Imperious

by C. M. Sutter

  “They gave me her primary doctor’s name, and I made the call myself. He said Becca never came to him for anything unusual as far as internal pain. She had colds, the flu, and a few sprains over her lifetime but usually no reason to see him other than sports physicals.”

  Lena closed the folder. “Maybe you guys are overthinking this. It is possible that texting while driving actually was what caused the accident.”

  Jack spoke up again. “The injured people and the families of the two who died when their cars caught fire are going to want answers. I’m sure there will be lawsuits, and the attorneys and insurance companies are going to need thorough autopsy reports.”

  “And they’ll get them. I know how to do my job, Jack. Now are we done?”

  I knew it was time to say what I was thinking, and I hoped my colleagues had my back. “Not yet, Lena. I have to say what’s really on my mind.”

  Over the next forty-five minutes, I explained to Lena how my dreams and premonitions had helped solve cases. Jack, Amber, and the guys substantiated everything I’d said. At first, she dismissed my claims, but as I gave her case numbers as proof, she seemed to listen with more curiosity.

  “So what do you want me to do, Kate? Pull every organ from Becca’s body, test it, send it out to another lab, or what?”

  “Close examinations of those organs would tell us if they were healthy or diseased, wouldn’t they?”

  “A visual exam along with microscope work should do it since her blood and urinalysis reports came back normal. So if everything is okay, what then? What caused those severe stomach pains you had the other day, a coincidence?”

  “Normally I’d have said yes until I had symptoms of a heart attack when I was near Daphne. If her heart is normal and looks healthy…” I paused, almost afraid to utter the words nobody had yet heard me mention.

  Jack raised his right brow. “Then what?”

  “Then I’d have to say both women were likely poisoned.”

  Chapter 23

  He drove home after exams and thought about that week. Women couldn’t be trusted, no matter what their age. Isabelle, the wife he’d loved dearly, was in her thirties, yet she cheated with college students fifteen years her junior.

  You did love your job, didn’t you, Isabelle?

  Becca and Daphne had only one thing in mind when it came to him—getting through finals week. He was a means to an end, and once they’d passed their exams, he’d be tossed to the curb like yesterday’s trash. He wouldn’t be needed anymore, and rejection enraged him.

  Tutoring didn’t help—the girls lacked focus and wanted the easy A. The only alternative was giving them passing grades for intimacy, and both women grew tired of his constant demands. They turned the tables on him and threatened to expose the secret arrangement to the campus counselors. Becca and Daphne were young and full of life, with other people and activities on their minds. He was of no significance to them, and he knew it.

  They had to pay, just like Isabelle did. I won’t be dismissed by the youth of today. I’m a man of substance and intelligence, and they should have felt privileged that I gave them my time.

  His eyes lit up as he recalled the way he’d killed each woman. Isabelle succumbed to a pulverized cyanide pill mixed in with her iced tea. Becca died from either botulism or the deadly castor bean, he wasn’t sure which, and Daphne drank a lethal dose of fentanyl mixed with her wine. He considered himself lucky and thankful to have access to those poisons and many more.

  I’m resourceful and a hell of a lot smarter than everyone in this town, and I know the cops will never figure it out.

  Chapter 24

  We were back in the bull pen by four thirty, and Lena had returned to her office to research my suggestion. I hoped she’d forgive my forwardness, but I was a cop and a damn good one. It was my job, as well as the job of my colleagues, to find out why these women had mysteriously died. It was Lena’s job to prove or disprove my theory, and I prayed I was right.

  Jack grabbed a pen from the cup on Clayton’s desk, a souvenir from his vacation to the Bahamas years back. He jerked his chin toward Chad’s desk drawer. “Hand me a legal pad.” He took a seat on the guest chair and scratched his cheek. “Okay, where are we so far?”

  “Billy Bachaus took Vince downtown and got his formal statement. Vince swears he doesn’t know anything and he’s sticking to his story, but the city boys are keeping an eye on him and getting a warrant to search his apartment.”

  Jack jotted that down. “And I interviewed Jennifer the second time myself. There’s got to be a reason her statement and Vince’s don’t match up.”

  Amber piped in. “Yeah, one of them is lying—and I’d venture to say it’s Vince. Or Daphne made up the story about feeling sick and went somewhere else that neither of them knew about.”

  “So she may have had secrets,” I said, “and there could be some merit to that. Maybe she was seeing somebody else. From what Jennifer said, Vince is a real creep.”

  Billings chuckled. “That’s an understatement.”

  “But if Jennifer was Daphne’s best friend, why wouldn’t she know about another guy in Daphne’s life?”

  Jack nodded at me and wrote that down. “Go interview her again. I want every friend of Becca’s and Daphne’s interviewed one more time. Relatives too. We have to ask the right questions, people. Was there a secret man in their lives? Were there skeletons in their closets? Was somebody blackmailing them, or vice versa, that sort of thing.”

  “They seemed too young to be involved in something that sinister.”

  Jack cocked his head. “Yet you’re the one who suggested poison.”

  I smiled. “Touché.”

  “What else?”

  Adam flipped through the pages in his notepad. “Normal medical results for Becca, and Daphne hasn’t undergone her autopsy yet. Dan and Kyle printed both cars but didn’t get any hits that were in the system. They didn’t find blood evidence anywhere either.”

  “Okay, I’ll call Becca’s parents and update them on her autopsy results. No matter what, we can’t release her body until we know definitively what the cause of the accident was.” Jack looked at Amber and me. “Did you ever get that press release written?”

  I smirked. “We started it, but now we have to add something about Daphne.”

  “Only give the press what we know—two deceased girls, unknown causes, ongoing investigation, yada, yada, yada. I’ll look it over before it goes out. What about the burn victim? Has anyone checked on his condition?”

  Clayton answered. “He’s in an induced coma—no interview for the foreseeable future.”

  “Damn, that doesn’t sound good.” Jack wrote that down and stood. “Okay, let’s talk to the witnesses at Becca’s accident again, and then we’ll wait to see what Lena comes up with.” He pointed at me. “Finish the press release”—he checked the time—“and then contact the witnesses from Becca’s accident. Tell them you’ll be interviewing them again tomorrow and set up a time for each one. That way you won’t be wasting your time chasing down people who aren’t available. Clayton, call Becca’s folks and press them about anybody that has been a nuisance to Becca or a new name she’s mentioned. Find out who her best friends in Tomah are too.”

  “Sure thing, sir.”

  Jack opened the top button of his shirt. “Damn, it’s hot in here. Billings, do the same with Daphne’s folks. Push them for information. After that, go home. I’ll update Horbeck and Jamison and task them with something that they can work on during the overnight hours.” He rapped his knuckles on Clayton’s desk. “Let’s finish out this day with something positive. We should know more from Lena when we get in tomorrow.”

  I sat at my desk with Amber at my side. “Which do you want to do, call the witnesses or finish the press release?”

  “I’ll do the press release.”

  I opened my desk drawer, pulled out what we had started, and handed it to her. “Jack?”

  He turned back. “Yep
?”

  “I need the witness statements with the names and phone numbers.”

  He tipped his head toward his office. “Come on in. They’re in my desk.”

  I followed Jack, and surprisingly, he closed the door behind me. I was sure my coworkers were already whispering.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Have a seat.” Jack exhaled and sat in his own chair. “Take it easy on Lena. She’s a little overwhelmed right now.”

  “And so are we, Boss. I’m actually trying to make her job easier by narrowing down the CODs.”

  “Why poison?”

  “Not to make light of the situation, but I do watch a lot of crime shows on TV. Many sudden deaths are attributed to unknown sicknesses, but once the correct tests are run, primarily for poisons, the real cause of death is exposed. Testing for poison isn’t part of the normal autopsy procedure, as you know, especially if the death itself doesn’t appear to be murder. The problem is, Lena can do the visual exams, but getting the results back from forensic toxicology testing can take a while.”

  Jack nodded. “That’s why I asked about poisons in particular. Toxicology tests can drag out, and meanwhile, we’re in a holding pattern without answers for the parents or the press. The university isn’t happy either. They’re getting slammed. The problem is, what if you’re wrong?”

  I stared at my lap. “I’ll accept the responsibility publicly. In the meantime, we can try to root out anyone who may have had a grudge against the girls. It’s somewhere to start. We need to dig into that while we wait for answers.”

  Jack tapped his fingers against his desk calendar. “Okay, go for it and do it aggressively. Nobody gets a pass—not friends, family, classmates, or the university staff. Everyone is on our radar until we’ve cleared them. If those girls were murdered, then we’re likely looking at the same person. Find the connection, and you’ll find the killer.”

  Chapter 25

  Jack’s words resonated through me during dinner that night. Find the connection, and you’ll find the killer.

  “And then with a swift kick to the face, I knocked Bigfoot senseless and saved Kate’s life. Right, Kate?”

  “Yep, that’s right.”

  Jade and Amber broke into a round of laughter. I stared at them with a blank expression. “What’s wrong with you two?”

  “What’s wrong with you? You haven’t listened to or joined in on a single conversation we’ve had since we sat down.”

  “Sorry, my mind is too full right now to add anything else.”

  Jade stood and cleared the table. “Apparently. You didn’t even hear Amber’s comment about Bigfoot.”

  “Bigfoot?”

  Jade swiped the air. “Never mind. You’re a lost cause.”

  “So what is it that’s taking up all the available space in your brain?” Amber dished up hot apple pie and passed around the plates.

  “Just what Jack said when I walked into his office to get the witness statements.”

  “You mean when he closed the door behind you and you had a secret conversation?”

  “Yeah, then. I mean, no—it wasn’t a secret.”

  “Then spill.” Amber winked at Jade as she took a bite of the pie. “Damn, this is good.”

  “He questioned me about being hard on Lena.”

  Jade coughed into her fist. “What did you do?”

  Amber cut in. “She accused Lena of not doing her job right.”

  I threw a piece of piecrust at Amber. Spaz scurried across the floor and munched it down. “Liar. I simply asked her to look at Becca’s organs closely and then check for poisoning.”

  “Poisoning?” Jade looked from me to Amber and then back to me. “Why?”

  “Because there’s no obvious reason either of the girls should be dead. It always turns out to be poison when nobody can figure out why somebody died.”

  Jade huffed. “Yeah, on TV. This is real life, Kate.”

  “And I had real symptoms that I believe to be clues. Most likely acute stomach pain in Becca’s case and symptoms of a heart attack in Daphne’s. So far, the autopsy results on Becca showed her to have normal organs except for redness and inflammation in her stomach and esophagus. Lena just thinks she had GERD.”

  “Maybe she did.”

  “My gut says otherwise—literally. You witnessed the pain I had during that nightmare. I don’t think GERD is that excruciating, and I know my heart is in tiptop condition except when I’ve been near Daphne’s body.”

  Jade gave me a somber look. “That’s really creepy.”

  “Yeah, I know. Try being on my end of it. We’ll find out more about Daphne in the morning, then Amber and I are going to start interviewing witnesses from the crash scene again. They have to give us more.”

  Amber scraped every crumb off her plate then licked her fork. “Clayton and Billings are going hard after every friend and family member. There may be somebody that we don’t know about yet who pissed off those girls.” She took our dessert plates into the kitchen and put them in the dishwasher. “Hey, you never told us what Jack said that’s taking up your brain space.”

  “He said if we find the connection between Becca and Daphne, we’ll find the killer. I’m thinking he’s absolutely right.”

  Later that night as I sat on the couch, I racked my brain to come up with connections between the girls. With Amber and Jade’s help, I wrote down everything I could think of. The girls went to the same university, and they might have had friends in common—that still needed to be checked out. They both took chemistry, meaning they possibly had the same professor. We needed to see if they were in any of the same extracurricular activities too. Did Vince have friends who knew Becca? The list went on and on. By the time I went to bed, we had compiled a list of fifteen additional things to work on tomorrow.

  I woke the next morning relieved that I’d had an undisturbed night’s sleep. I was sure Jade and Amber were relieved too. Amber and I needed to be alert in order to tackle the amount of work that faced us that day. I couldn’t wait to hear Lena’s report on Daphne’s autopsy. If her heart was healthy with no signs of abnormality, we’d be one step closer to ruling out a heart attack from natural causes and looking into something that mimicked heart failure.

  At eight o’clock, we gathered in the conference room with a thermal carafe of coffee centered on the table. Everyone had their pens and paper ready for note taking. Jack filled the cups as we waited for Lena to join us.

  The familiar sound of her shoes told me she was approaching, except this time I was excited to hear her verdict.

  “Good morning, everyone.”

  We responded in kind, and I poured her a cup of coffee as she took a seat.

  She gave me a quick smile, which I hoped meant we were back on good terms. “Thank you, Kate.” She took a sip and began. “I have to admit, I’m stumped by the results of both women. Neither seemed to have any medical issues whatsoever, other than Becca’s GERD.”

  I still had my doubts about that, but I kept quiet.

  “After a thorough examination of Daphne’s heart, I didn’t find anything wrong with it. It wasn’t enlarged, scarred, or damaged.” Lena looked directly at me. “I reviewed poisons that could bring on or mimic a heart attack, and there are several—fentanyl, succinylcholine, potassium chloride—and of course there’s the nearly untraceable air embolism. Luckily, the lab technicians in forensic toxicology know the usual poisons to check for. It just takes time to get the results back. I sent all the body fluids from both women to toxicology yesterday, but they didn’t know to check for poisons at that time. When I spoke to them this morning, I told them it was imperative to complete the tests as quickly as possible. They’ll do the best they can.”

  “And that’s all we can ask,” Jack said. “Will you update Daphne’s parents?”

  “I will. I’ll also explain that until we have the toxicology report back, we can’t release her body.”

  “Appreciate it.” Jack jotted down the informat
ion and closed his folder. “Okay, guys, we have a busy day ahead of us. Let’s get at it.”

  We rose from the table and filed out the door. I tapped Lena’s shoulder before she parted ways with us. “We’re good, right?”

  She gave me a wink. “We’re good.”

  Chapter 26

  Jack had approved Amber’s press release late yesterday, and we gave the information to the media.

  I sipped my second cup of coffee as I looked over the list of appointments I had set up with the crash scene witnesses. We needed as much detail as possible and had found in the past that immediately after accidents, witness statements tended to be exaggerated. Emotions and adrenaline came into play and caused witness accounts to be skewed. Once they had time to calm down and process what they actually remembered seeing, the real scene unfolded.

  “We have three interviews today.” I hit Print then reached behind me and pulled the copy of the names and phone numbers of each witness out of the printer tray.

  “Weren’t there five witnesses?” Amber asked.

  “Yeah, but two of them can’t meet with us until tomorrow. We have a Mrs. Lynn Purdy at eleven”—I glanced at the time—“a Mr. Morton at eleven thirty, and Albert Ling at one o’clock.”

  “Are we going to their homes?”

  “Nah, that’s too much running around since it looks like Albert comes from Fond du Lac. I asked each of them to meet us at the Coffee Bean in Kewaskum. We can have lunch there too between the meeting with Mr. Morton and Albert Ling.” I exhaled a long puff of air.

  “What?”

  “Just wondering how interviewing these people again will give us a connection between Daphne and Becca. They’re just random people who unfortunately shared the road with somebody who caused a fatal accident. It isn’t like any of them knew Becca.”

  Amber leaned toward me and whispered. “Jack wants us to see if anyone has more information to share.”

  “Yeah, I know, so I guess we have to take advantage of it and ask as many questions as we can think of.”