Deadly Pasts (Agent Nora Wexler Mysteries)

by CR Wiley

  Before Nora could respond, Lauren was all over it.

  “But it wasn’t those things. Maybe I did say, “Oh my God, yes, Preston,” on camera, but that didn’t mean I was in the right state of mind to give consent. The nurse at the health center said I was ridiculously drunk. I never agreed to any of what happened!”

  She was getting upset and Chip reached out to take her hand. He had a great manner of working with her. A teddy bear couldn’t have been so soothing.

  “Your desire to see him punished for what he did wrong is exactly why we should focus on presenting a case for attainable, credible charges. Arguing against Preston about the consent would’ve been a winnable battle before, but with this video you’re essentially being forced to argue against yourself,” Chip said.

  “There are other things about that video that disturb me,” Nora said, finally focused enough to contribute. “It’s been carefully edited not just to focus on that one key phrase but also to crop out any nudity that might get it taken off the web. Someone wanted this to stay up and cause maximum embarrassment, and I doubt it was Preston, who was in the video.”

  “It was probably those frat guys. I do remember them handing me drink after drink with sleazy grins on their faces. I should’ve known better than to put myself in that position, but that doesn’t excuse what they did,” Lauren said, crossing her arms. That gave Nora an idea.

  “The video also cuts out the faces of the people standing around the room. You can see a couple pairs of jeans in one corner. Maybe those people were also taking pictures or videos? That could show someone else assaulting Lauren, giving us the proof we need,” she said.

  Lauren and Chip nodded in unison.

  “That’s excellent, Nora,” Chip said. “Instead of letting this video cripple our argument, we need to use it to push the review board in another direction. Since Preston will be defending himself in the hearing, we’ll have a great opportunity to see if he recorded anything that indicates other people were directly participating in the attack. The frat and the football team have done a remarkable job keeping quiet about what really happened and who else was involved, but there’s a good chance they’ve been less careful with their data.”

  Although the idea to get the Disciplinary Review Board to confiscate Preston’s phone should’ve created a note of optimism, Lauren covered her face and began to cry.

  “It’s just so wrong,” she whimpered. “What kind of people would stand there and watch that happen? It’s disgusting, but they’re going to get away with it too.”

  “Hey, we’re going to find a way to make this right. I promise you that,” Nora said, putting her hand on Lauren’s back and exchanging a brief concerned look with Chip.

  “I’ve spoken to the district attorney’s office about this and got word about their intentions. They’re willing to pursue the case only if the Disciplinary Review Board places some level of guilt on Preston. Even if they find endangerment, the DA might press charges on behalf of the state,” he said.

  That put even more pressure on them to get a good result in the hearing.

  “But what if they don’t find any guilt because of the video? The district attorney will figure it’s hopeless and turn a blind eye to the whole thing?” Lauren wondered.

  Nora’s phone buzzed. She got up and left the room. It was bittersweet because she wanted to hear more about the situation with the DA, but she was practically shaking with anticipation over the results of the fingerprint scan.

  “Hi, yes, of course it’s Nora. This is a cell phone. Who else would be answering? Anyway, what did you find?”

  “We ran the fingerprints you got from Seanie Green and compared them to prints from the crime scene where Maria Correa’s body was found four years ago,” Officer Plevy said, taking a long pause that couldn’t have been any more torturous.

  “And?”

  “We ran it twice just to make sure, but there’s no match,” he said. Luckily there was a chair behind Nora, because she dropped right into it.

  “But are you really sure? There must be some mistake. He is the one who took Maria away the night she was killed,” Nora said. She could hear the desperation in her own voice. It felt like her chest was going to explode.

  “That might be so, but we’ve got a clean set of prints from both your paper and the murder weapon, and we are forced to draw the conclusion that Seanie Green never touched it.”

  “But…” Nora said, trailing off as her mind twisted into knots. The thought felt like a drill inside her mind. Seanie Green didn’t kill Maria, and I have no idea who did.

  “We realize this is unfortunate news,” Plevy said, but his sympathy rung hollow.

  “Are you still going to talk to him at least, bring him in and see if he knows anything?” Nora asked. “He might have had an accomplice.”

  Plevy hesitated to answer, nearly pushing Nora over the edge.

  “Do you have any indication of a motive for this guy?”

  Nora sighed and tried to think.

  “It might’ve been out of competition for the internship. It is competitive and prestigious,” Nora said, but the obvious hole in the argument was too big to ignore. “But it is a huge program and getting rid of one person wouldn’t have made a difference.”

  “Uh-huh,” Plevy said. “We’ll put it on our list of things to do.”

  “What, are you saying you’re going to get around to it sometime when you’ve got nothing else to do? That is not acceptable,” Nora said, finding herself loathing the Berkeley Police Department more every day.

  “In due time. We’re taking this very seriously,” Plevy said, but it was another brush off. The call ended with Nora steaming in her chair, thinking about how she was going to have a talk with Seanie Green herself, but it was already getting late so it wouldn’t be today.

  Lauren dropped onto the couch next to her, and Chip came in as well. They must’ve been listening in.

  “I’m so sorry,” Lauren said. She had a big heart if she could spare any sympathy for anyone else.

  “It’s fine. This case has always been on life support. If he really didn’t do it and has no idea what happened, it’ll be a lost cause,” she said.

  Chip sat on the chair next to her. Fighting through these emotions would’ve been so much easier with her head on his chest.

  “If it makes you feel any better, you made it light years beyond what I thought you could. Tracking down this guy is a victory in itself,” he said.

  “I don’t think I could bear to tell Steph and Caroline about this, not until I’ve talked to him and he’s convinced me that whatever happened didn’t involve him killing Maria,” Nora said.

  “When are you going to do that? Unless it’s tomorrow or you’re going to chase him down over the weekend, you’d miss the hearing on Monday. I really could use your support there,” Lauren said.

  “Yes, I’ll have to track him down at work tomorrow,” Nora said, already bracing herself for more bad news.

  That night Nora had a dream about Seanie Green, the man with the perfect face masking the dark soul of a killer. She was together with him in some kind of bubble, talking and laughing with all the ease of a cocktail party. Suddenly she became aware that the bubble was sapping energy out of her back and that Seanie was controlling it somehow. His smile was mesmerizing, distracting. She fought but grew weaker and weaker, but in her flailing she saw that the bubble fed into Seanie and inflated his aura of happiness.

  As most dreams do, this one came an instant before Nora jerked awake to the sound of shattering glass. It was still dark, she was still half asleep, and most of her mind was still humming along the line of thought that the fingerprints were wrong and that Seanie Green had killed Maria, but she was lucid enough to gather that the sound came from downstairs.

  She tiptoed to the door and listened. Scraping and snapping noises echoed softly from downstairs. Someone was breaking into the house. Seanie Green must’ve known he was about to get caught. Even if he hims
elf didn’t kill Maria, he was behind it. Somehow he’d managed to follow Nora back to snuff her out in a last-ditch effort to protect himself.

  She grabbed the candlestick on the dresser and twisted the door knob, promising herself she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  Nora entered the dark hallway and checked the doors to the rooms where Steph, Lauren, Caroline, and Grady had slept.

  “What’s going on?” Nora heard Lauren say through the door.

  “Stay here. I’m going to check it out,” she whispered.

  “They’re coming for me. I know it,” Lauren said, an awful quiver in her voice.

  “Keep quiet and don’t let anyone in,” Nora said, swiftly heading for the stairs. She was running out of time if she was going to confront the intruder while he was still crawling through the shattered window. Her memory of which steps squeaked had faded, and she stepped squarely on a board that groaned like an old man getting out of a chair.

  She silently cursed herself as she descended the stairs. As far as she could tell, the living room was vacant. Crossing the living room floor clenching the candlestick, Nora turned to the dining room just as a dark figure tried to come through the other way.

  They collided and the sound of a gunshot ripped through the air. Nora might’ve checked her stomach or side to see if she’d been hit if she weren’t already struggling to untangle herself from the intruder, but no flash of pain held her back as she flailed with the candlestick to knock the man back.

  Nora managed to slam the man’s arm against the doorway, forcing him to drop the gun on the floor, but she missed with the candlestick and received a punch to the face for her inaccuracy. Nora could barely see the man she was fighting, but for a second she thought she could make out his dark eyes behind a black ski mask.

  It may well have been Seanie Green, but there was no way to know until she subdued him.

  The man shoved her back and attempted to pick up the gun, but Nora raced forward and slammed into him. Together they spilled back into the dining room and fell to the floor. Nora cocked her fist once he was on his back, but a horrific scream from upstairs distracted her. Another burst of shattering glass followed, then more yelling. Stephanie.

  While Nora hesitated, the man pinned underneath her managed to grab one of the chairs and swing it with enough force to knock her off. She spilled over and scrambled to get up, but the man displayed some impressive athleticism as he maneuvered onto his feet.

  Nora lurched onto the tipped-over chair to get her feet under her and prepare to block another move for the gun, but the intruder instead twisted back toward the shattered window, hurdled the sill, hit the porch’s white railing, and climbed over the side.

  By the time she picked up the gun—his gloves made worrying about fingerprints meaningless—and exited onto the porch, not even the faint sound of footsteps remained of himthe man she’d been wrestling with just moments ago.

  Stephanie was the one in real danger. Nora raced upstairs to her room and shouldered in to find her pregnant friend gasping for breath against the bedpost. The light was on, the room was a mess, and the open window was smashed at the top.

  “Nora,” Steph sputtered.

  “Are you OK?” Nora asked. Steph nodded, and Nora quickly ducked into the hall to check on the others.

  “What happened?” Caroline asked when they met in the hall. Grady was right behind her. “I’ve already called 911. When I heard that shot—”

  “It missed me. Lauren!” Nora called.

  The door to Lauren’s room opened, revealing that she was fine as well.

  “This is insane. Things like this don’t happen here,” Grady said.

  “They just did,” Nora said. “A man broke through a window in the living room to gain entry to the house. I went down and managed to get the gun away from him, but he escaped. He was wearing some thick black material over his entire body.”

  “Somebody who looked just like that came into my room after climbing the porch,” Stephanie said, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head. “I leave the window cracked a little for air, and he pulled it open and crawled in. He attacked me and I threw the alarm clock at him, but it went through the top of the window instead. When he got a sense that I was pregnant he turned and left. Coward. I’m not just eating for two; I’d beat him for two as well.”

  A sniffle from Nora’s right made her turn her head.

  “That proves it,” Lauren said. “Whether they were the football players or the frat guys, somebody was trying to get me for putting Preston up against the Disciplinary Review Board. Everybody hates me because they think I just want attention, but they don’t understand that it wasn’t just Preston who attacked me. I have glimpses in my memory of other guys, but even though it’s painful I try to think about it and still can’t tell who was doing what to me.”

  Caroline put her arm around her sister and the two touched heads. Nora didn’t know what to think. If Seanie Green brought the accomplice who killed Maria with him, that would explain the pair of intruders, but there was no way to know for sure.

  It took another ten minutes for the police to arrive, which infuriated Nora. The man with the gun could’ve wiped them out and been on his way to Mexico by now. One of the officers turned out to be Officer Plevy.

  “There was a bar fight across town that tied us up,” he said. Nora knew better than to think such a distraction was a coincidence, mentally adding a check in the column supporting Lauren as the target.

  Together they checked everything: the porch, the broken windows, the living room, the upstairs bedroom, the gun. There wasn’t a drop of blood, sweat, or even so much as a hair anywhere. All of it had Nora fuming. She didn’t get much sleep the rest of the night, jumping at any sound in the wooden house.

  The next morning she drove back to Altec Industries in San Francisco, hoping that some innate sense would tell her when she saw him if Seanie Green was the one she’d been fighting with only a handful of hours earlier. Either that or he’d look exhausted from his nocturnal activities or do something obvious like not even show up for work.

  If that didn’t work, she’d have to find another way to prove he murdered Maria.

  Entering the Altec Industries building, Nora brushed right by the old men at the desk and went to the elevator. The last thing she was going to do was let him have a chance to prepare a defense.

  She got in the elevator alone, which stopped at the second floor. Her time to prepare anything was cut radically short when Seanie Green stepped in and took a spot next to her, facing the door. Nora wondered if he recognized her, but he kept his head down as the elevator doors closed. As soon as they started to ascend Seanie reached for the buttons and stopped the elevator. He turned and looked right at her. She couldn’t help but return the gaze. His eyes were dark and his body size seemed right, but he didn’t seem particularly exhausted. Her sense didn’t give her anything conclusive about whether he was the one she was with in the dark. Seanie Green looked as handsome as he did the last time she saw him.

  “You looking for directions again?” he asked.

  The elevator felt a lot like a bubble. She was trapped with him, left with no other option but to push the issue.

  “Where were you last night?” she asked.

  “At home,” he said. Nora pursed her lips.

  “What were you doing at home?”

  “It depends on what time.” There was no hesitation, no fear in his voice.

  “What about between twelve and two a.m.?”

  Seanie squinted and took a tiny step toward her. Nora didn’t budge an inch, because there wasn’t much more than that separating her from the wall of the elevator.

  “I remember you from that night,” he said. Nora’s eyes widened and her lips parted slightly. “When you came before I wasn’t completely sure, but as soon as I saw you again there was no question. I know why you’re here.”

  “And why’s that?”

  Seanie Green swallowed and adjusted his
tie. Maybe he was starting to feel the heat.

  “You think I killed Maria Correa. You were there at that bar, Golden Beers I think it was called. I remember your reddish hair and your pretty eyes. I couldn’t help but sneak a glance at you.”

  “Did you?”

  “How couldn I not? Your eyes—”

  “Stop,” she said, putting her hand up. “I don’t give a flying monkey what you think of my appearance. You killed Maria, didn’t you?”

  Unflinching, Seanie stared back at her.

  “How can you ask me that question?” he asked. Nora opened her mouth to spit out a quick answer, but he didn’t give her the chance. “You already know I didn’t do it. Unless I’m giving you too much credit.”

  Nora paused and considered how to proceed. She needed to tread carefully. He had every reason to cloak himself in a lie.

  “You know the fingerprints didn’t match,” she said, but the way he blinked revealed she’d given him too much credit.

  “Is that what you were doing with those directions? That’s clever,” he said, cracking a grin. “I just figured you were close enough to the truth to know I didn’t do it, which I didn’t.”

  “Then who did? What happened that night after you left with her?” Nora asked. These were the questions that had been haunting her since Maria was murdered. Now she finally had a chance to ask them and get something close to an answer.

  “I don’t have the slightest clue who did. Maria and I went back to my place on the north side of town near Eunice Street, where I was living at the time. We talked for a while, had a few more drinks, started kissing, and just when we were about to go all the way with it she got a text. Everything about her changed. She left abruptly and I never saw her again,” he said.

  Nora was naturally skeptical, but on the chance there was something here she was ready to hear him out.

  “Maria’s phone was never found after her death. Do you know what the text said or who it was from?” she asked.