Broken

by Karin Slaughter

  None of this mattered. Every second that ticked by gave Jason and Allison’s killer the freedom to move about freely, planning his escape or, worse, planning his next murder.

  Will glanced at Marty Harris. The man was still guarding the front door with his usual degree of thoroughness. Marty’s head was back against the wall, glasses askew. His soft snores followed Will up the stairs.

  Charlie knelt in the middle of the hallway, adjusting a fixture on top of a tripod. There were three more tripods spaced evenly across the hall, going all the way to the bathroom. Similarly Tyvek-suited men all adjusted gauges as Charlie told them to go up or down. They had been here for hours. Photographing the scene, graphing the measurements of the hall, the bathroom, Jason’s room, his desk and his bed. They had documented every item from the inside out. Finally, they had given Dan Brock permission to remove the body. Once Jason was gone, they had taken more photos, diagrammed more graphs, and finally started bagging any evidence that seemed pertinent to the case.

  Jason’s laptop was toast, soaked to the core. There was a Sony Cyber-shot with some provocative photos of Allison Spooner in her underwear. All of Jason’s schoolwork and notebooks seemed to be what you’d expect. His Dopp kit contained the normal toiletries and no prescription bottles. The strongest drug he had in the room was an expired bottle of Excedrin PM.

  Jason’s cell phone was more interesting, if not more helpful. The contacts list contained three numbers. One belonged to Jason’s mother. She wasn’t pleased to be talking to the police twice in one day about a son she apparently didn’t care that much about. The second number dialed the main switchboard to the physical engineering building, which was closed for the holiday. The third belonged to a cell phone that rang once, then announced that the voice mailbox was full. The cell phone company had no record of who the number belonged to—it was a pay-as-you-go deal—an expected revelation considering none of these kids seemed to have good enough credit to get a phone in their own names.

  Will assumed the cell phone with the full mailbox belonged to Allison Spooner. She had called Jason fifty-three times over the weekend. Nothing came in after Sunday afternoon. Jason’s only outgoing call had been made to his mother three days before he died. Of all the details that Will had discovered about the victims in this case, Jason Howell’s sad, lonely life was the most depressing.

  “Almost ready,” Charlie said, the excitement building in his voice.

  Will stared into the hallway, wishing he never had to see this place again. The dingy tan linoleum on the floors. The scuffed and dirtied white walls. Making it worse was the lingering smell of Jason’s body, even though the kid had been removed several hours ago. Or maybe it was all in Will’s mind. There were crime scenes he had visited years ago that felt like they’d left their mark on his nasal passages. Just thinking about them could evoke a certain odor or bring a sour taste into the back of his throat. Jason Howell would forever be trapped in the pantheon of Will’s bad memories.

  “Doug, move that a little to the left,” Charlie said. He’d divided the crime scene into three areas: the hall, Jason’s room, and the bathroom. They had all agreed that their best bet was finding something in the hallway. The group of assembled men hadn’t needed to articulate the problems associated with looking for DNA in a communal boys’ bathroom, but Will could tell none of them were looking forward to crawling around on that particular floor.

  Charlie tinkered with the light on the tripod. “This is the ME-RED I told you about.”

  “Nice.” Will had already gotten an earful about the extremely fascinating qualities of the Mobile Electromagnetic Radiation Emitting Diode, which as far as Will could tell was fancy jargon for a gigantic black light that had a longer range than the Wood’s lamps that had to be carried around by hand. The lights would pick up visible traces of blood, urine, and semen, or anything else that contained fluorescent molecules.

  For the traces that were less visible, Charlie and his team had sprayed the hallway with Luminol, a chemical that reacts to the presence of iron in blood. Crime shows had made the general public well aware of the blue glow emitted by Luminol when the lights were turned off. What they hadn’t shared was that the glow usually lasted around thirty seconds. Long-exposure cameras had to be used to record the process. Charlie had set these up on tripods in all four corners of the hallway and staggered more around the entrance to Jason’s dorm room. For good measure, he had tilted the security camera back down to capture it all in real time.

  Will stood at the mouth of the stairs, watching the team make last-minute adjustments. He wondered if the murderer had paused here on the stairs to psych himself up for the kill. It was all so premeditated, so well thought out. Enter through the back door. Push up the cameras. Go up the stairs. Weapons in hand. Gloves on. Plan ready: Incapacitate Jason with the bat. Drag him to the bed. Cover him with the blanket. Stab him repeatedly. Hide the blanket in case it contained any trace evidence. Go back down the stairs. Leave by the back door.

  Was it really as calculated as that? What went through a person’s mind before they went to someone’s dorm room, their home, and fractured their skull with a baseball bat? Would the killer’s pulse quicken? Would his stomach tighten the way Will’s did when he thought about the gruesome crime scene? There had been so much blood, so much brain and tissue, spattered around the room that Charlie and his team had been forced to make a grid so that they could clear a path to fully document the carnage.

  What kind of person could stand over that bed and methodically stab another human being?

  And what about poor Jason Howell? Lena was probably right that the killer had known Jason well enough to hate him. Despise him. What kind of trouble had the kid gotten himself into that he would become the object of such fury?

  “I think we’ve got it.” Charlie grabbed a handheld video camera and pulled Will toward Jason’s room. He told Doug, “Go get the lights.” Doug took off down the stairs and Charlie explained the plan to Will. “First we’ll see what the Luminol brings out, then we’ll go to the black light.”

  “Ready?” Doug called.

  “Ready,” Charlie yelled back.

  The hall went dark. The Luminol responded quickly. Dozens of small, elongated circles glowed blue just outside Jason’s open doorway. They were smeared where the killer had tried to wipe them up, but the pattern was easy to follow. The drops revealed his movements. After stabbing Jason to death, the killer had walked out of the room, heading toward the stairs, then changed his mind and doubled back toward the bathroom.

  “The original plan was probably to take the blanket with him,” Charlie said. He held the video camera low, documenting the drips. Will could hear the steady, slow click of the long-exposure cameras capturing the evidence.

  He asked, “What about this?” A larger stain, more like a puddle, was on the floor just beside the bathroom entrance. Three feet above it was a patterned mark on the wall.

  Charlie twisted up the LCD screen of the camera. Will saw the images in double as he recorded the luminescent blobs. “Our killer comes out of the room, heads toward the stairs, then he realizes the blanket is dripping. He goes toward the bathroom, but first—” Charlie pointed the camera toward the glowing stain on the floor. “He leans something against here. I’d guess a bat or a club. That’s the mark on the wall.” Charlie zoomed in close to the wall where the top of the weapon had rested. “Uh-oh, fingerprint.”

  Charlie got down on his knees and pointed his camera at an almost perfect circle. “Gloved, it looks like.” He zoomed in closer. The glowing dot started to fade. “We’re losing it.”

  The Luminol’s reaction time varied depending on the content of iron in the blood. The dot slowly disappeared, then the puddle on the floor was gone. Charlie muttered a curse as the hall was plunged back into darkness.

  Charlie rewound the camera to look at the print again. “He was definitely wearing gloves.”

  “Latex?”

  “Leather, I think. T
here’s a grain.” He showed Will the LCD, but the light was too intense for him to see anything but a blob. “Let’s see if it still shows up under the diodes.” He called, “Black light, please.”

  There were a couple of popping noises, then a steady hum. The hallway lit up like a Christmas tree, illuminating every protein-based fluid ever left here.

  “Impressive, right?” Charlie’s lips glowed a bright blue, probably from the Vaseline in his lip balm. He knelt down on the floor. The blood trail that had glowed so brightly minutes before was barely visible. “Our killer did a good job cleaning up after himself.” He took a few more photographs. “Good thing he didn’t use bleach or we wouldn’t be able to see any of this.”

  “I don’t think he planned to leave a mess,” Will said. “Our guy is careful, but the only things he probably brought with him were the weapons—the knife and a bat or club. He used the blanket on the bed to catch the spatter. He tried to leave with it, then like you said, he changed his mind because it was dripping.” Will felt himself smile as he remembered, “There’s a supply closet beside the stall where I found the blanket.”

  “You’re a genius, my friend.” They both went into the bathroom. Charlie flipped on the lights. Will clamped his hands over his face, feeling like his eyeballs were being stabbed.

  “Sorry about that,” Charlie apologized. “I should’ve warned you to close your eyes and open them slowly.”

  “Thanks.” Spots exploded in front of his eyes with every blink. Will put his hand on the wall so he wouldn’t trip over his own feet.

  Charlie stood in front of the supply closet with his video camera. “We can check the photographs, but I’m sure this door was closed when we got here.” His hands were still gloved. He carefully turned the knob.

  The closet was shallow, a metal shelving unit taking up most of the space. There was nothing unusual about the contents of the shelves: gallon jugs of cleaning products, a box of rags, sponges, two toilet plungers, a mop tucked into a rolling yellow bucket. Two spray bottles hung from a bungee cord on the back of the door. Yellow liquid for spot-cleaning stains. Blue liquid for windows and glass.

  Charlie documented the contents of the shelves with the camera. “These cleaners are industrial grade. They’re probably thirty percent bleach.”

  Will recognized the Windex label on one of the spray bottles. He had the same cleaner at home. It contained vinegar to help cut the grease. “You can’t mix vinegar and bleach, right?”

  “Right. It forms a chlorine gas.” Charlie followed Will’s gaze to the spray bottle. He laughed as he made the connection. “I’ll be right back.”

  Will let out a deep breath that he felt like he’d been holding for the last two days. Bleach glowed just as brightly as blood when sprayed with Luminol, obscuring any evidence. Vinegar, by contrast, formed a natural bond with iron, making it more visible when it was sprayed. That explained why the spots in the hall glowed with such intensity. The killer had used the Windex to clean up the floor. He might as well have drawn an arrow to the bloodstains.

  Charlie was back with Doug and another assistant. They worked in tandem, taking photographs and handing Charlie the brush and powder to check the Windex bottle for fingerprints. Charlie was methodical, starting from the top down, going from one side of the bottle to the other. Will had expected him to find fingerprints immediately. The bottle was half full. The janitorial staff must have used it. The closet wasn’t locked. The students would have access.

  “It was wiped down,” Will guessed. The trigger and the area around the grip were clean.

  “Don’t give up on me yet,” Charlie mumbled. The brush swept back and forth across the label. All of them knelt down as Charlie dusted the bottom surface.

  “Bingo,” Will whispered. He could see a partial fingerprint on the bottom of the bottle. The black practically glowed against the dark blue liquid.

  “What do you see?” Charlie asked. He took a flashlight out of his pocket and shone it on the clear plastic. “Holy Christ. Good catch, eagle eye.” He traded the flashlight for a piece of clear tape. “It’s a partial, probably the pinky finger.” He sat back on his heels so he could transfer the tape to a white card.

  Will said, “His gloves would’ve been bloody. He had to take them off to clean the floor.”

  Charlie stood up with Doug’s help. “We’ll drive this to the lab right now. I can wake some people up. It’ll take time, but it’s a good print, Will. This is a solid lead.” He told his assistant, “The other evidence is in the van. There’s a pill bottle in my tackle kit. Grab that, too.”

  Will had forgotten about the bottle in Tommy Braham’s cabinet. “Did you field-test the capsules?”

  “I did.” Charlie started down the hall toward the stairs. The black lights bounced off their white Tyvek suits. “It’s not coke, meth, speed, or any of the usual suspects. Was the kid into sports?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It could be a steroid or a performance enhancer. A lot of younger guys are using those to bulk up now. The Internet makes them easy to get. I sent some photos back to Central to see if they recognize the label or capsules. A lot of these dealers are into branding. They keep their labels consistent so their product gets advertised.”

  Tommy didn’t strike Will as interested in weight lifting, but he’d been a skinny kid. Maybe he wasn’t happy with that. “Did you find any fingerprints on the bottle?”

  Charlie stopped at his tackle box. He pulled out the pill bottle, which had been sealed in a proper evidence bag instead of the Ziploc Will had found in the kitchen. “I lifted two sets. The first was adult, probably male. The second was a partial webbing.” He indicated the skin between his thumb and index finger. “I don’t know if it’s male or female, but I’d guess whoever wrote those words on the label held it in her hands while she did. I’m saying ‘her’ because it looks like a woman’s handwriting.”

  “Can I keep the bottle? I want to show it around and see if anybody recognizes it.”

  “I already have some of the capsules in the van.” Charlie gave him the bag as they walked down the stairs. “You still want a lift to the Braham house? I think I can spare one of my guys to process the garage now.”

  “That’d be great.” Will had forgotten his Porsche was still at the Taylor Drive house. He checked the time on his phone. Knowing it was already past ten o’clock made Will feel even more exhausted than he had before. He thought about Cathy Linton’s dinner invitation and his stomach rumbled.

  Downstairs, Marty was awake by the door. He was talking to a large man who was his exact opposite except in skin color.

  “You Agent Trent?” The man slowly made his way over. He was built like a linebacker who’d gone to seed. “Demetrius Alder.”

  Will was too busy unzipping his clean suit to shake the man’s hand. “Thank you for cooperating with us today, Mr. Alder. I’m sorry we’ve kept you out so late.”

  “I gave Lena all the tapes. I hope she comes up with something.”

  Will assumed he would have heard from her hours ago if Lena had found anything of note in the security footage. Still, he told Demetrius, “I’m sure they’ll prove useful.”

  “The dean wanted me to give you his number.” He handed Will a card. “He had me check all the buildings. We didn’t find anything else. All the dorms are empty. Somebody’s coming to fix the cameras first thing after the holiday.”

  Will sat down so he could pull off the rest of the suit. He remembered something Marty had said earlier. “What about the car that was hit by the security camera?”

  “It was parked in the loading dock. Good thing it was empty. Camera busted straight through the hatchback window.”

  “Hatchback?” Will stopped worrying about the suit. “What kind of car was it?”

  “I think it was one’a them old Dodge Daytonas.”

  THE RAIN HAD TURNED into a light sleet by the time Charlie’s van reached the tow yard. Gusts of wind shook the vehicle. Water pool
ed in the parking lot. There was no way to get to the front door without getting soaked. Will felt his socks getting wet again. The blister on his heel was so raw that he was starting to limp.

  “Earnshaw’s,” Charlie said, and Will guessed he meant the sign glowing over the building. There was a whippet-thin older man standing in the doorway dressed in bib overalls and a baseball cap. He held the door open for them as they ran into the building.

  “Al Earnshaw.” The man offered his hand to both of them. He told Will, “You’re Sara’s friend, right? My sister’s told me a lot about you.”

  Will guessed that explained the man’s uncanny resemblance to Cathy Linton. “She’s been very kind to me.”

  “Sure she has.” Al bellowed a good-natured laugh, but he slapped Will on the arm hard enough to throw off his balance. “Car’s in the back.” He motioned them toward the door behind the counter.

  The shop was large, with the usual array of girlie calendars and posters of sexy, bikini-clad ladies washing cars. There were six lifts, three on each side. The tool chests were neatly lined up, their covers locked down tight. Al had turned on the propane heaters, but the cold was still biting. The roll-up doors in the back rattled from the wind. Allison’s Dodge Daytona was on the ground by the last lift. The back windshield was buckled in the center, just as Demetrius had said.

  Will asked, “Did you call Allison to let her know you had her car?”

  “We don’t call people when we tow them. Signs are up all over the school with our number. I figured the owner got a ride home for the holiday and we’d get a call when they got back and saw the vehicle wasn’t there.” Al offered, “Tommy’s Malibu is on the lot if you want to see it.”

  Will had forgotten about the young man’s car. “Did you figure out what was wrong with it?”

  “Starter was stuck again. He was crawling under there and hitting it with a hammer to get it unstuck.” Al shrugged. “I went ahead and fixed it. Gordon’s truck doesn’t have much more life left in it. He’ll need something to drive.” He took a rag out of his pocket and wiped his hands. The gesture had the hallmark of a nervous tic. His hands were as clean as Will’s.