by BJ Bourg
“I didn’t say all of that,” she said quickly, reaching out to touch Orrin’s arm. “We just had a fight this morning. I said all that stuff in anger. I love you, Honey. You’re the man for me. I never lost sight of that.”
Orrin sneered. It was an ugly one.
“You’re not fooling me, Gina.” He folded his arms across his chest. “If that asshole would still be alive, you would’ve gone all day without talking to me. Late this afternoon, long after you were due back home, you would’ve called and given me some ultimatum. You would’ve threatened not to come home if I didn’t abide by your new rule. You know I would’ve given in and let you back in the house, because it would’ve driven me crazy thinking about you spending the night with that asshole.”
“No, Orrin, I swear—”
“Shut your mouth,” he said sternly, but quietly. “Everything’ll be different from here on out. We’re playing by my rules now. I’ve got the upper hand for a change.”
Before Gina could say another word, Orrin said loudly, “Well, Baby, I have to get back to work. Those tires won’t change themselves. Call me if you need a ride home.”
He then turned and walked abruptly out of the interview room, leaving Gina staring after him with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
CHAPTER 6
The Law Office of Ralph Plant
“Clint, come here quick!” Amy hollered from the conference room. “You’ve got to see this!”
I had been dusting the floor in the hallway searching for shoe prints when Amy called out to me. Getting nowhere, I gathered up my kit and headed for the sound of her voice. I found Amy squatting beside the conference table studying the back of the laptop.
“What’d you find?”
Without answering, she spun the open laptop around so I could see the top. She turned on her flashlight, held it at an angle to the dark surface, and then pointed to several specks.
“That’s blood,” she said with confidence. “There’s blood spatter on the lid.”
I nodded slowly as I processed what she was telling me. I scanned the conference room.
“Is there blood anywhere else in this room?” I asked.
“Nope.” She pointed to the laptop. “Just on the lid.”
“Hmm…” I leaned back on my heels, not liking the implications. “If there’s blood spatter on the laptop lid, that means the laptop had to have been on Ralph’s desk when he shot himself, and it must’ve been closed.”
“Yup!” Amy said with a nod of her head. “If this is Ralph’s blood, then this laptop was in that room when he killed himself.”
“But how’d it get in here?”
“He certainly didn’t move it after he killed himself.” Amy removed her gloves and brushed a lock of blonde hair behind her ear before re-gloving. “What about Gina? What if she moved it when she got here?”
“That’s a possibility, but why would she do that?” I walked to Ralph’s office and aimed my flashlight at the desk. Any spatter that might’ve been present would’ve been drowned out by the blood that had poured from Ralph’s wound. I glanced idly over my shoulder and asked Amy if she’d called the coroner’s office.
“Yeah, they’re sending a pick-up guy,” she said. “He should be here at any minute.”
I heard what she said, but only barely. My mind was still on the note. There was something about it that bothered me. Amy could tell that something was on my mind, and she asked me about it.
“I’ve read lots of suicide notes,” I said slowly, “and none of them were written in past tense.”
“Huh?” Amy seemed confused.
“Ralph’s note was written in past tense,” I explained. “It was written as though he had already died. It might mean nothing, or it might mean that someone killed him and typed the note on his computer after he was dead.”
Amy’s mouth hung open. “You think he was murdered?”
I wasn’t sure what I thought at the moment, so I didn’t say anything. Something about the scene bothered me. I walked around the desk and tilted Ralph’s head so I could see the right side of his face. There was a sliver of a wound on his right temple, and it appeared a piece of projectile had punched through.
I aimed my light at the western wall and moved close to examine it. Amy recognized what I was doing, and she joined me. We inspected every inch of the wall, but there was no sign of a projectile having hit the sheetrock. I then turned my attention to the carpeted floor, and that’s where I made another important discovery. A section of carpet in the northwestern corner was smashed in the shape of a piece of furniture.
“A piece of furniture was moved out of here,” I proclaimed. “Something heavy was taken out of this room.”
Amy stood back and studied the indentation in the carpet. Her brow furrowed. “Holy smokes!”
“What is it?” I asked, following her gaze. That’s when it dawned on me that someone had moved the bookshelf from the northwestern corner of the room and shoved it into the northeastern corner. But why?
“Give me a hand,” I said as I pocketed my flashlight. “Let’s check the side of the bookshelf.”
She grabbed one side of the bookshelf while I grabbed the other, and we carefully slid it away from the wall.
“Damn, you were right—there’s a piece of copper jacket buried in the wood.” Amy pointed to a scar in the wood on the side of the bookshelf, and shook her head in awe. “How’d you know?”
“In order for this to be a murder, the killer must’ve stood on Ralph’s left side, which means the bookshelf must’ve been positioned on the opposite side of the room,” I explained. “The killer moved it to make it seem impossible for someone to stand on Ralph’s left side and kill him. The killer really wanted it to look like a suicide.”
Although I always treated every death case as though it were a murder, things would definitely change now that I knew this wasn’t a suicide. For one, instead of trying to determine why Ralph had killed himself, I now had to figure out who might want him dead. I knew I wouldn’t have to look far to find a long list of people who were happy to see this man gone, but I had to figure out which one of them disliked him enough to send him to the other side on their own.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” Amy demanded, shoving her fists into her hips. “You’ve got this strange look in your eyes.”
“It’s nothing.” I waved a hand in the air. “I was just trying to figure out who might be happy to see Ralph dead.”
She grunted. “I sure ain’t upset.”
“Precisely my point.”
She was about to utter a retort when we heard tires screeching outside. Main Street passed directly in front of the law office and we’d been hearing traffic all morning, but these sounds were coming from the parking lot. Someone was coming in hot.
Amy and I raced to the front of the building just in time to see the interior door to the lobby burst open. I immediately cursed myself for not locking the door behind me when I’d finished searching Ralph’s car.
A blonde-haired woman entered the hallway as though she was executing a dynamic entry, and she was heading straight for Ralph’s office. The woman wore flip flops and she had a man’s button-down shirt wrapped around her. If she was wearing shorts, they were shorter than the tail of the shirt, because it looked like she was naked under the button-down.
The woman didn’t even make an attempt to slow down when she saw Amy and me advancing toward her. Instead, she let out a guttural scream and told us to get out of her way, and she wasn’t very polite about it.
“I want to see him!” she screamed as we continued forward shoulder-to-shoulder, blocking her path. “Get the hell out of my way!”
The woman—apparently Ralph’s wife or mistress—took a clumsy swing at my face with the palm-side of her closed fist, but Amy brushed her arm away, spun her around, and then escorted the grieving woman roughly back toward the lobby.
“You can’t do this to me!” the woman screamed. “I have rig
hts!”
“Those rights went out the window when you took a swing at a cop,” Amy said sternly. “And if you don’t settle down, I’ll send your little ass straight to the detention center and make your day a whole lot worse than it already is.”
CHAPTER 7
Once Amy reached the lobby with the woman, she spun her around and dropped her into a chair.
“Are you gonna settle down or do I have to cuff you?” Amy asked, standing over the woman.
The woman’s red swollen eyes flashed, but she only shook her head and said, “I just want to see my husband. I want to know that he’s okay.”
I frowned inwardly, feeling bad for the lady. I knew how heart-wrenching it was to lose a spouse suddenly and tragically. It wasn’t quite as bad as losing a child, but it was a close second.
I sat beside the woman and put an arm on her shoulder.
“Ma’am, we’re so sorry,” I began slowly, “but there’s been a terrible—”
“So, it’s true?” she asked, her face twisted in horror. “He’s really gone? Ralph is really dead?”
I pursed my lips and nodded solemnly. “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, God!” The woman let out a sobbing gasp. “How could this be? How could this happen?”
I sat there quietly and waited while the woman cried into her hands. Amy left and returned with a roll of toilet paper. She handed it to the woman, who appeared grateful to have it. After tearing off a length of tissue and wiping her eyes, she looked over at me.
“What happened to him?” she asked. “Was it a heart attack?”
“Are you his wife?” I asked, not wanting to call her Kim unless I was certain.
“Yes.”
“What can I call you?”
“Oh, I’m Kimberly,” she said quickly, trying to compose herself enough to address me properly. “Kimberly Plant, but you can call me Kim. Ralph’s my husband.”
Kim stuck out her hand, which caused the flap from the man’s button-down shirt to fall open and reveal a thin, pink tank top and matching panties underneath. I quickly looked away and she pulled the flaps together in front of her.
“I’m sorry, but I jumped out of bed and came straight here as soon as I heard,” she explained. “I didn’t have a chance to dress appropriately. I just grabbed, um, I grabbed Ralph’s shirt and, um, I just pulled it on before I left.”
Kim choked up and grabbed for my left wrist with one hand while she dabbed tissues at her eyes with the other. As she sat there sobbing, she pulled at my silicone Remember the Fallen wrist band, stretching it and letting it pop against my wrist, and then doing it again and again. I knew the actions were reflexive, and I wasn’t offended one bit.
It took several minutes for her crying to subside again. When I thought she could answer a question or two, I asked her how she’d found out about Ralph.
“Gina called me,” she said in a quivering voice, still pulling on my wrist band. “She called about thirty minutes ago and said she was at the police station and that she had come into the office to find Ralph dead in his office. I asked her when this happened and she said it was before eight, so I asked why she waited this long to call me. She didn’t have an answer, so I just hung up on her and got here as fast as I could.”
I knew Gina couldn’t have known that Ralph was shot—unless she was somehow responsible for his murder—so she couldn’t have offered Kim any details about his condition. To an untrained eye, Ralph was just slumped over his desk in a pool of his own blood. The pistol wasn’t in plain view from the door, and neither was the bullet hole in his temple.
I heard the humming of a vehicle approaching the front of the office. I knew that had to be the pick-up guy coming for Ralph’s body, and I did not want Kim to be there when that happened.
“Ma’am, we have to ask you some questions, but it’d be better if we did so down at the station.” I spoke in a soothing and sincere voice, genuinely sad for this lady. Despite the kind of man her husband had been, she seemed to be a nice person—at least, so far. I wasn’t bothered by her taking a swing at me or tugging on my wristband. She was in a state of shock and grief, and her actions were forgivable.
When Kim didn’t acknowledge what I’d said, I indicated Amy. “Is it okay if Detective Cooke drives you to the police department while I wrap up the investigation here?”
“Is it okay if I see Ralph first?” She looked me right in the eyes when she asked the question. Her blue eyes bore into mine, begging me for this one favor. She let go of my wristband and squeezed my hand. “Please!”
“Ma’am, trust me when I tell you that it would be better to remember him how you last saw him.” I shifted uneasily in my chair, recognizing the intensity in that stare. There was no backing down in this woman, this I knew, but I had to try. “I truly believe it would be a mistake if you went in there and saw him like this.”
“I want to see him.” Her jaw was set. Her nails dug into my wrist. There would be no dissuading her with words, and I certainly wasn’t going to physically remove her from the office if she insisted on going down that hallway. Sure, I’d do what I had to do to protect the crime scene, but at this point, there would be no harm in letting her walk down the hallway and peer inside the office.
I glanced up at Amy for some help, but she only shrugged.
“You and a dozen mules couldn’t drag me away from Baylor’s body if this happened to him,” Amy said. “She needs the closure.”
Kim nodded. “I need this. Please.”
I sighed heavily and stood to my feet. Kim let go of me and did the same.
“Follow me down the hall and don’t touch anything,” I said. “I’m gonna enter the office first and you’re gonna stop by the door and look inside. I can’t let you enter the room, because we have to finish processing the scene once Ralph’s removed from there. Can you agree to these terms?”
“Yes, I agree.” She swallowed hard, but didn’t move when I headed for the door to the hall. “Detective, how’d he die?”
“I wanted to do this down at the station…” I said, allowing my voice to trail off.
“I need to know before I see him.” She wiped a stream of tears from her eyes. “I just need to know what I’m looking at. It’ll help me process things better, I think.”
I didn’t like how good she was at negotiating. Without realizing it, she was playing on my soft side and getting everything she wanted. If I wasn’t careful, I might let her take the body home with her.
“Look, you have to understand that this investigation is in the infancy stages,” I cautioned. “We don’t know a lot at this point. What I can tell you is that initial indications were that he took his own life—”
“Dear God, no!” Kim clutched at her throat and her eyes widened. “He killed himself?”
“Like I said, those were the initial indicators, but I think someone staged it to make it look like a suicide.”
Kim stared unseeing for a long moment. I could almost hear the gears working in her head.
“If someone staged it to make it look like a suicide,” she muttered, mostly to herself, “then that means he was murdered.”
“I’m afraid so,” I said with a nod. “It looks like someone might’ve killed him.”
Kim didn’t say another word as I led her down the hallway. Amy followed close behind her, ready to grab the woman if she tried to make a break for Ralph’s body. I stopped when I reached the doorway to the office and turned toward Kim.
“Are you sure you wanna do this?” I asked. “It’s not too late to turn back.”
She just nodded grimly and faced forward.
I turned and took two steps into the office and stopped. I kept my gaze downward as I heard Kim shuffle into the room behind me. She let out a mournful wail and then spun sharply around and raced back down the hallway.
“I shouldn’t have done this!” she screamed. “You shouldn’t have let me see him!”
CHAPTER 8
Once Amy had left with Kim and
the pick-up guy from the coroner’s office had left with Ralph’s body, I completed my investigation of the crime scene. We hadn’t located any legible prints on the desk in Ralph’s office or on the table in the conference room, and we hadn’t located any shoe prints on the floor. It didn’t mean no one had walked in the building—it just meant their shoes weren’t wet when they did.
It was apparent that the bookshelf and all doorknobs had been wiped clean, because there wasn’t as much as a smudged print on any of the surfaces. I’d done a complete inventory of Ralph’s car, but still couldn’t find his cell phone.
Despite being sure of my crime scene abilities, I never minded a second or third pair of eyes looking over my work. Thus, I’d put in a call to the Chateau Parish Sheriff’s Office’s crime scene unit, and asked if they could send a team out to conduct a thorough inspection of the scene. In surveying the building, I’d found three exit doors, and only one of them could be locked from the outside, so it was here that I surmised the killer might’ve made his or her escape. When the crime scene techs arrived, I asked them to focus their energy on that area, hoping we might find DNA, prints, fibers, or other evidence that might lead us to the killer. I never ruled out finding the killer’s driver’s license at the scene, but that rarely happened in real life.
Amy had already recovered the laptop, spent shell casing, and bullet fragment as evidence, so there wasn’t much for me to pick up on my way out of the office. I thanked the crime scene unit and asked that they let me know if they found anything. One of the crime techs told me they’d transport whatever evidence they recovered to the state lab, and he assured me they’d submit their report within three business days.
It was almost eleven when I finally pulled into the parking lot at the police department, and my stomach was already growling. Amy had texted me earlier to say Gina was in Interview Room One and Kim was in Two, and she said she had ordered food for both women. She had asked if I’d wanted anything to eat, but I hadn’t been hungry at the time, so I’d declined her offer. I was now regretting that decision.
