sell the restaurant and Tommy didn't.” I looked away, then back. “Burt's a gambler and my dad told me that if you gamble, you lose. It's not if, it's when and how much. I think Burt was in trouble. Gambling trouble.”
The detective nodded. “So they argued . . . then what?”
“Their fight went from words to shoves and stuff. In the scuffle, Tommy ripped Burt's tie and his tiepin fell off. I bet the silk fibers you found at the scene match Burt's tie. And I bet you found his tiepin.”
“You asked the lab technician if we found two tiepins. How did you know there were two?”
“Were there?”
“We'll be releasing the information to the media soon, so I can tell you ... yes ... one was found in Tommy's car, under the brake pedal. The other was in his fist. How did you know?”
“I saw Burt pacing around the place where Tommy's body was found. I thought he was looking for something. He told me he wasn't, that he was just upset.” I shook my head. “He lied to me. He looked me in the eyes and lied.”
He nodded, not surprised. I guess he was used to people lying to him.
“He was looking for his tiepin,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“What else could it be? The one in the car is Tommy's. The other one is Burt's. He was desperate to find it because he knew that if you found it first, it would lead you right to him.”
He looked at me blankly. I glanced around the room. Everyone looked mystified.
“They're numbered,” I explained. “The designer etches the number into the wreath. My dad got number one hundred eighteen. Burt has one hundred nineteen. Tommy got one hundred twenty.” I sighed and shook my head. “At some point, maybe right away, maybe not until the next day, Burt realized his own tiepin was missing, and he's been looking for it ever since.”
He turned to Officer Halson. “Call the lab.”
She nodded and left the room.
He looked at me, half-smiling."Let's hear the rest of your theory, Laney. Burt followed Tommy. They fought. Tommy ripped Burt's tie and got hold of his tiepin. Then what?”
My eyes filled again and I brushed aside a tear. “Burt strangled Tommy,” I said, and choked. Mr. S., squeezed my arm. I took a deep breath and continued. “Then he took Tommy's tie. I mean, he couldn't just breeze into the shop and buy a new one, you know? By throwing Tommy's tiepin on the car floor, he set the stage so you'd think Tommy had lost it days or weeks earlier. That was pretty smart, don't you think?”
“Why did he move the body?” Detective Jackson asked.
“Probably he was afraid that there'd be some kind of forensic evidence that might connect him to the crime, like hair or skin particles, or those silk fibers or something. I think Burt drove his own car to Seven Bridges Road, which can't be too far away from the murder scene because he walked back. Then he drove Tommy's body to Mr. S.'s carriage house using Tommy's car, left the body there, and drove Tommy's car back to Seven Bridges Road. Maybe he wiped his fingerprints off the steering wheel, maybe not—after all, they're such good friends, they're certain to have been in one another's cars all the time.” I looked up. “Then he drove himself home.”
“Why leave the corpse at the carriage house?
“Probably to confuse things. Mr. S. invested some money in the restaurant, so Burt probably thought you'd consider him a suspect.”
Detective Jackson leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the tabletop, thinking. After a moment, he looked at me straight on and cocked his head. “And you figured all this out just by looking at
a photo?”
“Well, I knew things, too, like Burt wanting to sell the business, and that he gambled, and that Tommy was refusing to cooperate, and that the tiepins could be traced.”
“And that Tommy always wore a tie. You're a smart cookie, young lady.”
I felt my cheeks grow warm. “Thanks, but I don't think that brains are involved so much as just knowing things . . . I mean why would you notice that Tommy wasn't wearing a tie? Who pays attention to what isn't there?”
“I'll tell you what I want you to do for me, Laney,” Detective Jackson said, smiling as he turned off the video recorder. “Hurry up and finish school. Then come apply for a job.”
* * * *
“So you're saying Burt dumped Tommy's body here to try to implicate me?” Mr. S. asked.
It was Sunday. We sat in Mr. S.'s kitchen having a drink before heading out to dinner. Mr. S. had mixed himself a cranberry and seltzer. I was having a lime Coke.
“Right,” I said. “Leaving the body here didn't work real well though, did it? I mean the police never considered you an actual suspect, did they?”
“I don't know about that. They sure asked me a boatload of questions.”
“Just before I came over here, I heard on the news that Burt confessed. He took a plea deal. Aggravated assault, I think they called it, negotiated down from manslaughter. The reporter said he could be out in as little as three years.”
“Three years sounds like nothing, doesn't it? Still, not having to sit through a trial will save poor Sally a lot of angst.”
“Angst . . . that means depressed, right?”
“Not exactly. It's more like depression, dread, and anxiety all rolled into one.”
“I don't think Sally has angst. I think she organized the whole thing and planned to double-cross Burt in the bargain.”
Mr. S. stared at me. “Come again? You think Sally conspired with Burt to kill Tommy? That's an out-of-nowhere thought.”
I shrugged. “She was fed up to her eyeballs with Tommy refusing to sell Jennleigh's.”
Mr. S.'s brow creased. “Where on God's earth did you get that idea?”
“I made it up, to connect the dots.”
“That's what I figured. What else did you make up?”
AHMM, June 2012 Page 10