“Come sit down,” Zeke Howard called to him as he rounded the corner to where Howard and Cooley’s desks sat nose to nose so they were facing each other as they sat.
“What is it?” Warren recognized the look on Howard’s face. It’s the one he got when they found something interesting. It might not pan out, but it was something that might.
“Preliminary autopsy report,” Cooley said in his partner’s place.
“Anything helpful?” Warren pulled up a chair and sat down at the end of where the two desks joined, where he’d been sitting for the last week.
“Read it and tell me what you see.” Detective Howard slid a stack of papers his way. He picked them up, leaned back in his seat and started reading.
An hour later he dropped the pages back on the desk and rolled his neck. He was starting to get old if sitting still for an hour made him this stiff.
“Well, what do you think?” Zeke leaned back in his seat and watched Warren, as if this was some kind of test and he wanted to see how Warren would do.
“After this,” he tapped the stack of papers, “it may have been a crime of passion, a moment of rage, then panic and dumping the body. We really need to figure out who she dated in that last,” he paused for a moment as he tried to remember, “six weeks. I take it they took DNA from the fetus?”
“Of course, but we have to have something to compare it to.”
“I’d say first compare it to the rape kit. Second, run it through CODIS.”
“You think this might have been the baby’s father?”
“I think it might. The roommate said she only dated older men. What if whoever she’d been dating was married, or had a job where dating a student would cost him his career? Then, as a theory, say she turns up pregnant, either accidentally or on purpose, doesn’t matter. They do their thing and as they’re lying there in bed afterward, she tells him about the baby. He demands she abort, she refuses.” Warren took a deep breath. “This is all just theory, right? Say he’s so afraid, of something whether it’s his wife finding out or that Ms. Snyder will go to the board at the college, whatever, that when she refuses to abort, he goes into a rage and strangles her. Once she’s dead he has to get rid of the body, where better than a deserted road late at night.”
“Not a bad scenario,” Detective Brian Cooley said with a nod. “Now tell me why you changed your theory.”
“Because this doesn’t back up my original theory.” Warren tapped the report again. “I saw her on the side of the road in the early dawn light with no clothes on and thought beaten and raped. The autopsy said rape is inconclusive, it could be, but it could also be consensual rough sex. There was skin under her nails, and that will be sent off for DNA testing, but there was no bruising, no signs of restraints, and no defensive wounds. To me, that means she probably knew them, and the sex was consensual. The rest I pieced together from what others have told us. She liked older men. Was she looking for a sugar daddy? A meal ticket via child support? Maybe she just liked older men, I don’t know. But she did like older men. The older men she was in a position to meet were mostly professors at MNM, where they could lose their jobs for dating a student. Some of them are even married. So there you have both in one,” he finished with a shrug, waiting to see what the two detectives had to say next. They seemed to be waiting on something, but after only a week, Warren couldn’t read them well enough to be able to tell if it was good or bad.
A couple moments later the Captain came out of his office and headed straight for them. Warren eyed the man carefully, not sure what to make of his appearance, he’d only spoken to the man a couple times in the last week.
“Well?” Captain Tolson asked as he came to a stop beside Zeke.
He was a tall man, about 6’3” as far as Warren could tell, and he could see the captain had once been in prime shape, but too many hours behind a desk and not enough at the gym or at some kind of physical labor had given him the beginnings of a beer belly.
“Well what?” Warren couldn’t keep from asking.
The captain ignored him, his attention on Detectives Howard and Cooley.
“I told you,” Howard said, unable to keep a wry smile from lifting one corner of his mouth.
“He came to the same conclusions you did? With the same or similar reasoning?”
“Close,” Cooley said. “He even caught a couple things that took Zeke and I both talking it out to see.”
Captain Tolson’s brows lifted and he watched Warren for a moment with a new interest. “Come see me at lunch, I want to talk to you.”
“Yes, sir.” Warren wasn’t sure what was coming, but some instinct told him this wasn’t an ass chewing he was going in for.
By lunch time, Warren was dragging. He’d been working for then days straight and was in desperate need of a day off or two, but as long as they had strong leads on the case, and no one higher up bitched about the over time, he wasn’t about to let the case go cold so he could spend a day sitting on the couch or fishing on Los Hermanos Lake.
He knocked on Captain Tolson’s open door at straight up noon, a little nervous about being called in to, not his boss’s office but one three steps higher.
“Come on in, son. Close the door and have a seat,” Tolson said as he glanced up from the papers he’d been reading on his desk. He waited while Warren did as he asked, then slipped off the reading glasses that sat low on his nose and stared at Warren a moment. “Do you know why I’ve asked you in here today?”
Warren resisted the urge to cross one knee over the other or fold his arms in front of himself. Both would be seen as defensive postures and he didn’t want the captain to think he was hiding anything. He wasn’t but he was uncertain enough about why he was here to make him want to fidget.
“I assume it’s got something to do with the Snyder case.”
“Yes and no. More no than yes.” Tolson leaned back in his chair and wove his fingers together over his stomach. “Your report as first officer on the scene caught the detective’s eye. You know that. They were impressed with your work, not just the report, but the work you’ve done with them and came to me.” He fell silent for the space of several breaths.
Warren didn’t know what to say so he stayed quiet, waiting.
“Because of their recommendation, I took a look at your file.” He picked up a folder off the desk and flipped it open before glancing back at Warren. “After three years on vice, anyone would need a break, especially after the kind of cases you worked for them. I spoke with your CO from APD. He had nothing but great things to say.” He flipped through a couple pages then let them fall back into place. “What I don’t get is why you left there to come be a patrol officer here. They could have transferred you out of vice, let you work something else. In fact, your CO said they tried to get you to do that, but you insisted on quitting and coming down here. He didn’t seem to know why.”
Warren had kept his reasons for making the move to himself, yes, burn out was part of it but Nancy needing help was a bigger part. He’d just told everyone in Albuquerque he was making the move for personal reasons and let it go at that. Some had pushed, but he’d refused to tell them about his brother-in-law. He’d been afraid some asshole reporter would hear about it then Thomas’s death would be in the news again. That would only have hurt Nancy more.
“Are you asking why I left Albuquerque, sir?”
“I’d like to know, if you’ll tell me.”
Warren stayed quiet a few seconds as he considered it. “I’ll tell you, but only if you agree my answer stays in this room, just between the two of us.”
Tolson frowned. “Assuming it’s not something I need to report, something that could endanger someone, you have my word.”
Warren watched him a moment, gauging the truth of his words before he spoke again. “Nancy Fisher is my sister.”
The captain frowned. “The name is familiar, but I’m not placing it right away, help me out.”
“She’s Thomas Fisher’s widow
.”
“Ah. Part of that team KIA last year from Ft. Watterson.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why didn’t you just tell your captain that then?”
“Because there was still a media circus around the whole thing then. I didn’t want to add to it. It would only make things harder for my sister and she was barely hanging on. She had lost her partner and been left with four small kids to raise on her own. She was lost in a way few people would understand. She’s better now, but I’d still like to keep it quiet.”
“Why didn’t you try for something more than patrolman here? You took a significant pay cut when you started here, but you have enough experience and good reviews you could have come in a little higher. We can’t compete with Albuquerque for wages, but you could have done better than you did.”
“Patrolman worked for what I needed then. The mostly set hours, and pretty low stress were just what I needed. It let me recover from vice and gave me the time I needed to give Nancy the help she needed.”
“You talk like you don’t need that time anymore.”
“Nancy’s doing pretty well now. She still has days that aren’t so good, but they’re becoming fewer and farther in between.”
“Good, that’s good.” The captain looked down at the folder in his hand, then back up at Warren. “What about you? Are you ready for something more than patrol or do you want to stay there?”
“Actually, I was just thinking about that this morning, sir. Considering whether or not I should put in for something different either once we get the Snyder case taken care of or I’m sent back to the first floor.”
“Good, good.” Tolson closed the folder and tossed it back on the desktop as he leaned back again and watched Warren. “I know this isn’t the way things are normally done, but if you’re amenable, I’d like to put your name in for the next detective opening. We’ve actually got a couple now, but they’ve not filled them yet. I think with your record,” he nodded toward the file, “and your skills, you’d be an asset to the team.”
Warren blinked several times as he tried to hide his surprise. This had been the last thing he’d been expecting. He hadn’t known why he’d been called in to the captain’s office, but to be offered a recommendation for a promotion he’d barely decided to apply for hadn’t even crossed his mind.
“Thank you, sir. I would really appreciate the recommendation.” He didn’t know what else to say. This would never have happened in Albuquerque, but then, almost no one ever quit and started over in a place like that. And if they did there were too many others to shine, they were easily overlooked. Yeah, he’d made the move to be here for his sister, but now that she didn’t need him as much, he hadn’t even considered going back. He liked Blackjack and all of Highland county. It might qualify as a small city, but it really had much more of a small town attitude. He liked going to the grocery store and running into people he knew. Having the checker at the Circle K ask how Nancy was doing. It made him feel like the whole town was family, not just his sister, and he liked it. He understood why she’d wanted to stay and raise the kids here, and after spending a year in Blackjack, he agreed. This was an amazing place for them to grow up. “Is there anything else?”
“Only that I think you’re on the right track with the Snyder case. It will take several weeks for the DNA results to come back, but I want you to double check all her contacts, get warrants for her phone company and for the social media sites she has the apps for on her phone, they should be able to turn over anything sent or received by the device. And make sure tech takes a look at the phone. They should be able to figure out if there were any apps deleted recently. Be sure to get warrants for those too.” Tolson shook his head. “I suspect you may be on to something with the professor or married man angle. And these days there are too many ways for messages and pictures to be sent from one to another and then disappear, or supposedly disappear. We need to make the key to this case unvanish.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get right on that.”
Tolson nodded.
Warren knew he’d been dismissed so he stood and left the door open the way he’d found it as he went to the desks where he’d been working with Howard and Cooley. Neither was there at the moment, so he went to Cooley’s seat and started the paperwork he’d need to get the warrants.
Chapter 10
By the end of the day, Hayley was fried. She wasn’t even sure why. It hadn’t been a particularly hard day, just steady and busy. It was the rare day like this that made her wonder if she’d chosen the right career. She loved the helping people, the stopping crime and making sure the people of her town were safe. She hated the days where it felt like all she was doing was treading water. Like every time she put away one bad guy, three more popped up. It seemed like she’d been putting out fires all day. And as soon as she’d get one thing dealt with, another would come up.
She was half way home when her phone rang. A glance at the in-dash screen told her it was Denni, so she hit the button on the steering wheel that answered the call.
“Hey, sis, how was your day?” she answered the call.
“Good, I’ve gotten a lot done. How about you?” Her sister’s voice was clear and happy over the car’s speakers.
“It was a Monday.” That was about all she could say without actually complaining.
“But-oh, you mean your Monday.”
“Yep.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Not bad, just busy. It was one thing after another, nothing major but never ending.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve just been cleaning house, doing laundry that kind of thing. You know, the usual weekend chores.”
“I do.” She did. She’d just finished her own similar list the day before. “What’s up?” Hayley knew her sister had called for a reason. She never called Hayley on her way home from work unless there was a reason.
“What are your plans for this evening?” Denni asked after a moment.
“No plans. I was seriously considering putting together some enchilada and tossing them in the oven for dinner, but I’ve not yet decided if I want to go to that much trouble for just me.”
“I’ve got lasagna in the oven, why don’t you come over here?”
“Did you make it or is it that frozen shit?”
“I made it. I know you don’t like the other.”
Hayley wondered what was really up. It wasn’t that her sister never invited her over, but Denni didn’t cook often, and rarely something as complicated and time consuming as lasagna. Hayley did the mental math on how long it would take her to go home, change and get to her sister’s. “Sounds good. But I can’t be there for almost an hour.”
“No problem. I just got it in the oven. I haven’t even started cleaning up yet. Go change, then come over. You might even make it before it comes out of the oven.”
“Great, I’ll see you then.” She disconnected the call and wondered again what her sister was up to. There was really no way to know until she got there so she finished her drive home, changed out of her uniform and got in her personal car, a cute little yellow Ford Fusion she’d bought a couple years earlier and didn’t drive enough to justify the payments, at least not yet.
There was another car in the drive when she pulled up in front of Denni’s house, one she didn’t recognize. With no room in the driveway, Hayley parked on the street and glared at the other car, suspecting that her sister was up to something. With a sigh, she got out of the car and went inside. She knocked but didn’t wait for an answer before letting herself in. Denni did the same to her. They’d always both just walked into each other’s houses.
“I’m here. Where are you?” she called as she closed the door behind herself.
“In the kitchen,” Denni called back. Hayley followed her sister’s voice to the other room, where she found Denni standing in a pair of short denim shorts, that covered her ass but weren’t much longer, and a tank top in a bright blue that flattered her skin tone and made her deep blu
e eyes pop. Her hair was pulled up into a sleek pony high on the back of her head. She looked comfortable, but not the dressed down, doing housework and cooking type of comfortable that Hayley had expected. As she stepped farther into the room, she saw why.
There was not one, but two men seated across the bar from her sister. From their similar looks, they were likely brothers.
“There you are!” Denni’s voice was way too excited and Hayley dreaded what she suspected was about to come out of her mouth. “Come in and meet Tracy and Stacy Manning.” Hayley stepped into the room and forced herself to smile.
“Hello,” she looked at the two men then shot her sister a look that meant she’d pay for this, later.
“Hi.”
“Nice to meet you,” came an almost identical voice.
“I met them at the grocery store,” Denni spoke up. “This one’s Tracy and this one’s Stacy,” she motioned to each one in turn, then she turned and introduced Hayley to them.
“Twins?” Hayley had to ask. They didn’t look enough alike to be identical, but the names made her wonder. For some reason, people often either went with rhyming names or names that started with the same letter or sound for twins. Hayley had always thought it was a little odd, but it was a thing.
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