by Chris Culver
I reached into my pocket, took out my cell phone, and snapped a picture quickly. Alicia’s eyes were closed, but it’d do. I turned my phone around and showed her the screen.
“If I show this picture around, they’re not going to recognize you, right?” I asked.
“Right,” said Alicia, not taking her eyes from my phone. Her breathing was shallow. Olivia put her hand on my knee before I could press the point further.
“I’m going to let you get back to class,” said Olivia, reaching into her purse. She pulled out a business card and handed it to Alicia. “If you change your mind about anything you’ve said here, my number’s on the card.”
Alicia nodded, grabbed her backpack, and left the room. Olivia turned towards me. Her head was tilted to the side.
“How much of it do you think she was lying about?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“Most, maybe all,” I said. “My niece didn’t do drugs, and my sister has test results that prove it. Alicia is hiding something.”
Olivia looked off into space for a moment, her eyes unfocused. She nodded.
“The question is what.”
Before I could answer that, another girl came in. She gave us nearly the same story as Alicia, and rather than waste our limited time with a third and fourth interview, we decided to check out Rachel’s locker. While I wandered in the school's main hallway, Olivia ran to her car for her crime scene kit. It looked like a standard–issue fishing tackle box, but it held latex gloves, evidence bags, tags, and search forms. It had everything she'd need to search for and store evidence.
Classes were still in session, so Olivia and I were able to work relatively unimpeded. Principal Eikmeier opened the locker for us. Its interior was about five feet tall and had two shelves for textbooks as well as a hook for a coat. Rachel had personalized it by pasting pictures of her friends on the walls and door. Most of the kids in the pictures were vaguely familiar even if I didn’t know their names. One girl was in more pictures than others, though. She had curly red hair and pale skin. I was sure that I had seen her somewhere, but Principal Eikmeier didn’t recognize her. Must have been at a different school, then.
True to Alicia’s word, we found an Elizabeth Arden perfume box on the locker’s top shelf. Olivia pulled a camera out of her evidence kit and snapped a shot of the box and its placement before putting on gloves. She was almost delicate as she pulled the box from the locker, gently touching only its edges to minimize contact.
“There’s something in here,” she said, tilting the box to the side. “Get a couple of pictures of this, Ash.”
I grabbed Olivia’s camera and took pictures of everything she did. Olivia popped the top. There was a plastic bag inside that contained small clumps of what looked like a hard, white cheese as well as a clear glass tube with a bulb on one end. I had never worked narcotics, but it wasn’t hard to recognize an unused crack pipe and what was probably ten bucks worth of crack. I snapped a picture of both.
“What is it?” asked Principal Eikmeier. “Are those drugs?”
“Maybe,” said Olivia, placing the lid back on the box. She slipped the entire container into a Ziploc bag and started filling out an evidence tag. “I’m labeling it as a white, rocky substance and a glass pipe.”
Drugs played a role in about half the cases I had investigated while a detective, and that box's placement wasn’t right. It was too convenient. Serious drug users hide their stuff well. Rachel wasn’t an idiot. If she were a user, she’d be more careful.
“Principal Eikmeier, can you give us a moment?” I asked.
The Principal nodded, but looked at his watch before disappearing.
“A minute, but that’s it. The students will be changing classes soon.”
I looked at the locker from top to bottom again, trying to find anything else out of place. I knelt to take a look at the stack of books on the bottom shelf, and that's when I knew that we had a problem. Olivia’s eyebrows were raised expectantly when I glanced up.
“There are two math books in here,” I said. “Elementary Trigonometry and Advanced Calculus.”
Olivia shrugged.
“Rachel could have taken Trig one year and then Calculus the next.”
I shook my head and stood upright.
“You went to high school out of state. Students in Indiana rent their textbooks and then return them at the end of the year. There are multiple people with access to this locker.”
Olivia nodded and paused as if thinking.
“We’ll brush the box and pipe for prints and see what we can come up with,” she said. “If they don’t match Rachel, we’ll go from there.”
I nodded, shifting on my feet. As I did that, Olivia pulled the gloves off her hands.
“Did you get the autopsy results yet?” I asked.
Olivia nodded, her eyes narrowed questioningly.
“Preliminary results, but no tox screen if that’s what you’re asking about.”
I ran my hand across my face.
“No, that’s not what I’m asking,” I said. “Did the Coroner say anything about her fingers?”
Olivia’s eyes had a distant look. She shook her head.
“I don’t think so.”
That was what I needed to hear.
“If Rachel had been doing crack, her fingers would have been calloused and burned. The Coroner would say so. This isn’t right, and you know it. If Rachel had drugs in her locker, the drug dogs would smell them immediately. More than that, her principal doesn’t even need probable cause to search her locker, just a reasonable suspicion that she broke some sort of rule. Only a moron would hide drugs here.”
Olivia nodded again, thinking.
“You think this is a setup?” she asked.
I leaned against the locker and shook my head.
“I don’t know, but something isn’t right.”
“We’ll look into it,” she said. Before she could finish, the school’s bell rang and a wave of students crashed out of nearby classrooms. Olivia leaned close enough to me that I thought she was going to kiss me. “We’ll bring Alicia in and see what she has to say about it at our station. Right now, though, we need to get out of here. I’ve got a meeting downtown this afternoon. I’ll take you by your law school on my way.”
I glanced at my watch. My class started in twenty–five minutes. I didn’t like leaving things unfinished, but we were out of time. We put a uniformed officer assigned to truancy prevention in charge of Rachel’s locker until crime scene technicians could arrive and empty it completely. I left with more uncertainties bouncing around my head than when we had arrived. Rachel’s death was beginning to look like anything but an accident.
Chapter 4
Work crews were resurfacing the roads downtown, making the area difficult to navigate. Olivia had to drop me off two blocks from my law school, which meant I had to sprint to the building. I made it to my classroom out of breath and sweating, but with three minutes to spare. The professor wasn’t in yet, which was good. He had a tendency to pick on those arriving late.
I stepped into the room and took a quick look around. A classroom in a law school isn’t like classrooms in most schools; it’s more like an amphitheater with tiered seating so everyone can see the horrible spectacle in front. I scanned the room for open seats. As late as I was, the only one available was in the first row. It was so close to the professor’s podium that I’d probably feel spittle as he rained vitriol on those unfortunate souls who displeased him that morning.
I walked to the empty seat, nodding hello to a few familiar faces as I passed, and sat down in an uncomfortable, black plastic chair. I spread my class materials on the table in front of me and smiled hello to the guy sitting beside me. I didn’t know his first name, but the professors called him Mr. Mason. He had a hooked nose, and his sport coat and slacks looked like something ripped off a mannequin at Brooks Brothers. In law school vernacular, he was a gunner. Most students don’t aspire to the title, but
Mason reveled in it. He always had something to say whether it was pertinent to that day’s discussion or not, and he was almost always the first person to shoot his hand in the air if someone gave an incorrect answer. In short, he was an asshole. The rumor was that his father was a senior partner in a major firm in Chicago, though, so he could afford to be an asshole.
Mason smirked in response to my smile.
Nice to see you, too, douche bag.
The atmospheric change when Professor Ruiz walked into the room a moment later was palpable. Conversations halted mid–sentence, postures improved, and all shuffling of notes ceased. For a small, stooped man in a navy–blue cardigan, Professor Ruiz was damn intimidating. He was sort of a pint–sized Mr. Rogers from Hell. Theoretically, I knew he had a heart, but I was pretty sure it pumped some vile black liquid instead of blood.
He walked to the clear plastic podium in front of the room. Sixty pairs of eyeballs followed; sixty prayers, my own included, floated to heaven. God would answer fifty–nine of those prayers and throw one unfortunate soul to the fire. I hoped it was Mason. Ruiz spread out his notebook and looked up.
“Okay, let’s get this started. Detective Rashid, tell me about Baber v. Hospital Corporation of America.”
Shit.
Being a police officer made a lot of law school classes interesting, especially criminal law. Unfortunately, it made health law a bitch because my professor held the police in less than high esteem. On the first day of class, he had railed for forty–five minutes about the erosion of civil liberties by law enforcement officials. It was impressive work for a class that had little to do with either civil liberties or law enforcement.
I flipped through my outline. It was thinner than usual. With everything that had happened that weekend, I hadn’t been able to focus on class. I glanced at Mason’s casebook. It had so many highlighted passages that it might as well have been a coloring book.
“The case involved an intoxicated patient who walked into the ER,” I said, flipping through my notes. “He had stomach pain, I think–”
“Wrong. Is there someone who can fill Detective Rashid in here?”
Mason shot his hand in the air, and Ruiz called on him.
“An intoxicated patient walked into the ER, but she wasn’t having stomach pain. She was agitated and restless. While there, the patient fell and hit her head…”
Mason continued reciting the facts of the case as clearly as if he had witnessed the events himself. Professor Ruiz nodded approvingly. There was a group discussion for a moment as others in the class advanced additional facts relevant to the case, but I wasn’t paying that much attention. Instead, I was imagining an errant bus running both Ruiz and Mason over. That was satisfying. I finally found my notes and already had most of the facts written down.
“Back to the point on hand, what was the holding on this particular case, Mr. Rashid? Or should I ask Mr. Mason directly?”
A legal holding was the court’s determination of the matter of law in a particular case. It’s one of the most important parts of a decent legal brief, so I paid it special attention in my outline.
“The Court held that because hospitals have varying capabilities, there is no national medical malpractice standard for ERs.”
At least I knew something.
“Oh good. They still teach reading in the police academy. And how does that relate to EMTALA?”
I clenched my jaw as I flipped pages in my outline. Some of the students around me shifted uncomfortably.
“What a surprise. You don’t know. Can someone who’s actually read the material fill us in?”
Heat rushed to my face, but my momentary embarrassment only lasted a moment before a cell phone rang, interrupting Ruiz before he could call on Mason again. My shoulders loosened. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. Bringing a working cell phone into Ruiz’s classroom was like smoking a cigarette in a fireworks factory. Whoever was stupid enough to do it deserved whatever happened to him. At least the pressure would be off me for the moment.
The phone rang a second and then a third time. I rarely carried my phone when I was going to class, and even when I did, I always turned it off beforehand. At least almost always. It didn’t occur to me to look in my briefcase until I felt a classroom full of eyes bearing down on me.
Damn it.
My briefcase was a good–looking bag, the sort of thing a business executive would carry. Hannah had given it to me when I went back to school. Despite its aesthetic appeal, it wasn’t practical. The metal latches were hard to open, and I could only fit two or three books in it at once. I bent down and fumbled it open. The phone rang a few more times and went to voicemail before I could turn it off. I silenced it with the power button without looking at it. My stomach twisted in knots, and I balled my fists as I straightened.
“I’m sorry for the interruption, sir.”
“And I’m sorry we allowed a clearly unqualified applicant into this law school based on some supposed community service.”
My nails bit into my palms. I shook my head and started gathering my notebooks.
“Did I pick up your daughter for solicitation or something? Or are you an asshole to everybody?”
I didn’t think there was going to be any oxygen left in the room after the collective intake.
That’s probably going to hurt my grade.
Before Ruiz could recover, I shoved my belongings into my briefcase. I didn’t even look over my shoulder as I left. I had probably just tanked my legal career, but that would take time to sink in.
I walked to the school’s multi–story, glass atrium, my head held high. I probably should have felt nervous or even a bit guilty. Both were appropriate responses to my situation. I didn’t feel either, though. Instead, I felt like a conquering hero returning after a long absence. If nothing else, I’d be remembered for a few years. Few law school graduates could boast that.
I plopped onto a black leather chair that would have looked at home in an Ikea catalog and placed my briefcase on one of the glass coffee tables near the center of the room. Classes were still in session and the room was nearly empty, so I didn’t feel terribly guilty about pulling out my cell phone.
One new message from Olivia.
I leaned back in the chair and put my feet on the table. We weren’t supposed to do that, but I didn’t think it mattered too much. As soon as the Dean of Students heard about my outburst, I wouldn’t be a student there, anyway. I dialed my voicemail and put the phone to my ear.
“I need you at the Cuttings’ house ASAP. They’re on North Meridian. Call dispatch to pick you up. Lights and sirens.”
***
The Cuttings’ front yard was the size of a small city park and was surrounded on all sides by a chest–high, iron fence. The police cruiser I was riding in pulled through the front gate slowly, giving me a chance to look around. The Cuttings had formal rose gardens in their front lawn and numerous vine–covered arches over the driveway. My driver followed the road around a sharp left, and as he did that, I caught my first glimpse of the Cuttings' home. It was an Italianate mansion with at least five chimneys, a symbol of Nathan Cutting’s success and excess. My niece had died in the guesthouse catty–corner to it.
My driver parked between an unmarked police cruiser and ambulance in front of the main house. Before stepping out of the vehicle, I asked him to stick around for a few minutes until I could figure out what was going on. Two paramedics leaned against the ambulance beside me. One smoked while the other simply stood there. No one seemed to be in a hurry.
My guess was that Nathan Cutting was dead. I didn’t think he was very old, but he had probably experienced enough stress over the past few days that a heart attack was a very real possibility.
The front door was open, so I stepped into the home’s foyer. The floor was dark hardwood. A pair of curving, symmetrical staircases led to a second floor landing in front of me, while a crystal chandelier that would have looked at home in Versailles scatte
red the light that came through the front windows. I followed the sound of voices to the home’s kitchen. There were a number of people inside, including Olivia and John Meyers, the Cutting’s attorney.
The focus was on a couple at the kitchen table. Nathan and Maria Cutting, I presumed. Nathan was short, squat, and completely bald, while his wife was thin with wavy, brunette hair. Their eyes were bloodshot, and they held hands on the table.
I glanced at Olivia and motioned toward the entryway with my head. She nodded and followed me out.
“What’s going on?” I asked, leaning into her and speaking softly.
“Robbie Cutting is dead.”
“Murdered?” I asked, my eyebrows scrunched.
“Suicide,” said a loud, baritone voice I didn’t recognize. One of the men I had seen in the kitchen stepped into the foyer. I’m not a pushover, but the guy stepping towards me was built like a refrigerator and probably had fifty pounds on me. He wore a cheap, brown jacket, slacks, and a mustard–stained tie.
I glanced at Olivia. She motioned towards the walking refrigerator with her head.
“This is Lieutenant Mike Bowers. He’s in charge of homicide now.”
The name was familiar. I hadn’t met Bowers before, but he was well known in law enforcement circles. I had heard he was a good investigator. The rumor mill reported that when he was my age, he infiltrated the Aryan Brotherhood and single–handedly dismantled a violent narcotics trafficking ring. I had also heard that his wife was less than discrete about her marital indiscretions while he was under.
“Is there something I can do for you, Detective Rashid?”
“I’m following up on my niece’s case,” I said. “Is that a problem?”
Bowers’ eyes passed up and down me before he nodded his head towards the front door.
“Outside,” he said.
I followed the two of them to the front porch. It was hot and muggy out of the air–conditioning. I pulled the front door shut behind me so the Cuttings and their lawyer couldn’t hear us talking. When I turned around, Bowers was staring at me. I looked from him to my old partner and back.