by Zena Oliver
“We have a few more questions. I don’t think we’re at a point where we’re ready to make an arrest, but there are some things we need to find out. You don’t object, do you?” I couldn’t have said it in a more professional-sarcastic tone if I’d tried. And I meant for it to come out that way. His presence was irritating me.
“No, go right ahead. Ask whatever you think is appropriate. Just know, Ms. MacDonald may or may not give you an answer,” he snarked right back at me. What a clown.
After Ms. MacDonald returned and took her seat, I decided it was time to hit her with a couple of hard questions.
“Ms. MacDonald, can you please tell us again, for clarity, what you were doing in Mrs. Dupree’s apartment, and why were you collecting Mr. Effridge’s shoes in a trash bag?”
“Well, I was … I guess I thought ...” She stopped talking when the attorney touched her arm, and turned her head to face him.
“You don’t have to answer that,” he said.
“No, I want to. I already told them once what I was doing.” She turned back to face us. “I wanted to have something to remember Chase by. I know it seems weird, but that’s what I wanted.”
“Why shoes? Why not a favorite piece of jewelry or a photo?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
“Can’t, or won’t?” Johnson asked. That got the attorney’s attention.
“Hey, now, let’s be nice or we can walk right out of here,” Keyes said.
“I was just asking a question. I meant no harm,” Johnson backtracked nicely, but I knew he had a specific reason to ask that question. We both had been wondering why she would be after shoes.
“I guess we all have our idiosyncrasies, right? Fortunately, Mrs. Dupree doesn’t know about the shoes, or you being in her apartment. That’s trespassing, and it could potentially be seen as theft,” I said.
“I didn’t walk out with the shoes. You took them, remember? Anyway, when will I get them back?”
“Is there something special about the shoes?” Johnson asked.
“No,” she replied.
Keyes looked uneasy in his seat. “Gentlemen, can we wrap this up here? I have somewhere else to be, and I’m sure Ms. MacDonald would like to get back to her son.”
“We understand. Before you leave, is there any way we can get a DNA sample to eliminate you as a suspect?”
“Why would I be a suspect?”
“We found the knife that killed Effridge. We’re trying to match the other person’s DNA. We suspect that person may be the killer.”
“I’ll give it some thought and let you know. I don’t think I want to do that today.”
That’s fine. We’ll be in touch,” I replied.
Chapter 25
When I got to my desk, I wasn’t expecting to see the lovely Delilah Rodriguez standing there again. I rubbed my hands back and forth over my scalp. I was frustrated, but Officer Rodriguez forced a smile to appear on my face and lightened my mood slightly.
“I have a surprise for you, Detective,” Rodriguez whispered.
“What’s that?”
She held up a clear plastic evidence bag with several strands of hair in it.
“What is that?” I was curious, but wasn’t in the mood for anyone’s jokes. I had work to do. I was sick of this case being open. I, or rather we, should have been able to get this closed by now. Or at least I thought that we would’ve. I’m sure Sarge thought so, too. Speaking of him, I had to go let him know we still didn’t have anything worth a shit.
“Remember you said you needed a DNA sample from that woman? Well, when I saw her walk into the bathroom I went in, too. She was brushing her hair. She threw some of the strands in the trash and there were several hairs lying around the sink.” She kept her voice to a whisper.
“How do you know it isn’t anyone else’s?”
“The cleaning people had just left before she went in there. Nothing else was in the trash can, and you know they clean like they’re eating off the counter tops.”
“Very sneaky.”
She propped her hand on her curvy hip and twisted her mouth. “Anyway, do you want them or should I just toss them in the trash?”
“I definitely want them. Thank you. I’ll run them over to the lab right now.”
“You’re welcome. You know you owe me,” she said.
“Name your price. But not until after this case is solved.”
“All right. Get going. We can talk later.”
I wanted to jump as high as I could, thrust my fist into the air, and high five everyone in the precinct. They’d surely all think I’d gone mad, though. Instead I rushed over to Johnson and let him know what Rodriguez had gotten. The smile on his face said it all. That was exactly how I’d felt.
“Come on,” Johnson said.
The smiles seemed like they’d become permanently fixed on our faces. I felt relieved that we’d be able to eliminate Ms. MacDonald and turn our focus on Ms. Green, if indeed her DNA matched. I didn’t understand Ms. MacDonald’s hesitation to provide the sample when we asked, but I’d take the strands of discarded hair any day.
We made our way into the lab and looked around for Skip. He was nowhere to be found. As we were explaining what we had to one of the other technicians, Skip came back into the lab from outside.
“Ah, my dynamic duo. How are you guys?” Skip asked.
“We’ll be doing great when you run a DNA comparison with these hairs and the blood on the knife.” I reached out my hand to give him the bag. “Any word on the little co-ed yet?”
“Nothing yet. You’ll be the first to know as soon as we get everything back.” He held the bag up to the light and inspected the contents. “I take it these came from another one of your other suspects?”
“Yeah, we lucked into them,” I said.
“Hopefully at least one has a root. Looking at them without my scope, it doesn’t look like any do. That woman desperately needs a conditioning treatment to stop her hair breakage.” He laughed. He was the only one laughing. “Come on, fellas, that was funny and you know it.”
“What wasn’t funny is you saying they might be no good,” Johnson said.
“That’s just a quick glance. We’ll get them under the scope and examine them more closely. Did you need anything else?”
“Anything on the shoes?”
“Thank you for reminding me, I almost forgot. This hair sample was a distraction from what I had for you. You won’t believe it, but there’s a pair of size eleven New Balance sneakers in there. And nearly all Effridge’s shoes are size eleven except one. There’s a pair of dress shoes that’s a size twelve. Maybe they ran small.”
“Anything significant about the sneakers?”
“I’ll let you know that, too. We’re looking at them. They had dark spots on the sole that at first we thought was mud, but remembered the footprint in his blood.”
“Thanks, man. It sounds like you’re going to have a lot of information for us in the very near future,” I said.
“That I will. I’ll give you a call as soon as I have some answers.”
“Thanks.”
We left a little disappointed, but hopeful. If the hairs didn’t pan out, we were screwed.
****
First thing the next morning, I received a call from Skip. He had all the results back and requested we stop in.
“Well, if it isn’t my two favorite detectives,” Skip said when we walked through the doors of the lab.
“You probably say that to everyone,” Johnson said.
“Wait. Did you just wink at me?” Skip laughed. “You did, didn’t you?”
“Hell no. You’re ridiculous,” Johnson scoffed.
“Whatever. I know you did.”
“Keep dreaming, Skippy.”
“Only my closest and favorites get to call me Skippy. Watch yourself Detective, or you’ll be on that list.” Skip winked at Johnson and I couldn’t hold my laughter in. Johnson hit my arm.
&n
bsp; “I’ll work hard to stay off that list. And you should work hard to avoid sexual harassment charges, Skip.” Johnson placed a lot of emphasis on his name. His face was flushed.
“Yes, sir, Detective. Please don’t cuff me,” Skip said. When he laughed, I joined in. After a few seconds Johnson did, too. This was Skip’s way of having fun. He didn’t mean anything by it, but every now and then he’d get all wound up and was difficult to stop. No one ever filed complaints against him because we all knew he was in a committed relationship and loved his boyfriend dearly. Plus, we knew he wasn’t the type of person to overstep into unwanted territory. But that didn’t stop him from having a good time every now and then.
I turned slightly to face Johnson. “That’s enough, you two. Everyone knows you aren’t leaving your wife,” I said, then turned my attention back to Skip. “So, back to business. What do you have for us?”
“You don’t know that,” Johnson said through a smile.
“I’m pretty sure there’s only one woman in the world who would put up with you, so I’d take the bet on you not ever leaving her. Now her leaving you, that’s a different story.” I tilted my head and raised my eyebrows.
“Never. I keep my woman happy.”
“Ahem, gentle ducks. Stop all that quacking. I have the results from everything. I have the DNA results and match you were hoping to get, too. I’ve got the results from the sneakers. I’ve got it all, gentlemen. Today is your lucky day.”
Chapter 26
We walked from the lab straight to Sarge’s office. Finally, we had something worth telling him. I was still in shock over what Skip told us, but DNA doesn’t lie. But the biggest shock was how he surmised the blood getting on the bottom of Effridge’s shoes. A-fucking-mazing!
When we walked out of the office after an hour of discussion, we were told to get the Assistant District Attorney involved to make sure we had enough evidence to prosecute. We all thought we did, but we needed to make sure any charges were going to stick, and that no defender could deny what we had. We also needed the prosecutor to figure out the appropriate charges.
The ADA come over right away, and during our meeting we laid out everything we had. She thought we had a pretty strong case, with one exception.
“No gun? You know that’s the clincher, right?” Carmen Wallace, the ADA, said.
“No gun. We need a search warrant to see if we can find it,” I said.
“Go get it. Let me know what you find, if anything,” Ms. Wallace said. “The gun makes this a pretty open and shut case. It would be really nice to know who the shooter was. Without it, it’s a lot of speculation at least about that.”
An hour later, with warrants in hand, we made our way to our first stop. A petite blonde answered the door.
“Police, miss.” I flashed my badge. “We have a warrant to search the premises.”
“Oh. My. God. Why?”
“We’re looking for critical evidence for a case we’re working. Please open the door; we don’t want to knock it off the hinges.”
She quickly scrambled to remove the chain lock and then let us in.
“Which side is yours?” Without a peep, she pointed at the messy bed. We began our search on the opposite side of the room and made our way through the closet. We dug under the bed, under the mattress, and through the drawers. We tried not to disrupt too much, but that was relative to what we were tasked with doing. At least it looked better than a prison toss. When we finished, we thanked the terrified girl and left.
Johnson made the phone call to the ADA, then we proceeded to our next stop. Within a half hour, we left there and made our way back to see Skip. We’d found what we were looking for. We had the gun. We just needed to get ballistics to do their magic to confirm it was indeed the weapon and get it checked for fingerprints to confirm who shot Effridge.
While we waited, we called Carmen to fill her in on what was happening, and to let her know we thought she should come back over.
Carmen arrived, and shortly after we got settled in Sarge’s office my phone rang. I put it on speaker so everyone could hear the news we’d been sitting on the edge of our seats for.
“Are you sitting down?” Skip asked.
“Yeah, man. And I’m in Sarge’s office with Johnson, and ADA Wallace. Go ahead, you’re on speaker.”
“Wow, I guess I’d better behave.” He chuckled. “I have our ballistics analysis and my fingerprint information for you. The gun is definitely the one used to kill Effridge. Ballistics said with nearly one hundred percent certainty that it’s the weapon that was used to shoot him. There were two sets of prints on the gun, too. One set of prints belonged to our victim. That wasn’t a surprise, because I ran the serial number and saw he bought it and had it registered to himself.” We all looked at each other. Skip continued to speak. “The other prints on the gun surprised me quite a bit. I expected to have them match the person who also was the stabber, but they aren’t. They’re not a match to the person who owns the DNA on the knife. Are you still there, Brad?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I think we’re all a little stunned right now, that’s all.”
“What you have is two people responsible for this guy’s death. As we’d discussed, I think he was shot in the torso, which shocked him and he spun around. Once he was facing his murderess-wannabe, another shot was fired, striking him in the head. He collapsed, but couldn’t have died. I’m not sure how he didn’t, but if the stab wounds came after the shots like I think they did, at the very least he had to still be barely alive. There was too much blood on him to have been dead before he was stabbed. And the stabber is a lefty, without a doubt. The wounds were too deep to be cross-body. The combination of stab wounds and the shot to the head killed him.”
Johnson rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Skip, it’s Johnson.”
“Hey. What’s up?”
“Do you think the evidence you’ve found could be tainted in any way? Is it possible that the gun was just handled by the person whose set of prints were on there, but another set could have been rubbed off?”
“No way. Trying to rub off a set of prints would have wiped the gun completely clean or left some smudged prints. There were partial prints, but when they were laid on top of the two sets I lifted, they matched perfectly. Only two people touched that gun. There was no indication of anyone trying to wipe it off.”
“Any questions, Ms. Wallace?” I asked.
“No. Great job, Skip. Detectives, I think you know what’s next on the agenda. And you can make a call to the widow and let her know you’re making arrests in the case. Great job, everyone.”
“I second that. Fantastic work, Skip. And thanks for the quick turnaround. Detectives, excellent,” Sarge said.
We disconnected the call, then Johnson and I stood up to leave. We had a couple of arrests to make.
Chapter 27
I made a phone call to Keyes, Ms. MacDonald’s attorney, and let him know we needed her to come down to the station again. He wasn’t happy to be coming back in to talk to us, but when I told him we had the gun he said he’d be right here with his client.
Johnson went to call the co-ed, Megan Green. We agreed he would interview her for the final time, and I would handle Ms. MacDonald and her attorney. We also both agreed we weren’t pulling any punches this time around. We had evidence that we could finally act upon and make arrests.
It didn’t take long for Keyes and Ms. MacDonald to walk through the door. Her legs appeared stiff, and she was holding her arms across her body, tight, clenching the fabric of her shirt around her elbows. She didn’t look in my direction at all.
Keyes’ eyes met mine. His normally-jutting chin and irritating smirk were missing. His shoulders hunched slightly instead of his normal, perfectly-straight posture. His head was held lower than normal. It seemed like he’d lost his cockiness, or at least that was what I surmised from his demeanor.
“Hello. We’re going to be in the conference room this time,” I said as they both e
yed our interrogation rooms.
They followed me up to the room where ADA Wallace was waiting for us to join her. Once we all entered the room and I had the door shut, Keyes spoke up.
“What’s this all about, Detective? I thought you got your questions answered already.”
“Third time’s a charm, Counselor. I have some very specific details I’d like to talk to Ms. MacDonald about.”
“Go ahead, ask away. She may or may not answer, that’s her right.”
“I completely understand. It won’t change the ultimate outcome, but I understand.”
“Don’t speak in riddles, just ask your questions.” He huffed out a breath. “Please.”
“Ms. MacDonald, I want you to think hard about the day Chase Effridge was murdered. Tell me where you were again, and tell me what happened,” I said.
She sighed and tilted her head to look at her attorney. He nodded at her.
“We’ve been over this. I went to see Chase in the morning. He’d left his wallet at my home and I was taking it back to him.”
“Did you get into an argument?” I asked.
“Why would you ask that?” she questioned me.
“We know your ex, Jonathan Calhoun, had pictures sent to you. We know the more innocent-looking pictures were of him with McKenzie Sims. The ones that were more telling were of him and one of his students. Did you see them?” I asked.
“I saw them,” she ground out. “I saw her at the apartment that morning, too.”
“That really pissed you off, didn’t it? Your lover had moved on and was leaving you behind. He was treating you in the exact same way he’d treated his wife when he got involved with you,” I said. I wanted to get her pissed off. I was counting on it.
“That’s enough, Detective,” Keyes said. I glanced at him and saw his lips were pinched and his jaw clenched tight.
“You got those photos, and you were pissed. He was cheating on you, with a younger woman to boot. Am I right?”
“Detective,” Keyes hissed.
“Yeah, okay? I was furious! How could he do that to me?”