Particles of Murder (A Shadow of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 1)

by Charlotte Raine

  It means nothing to the layman, but I love it. That’s why I named it Albert.

  The substance under Victoria’s fingernails was gold liquid latex—body paint. I wasn’t involved in the crazier parts of college except three frat parties my friends dragged me to, but the only situation I can think of where there would be body paint—especially taking into consideration that Victoria died early in the morning—is at a fraternity or sorority party. I take out my phone and call Detective Stolz.

  “Hello?” she snarls. There’s a rumble of noise—mostly people talking—in the background.

  “Uh, hey, it’s Solano,” I say. “Victoria Glassman had body paint under her—”

  “Have you not seen the news?” she demands. “Senator Holden was killed. I can’t deal with the student right now. I have to get on top of this before the press becomes unbearable. I’ve already got a couple forensic guys here, but there will likely be a massive amount of trace evidence coming your way.”

  “We can’t focus on both cases?” I ask.

  “That’s not what I said…but you should understand we don’t have enough resources to spend an equal amount of time on both,” she says. “Just—just wait at the lab. I’m going to send one of the guys to you, so you can start looking at the evidence and processing it. There’s blood spatter all over. Hopefully some of it is the killer’s.”

  “We can’t ignore Victoria Glassman’s death because of someone the media thinks is more important.”

  “There’s no sign of foul play in Glassman’s case. In this case…foul play is certain,” she says. “Don’t worry about it. The last time Dr. Lindhal updated me, there wasn’t anything wrong with her body. Listen—I have to go. Get ready to test a lot of blood.”

  She hangs up.

  I set my phone down. I put the paint chips back into their metal can. This isn’t the way I want to deal with the case, but if Tim finds something suspicious, they’ll open it back up. Sometimes being part of criminal investigations means things get political—in this case, we’re actually delving into politics.

  Unfortunately, politics tends to put the truth and anyone who speaks it to the sidelines, so for this case, I’ll have to remain silent. I sacrificed everything for this job—I can’t lose it.

  I take the cherry out of my second whiskey sour and bite off its stem. I spent several hours testing blood with zero to show for it. It’s not the death that gets me or even the murders, though nearly every single one rips into me like I had been the one shot or killed. It’s simply the knowledge that the detectives and I are always there too late. We don’t save lives—we simply dig into their lives in the hopes of finding answers, though we know the murder likely still won’t make sense to us.

  “Can I join you?”

  I look over my shoulder to see Dr. John Zimmer.

  “What are you doing all the way in the city, professor?” I ask, gesturing to the stool at my left.

  “One of the other professors set me up on a blind date,” he says, sitting down beside me. “And you can just call me John. I’ve never gotten used to being called Dr. Zimmer or Professor Zimmer.”

  “My name’s Mira.” I look around—the bar has a calm atmosphere with faux-wood tables and bar, but it’s not romantic on any level. “Are you meeting your date here?”

  He shakes his head.

  “I already met her,” he says. “We had dinner at The Glass Oven—highly recommend them, though you have to get a reservation a couple of days in advance.”

  “But you’re here now, so it must not have gone well,” I say, taking a sip of my drink.

  John orders a jack and Coke and takes a gulp of it as he hands the bartender some money. He seems eager to get as much alcohol into his bloodstream as possible.

  I look at him over the edge of my drink. “Was it really that bad?”

  “Maybe I just have high standards,” he says, taking another quick gulp of his drink. “But there’s only so long that you can deal with a woman—or any person—talking about how her sister is terrible, her landlord is hostile, and that she believes the weathermen are purposefully misleading in order to make viewers like them. She’s an anthropology professor, so I tried to get her to talk about her research, but she doesn’t seem to care much about it.”

  “Ouch,” I say. I can feel my tension starting to melt away, and a warmth spreads under my skin. “I’ve never thought blind dates were a good idea. I mean, the person you are when you’re around your friends has to be different from the person you are in a romantic relationship.”

  “Exactly,” he says. “They’re not even really friends. Just co-workers. I don’t have time to make friends past the people I work with. I don’t know why I thought I’d have time for a relationship. I probably shouldn’t be complaining—she’s likely talking about me right now, too. I wonder what she’s saying? I did mention Victoria’s death. That probably wasn’t the best conversation piece.”

  “Well, at least that means she won’t be desperate to get back with you,” I say. “Nobody has time to date anymore. We all just want some instant pleasure so we can continue on with our lives without changing anything. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t think about whether it’s good or bad,” he says. “There’s not enough time on Earth to dwell on those things. You do what makes you happy because we’re all just wasting time until we die.”

  “I hope you told your date that because that is the most morbid thing I’ve ever been told in bar,” I say.

  “Sorry,” he says, laughing. “I’ve read too many books with existential questions and a nihilistic outlook.”

  I watch him in the corner of my eye as he finishes his drink. If it’s happiness I should be pursuing, I can think of a few ways to find some quick joy that I may or may not regret in the morning.

  When John and I stumble into my apartment, he sits down on my white carpet in the center of my living room.

  “Shouldn’t you have a coffee table in here or something?” he mumbles. “Why is there nothing but this rug?”

  “Because I like that rug,” I say. “It’s a great rug.”

  He laughs. “You’re drunk.”

  “You’re the one sitting on the floor.” A second passes before I sit down beside him. I smile. “Have you ever played two truths and a lie?”

  “I don’t know what it is,” he says, “but it vaguely sounds like every relationship I’ve ever had.”

  I giggle. I never giggle. “Okay, it’s when you tell me three things about yourself except one of them is a lie. I have to guess which one is the lie.”

  He shakes his head. “You need to go first. I can’t…I’m not sure if I understand right now.”

  “Okay. Three things about me. Hmm. My parents own a magic shop. I hate my red hair, although everyone else is always commenting about it. I have an older brother.”

  “Mmmm.” He skims the carpet with the palm of his hand. I can imagine the soft texture against each of his fingers. He looks back up at me, smiling. “You can’t hate your hair.”

  I laugh. “I do. I hate it. So much. It’s all people notice about me when they see me. Everywhere I go, people refer to me as the redhead.”

  “It’s not the only thing people notice,” he says. “You also have stunning green eyes. I’ve never seen that color before. It’s…it reminds me of those vintage green bottles.”

  “Yeah, you’re definitely drunk now,” I say. “I don’t have an older brother. I have a younger brother. He actually goes to Tuskmirth College, and he’s studying sociology. His name’s Liam.”

  “Liam…what’s your last name?”

  “Solano.”

  “Liam Solano…I’ve never met him.”

  “You can tell just from his name? You remember every student you’ve had?”

  “Absolutely,” he says.

  “I don’t know if I believe that,” I say. “Which is good because it’s your turn. Two truths and a lie.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t know. What would you even want to know? Hmm. I’ve been teaching for a decade now. I love science fiction and…I was overweight until four years ago.”

  “I want to say that your last one was a lie, but I don’t think you could have invented that out of thin air.”

  “I am a writer,” he teases.

  “No.” I shake my head. “That’s not it. You don’t like science fiction.”

  He laughs. I could spend a lifetime listening to that laugh, feeling it send warmth throughout my body. I lean in. Our lips touch and it causes a magnetism between us and my body is pulled toward him through an electrical charge. His hands brush against my skin as he pulls off my shirt and I can feel the ridges of his spine as my fingers brush over his back. He moves on top of me.

  In a career path that’s so full of death and violence, it’s good to find that the body doesn’t just endure pain. It also seeks pleasure.

  When I wake up, my neck has a cramp in it. I’m leaning against my bed, my red plush blanket pulled half-heartedly over my lap. John is beside me, his arm draped over my thighs.

  I definitely need to stop drinking.

  It was a bad decision to sleep with someone involved in a current case, but he’s not a suspect—I’m certain his alibi was solid—and it sounds like the case is going to be closed soon, anyway.

  I shove his shoulder. He jerks awake.

  “You should get going,” I say.

  He rubs his face. “You’re not a morning person, are you?”

  “I just need to get to work,” I say. “And I’m sure you need to get to work too.”

  He sits up, pulling the blanket toward him and nearly leaving me exposed. I grab the blanket, pulling it up around me as I stand up. His physique is just as impressive as I thought it was when I was drunk. I’d thought there was a possibility that the alcohol made him look better because I can’t see any scenario where an English professor spends his time in a gym.

  “I’m going to shower. You should be gone by the time I get out.”

  “Wow,” he says. “I liked you a lot better when you had a drink in your hand.”

  “And I liked you better when you weren’t talking.”

  He presses his lips together, preventing himself from saying whatever he wants to say. Instead, his eyes wander to my arm and he gestures toward my bracelet. “Why are you wearing a child’s bracelet?”

  I force a smile. “I’ve already told you too much about me. Be gone by the time I’m done showering.”

  I turn around and shuffle my way to the bathroom. I don’t mean to be harsh, but I really shouldn’t have slept with him, and after my last boyfriend (if I could even call him that), I have zero interest in forming a relationship with anyone. I don’t even want to risk it.

  I wait until I hear the creak of the floor as John walks into the hallway. I turn on the shower and close my eyes as the room fills with steam.

  Pleasure is meant to be fleeting or it would be meaningless. At least, that’s how it has always seemed to me.

  Ed Bunt, the other forensic scientist who lacks hair but still maintains a baby face, is lifting a fingerprint off a camera’s on/off button. I watch him as he brushes white powder in the direction of the fingerprint. The fingerprint’s ridges begin to appear.

  “You smell like waffles,” he remarks as he presses a piece of tape against the powder. When he removes it, the fingerprint is almost perfectly etched into the tape. “When do you ever eat breakfast?”

  “I woke up earlier than usual,” I say.

  He presses the tape against a black fingerprint card. “You never wake up early.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Because you’re always rushing in here late, telling me how you missed your alarm,” he says. “Don’t worry. I won’t pry into your personal life, though I’ll certainly be creating my own theories. I’m going to guess it was either a man or a secret service assignment.”

  “Both are equally possible,” I say. As I grab a pair of gloves, he shakes his head.

  “You may be on time today, but Detective Stolz already called. She wants you to go down to that office in Tuskmirth College and check over everything again.”

  I scowl. “Why?”

  “Because she doesn’t want to close the case without being certain,” he says. “And she said you were the one upset over the idea of closing the case this soon. She said that she didn’t think you would be satisfied unless you were the one who did it.”

  “Or she hates me and she’s purposely trying to piss me off,” I say.

  “It’s possible,” he says with a shrug. “But if you do want to continue the investigation, I suggest you get down there and find evidence that someone caused Ms. Glassman’s death.”

  “I have some suggestions for you too,” I mutter, but I grab a few kits that I might need and pack them into a duffle bag. I leave the lab within minutes of arriving.

  When I arrive on campus, there’s a crowd of people in front of the student union. A young bald man with an impressive beard is standing on top of a short ladder. The crowd surrounds him, staring up at him like he’s their savior.

  “These cops don’t care about the truth,” the man declares. “They just want to close up the case and pretend they mourn like we do. They did the same damn thing with the rape cases from last year, and the media plays right into their hands. The local newspapers won’t press the police for more information or insinuate they can’t do their jobs because then the police will refuse to talk to them when another crime is committed. The media can’t risk losing their viewership when they don’t have the facts from the police. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is the truth and you are all here today because you believe in the truth. Let’s stand up for it now because I know we’re all sick of being on our knees.”

  As the man steps down, I approach him.

  “Hey, Liam,” I say. “That was quite the speech.”

  He flashes me a smile. “Hey, sis. Is the government paying you well to ignore a young woman’s death?”

  “I’m actually here to continue investigating,” I say. “So what you’re telling your friends isn’t actually true.”

  “It will be,” he says. “I mean, they must have said something to you already. You know they’d rather investigate the senator’s murder because that will get them better press than a student’s mysterious death.”

  “That’s right. It is mysterious, which means it could be completely natural.”

  “They do have you brainwashed,” he says. “That’s cute. Next, you’re going to tell me that I can’t protest, right?”

  “No, carry on,” I say. “But if I come around and tell you that the autopsy showed her death was caused naturally and not by some mysterious murderer that doesn’t leave a trace on the body, then I’d like it if you backed off. This is the last thing the police need to deal with.”

  “If they don’t want to deal with it, they shouldn’t bring it on themselves.” He spins around and walks away from me.

  I admire his passion and his heart is in the right place, but sometimes I just want to talk about new music or how dolphins are secretly assholes. Instead, I get told about human trafficking and how 75% of prisoners who are released from prison are rearrested within five years. Sometimes I want to ask him why he’s so focused on the bad things that happen in life, but I know it’s because of Sarah and he has simply chosen the hard truth over happiness.

  Or, at least, what he suspects is the truth.

  I continue walking to the English building, Kasparian Hall. When I reach the crime scene, everything looks exactly the same except Victoria Glassman’s body is gone and there’s an eerie feeling without anyone else around. I crouch down near the site where she fell. In all likelihood, her death was caused by some part of her body malfunctioning, but I can’t quite accept that yet. I’ll need to find evidence that something more was involved or the case will be pushed to the back of our detectives’ minds and forgotten.

  I
look over the nearby bookcase. I brought some luminol that makes blood glow, but I doubt I’ll use it. There was absolutely no sign at all that Victoria struggled before she died. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m looking for a needle in a haystack when there’s no reason for the needle to be there.

  “Hey.”

  I spin around. John is standing in the doorway, his hands in his jean pockets. I can remember exactly what he looks like underneath his clothes, but I’ll be damned if I let that distract me.

  “I didn’t expect anybody to be back here so soon,” he says. “Are you here because you’re searching for evidence that you know will be here, or because you’re fresh out of ideas?”

  “I’m…just double checking,” I say. “There really isn’t anything to find here, though. We’re pretty sure that she died from natural causes.”

  “You’re ‘pretty sure’ that she died from natural causes. That’s not very assuring,” he says. “She was in her early twenties. She should have been perfectly healthy.”

  “There have been people younger who die from cardiac problems,” I say, standing up. “I’m sorry for…all of this. Her death, the investigation…but the investigation should be over soon. There’s no reason for us to think foul play.”

  He shakes his head. “You’re really going to give up that easily?”

  “I’m not giving up,” I say. “We just have other murder cases—”

  “Senator Holden?” he guesses.

  I grimace. Of course he would already know. It has to be all over the news by now.

  He says, “I understand that he’s a priority because he’s well-known and a government official, but—wait. You said you have other murder cases, which means you think this is a murder case.”

  I flush. “I just meant…it could be, but the medical examiner doesn’t think so, and neither do the detectives.”

  “But you do,” he says.

  I shrug. “It’s a possibility.”

  He takes a step forward and grabs my hand. His hand encompasses mine, keeping it in a pocket of warmth. I jerk my hand out of his grasp. He flushes, but doesn’t step back.