by Elaine Viets
Jace could see my disappointment. He tried to make me feel better. “Thanks for choosing the right place to discuss a touchy subject. It wouldn’t have been good for either of us if we’d been overheard.”
I mustered a smile and told the overworked detective good night. As I drove home, I decided that nothing he’d said had changed my mind. I would get Lydia’s fingerprints, and I wouldn’t use Bella. Katie was right; I couldn’t ask the girl to incriminate her own mother. Besides, Lydia was shrewd – look how she’d set up that elaborate plan to kill Juliet. If she thought someone suspected her, she’d throw away the Rad Rip powder. Then it would be even harder to prove her role in Juliet’s death.
I knew exactly how I’d get those fingerprints. Back at home, I called the Savant Shop. A recording said the shop was closed and the hours were ten a.m. to five p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
The Savant Shop was on Gravois Road in the tony Forest shopping district that was all dark green awnings and fresh white paint. The next morning, I was there at five minutes past ten o’clock. The shop had a wreath on the door, as required by Forest law, with a preppie plaid bow so the old guard knew it was a safe place.
The brass bell over the door tinkled when I entered. To my left were racks of vintage ball gowns and cocktail dresses, festooned with black lace, bows, and beads. To my right were shelves of dusty crystal, tarnished silver candlesticks and gewgaws, and second-line appliances that looked like unwanted wedding gifts.
Straight ahead behind the counter was a woman who could be Bella Du Pres thirty pounds and thirty years into the future. Her name tag read “Lydia.” Our ancestors made women with Lydia’s big breasts and wide hips into fertility goddesses, but she was born in the wrong era.
“May I help you?” Lydia forced a smile.
“Just looking.” I saw the woman’s shoulders slump and boredom reclaim her features. She went back to reading a glossy Forest Society magazine.
I roamed the shelves, looking for something that would show Lydia’s fingerprints. The knickknacks needed serious cleaning. I was glad I’d slipped a damp cloth into a Ziploc bag and stuck it in my purse. I skipped the silver. I was surprised the shop was selling a tarnish-blackened silent butler. I hadn’t seen one since my mother had worked for Old Reggie. Back when people smoked like chimneys, hostesses had these fancy long-handled metal contraptions about the size of cigar boxes. The contents of overflowing ashtrays were dumped into the silent butlers and whisked away.
I tried to find an overpriced ornament I could afford. Seventy-five dollars for a chipped Waterford vase? No way. Besides, I was pretty sure cut glass wouldn’t show fingerprints. Ditto for the forty-five-dollar cut glass candy dish missing its lid. I searched for smooth glass objects. Twenty bucks seemed awfully pricey for a clunky glass ashtray, but maybe I could use it for burglar protection. Bean intruders with it.
I bypassed the simpering glass angel with the lumpy wings – not a good surface anywhere. The tea light holders were equally dubious.
At last I saw it. A smooth, bulbous glass vase, the kind florists gave away free with flower arrangements. It was perfectly plain, and marked SALE. Ten bucks for a free vase – and that was five dollars off the original price.
There’s something I can afford, I thought. I held it up to the light. The vase had more fingerprints than a police lab.
I heard Lydia clear her throat. “Are you sure I can’t help you?” This time, Bella’s mother sounded more forceful. I realized I must look suspicious—the vase could fit into my big black purse.
“Just checking this vase for chips or flaws.”
I was grateful when the doorbell tinkled genteelly. Maybe the glass angel had sent this distraction. An older woman with spun-silver hair entered the shop. “Lydia, darling, I’m so glad you’re here. You must help me find a cocktail dress. Something in black, please.”
“You’ve come to the right place, Mrs. Du Champ,” Lydia said.
Boy, have you, I thought. And at the right time, too.
“We have a lovely little Valentino in your size, if you like velvet, and I can show you a sweet little Chanel.”
The two women discussed the merits of various dresses while I stuffed my gloves in my pocket and wiped the vase with the damp cloth, then polished it with my wool scarf. When Lydia escorted her customer to the dressing room and left her with several dresses, I put my gloves back on and carried the newly polished vase to the counter.
“I’ll take this,” I said.
“May I wrap it for you?”
“Please.”
Lydia carefully wrapped the vase in white tissue paper, leaving her fingerprints all over the smooth glass. “You can do so much with these simple vases, can’t you?”
“I hope so,” I said.
CHAPTER 18
Friday, December 30, 10:43 a.m.
I left the Savant Shop with my prize: the glass vase plastered with the killer’s prints. After stashing it safely in my car trunk, I drove home. I was on call today at the ME’s office and prayed that nobody else would die. Two deaths were already too much tragedy.
Katie was autopsying Juliet this morning. I paced my kitchen restlessly, poured another cup of coffee to amp up the caffeine jitters, and waited for word. Most autopsies took two to four hours, but there was nothing routine about Juliet’s death. How long would Katie take to post the girl? How quickly would she get back the tox tests? Those could take four to six weeks, but Juliet’s family had clout and cash. Maybe Katie would get the answers quicker.
I glanced at the clock: 11:47. I climbed the stairs and made my bed, then cleaned the upstairs bathroom. And checked the clock. Again.
It was 12:11. The clock’s hands crawled forward like they’d been stomped.
My cell chimed and I pounced on it, wondering what grisly news was waiting for me. Did Katie know what killed Juliet? Or would I have to investigate another death? More holiday sorrow?
I nearly laughed with relief. The text was from Daisy. I owed her and Bella a ride to the Olive Garden for delivering on her promise.
Can you take me and Bella to the mall? Daisy texted.
No Olive Garden? I texted back.
Daisy texted, Better than the OG! Brock wants to take Bella out New Year’s Eve!!! That’s like tomorrow! Needs to look extra hot!!! I need one, too. I’m going out with Rush.
Be there in ten, I answered.
I heard the steady plop, plop of snow melting on my roof. My Charger was frosted with road salt. The Forest’s icing-white post-Christmas snow was now dirty gray sludge.
Traffic was light. I saw the ribboned wreath on Daisy’s front door fluttering in the warm breeze, and the two girls tumbled outside, dressed in light jackets, hair shining, eyes bright. Juliet might be on a morgue table now, but her friends seemed lighthearted, giggly, and very young. Their mourning was over before Juliet’s funeral.
In the car, Daisy took the obligatory selfie without any drama and sent it to her mother. The usually blasé girls eagerly discussed their plans for New Year’s Eve.
“I can’t believe Brock called me,” Bella said. “For like no reason.”
“There’s a reason,” Daisy said. “He wants to say goodbye.”
Brock? I thought. The guy who had a fight with Juliet at Bella’s fatal party.
“Where’s Brock going?” I asked.
“He’s leaving the country,” Bella said. “His parents are sending him to Switzerland at the start of the new semester. He’s leaving New Year’s Day.”
“He’ll be flying to Europe hungover.” Daisy giggled.
“That’s why I need a hot dress for New Year’s Eve,” Bella said. “He won’t be back until next summer.”
Despite her tough talk about hook ups, Bella had a crush on Brock. The boy’s sudden uprooting made me suspicious. Forest creatures were not jet setters. “Why is he leaving in the middle of the school year?” I asked.
“He’s wanted to go away to Switzerland like forever,” Bella said. “He’s a good skier.”
“He was at your party, right?” I asked. Didn’t he call Juliet a slut for dating Dex and slam his fist into a wall? Remember Juliet, the good friend you said you’ll never forget? This morning, she had her head buzzed open with a Stryker saw. Her pretty face was peeled back like a rubber mask. I fought to control my disgust at their heartless lack of concern. I needed my questions answered.
“Brock is smokin’,” Bella said. “I can’t believe he wants to go out with me.”
That’s because the girl he really wants is dead, Bella. After Juliet fought with Dex and charged out of his car into the woods, did your favorite hottie attack her, tear off her clothes, then leave her to freeze to death?
I was screaming those words in my head, but Daisy and Bella were oblivious. I asked, “When did Brock leave your party, Bella?”
“Right after Juliet and Dex. I was afraid that would break it up, but everyone else stayed until after five.”
“Those three missed the best breakfast,” Bella said. “I love bacon and eggs after partying all night.”
Never mind that Juliet was probably dead by then. “What kind of car does Brock drive?”
“A really sweet Beemer.” I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a starry-eyed Bella. “He drives a black Z4, the two-seater convertible. He got it for his sixteenth birthday.”
“Amazing,” I said. It was. What kind of parents bought a sixteen-year-old a $50,000 convertible? The kind who shipped him off to school in Switzerland when things turned rocky.
“I’ll send you a photo,” Bella said. “He gave me a ride when he got it in September.”
“He gave everyone a ride.” Daisy couldn’t resist bringing her friend down a notch.
“Why do his parents want to get Brock out of the country because he was at your party?” I asked.
Bella shrugged. “Nothing happened. We had a good time. His parents want him to go into politics and if Juliet was murdered and he had to testify it could be bad for his future.”
“Like that Kennedy boy,” Daisy added. “People thought he killed that girl just because he was at a party years ago and she died afterward. I’m not sure if he did it or not.”
“Doesn’t make any difference.” Bella nodded her head wisely. “It hurt him. Brock can’t take that risk.”
Brock had been at a party with illicit drugs, underage drinking, and a teenage girl who disappeared on her way home and was found naked and frozen two days later. Word would come out that Brock was jealous and had slammed his fist in the wall.
I had to get this news to Jace right after I dropped the girls at the mall. I was caught in traffic on Gravois Road now, slowly rolling through the chichi Forest shopping district. “Do you want to shop here before we go to the mall?”
“Boring.” Bella dragged the word out until it was at least three syllables.
“Remember that dress my mom brought home from the Savant Shop?” Daisy asked. “She wanted me to wear it to the Holly Dance.”
“As if.” Bella sneered. “It was pink chiffon. Like a freaking Disney princess.”
“With a humongous pink bow on my boobs,” Daisy said.
I steered the Charger onto the highway. From the back seat, Daisy’s voice turned into a parody of what was probably her mother. “Now, Daisy, you must dress like a lady. This dress is sweet and elegant. Show a man too much and he loses interest.”
The girls dissolved into mocking cackles. I was relieved when I turned off the highway exit to the West Forest Mall. I threaded through the traffic. “Which entrance, ladies?”
“The one by Forever 21,” Daisy said.
I dropped them at the entrance. “We’ll text you when we’re finished,” Daisy said.
“I could be on a case, ladies. I’m on call today.”
“Then we’ll walk over to the Olive Garden and wait. Bye.” Dismissed.
I waited until the mall entrance swallowed the girls, then parked and checked my phone for Bella’s photo of Brock’s black two-seater Beemer. The boy was fondling its curved backside as if he wanted to be alone with it in a dark garage. Bella, draped on the shining hood, was showing acres of leg and cleavage, smiling an invitation Brock didn’t notice.
Brock’s charm escaped me. He looked thick-necked and thickheaded, with short blond hair and a self-satisfied sneer. If Bella caught this future politico, she’d play second fiddle to his massive ego. His wife was doomed to have two blond children, a golden retriever, and an adoring smile.
I called Jace. He sounded more chipper today. “I’ve got more news for you,” I said.
“Angela, do we have the autopsy results yet?” Was he suppressing a sigh?
I rushed forward. “Not yet, but Katie should call any time. Meanwhile, a kid who was at Bella’s holiday party is suddenly leaving.”
“She’s going out of town?”
“He’s leaving the country. The runner is Brock Sedgwick, the kid who punched his fist through a wall. When Juliet was found, his parents decided he should go to school in Switzerland. He leaves New Year’s Day.”
“Interesting. Why the big move?”
“Daisy and Bella say Brock likes to ski.”
“They could send him to Vail.”
“The girls also say his parents don’t want a future President connected with a possible murder investigation.”
“That sounds more like it. I’ll have to move carefully, but I’ll make sure everything is in place once Katie gives us the answers later today. Getting his passport flagged so he can’t leave the country should be a couple of phone calls. I may have to get a court order or get the feds involved.
“I’ll definitely need a search warrant for his body so we can get a DNA swab and document the injury on his hand. I’ll start drafting it. That has to be done quick. Wounds heal and the evidence could vanish. I might also find his DNA in or on the broken drywall in Bella’s house.”
“Can’t you serve it now?”
“Not until after the autopsy. You know that.”
“I hope the Du Presses haven’t patched that hole yet,” I said. “I’m sending you a photo of Brock’s car with Bella perched on the hood. The license plate is visible.”
“Thanks. I could get the license, but this will save time. I’ve already requested the security footage from all the estates from Bella’s home to Juliet’s house, so we can see if the kid followed her and Dex. I’ll need video backup with the kind of lawyers these parents can afford. I’d better get cracking.”
My cell chimed right after he hung up. Bella texted me, We scored big time. Meet us by Nordstrom.
The two girls were at the entrance, holding their dress bags. “You won’t believe what we got,” Bella said.
“On sale, too,” Daisy said.
On the trip home, I listened to them debate the merits of ombre sequins, fringe, keyhole cutouts and lace inserts. They would have sounded girlishly charming if their friend wasn’t lying dead in the morgue.
As I pulled into Daisy’s drive, my cell chimed again. I braked and checked the text. Katie! It said, Meet me at my office ASAP. Jace is on the way.
At last. The girls hurried out of the car, still talking about their dresses. “I wish I’d had time for a custom fitting.” Bella slammed the door without a thank you.
I didn’t notice. I roared off to hear about the girl with the very latest custom work: a Y-incision stitched on her silken white chest.
CHAPTER 19
Friday, December 30, 3:52 p.m.
Jace and I pelted Katie with questions in her shoe box office. The room could barely hold the three of us.
“Hold it!” Katie said. “I can’t breathe with you two in here, hurling questions. I’m at the end of my rope. I’ve been living at SOS for two days, watching over a dead girl. I’m sleep deprived. The whole Forest will be after my head when the results are released. Evarts says he’ll back me, but he conveniently skipped town for a three-day visit to Kansas City.”
“Kansas in the winter,” I said. “Who woul
dn’t jump at the chance?”
“Quiet,” Katie said.
I regretted my stupid comment. Katie looked ragged. Her skin was oily, her eyes peered out from bruise-like half-circles, her lab coat was clean but wrinkled, and her brown hair needed a wash.
“I’m on my own when the shit storm hits, and it will have mostly blown over by the time His Majesty returns on Monday, ready to smile for the TV cameras. Now, if you want to hear my conclusion, keep quiet. Jace, sit in my chair.” Katie pushed her desk chair toward the detective.
“I can stand.”
“You can, but you look worse than I do. I can’t talk if I’m worrying you’ll fall face forward onto my desk. Sit. And you, Angela, sit down and light somewhere. Your flittering is driving me nuts.”
I perched on the edge of the desk. Katie stood behind it, the skull with the plastic poinsettia grinning at us through the fake foliage. Jace was crammed into the chair, barely able to move.
“Now, to answer your questions. Yes, I have the tox screens and the blood work.”
“That was fast,” Jace said.
Katie glared him back into silence.
“Normally, we have a backlog of a couple of weeks, but this isn’t a normal case. I was mainly looking for drugs and alcohol, and those results are quicker. Doc Bartlett can get lab results in a day or two. Juliet’s family is rich and connected. They demanded – and got – extra fast results. We contract out our lab services and Juliet’s were fast-tracked to the head of the line.”
I tried not to fidget. Tell us something we don’t know, I thought.
“Let me tell you what the tests showed. First, Juliet wasn’t raped. There was no seminal fluid on her or in her.”
“That will be a relief for her family,” Jace said.
I felt relieved, too. I’d never spoken or even seen the girl when she was alive, but a death investigation creates a curious intimacy. I was glad Juliet was spared that ordeal.
“Was she sexually active?” I asked.
“Yes, but it appears the sex was consensual and there’s no way to tell who her partner was.”