She rolls her eyes, a little exasperated. “And you can just grab one. Whoosh. Like that. Lysa and I will distract the cop.”
“Okay. I can … but why do I want to?”
“Because…” Spam turns her phone to show us the latest news alert. It’s barely been an hour and already: SEARCH ON FOR SKATEBOARDER AS SCHOOL TALLIES PROPERTY DAMAGE.
I gasp. “You want me to lift his prints so we can turn him in?”
This is very un-Spam-like.
“No,” she says. “So we can find him.”
I give her a hard look.
“He needs our help.” I look at her phone again, then at her. There’s got to be more to this for Spam.
“What?” She balks. “Okay, he’s supercute, he got me to model for him, and he called me shortcake.” She flashes a devilish smile. “I kinda liked that.”
There it is. I hesitate, not sure about this.
“According to the chief he could be in a lot of trouble,” Lysa says.
Okay. I go into my bag for my fingerprint kit, which, for a girl like me, just looks like extra makeup. “I can grab the print easy-peasy, but without access to Detective Sydney’s AFIS computer there’s not much I can find out about it.”
“Remember what you always say,” Lysa says. “Step one, collect the evidence and let it give you the road map to step two.”
“This isn’t Cheater Checks, right?” I say, thinking out loud. I promised Rachel.
Spam nods. “It’s definitely not.”
“But … are we tampering with evidence?” Lysa asks. “We can’t do that, either.”
Spam rolls her eyes. “Hold on. I’ll find out.” She strides over to the officer and strikes up a friendly conversation. She asks him when the crime scene guys are coming.
He shakes his head. “This isn’t that kind of a crime scene.”
Spam looks knowingly over her shoulder.
“But so why are you here?” she asks.
“Oh, I’m just waiting for the tow truck,” the cop replies.
I raise my eyebrows at Lysa. “Sounds like we’re good to go.”
She wanders over to help Spam with distraction.
I quickly bring out the brush, powder, and a square, two-inch hinged fingerprint lifter card that Victor gave me to practice with. The car looks freshly washed and shiny so the skateboarder’s prints are all very clear. I determine his thumbprint to be the best one.
I kind of huddle to one side and pretend like I’m checking my makeup. I even use my compact mirror to monitor Spam and Lysa and the cop behind me.
I slip my left hand into a glove so I don’t contaminate the print with my own. Then I load a supply of red fluorescent fingerprint powder onto the brush and sprinkle it over the area. I dab lightly to allow the super-fine grains of powder to drift into the ridges of the print, defining it.
With great detail and flamboyant hand gestures Spam is describing her favorite video game to the cop. Turns out he plays it too.
Thanks to the hinged lifter I can almost pull this off one-handed. The lifter contains two parts, connected in the middle. One side is a smooth, shiny card where the actual fingerprint will be preserved. The other side is sticky lift tape. I spread the hinged part open and carefully peel off the protective film, revealing the sticky side.
I say carefully because I’ve learned that if it actually sticks to the glove it will not come off.
Holding the sticky part by the edges, I firmly apply it over the print and smooth it down with my gloved hand. Then I peel the whole thing off in one smooth move.
Once the print is removed from the hood of the car I close the sticky side against the shiny side and the print is sealed inside forever.
I’m just sliding all my tools back into my bag when Journey ambles up.
“Erin, what’s going on?” he asks.
“Nothing. Just a little makeup fix.” I swirl my finger around my face. “I was—you know—breaking out.”
Dang. I just lied to Journey and I’m not even sure why.
He blinks, nods, and frowns all at the same time, which means Okay, girl stuff. “So, you aren’t mad at me over this Victor thing, are you?”
Sigh. Yeah, the Victor thing.
I shake my head. “I’m happy for you.” I reach out and grab the hem of his jacket and pull him toward me because I really am happy for him. “I’ll admit that I maybe got a little disappointed there for a minute. Because you know how I feel about Victor.”
He nods. “I do know. But he just came at me out of the blue and offered me this job. I didn’t know what to say.”
“I know. You’re fine. It’ll work out,” I say.
“So, I really do have to get to work.” He gives me a peck on the cheek. “And I don’t have time to take you home now. I hope that’s okay.” I nod and give him a hug and he strides off across the parking lot just as the tow truck arrives.
The cop guides the tow truck driver into backing up to the wrecked car. Lysa, Spam, and I watch as the tow truck driver hooks up his rig to the damaged car. Within minutes he’s sliding his hands all over the area where the fingerprints were, so now I don’t feel bad about lifting one.
Lysa and Spam resume debating who should drive me home, and Victor strides toward us.
“Why don’t you just ride with me?” he says.
We all shrug. Perfect. It’s settled.
Victor waits while I quick hug first Lysa and then Spam. But as I follow him to his car the unsettled feelings close in around me, like storm clouds. The ride home won’t take long, but it will be just the two of us.
I don’t even understand why I’m having these feelings all of a sudden, which means I’m nowhere near ready to talk about them.
7
Trusting an eyewitness can be tricky. Extreme stress, the presence of weapons, or even a bland suspect can affect what and how much one remembers.
—VICTOR FLEMMING
Victor’s phone rings as he unlocks the car.
I get in.
He checks his phone. But doesn’t answer it. Just checks it.
He silences the ring, then stashes his briefcase in the backseat area before getting in and buckling up. The phone rings twice more. And he silences it each time, without looking at the screen.
I pretend to read, thinking that will cut down on the chitchat and I won’t have to worry about revealing my hurt feelings.
“Good book?” He shoots me a typical Victor smile. I nod and offer him one back. It’s not my usual easy-breezy smile, but it’s the best I can do under the circumstances.
His phone rings a fourth time as he’s starting the car.
“Gah!” Frustrated, Victor yanks the phone out of his pocket, reaches around the back of his seat, and slams it in the general direction of his briefcase. He puts the car in gear and begins to exit the parking lot. He’s clearly agitated about something.
I watch him out of the corner of my eye.
He stretches out his shoulders. Rolls his head around on his neck. Taps his palm on the steering wheel. He even obsessively rubs one eyebrow.
I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but this is not the laid-back version of Victor that I’m used to. Silence in the car builds quickly until it threatens to blow out the windows.
I close my book. “Is everything okay?”
Victor puts both hands on the wheel and gives me a forced smile. “Sure. Why?”
“You look upset. You’re making sighing sounds … and stretching your neck.”
He lifts his chin. “What about you?”
“What do you mean?” I thought I was hiding my feelings well.
“Usually you’re a little chatter bug. You stormed off earlier and now you’ve only said two things to me.”
“You seemed busy.” There’s a lack of conviction in my voice.
He shakes his head. “Not buying it.”
“Yeah. Well, I’m not buying that you’re all hunky-dory either.” I shove my book into my bag. “You tell me what�
��s got you all tweaked out and I’ll tell you mine.”
Victor chuckles, but his direct gaze on me doesn’t waver. He unexpectedly flips on the turn signal. “Using my own tactics against me, are you?”
“Maybe.”
“Fine,” he agrees. “But I think this’ll go down better over a couple of shakes. What do you say?”
“Chocolate and you’ve got a deal.” I feel the warmth returning to my limbs. This is Victor at his best. He lets nothing stand in the way of uncovering a problem.
Not even milkshakes before dinner.
Victor pulls into a drive-thru and orders the shakes, then pulls up to the window to wait for them.
“Do you want to go first?” he asks.
“No.” I’m not even sure I want to go second. But I’m definitely not going first.
Victor nods. “Fair enough. Remember when I told you I thought I might be getting fired?”
“Because someone sabotaged your lab.”
“Right. But I couldn’t prove that,” he adds. “So, yeah. That situation’s back.”
“But you quit, so what difference does it make?”
“An innocent man died as a result of that mistake. Also, I didn’t quit … I resigned so I could move home and switch careers.”
“Right.”
“Bottom line, quitting—or resigning—didn’t make that problem go away.” He presses his face into his hands and rubs as if he’s trying to remove the thoughts that are bothering him.
“It’s going to be okay, though. Right?” I ask.
“Honestly?” Victor says. “I don’t know. All I can do is tell the truth and see how it all shakes out.”
The drive-thru window slides open and the employee hands out the shakes. Victor rolls down his window and takes them. He hands one off to me and preps his own straw. Once the drinks are good to go he pulls out onto the street and heads for home, which is only a block away.
He takes a sip of his shake, then nods in my direction. “Okay. Your turn.”
I inhale a lung-full of courage. He followed through so now I have to. “Why did you choose Journey as your intern?” I try to keep the hurt out of my voice, but it cracks anyway.
“And butt monkey,” Victor adds. “Don’t forget butt monkey, because that is a key part of his job.”
I want a serious answer, not a joke. I glare and exhale, stopping just short of an actual snort. “You know what I mean.”
Victor sobers a little. “Explain to me why you’re upset and maybe I’ll know better how to answer you?”
I sit back in the seat with my shake in one hand and arms crossed protectively over my middle. Is he that clueless?
“Look, Journey’s starting college. He’ll be studying criminal science. We have his father’s case to work on…” Victor explains.
There it is. My temper flares, dissolving Victor’s face into a white blur. “You said it wasn’t kosher for someone to work on a case they were connected to by blood.” Accusation drips from every word and I regret it the minute it happens. But there’s no holding it back. The floodgates to Erin’s psyche are now open.
Victor nods. “I did say that, specifically in relation to your mother’s murder case and you handling the actual evidence. And it’s still true. I stand by that statement. But Journey’s father is alive, possibly erroneously imprisoned. The work he will be doing is primarily research, not forensic investigation. He will pick up every lead from his father’s case and follow it all the way through to its conclusion. His role will be fact-checking, research, and documentation. It will work very much like the Innocence Project run by some law schools, but because he’s working with me, his focus will be on the evidence and the forensic angle of the investigation, not the legal one.”
Victor pulls into our driveway and parks up near the garage.
“I’m happy for Journey. I really am.” I gather my bag and start to get out of the car. “He doesn’t even remember his father, so I know how important this is to him.” I just don’t know what to do with my feelings. But I can’t bring myself to say that out loud.
“I get it,” he says. “You’re happy for Journey but that doesn’t change your feelings of disappointment.”
“You said you liked working with me. That we clicked. I thought we were a team.”
Victor reaches his hand across the console to me. “We were. We are. We’re all of that. Erin, you are the whole reason I left my job in Virginia and moved back home. We’re not just a team … we’re a family. But there’s a place in this for Journey, too.” He stops and cocks his head to one side, thinking. “Wait a minute. You two didn’t break up, did you?”
Hot, angry tears peck at the back of my eyes. I press the heels of my hands into my forehead and refuse to let the tears leak out. I wave him off and swallow back the fist of emotion in my throat. I get what he’s saying and I want to be okay with this. But I can’t help feeling shoved to the side.
“We’re fine.” I get out of the car. One of us has to break the tension. I dab away the tears and adjust my attitude. I don’t need Rachel asking a bunch of questions right now, especially when I’m not even sure exactly how I feel.
Victor follows, grabbing his briefcase and phone. We tromp up the back stairs. Victor opens the door and allows me to go first.
Rachel is stirring something on the stove. She smiles, happy to see us, then immediately frowns.
“Milkshakes? Before dinner?”
Victor speaks as if the kitchen were filled with people. “Everyone’s always saying we need to bring back the good old days. Well, sis. Don’t you remember when we used to go for milkshakes after a rough day?”
Victor’s charm strikes again. Rachel visibly melts. “Aw,” she says. “Where’s mine?”
“Oh no, Rachel, did you have a bad day too?” I open my arms for a hug.
“Not milkshake bad,” she says. “But I’ll take that hug anyway.”
I bend my knees to make it easier, since I’m nearly as tall as Victor. Over Rachel’s shoulder I watch him turn off his cell phone and slam it into his briefcase, which he then kicks into the corner. He slumps into his spot at the table.
“Oh.” Rachel walks to the credenza in the dining room and retrieves a FedEx envelope. “I almost forgot, this came for you today, brother dear.” She lays the envelope on the table before moving off to her bedroom.
Victor scans the label; his eyes darken and turn wary. Rachel might just as well have laid a snake in front of him. He rolls his lower lip between his teeth, chewing thoughtfully. Finally, he glances up at me, making eye contact.
The effect is unnerving.
I don’t know what’s in that envelope. After his admission about the problems at his old job I would normally think it had to do with that. But his odd reaction to me gives me pause. Then something else pops into my head. It happened in such a strange moment that it was easy to sort of forget another recent incident with Victor and a FedEx envelope.
Emotions were running super high the day Victor showed up in my hospital room to tell me we had done it. Principal Roberts had been arrested and he confessed to murdering both my mother and Miss P.
Victor made a lot of promises that day.
He decided to come home and become part of the family with Rachel and me. He promised to take over teaching Miss P’s biology class with a forensic focus. He also promised to help find my father. To that end, he’d handed me a buccal swab for my mouth and instructed me on how to move it around and scrub vigorously to get the best DNA cells. When I was done, I handed the swab back to him. He dropped it into a tube, sealed it, and then dropped that into a FedEx envelope. He’d said he was sending it to his former lab at the FBI.
And here’s the thing. Not five minutes later, I looked out the door of my hospital room and watched Victor, at the nurse’s station with his back to me, swab his own mouth and drop that tube into the same FedEx envelope with mine.
I didn’t know what it meant then … and I still don’t exactly. But
his actions strongly suggested that Victor thought he could be my real dad.
At the time, I was all fluttery about that notion. Biggest fan discovers legend is her father. Seriously, this is the stuff those “girl finds her destiny” stories have.
But today feels different. And it’s not because my feelings for Victor have changed. They haven’t. He’s still a legend.
I’m just not sure how I feel. I mean, it’s not like I don’t want Victor to be my dad … and it’s not like I do want him to be, either. Having my actual dad in the picture threatens to change everything.
What happens to Rachel then? She’s my legal guardian and my mother in every way. But she never actually adopted me.
I want to know, I guess … I just don’t want anything to change.
Principal Roberts confessed to killing my mom and Victor confirmed that man wasn’t my father. That settled the most important fact for me.
Not sure what the next step is in my need-to-know-who-Erin-is epic.
Victor and I are locked in a stare-down across the table. My thoughts are racing, so his probably are too.
Suddenly, Spam bursts in the back door and breaks the spell.
Victor and I blink at each other, then turn to look at her.
She waves her finger between the two of us. “Are you guys doing that who-blinks-first thing?”
“What? No,” I say. “Why?”
“Because that’s what it looked like when I peeked through the window.”
“You peeked through our window?” I say.
“Well, yeah,” she says. “I always look before I just barge in.”
“And there’s a reason for not knocking?” Victor asks.
Spam waves her hand. “We almost never do that.”
I try to focus on Spam but my mind is on Victor and the FedEx envelope. As if he can read my thoughts, he taps it on the table. Then, with steps that seem heavier than normal, he walks the stiff cardboard envelope back into the dining room, where he sets it in a prominent place on the credenza.
“You’re not going to open it?” I ask.
“What?” Victor looks startled.
“Never mind.” I drop the subject. But I can’t help wondering what does that mean?
To Right the Wrongs Page 4