Unforgivable

by Laura Griffin

  “You’re alphabetizing spices,” he said.

  “And?”

  “And it’s after three in the morning.”

  Sadness flickered across her face, and she glanced away. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  Ric knew the feeling. Sometimes he’d come home from a crime scene completely beat and completely unable to shut it down for the night. Some scenes were like that.

  A scene where he knew the victim was always like that.

  “Is it your case?” she asked, and the empathy in her blue eyes made him uneasy.

  “Yes.”

  “Were you the one to tell his wife?”

  “His wife’s dead.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Dead?”

  “Passed away about a year ago. Cancer, I think.”

  Mia bit her lip, then turned around to face the sink.

  He frowned at her across the kitchen as she turned on the faucet and stared at the water. “What is it?”

  “Nothing, it’s just—” She busied herself washing her hands. “I thought he was buying ice cream for her. I guess he was going home to an empty house. God, that’s so lonely.”

  Interesting comment from a woman who lived alone.

  She grabbed a dish towel off the counter to dab her eyes. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Ric watched her, knowing he should have waited until morning for this. She wasn’t in shape to answer questions right now. But murder investigations didn’t improve with age. He needed answers as soon as he could get them. He put his mug on the table, then pulled out a chair. “Sit down.”

  “Uh-oh.” She took a deep breath and sat, and he could tell she was relieved by the distraction. “Interview time. Are you going to tape-record me?”

  “I’ve got a pretty good memory.”

  He moved a wooden chair across from her and sat down. Their knees almost touched. He traced his finger over her thigh where blood had seeped through the flannel. “What’s this?”

  “It’s nothing. I got tangled in some barbed wire when I was running.”

  “When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

  She gave him a baleful look. “I work in a crime lab. I’m immunized against everything under the sun.”

  He leaned back in his chair and looked at her.

  “So, did you have a question?” she asked. “Because I’ve got a serious case of the jitters, and those spices are really calling my name.”

  “Did the perpetrator ever ask for your PIN?”

  She looked at him for a long moment. He could almost see her brain switching gears. “No.”

  “Do you think he saw you enter it when you were at the ATM?”

  “I don’t know. I keyed it in pretty fast. Why?”

  “It’s unusual, that’s all. You’d think he’d want it for later.”

  “I was sort of low on cash.” She cleared her throat. “My bank only let me get out three hundred, so maybe he figured I was broke.”

  “Are you?”

  She laughed. “That’s blunt.”

  “It’s just background.”

  “Yes and no.” She looked around. “I just spent every dime of my savings on this place, so I’ve got one big asset and very little cash. My grandmother would say I’m house-poor.”

  “It’s a nice place. You just move in?”

  “It’s been about two months. I’m still getting organized.”

  Ric glanced around the half-unpacked kitchen again, seeing it in a new light. She’d added a few personal touches—the Sierra Club calendar tacked to the wall beside the fridge, the flat-screen TV, currently muted and tuned to CNN, mounted in the breakfast room. The flowered wallpaper and white lace curtains, though— definitely not Mia.

  He was reminded of one of the many reasons he’d stopped calling her. This woman was nesting, big time, and Ric steered clear of women with that particular hobby.

  He met her gaze. “We’ve been tracking your debit card for the past four hours. So far, nothing. Often after a robbery like this, the perp hits every machine in sight.”

  “You’re assuming he has a PIN,” Mia said. “And you’re assuming he’s stupid.”

  “Not stupid, necessarily, but desperate. Also, your card has a credit-card logo on it. He could have stopped to try to buy something. Gas, beer, whatever. No hits there, either.”

  “I guess I should be grateful. All he wanted was my cash.”

  Ric watched her body language. The tension was back in her face and shoulders, and she held her arms crossed over her waist, as if talking about this made her nervous.

  Or maybe it was sitting with him in her pajamas that made her nervous. Their gazes locked, and a spark of heat flashed between them. And he knew he’d nailed it. Every time he got near her, he felt this buzz of sexual awareness. He couldn’t look at her without wondering what she’d be like in bed.

  “You think that’s all he wanted?” he asked, getting back to business. “Your three hundred dollars?”

  A little furrow formed between her brows. “What, you don’t?”

  He could tell by her tone that she didn’t believe it, either. What he needed to know was why she didn’t believe it. What clue had she picked up on—something he might have missed—that told her there was more to this than a money grab?

  She gulped and looked down at her lap. One of those corkscrew curls fell in front of her face. “I guess not. I mean, I know this sounds strange, but the money? It was almost as if it didn’t matter to him. Five thousand, three hundred, he didn’t really care, you know?” She rubbed the spot of blood on her pants. “And if that was all he wanted, why not just ditch me there in town and take my Jeep? Why make me drive all the way out to Old Mill Road?” Her eyes met his, dark and somber now. “I don’t think money was all he wanted. I think he wanted to kill me.”

  The words hung in the air as Ric watched her. He had a responsibility to two victims here: a murdered cop and a young woman who’d barely squeaked by with her life. It was time for him to shove aside his personal feelings and work the hell out of this case, because he intended to close it. Soon. Before Frank Hannigan was even cold in the ground.

  He stood up. “Thanks for your cooperation. We’ll be in touch.”

  She blinked up at him, as if not comprehending his brusque words. “That’s it?”

  “For now, yes. If your Jeep is recovered, we’ll give you a call, obviously.”

  She stood up now, too, and he could almost feel the chill settling over her. “Fine. Let me get your jacket.”

  She walked past him into the hallway, and he followed. She veered into the bedroom wing. He waited by the front door and noticed the keypad mounted beside it. The security system looked new, and she hadn’t gotten around to patching up the paint from when it had been installed.

  She returned and handed him his jacket. “There might be some blood on the lining. My hands were messy when I put it on.”

  She looked tired standing there. And sad, too. He took the jacket from her, fully aware that he could have offered her something more tonight—comfort, at least—and that he’d disappointed her instead.

  Get used to it, babe.

  She glanced up, as if he’d said the words aloud. She pulled the door open and stood back.

  “Set your alarm.” He stepped into the cold night and glanced up and down her street before looking back at her. “And try to get some sleep.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Mia ignored the circling buzzards as Sophie pulled into the Delphi Center parking lot and found a space close to the entrance. They were early, which meant prime parking. It also meant that Mia was starting what promised to be an extraordinarily challenging day on little more than two hours of sleep.

  “Looks like they’ve got a fresh specimen,” Sophie said as they crossed the lot.

  Mia didn’t look. She didn’t want to think about carrion birds or the fact that her workplace sat in the middle of a decomposition research center, better known as a body farm.

  “Y
ou sure you’re up for this?” Sophie gave her a concerned look as they hiked up the white marble stairs leading to the front lobby where Sophie had her desk.

  “I couldn’t stay home today. I’d go stir-crazy.” Mia unbuttoned her wool coat as they passed through a pair of tall Doric columns.

  “If you say so. Me? I’d call in sick and get some R and R, maybe watch a few talk shows, go get my toes done.”

  Mia shot her a look.

  “You seem stressed. That’s all I’m saying. And you should never underestimate the power of a good pedicure.”

  “Thanks, but I’d rather be here,” Mia said.

  Sophie pulled out her ID badge and swiped her way into the building. The security guard, Ralph, gave them a nod as they entered.

  Mia unwound her scarf and took a moment just to stand. She loved the lobby at this time of day. The morning sun cast shimmering white beams through the glass and elongated her shadow on the pale marble floor. Everything was quiet, not many people around. Those who were spoke in hushed tones, as if in church. To many of them, this place was a church, a sacred cathedral dedicated to science and technology, where the guiding idea wasn’t salvation but justice. Or salvation through justice, however you chose to look at it. Mia chose the latter, and she happened to know that some of her colleagues did, too. She didn’t know about everyone, of course. Some people probably just came here to earn a paycheck.

  Mia postponed a much-needed stop at the lobby coffee shop to swing into HR and have a word with the director of personnel. Then she purchased her sixteen ounces of caffeine and rode the elevator up to the sixth floor. The Delphi Center was an ivory tower, and DNA tracers worked at the top.

  Mia strode down the glass hallway, flanked on either side by impressive views—the rolling Texas Hill Country on one side, one of the world’s top DNA laboratories on the other. The short walk smoothed her nerves and made her feel right again. She could do this. She should be here. The Delphi Center had chosen her, and she had chosen it right back.

  Inside her office, she slipped on her lab coat and felt instantly comforted. She booted up the laptop computer on her slate-topped worktable and reviewed the notes she’d been making yesterday afternoon when her boss had summoned her down the hall for an Important Discussion.

  Case number 56–6229–12–16. Submitting officer Detective Jim Kubcek, Houston PD. The Delphi Center had been receiving a steady flow of evidence from Houston ever since its DNA lab had been shut down for grossly improper evidence handling. The scandal, uncovered by a TV reporter, had affected thousands of cases and resulted in a man being released from prison after serving years for a rape he didn’t commit. Mia saw the scandal as a tragedy not only for the wrongly convicted man and the rape victim but also for the entire criminal justice system in Houston. Once a community’s confidence in the system was shattered, it could take years or even decades to repair.

  Mia focused her attention on the case before her. Case 56–6229–12–16 was a sexual homicide, ligature strangulation. And it had been lurking in the back of her mind during the wee hours of this morning as her restless brain played out all the might-have-been scenarios.

  She picked up the phone and dialed Kubcek.

  “I’ve run the fingernail clippings,” she said, not bothering with pleasantries. Kubcek had left her daily voice mails for three weeks. The victim in this case was nineteen, and the detective had a district attorney breathing down his neck.

  “Any hits?”

  She heard the hope in his voice, that fervent wish that she’d called to deliver some glimmering bit of good news.

  “Unfortunately, no. All of the skin cells we recovered belonged to the victim.”

  A pause. He didn’t want to believe it. The killer had used a condom, and Kubcek had been counting on the nail clippings.

  “What about the blood?”

  “That was hers, too.” Mia scrolled through her typewritten notes, including those from the phone call she’d made to the evidence clerk downstairs. “You didn’t send me the ligature, though. I was hoping to examine that extension cord.”

  Kubcek sighed heavily. “It’s a dead end.” Another pause as they both ignored his choice of words. He cleared his throat. “The security camera at her apartment shows him wearing gloves going in and going out. We examined the hell out of that cord for prints in case he took the gloves off to, I don’t know, take a leak or something while he was in there with her. Came up with nothing.”

  “I’d still like to see it,” Mia said. “Any chance you could have it shipped up, say, by tomorrow?”

  “You got it already.”

  “I do?”

  “One of you does. I sent it up to that ligature guy. Clover?”

  “Don Clovis?”

  “There you go. Clovis. Vic’s mom helped her move into the apartment, doesn’t recognize the cord. We’re thinking the perp might have brought it with him, maybe had it stashed under his coat. Clovis is supposed to run it down for us, see if there’s anything unusual about it.”

  Clovis, like so many experts at the Delphi Center, had access to a mind-boggling assortment of databases— cord, rope, fibers, tape, cigarettes, auto paint. The tracers could track down the origin of practically any forensic evidence imaginable.

  “Mind if I call him and request a look?”

  “Hell, I’ll call him for you,” Kubcek said. “You really think you might get something?”

  Mia sensed someone behind her and swiveled on her stool. Her boss stood in the doorway.

  “I won’t know until I have a look. Ask Clovis to send it up here as soon as he’s finished with it.”

  Harvey Snyder was the head DNA specialist at the Delphi Center. Fortunately, he preferred to leave the real work to his underlings, which meant he mostly stayed out of Mia’s way. Less fortunately, he had a gold-plated résumé and some impressive connections in his field, which meant that he wouldn’t be leaving his coveted post anytime soon.

  “I presume you’ve been down to HR to inquire about your new badge.” He said it as a statement, not a question, and she felt a spurt of annoyance.

  Snyder stepped into her workroom and glanced around. He was one of those short, wiry guys who compensated for his size by puffing out his chest and flaunting his authority. Peering up from his desk yesterday, he’d reminded Mia of a weasel. But standing in front of her right now, he looked more like a meerkat.

  “I stopped by on my way in,” Mia said pleasantly. “They said they’d have a new one ready for me by the end of the day.”

  She met and held his gaze. If he’d come up here to admonish her yet again for misplacing her ID badge, he was going to be disappointed. Given last night’s events, she was well past the point of getting weepy-eyed over a reprimand from her boss.

  “I understand you had quite an eventful evening.” Now he sounded smug.

  Mia sighed inwardly. She hadn’t wanted anyone at work to ask about what happened, but of course, that was impossible. Her name had been kept out of the newspaper—a miracle she felt sure Ric Santos had played a part in—but law enforcement was a close-knit community that thrived on gossip. It was only a matter of time before everyone she worked with knew the identity of the unnamed “Delphi Center staffer” who was involved in yesterday’s homicide.

  “Are you sure it’s wise for you to be here?” Snyder asked. “You’re welcome to take a personal day if you’re feeling less than a hundred percent. I’d hate for your work to suffer.”

  Yeah, right. He’d love for her work to suffer. It would give him an excuse to get rid of her. As it was, he had nothing on her, so he’d made an issue of her one slip-up in two years at the Delphi Center: misplacing her ID badge when she went to the gym this week. Snyder had used her “reckless disregard for security” as an excuse to take her down a peg.

  “I’m perfectly fine,” she said. “One hundred percent, absolutely.” She replaced her eye shields, hoping he’d take the hint.

  Instead, he leaned a hand on the co
unter. “By the way, you’ll be getting a package up from Evidence soon. Three packages, actually, submitted by the San Marcos Police Department.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s a murder case. The DA called me Wednesday and specifically requested you for the analysis. I told her how backed up you’ve been”—as if the nationwide back-log of DNA testing was a result of Mia’s ineptitude— “but she insisted. Female solidarity, I guess you would call it.”

  Mia gritted her teeth. He’d sat on this for two days, no doubt to show the district attorney that he wouldn’t be pushed around. Forget about expediency. Forget that there were detectives somewhere waiting for these results and a victim’s family to consider.

  “I’ll get on it right away,” Mia said, hoping he’d pick up her meaning.

  “Good.” He nodded curtly. “See that you do.”

  Ric found her in the broom closet she called an office, a windowless room adjacent to the Delphi Center’s enormous DNA lab. Mia claimed she liked to work there because it was dark and she often used alternative light sources, but Ric suspected that in reality she was something of a hermit.

  She stood at one of her worktables, hair pulled back in a ponytail, eyes shields over her face. An overhead lamp shone down on the table as, with a latex-gloved hand, she manipulated an electrical cord. She braced her free hand against the table as she folded the cord over on itself and frowned down at it.

  “Practicing your Girl Scout knots?”

  She jumped back and clutched her hand to her chest. “God, don’t do that.”

  “Sorry.” He should have known she’d be jumpy today. “Just dropped by with your afternoon latte.”

  She pursed her lips and watched him. “Who let you up here?”

  “Sophie.” He set the coffee on her counter. “I told her I was stopping by to check on you, and she gave me a hall pass.”

  Her gaze dropped to the VIP visitor’s badge clipped to Ric’s dress shirt. He’d cleaned up finally and even managed to get a few hours of sleep. She looked as though she hadn’t had a wink.