by Lis Wiehl
“Well, yes, but, Tony, I need to know what happened to her. I won’t bug anyone. I’ll just sit here in the corner. You won’t even know I’m here.”
Jensen snorted. “I’ll know you’re here.” He turned to Tony. “She and another woman reported finding the body, and she had to be handcuffed by the first responding officer last night because she flat-out refused to cooperate.”
“How long had that girl been on the job?” The words burst from Nic’s lips before she could call them back. “A day? I was just trying to make sure she didn’t screw anything up.”
“You can’t run a parallel investigation, Agent Hedges.” Jensen looked at her with narrowed eyes. “There is only one investigation. The official one. The one being conducted by Portland Police.”
Tony’s head swiveled back and forth as they argued.
“How do I know you’re going to consider all the options? Including the idea that Cassidy might have been killed by her abusive former boyfriend, who also happens to be a Portland cop?”
Tony’s eyebrows went up. Still, his voice rose over both of theirs. “Look, I don’t really know what’s going on. But it’s my call as to who observes, Nicole. And I’m sorry, but if this isn’t your case, it’s not appropriate that you’re here.”
She could argue, but what would it get her? If worst came to worst, Jensen or even Tony would get on the phone with Lincoln Bond, the new special agent in charge of the Portland field office, and have Bond order her out. That wouldn’t exactly start things off on the right foot with her new boss.
She was fighting a losing battle.
Nic held her hands up in surrender. “All right, I’m going, I’m going.”
As she braved the already blazing sun to walk back to her car, she finally remembered where she and Jensen had crossed paths before. Eighteen months earlier a joint task force had been looking at the illegal drug trade in Portland. Nicole and Jensen had sat around the same table two or three times.
Then Jensen started investigating the death of a Mexican American found shot to death in downtown Portland. Roberto Delgado had taken one in the head and one in the heart, both at such close range they left powder burns.
It wasn’t a murder. It was an execution.
But it turned out that Delgado had been a federal informant, killed before he could testify in a drug smuggling case. The FBI took over the case from Portland Homicide, but they had different priorities. Rather than focusing on solving a single murder, the FBI wanted to connect the dots and clean up a drug-trafficking web that stretched from Portland to Central America.
They were going after the big fish. If the little minnow who actually pulled the trigger on Roberto Delgado was caught along the way, fine—but only after he led them further up the food chain. What was catching one bad guy, when there were so many out there? And the victim had not been a shining beacon of innocence, as Nic had pointed out. Jensen had protested, but had been told he was serving a larger justice.
And soon after that, he asked that someone else from PPB be appointed to the task force.
When Nic’s cell phone rang around one o’clock that afternoon, the display showed a number she didn’t recognize. When she said hello, she wasn’t completely surprised to hear Tony’s voice.
“Do you know who this is?”
“Yes.” There was no privacy in her cubicle. Nic walked down the hall and out into the stairwell. She leaned against the wall.
“This is all strictly off the record—do you understand me?”
Autopsy results were not a matter of public record in Oregon, so Tony was really going out on a limb calling her. But they had worked closely on a number of cases and had come to respect each other. Nic wondered where he was calling from. She bet it was a pay phone nowhere near his home or office. It was what she would do in his place.
“Okay, we weren’t able to establish an exact time of death. We know she was probably alive when you got a text from her. Of course, it’s possible someone could have used her phone. But assuming it was her, there are still too many variables to pin it down. Just her being under the sink with the door closed could have changed things, because the air wouldn’t have been circulating around the body. She could have died any time between when she was seen leaving the television station at six twenty and when you found her body shortly before nine.”
“All right.” This was no surprise. “And?”
“There were fingertip-shaped contusions under her chin, and her airway had been compromised. There were no defensive wounds or marks, and nothing under her nails.”
“So she was strangled from behind.” Nic wondered why she hadn’t fought. That didn’t sound like Cassidy. “What about the blood?”
“That was from a sizable penetrating wound in her chest. The blade was about three-quarters of an inch wide, not quite an eighth of an inch thick, and, based on penetration depth, at least four inches long. It was a single-edged blade, not serrated. All of that’s consistent with the knife found at the scene.”
Allison had told Nic about the knife.
“So which was the cause of death?” Nic asked. “The strangulation or the stabbing?”
“Well, even considering the bloodletting on the clothes and the blood on the floor—that could have been from the way she was crammed in that cabinet, with her head and chest slightly elevated from supine . . .” Tony’s voice trailed off. “It was hard to tell, but there might have been some reactive hemorrhage around the wound. But I’m thinking it was a perimortem strangulation and a postmortem stabbing.”
Nic put it into English. “So you think she was strangled and then stabbed after she was dead?”
“It’s just a guess. I’m listing both as causes of death. The stab wound would have been enough on its own to be fatal. It nicked her aorta. There’s no evidence she was moving when she was stabbed, though, so she was quite possibly already unconscious or deceased. Maybe the killer just wanted to make sure she was dead.”
Nic took a shaky breath. It was bad enough to think of Cassidy being strangled—but to suffer both . . . “I hope you’re right that she wasn’t awake to feel it. For her sake.” Nicole’s own heart was beating so loudly she could hear it in her ears. “How long would it have taken for her to die?”
“Not long. A few minutes. Once you deprive the brain of oxygen, everything starts to fail. She would have passed out before she died.”
A few minutes probably had seemed like an eternity. Nic just hoped Cassidy had lost consciousness quickly.
She leaned her forehead against the cool concrete wall. “Was she sexually assaulted?”
“The rape kit was negative.” Tony took a deep breath. “There was one other noteworthy thing about the body.”
“What?” Nic suddenly knew this was why he had called her.
“We found a circular abraded and contused pattern on her wrists. It suggests she was restrained. My best guess is with metal handcuffs.”
Metal handcuffs.
Just like the ones Portland police used.
CHAPTER 10
Cassidy’s turquoise blue eyes looked directly into the camera. “While I was dating my ex-boyfriend, I felt so isolated. I was in the public eye, but it felt like I was cut off from everyone. Over time, my self-esteem was completely destroyed.”
Her gaze was unwavering as she lifted her chin. “My ex-boyfriend manipulated me and got under my skin. He took every grain of confidence I had. He called me names. He belittled me. And eventually he began to hit me. He also isolated me from my family and friends. And it was the emotional manipulation that took longer to get over than the bruises.”
Cassidy took a deep breath. “I am speaking out about my experiences to help any of our viewers who are being hurt and who hear this broadcast. You need to know that you don’t have to live in pain and isolation. You are not alone. I have stood in your shoes, I have walked the paths you are walking, and I managed to come out on the other side. I’ve reclaimed my life, and you can too.” She no
dded once, her expression serene, not quite a smile.
And with that, the clip of Cassidy Shaw on YouTube came to an end.
Allison reached her fingertips toward her computer screen, stopping just short of touching the hard plastic. “Oh, Cassidy,” she murmured. Hot tears filled her eyes, and she was crying again. Crying so hard she worried someone might hear her through her closed office door. She pulled another tissue from the box.
That morning she had finally fallen asleep just as the sun was rising. When she woke around nine, the oppressive heat flattening her to the mattress, at first all she knew was that something bad had happened. For a second, Allison had the luxury of not remembering exactly what it was.
And then it came crashing down on her. Cassidy was dead.
Unable to eat breakfast, she had managed a few sips of coffee, thankful that Lindsay was still sleeping and Marshall was already at work. He’d left a note saying how much he loved her and suggesting she take it easy. She’d paged blindly through the paper without focusing on the headlines. The story about Cassidy’s murder was brief, headlined Woman’s Body Found, Foul Play Suspected. It didn’t mention her name.
Later in the morning, her head throbbing, swollen eyes hidden behind dark glasses, Allison had gone to work, thankful she wasn’t scheduled to be in court. She spent most of the morning sequestered in her office, fending off a blur of people saying they were sorry. Even with little in the paper, details about Cassidy’s murder seemed to have spread like wildfire throughout Portland. In a city where most killings were the result of domestic violence or gang members targeting other gang members, in a city filled with thousands of young women trying to make it on their own, the inexplicable murder of a well-known reporter was a shock.
Allison’s coworkers were solicitous—and curious. There were only so many ways to respond to their questions and awkward condolences. She wanted to hold Cassidy close in her thoughts—the real Cassidy, warts and all—but the more Allison talked about her, the more she became a simpler and slightly smaller version of herself, more fit for public consumption.
Through a blur of tears, Allison stared at Cassidy’s image, frozen on the screen. Could Rick McEwan really have murdered her for dragging his abuse out into the open? In the middle of the night, seeing that text from Nicole, Allison had been half convinced it was possible. Now, in the bright light of day, the idea seemed a stretch.
She got up and paced the office, thinking it through one more time. Everyone in Portland had known that Rick was dating Cassidy. He had liked to show her off. So when she came out with her accusations, his ego must have been bruised. Maybe more than bruised. But was Rick the kind of man to bide his time for a year?
This high above the city, the freeway sounded like a distant river. Allison was cocooned away in her office, cut off from the heat and sweat of the day. The pale blue walls behind her never witnessed raised voices. By the time the crimes she prosecuted reached her, they had been leached of emotion. Even the color photos of the horrific aftermaths were all neatly closed up in binders.
Pausing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, Allison squinted in the bright sunlight. The steel-gray Willamette River was directly underneath her, cutting through the heart of the city. On the other side of the river, the city stretched for miles in an orderly grid. Mount Hood, pictured on a thousand postcards, loomed in the background, snowcapped even at this time of year. She had spent enough years with the spectacular view that now she seldom focused on it.
But Cassidy would never see it again. Allison remembered how her friend’s eyes, dull and fixed, had stared out from under the kitchen sink. Stared at nothing. Cassidy would never see anything again, beautiful or ugly.
On Allison’s desk, her cell phone buzzed. She walked over, ready to dismiss the call, but saw that it was Nicole and snatched it up instead.
“Where are you?” Nicole said without preamble. “We need to talk.”
“At work, but I’m pretty useless. Why? Is there something new about Cassidy?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you.”
Fifteen minutes later there was a knock on the door. After Allison called out that it was open, Nicole nudged the door open with her hip. In one hand she held a white paper Starbucks cup that looked a foot tall, and in the other a second cup that was only slightly smaller.
Dan Wilcox, Allison’s boss, was walking past, and he glanced over at them curiously. That morning he had expressed his sympathies and told Allison to “take as much time” as she needed. But he had been fiddling with a pen when he said it, and he hadn’t met her eyes.
Nicole closed the door and handed Allison the second cup. “Here. You probably need this. I’m guessing you got just about as much sleep as I did.” Only in an air-conditioned office did hot coffee on such a hot day make sense, but Allison took it gratefully. Nicole continued, “I was at the autopsy today.”
“You watched? How could you stand to?” The few times Allison had witnessed autopsies she had gotten through them by pretending she was watching a particularly grisly movie—detailed but ultimately fake. And those times the bodies had all belonged to strangers.
“Actually, I didn’t.” Nic sat down. “Jensen turned up and wouldn’t let me stay. He even threatened to go to Bond about it. Since I haven’t even had my one-on-one with him yet, I didn’t protest. I have a feeling that wouldn’t get things off on the right foot.”
“I hate to say it, Nicole, but if Jensen showed up on a case of ours and started acting like he didn’t trust us to get it right, we’d kick him out too. This is a job for PPB. Not us.”
“Do you really think that?” Nicole snorted. “Tony called me just a little bit ago. Off the record.”
Allison blinked in surprise. “Why?”
“He said they found bruises around Cassidy’s wrists. The skin was practically rubbed off in places.” Nicole circled one wrist with her finger and thumb, then turned it back and forth before grasping the other wrist and repeating the motion.
Allison’s scalp prickled. “Handcuffs?”
“Exactly. Now, who do you know who carries a pair of handcuffs on his belt every day?”
Allison ignored the question. “What was the cause of death?”
“She was strangled first and then stabbed. It’s possible she was still alive when she was stabbed.”
Cassidy, struggling to breathe. No way to defend herself. Her hands locked uselessly behind her back, wrists bruising as she writhed in desperation.
“Handcuffs aren’t the only things Rick has on his belt,” Allison pointed out. “If it was him, then why didn’t he shoot her?”
“And have the ballistics match? Rick’s too smart to do something that dumb. Besides, this feels personal. Killers who strangle their victims feel them die.”
Nausea bubbled up in Allison, and she swallowed it back down. How could anyone stand to do that? “I don’t know, Nicole. Why would Rick kill Cassidy now? Things have been over between them for more than a year.”
“Maybe he waited until he figured no one would connect him to it. He’s not the kind to forgive and forget. You remember how he treated her. And what kind of incentive do the cops have for looking at Rick too closely? If they have a murderer on the force, they’ll never live it down. They were already mad at Cassidy for shaming Rick in public and then leaking that story about the smuggling at the jail. Do you think Jensen really wants to take a close look at his best man?”
Allison remembered the set of the detective’s jaw. “Jensen seems like a professional. I think he’ll be turning over rocks, even if one of them ends up having Rick under it. You really think he would let a killer go free to teach a dead woman a lesson?”
Nicole crossed her arms. “Cops tend to stick together.”
“So do FBI agents,” Allison pointed out. “So does pretty much any group. That’s what makes them effective, because they know they’ve got each other’s backs. But this is going to be a high-profile case, and they know people will be watc
hing.” Exhaustion crested over her like a wave. She raised the cup to her lips. “PPB knows they have to connect the dots and follow where they lead.”
Coffee normally smelled enticing, but today it just smelled burnt. Nausea thickened her throat. Allison hadn’t eaten since last night, and now the thought of those spicy shrimp made her hold herself very still for a few seconds, trying to decide if she was going to retch. Finally the urge receded. Swallowing hard, she set the coffee down and looked up to find Nicole watching her.
“Sorry. Just a little sick to my stomach. I’ve already drunk so much coffee I probably shouldn’t have any more.” She moved the cup to the far edge of her desk.
“Nauseated?” Nicole tilted her head.
“I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Allison and Marshall hadn’t talked about trying again for months. The idea of actually having a baby seemed more remote with each passing day. She wasn’t even disappointed anymore when her period showed up every fourth Friday, just like clockwork. She sighed. “Look, I get that you think it’s probably Rick. But we have to look at the other possibilities.”
“Oh, so it’s we now.” Nicole looked at her with hooded eyes.
“Come on, Nicole. No one is going to listen to us if we just have a gut feeling. We have to look at this logically. And looking at it logically, there are three choices. The first one is that Cassidy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it’s her bad luck that she’s the one who ended up dead. That covers a botched burglary. Or even a serial killer who likes blondes.”
Nicole wasn’t buying it. “I pulled up the crime reports this morning. There haven’t been any recent burglaries or break-ins in the area. And there’s been no unsolved murder with a similar MO anyplace in the Pacific Northwest.”
“Okay, then there’s the second choice,” Allison said. “It could have had something to do with who she is. Something personal. That means not only Rick, but any other past or current boyfriend.” She thought of something. “Was she sexually assaulted?”
