“No. That is not why I came. I came to see you.” His voice was low and intimate. “I wanted to make sure that you were all right. What happened today—I can only imagine how you must have felt.”
Windy stared at her knees. “It was unpleasant.”
She heard him chuckle. “Be careful with those strong words, ma’am.”
She started to laugh too and then she brought her hands up to her face and covered her eyes and whispered, “Oh, Ash, it was the worst feeling in the world. The absolute worst.”
His arms came around her and she pressed her face into his chest and reveled in the sensation of absolutely perfect safety. She loved the way he felt around her. She loved the smell of his fabric softener. She loved the way his chin rested on the top of her head.
She said, “I think I might have to quit.”
He pulled away so he could look at her. “I would respect that decision, if that is really how you feel. But if you give me a chance, I will try to change your mind.”
“I—I can’t put Cate in danger that way. It’s not the right thing to do. That’s not how a mother who loves her daughter behaves.” It was true. It was logical. It was what Bill would say.
“You are conflating two things. You did not put Cate in danger. Eve put Cate in danger. Eve targeted Cate because of your job, that’s true. But you did nothing to imperil your daughter.”
She wanted to grasp onto his answer and say Yes! It’s not my fault. But it was. Her decision. Her job. Still channeling Bill, she said, “If I weren’t a criminalist, it would not have happened.”
“If you weren’t a criminalist, you would be a different person, and Cate would be a different person. It’s useless to speculate about that. You are a criminalist. You are one of the best in the country. What you do saves lives and helps people.”
“You can’t know how much I want to believe that.”
“Whether you choose to or not, there is one other thing you should consider making your decision. Eve has already targeted you and Cate. She isn’t going to stop if you leave the case. She is just going to have more chances to hurt people. Because without you, our chances of stopping her soon are minuscule.”
“Oh. Then I guess I have no choice but to stay on the job.”
“Good.” His voice changed, became lower and more playful. “But this is the second time in about four days you’ve tried to quit. Do you think you can wait until the case is over before you do it again?”
“I don’t know. I like making you reflect on how much you want me.”
“Don’t worry,” Ash said. “I have.” For a moment their eyes met and Windy felt a jolt that ran from the top of her head to her heels, unlike anything she had ever experienced. Then he was pushing his chair away and standing up. “I should go and let you get some sleep. And don’t say you could come to the office now, because you aren’t going to. You’re staying here.”
She stood up too. “You know, you’re getting pretty bossy for someone who says he’s not my boss.”
“Someone has got to make sure you take care of yourself.”
Only half joking. And she didn’t care. Because she knew he believed in her.
“Thank you for coming over. For making sure I was all right.”
“Of course. That’s what bosses do.”
Walking up the stairs to her room, she wondered if he had felt it too, that electric charge. She was almost asleep before she realized she had forgotten to put the security chain on the front door after she let him out.
The officers in the black and white police car parked outside of Windy’s house did not understand what they were hearing at first.
“But sir,” Officer Franca protested, “you can’t be our relief.”
“I am,” Ash assured her. “Ten P.M. to three A.M. shift.”
“But this is a routine protection detail. No one would ever assign you to this.”
“I assigned myself,” Ash said. Not adding that there was nothing routine about it as far as he was concerned.
CHAPTER 71
Windy woke up five seconds before the phone rang at 6:06 on Wednesday morning, as though she knew what was about to happen. She picked it up on the first ring.
“Windy. I’m sorry to call like this,” Ash said.
And Windy answered, “Where did they find Nadene’s body?”
Ash had gone from Windy’s house to his office early that morning. He was standing at the window now, seeing dark mountains outlined against the dark sky, hating this. “In her house. She’s been strangled. From the looks of it, it could have been with a necklace. Round beads, maybe pearls.”
“Lapis. She was wearing it when I was with her. Didn’t she have it on?”
“No.” He paused, watching the taillights of a car in the distance. “I’m so sorry, Windy. I know you liked her.”
“Can you send a car with equipment to meet me out there?”
“Yes. There’s just—one other thing.”
Windy was already going through her underwear drawer, getting dressed. She stopped in the middle of pulling on a sock. “What?”
“It was called in. From a cell phone. We triangulated the position of the call.”
At that moment Windy knew why she’d woken up. She had heard a noise. She went to her window and looked down at her driveway and saw four extra police cruisers there.
“Where was it?” she asked.
“In the front seat of your car.”
Cate was excited to have bodyguards at school, asking if they could help her with her spelling test, but Windy just felt ill. Brandon agreed, no problem, to skip his classes that day and stay at the house until the locksmith came to put new locks on. All Windy could guess was that the time she’d left her keys in the door of her car someone had lifted them and made copies.
All she would let herself guess.
She would not think about the fact that there had been police guarding her house and yet Eve somehow got into her car. Or that they had been guarding Nadene and yet Eve managed to kill her.
A Metro tow truck was just pulling her car out of her driveway to take it to the criminalistics garage for a thorough going over when the crime scene van pulled up. Ash was driving. He said, “I thought you could use a little company.”
The truth was, he had no intention of letting her out of his sight for as long as he could manage it. The idea that she might be in danger, a target, hit him like a body punch. He had stayed outside her house even after his relief had come that morning, and it still wasn’t enough.
They drove behind the truck pulling her car to the corner, where it went right and they went left. Windy took a deep breath and said, “I’ve been thinking that car isn’t quite right for Vegas anyway. The cup holders especially. Maybe I should get a minivan.”
Ash reached out and put his hand over hers. She held on to it all the way to Nadene’s house.
She had Ned take the garage, Larry the back door through which Eve must have left. She took the kitchen where the body was found.
Nadene had been grabbed by her necklace, from behind, taken by surprise. Usually strangling victims die with their eyes open, but hers were closed. Windy looked around at the EMTs and officers who were staked out around the crime scene and said, “Did anyone touch the body?”
No one had. The killer had closed Nadene’s eyes. It was a strange gesture, almost loving. Stark contrast with coming up behind your victim and twisting her necklace until she fell down dead, then taking the necklace with you. Windy said, “I want her eyelids printed at the lab.”
Dusting the kitchen, Windy found Nadene’s prints on the tile counter, on the front of the cabinet, and on the floor. Places she had grabbed on to when she fell.
Larry came in and studied the line of prints. “Do you think she struggled?”
Windy looked at Nadene’s clenched hands and slipped paper bags over them to preserve anything inside them. “Yes.”
Next to the prints on the kitchen counter stood the two teacu
ps she and Nadene had used, the teapot beside them, its lid off, as though Eve struck right after Windy left, when Nadene was cleaning up.
Which meant Eve was either in the house when Windy was, or had arrived shortly afterward, sneaking in before the police came. They had been protecting the perimeter of the house, but the threat was already inside.
It meant Nadene’s conversation with Windy had been her last.
Why hadn’t Eve done the dishes this time? Why didn’t she clean up? So that Windy could see that reminder of the two of them having tea and feel guilty?
It worked. Even knowing her own prints would be on the cup did not make it easier for Windy when she found them. Criminalists hated finding their own prints at crime scenes because it meant they had been careless, touched something without gloves on. Gotten someone killed by drinking tea with them.
Ned came in, hauling his gear. “No sign of a car. We got two Diet Coke cans from the garbage outside with prints on them. Get this—they were in the recycling bin.”
“She’s very tidy when she thinks about it.”
“Yeah. There were also four cigarette butts, Marlboros, with traces of lipstick on them.”
“That’s Eve’s brand but I don’t smell smoke in here. Do you?”
“No. Maybe she only smokes outside. I mean, if she’s environmentally minded enough to think about recycling.”
Windy was frowning. “I guess. Was there anything else in the trash?”
“Two cotton pads soaked in what I am guessing is makeup remover, with smudges of black mascara. A Lean Cuisine wrapper. How about in here? Find anything?”
“Nothing unexpected. I think I’m done.” She looked at the sink, at the place where the cups and teapot had stood, noticing the switch for the garbage disposal. Whether by intent or accident, she had forgotten to check it. She reached her hand inside, and went pale.
“Did you find another ring?” Ned asked. “Kelly O’Connell’s?”
Windy brought her hand out and opened it. “I found two.”
The two rings lying on her palm were badly beaten up, like someone had run them through the garbage disposal a dozen times. They were both plain gold bands, engraved on the inside, like thousands of other wedding bands, except for having been brutally mangled in a garbage disposal.
“It’ll take the lab ages to pull any ID off of those,” Ned said.
“Yes. I’m pretty sure one of them has to be Kelly’s. And Nadene is still wearing her wedding ring.” She took a big breath and exhaled it. “Which means there’s another victim out there somewhere.”
Ned made a growling noise. “You know what? I am sick and tired of this case. I want something straightforward and easy. I never thought I’d say this, but I’d give my next paycheck for a simple B & E, some old woman crying over her VCR being stolen. I wouldn’t even be tempted to tell her that it was time to upgrade to a DVD. Just something that makes sense.”
“I know the feeling.”
Ned started loading equipment into the criminalistics car and Windy put her gear away. Before leaving, she took a walk around the outside of the house, periodically bending down to study the ground.
Ned was leaning against the car, waiting for her, when she finished. “Trying to get landscaping ideas?”
Windy said, “Something like that,” and settled into silence for the ride to the autopsy, asking herself, if Eve smoked outside, why weren’t there any ashes in the flower beds?
Asking herself who the other ring belonged to, and not liking the answer she came up with.
CHAPTER 72
Windy was already in the autopsy room with Dr. Bob and Nadene’s body when Ash arrived.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“That’s okay, she’s not going anywhere,” Dr. Bob said, pulling on her mask. “Besides, you two are in my good graces today. This body is much nicer than the others you’ve been bringing me. So refreshing to have a head attached. Much easier to work with.”
“We try to oblige,” Windy said. “What can you tell us about her?”
“No question that cause of death was strangulation. Most likely with a round bead necklace. And not fast—I got skin and hairs from under the nails. She definitely fought.”
“We knew that,” Ash snapped. He shook his head at himself. “I’m sorry, I’m just a bit tense.”
“Understandable. Here is something you might not know.” The medical examiner reached for her black light and shined it on the edge of Nadene’s neck. A series of circles popped out, like a glowing bead necklace, interrupted at one point by a crest shape.
“What is the dark spot?” Ash asked.
“The clasp of the necklace. The killer had to twist so hard to kill her that the pattern got impressed in her skin. She was a good fighter.”
“Do you have a dental mirror?” Windy asked.
Dr. Bob handed her a mirror on a long handle. She held it over the bruise. “It’s not a pattern, it’s a monogram. NBL. The B was for her last name, so the L must be her middle name.”
The autopsy ended three hours later at a little after one P.M. with no surprises, and no more useful information. Nadene Brown had been in good health when she died, and would have lived a lot more years if she had been given the chance.
“Have you made any progress tracking Harry?” Windy asked Ash as they walked toward their cars.
“We have been through a dozen Harold Williamses and none of them are our guy. This morning I decided we should try to track him from the past, starting from his school records and working to the present, so I’ve got Nick Lee on it.”
Windy stared out at the street. “We found two rings in Nadene’s garbage disposal.”
“I heard. I also heard that they were pretty beat up. Hard to ID.”
“They are. But it made me wonder if Harry was married.”
“Now you are asking for information I can only dream about. Next you’ll want to know what alias he is using here in Vegas since he clearly isn’t living anywhere as Harold Williams. At this point,” Ash was saying as his phone rang, “I would take proof that he ever existed outside a yearbook photo.” He took the call and smiled when he hung up. “Nick Lee got a look at Harry’s old school records and was able to confirm he was Eve’s next-door neighbor on Cottonwood Drive. So he does exist.”
“Did he find any family members? Any recent contacts?”
“There you go again with that moon and stars stuff. His mother is dead, but the guidance counselor from his high school still works there. He wouldn’t talk to us, claimed patient-client privilege, but with a little coaxing from Nick Lee he did volunteer the name of Harry’s piano teacher. I’m going to see her now.”
“That sounds scary. Old music teachers.” Windy shuddered. “Be careful.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Go to my office and rip my hair out. Maybe see if I can rip anyone else’s hair out too.”
Ash got serious. “I know the investigation is frustrating but you can’t beat yourself up. You have got to—why are you laughing?”
“I meant it literally. There’s something about the way Nadene was clutching Eve’s hair in her hand that is bothering me and I want to try it out.” She smiled. “But thank you for making me laugh. The expression on your face—” She chuckled. “I feel much better.”
Ash watched her walk to her car, still chuckling, and made a mental note never to fall in love with a criminalist again.
CHAPTER 73
As Windy walked into the visual imaging laboratory, Erica looked up and said, “I was just about to page you. I found something on your crime scene photo.”
“I can’t wait to see it. But first, stand up and get behind me.”
“Why?”
“Just do it. Yes, right there.”
“Ouch! Did you just pull my hair?”
Windy nodded, looking at the two short purple strands in her hand. They looked like the other strands she had pulled out of everyone in her department’s head.
“No, it’s an experiment I’m doing. For a case. But I discovered that if I asked people ahead of time they wouldn’t let me do it. Sorry.” Windy slipped the hairs into her pocket. “What did you find?”
Erica hit keys and an image of the footprints at the crime scene came up. “First, I was able to enhance these. They appear to be tennis shoes. I haven’t looked them up in a sole database yet.”
“It would be better to do that once we figure out what year we’re talking about. I’m guessing the shoes come from the mid-1980s, but this pair is really worn in, so the photo could still be recent. And they’re not tennis shoes, they are running shoes, men’s size seven or women’s size eight and a half.” Eve’s size, Windy’s mind ticked off. “Whoever was wearing them shouldn’t be running, though. Bad left knee.”
“You are making that up.”
“No. The treads are very old school, pre the Air and Gel cushioning, which means before the 1990s. Assuming that those are standard floor tiles, I can judge the shoe size. And look at the wear pattern. The right foot is flat, the left foot heavily pronated. That means the gait is uneven, which would put pressure on the knee. It wouldn’t be noticeable, but they would feel pain running, unless they got orthotics.”
Erica gaped at her.
Windy didn’t notice. “What else did you find? Anything on the shadow in the lower right hand corner?”
“I saved that for last because it is going to be the easiest. I started working on your milk carton.” Erica used her mouse to cut the image of the milk carton out of the larger photograph and paste it into an empty screen. Then she pushed a button and the screen filled with vertical and horizontal lines, the way it had with the surveillance tapes from the pawn shop, only this time what emerged was the corner of a milk carton. “We lucked out, because two sides are partially visible,” Erica explained. “I was going to start by enlarging the front of the carton, but then I realized what was on the back and thought that might be better.”
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