Justified

by Carolyn Arnold

  Terry acknowledged the find but didn’t say anything.

  Madison continued. “Our killer could have been watching Claire from this window, and when he saw the opportune moment let him- or herself in.”

  “I help solve murder.” Ramesh’s voice held excitement.

  God, the couple is still standing here.

  “Scene was released,” Ramesh said, obviously having sensed her irritated energy. “Have authorization to be here. I can get paperwork.”

  Terry held up his hand. “It’s okay. We are aware the scene was released.”

  “Who hired your services?” Madison blurted out. Crime scene cleanup wasn’t paid for by the city but covered by family or friends.

  “One minute.” Ramesh turned to his wife and spoke to her in another language. She went into the kitchen and returned with a clipboard.

  Lucia ran her finger down the page. “The name is Darcy Simms.”

  -

  Chapter 27

  MADISON STORMED INTO THE LAB and dropped the paper bag containing Claire’s underwear and the card with the lifted palm print on the table. “What the hell were your people thinking or were they?”

  Cynthia pulled her head back from the microscope she had been looking through. “Excuse me?”

  Madison bobbed her head to what she’d set down. “That was collected from Claire Reeves’s house.”

  Cynthia stared at her blankly but there was a lick of agitation in her eyes. “That scene was released.”

  “So you realize that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe a little too prematurely given the fact that it wasn’t thoroughly examined.” Madison waved toward the articles on the table. “I mean obviously.”

  Cynthia’s face fell and went pale.

  “A cleaner found these, Cynthia. The underwear was in the living room couch. And that’s a palm print lifted from the front window. Someone—maybe the killer—was watching Claire. Not that the print will do us any good now. It’s virtually useless.”

  Cynthia stood there, her mouth gaped open. “Maybe the cleaner put it there to make them look good? Are they aspiring for a lab job?”

  “Come on, Cyn, that’s your response to this?”

  Cynthia looked away from her.

  Madison continued. “The underwear matches the lingerie Claire was wearing at the time of her death. The killer could go free because your lab screwed up.”

  Terry stepped next to Madison. Until then, Madison had forgotten he was in the room.

  Cynthia braced her hands on the table and stretched forward, extending her back. “You said the couch?”

  “Who was responsible for processing the living room?” Madison held eye contact with her friend and colleague.

  She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m responsible for the lab. I will assume full responsibility.”

  “So it was Mark,” Madison stated matter-of-factly.

  “What part of this don’t you understand? It comes back to me.” Cynthia’s eyes begged to be relieved of the finger-pointing exercise. “I will speak with the investigator—” She stopped abruptly and held up a hand to keep Madison from cutting in. “And here I thought you were going to love me today. Guess you never know, do you?”

  “You have something for us?” Madison’s eyes diverted to the microscope.

  Cynthia followed the direction of Madison’s gaze. “It’s nothing to do with that, but I have some results in from a swab of Claire’s neck slash. It contained two DNA profiles.”

  “Claire’s and another?”

  “What one might expect, but actually the two I referred to were in addition to Claire’s.”

  Madison moved in closer and Terry with her.

  “In addition?” Madison asked.

  “Uh-huh. When Richards prepared for autopsy, he recovered a single hair from the wound tract.”

  “He never mentioned that to us.”

  “I’m mentioning it to you now,” Cynthia ground out.

  “Fine. Go ahead.” Madison was still sour. “Tell us about the hair.”

  “It belongs to a Rangifer tarandus caribou.”

  “Okay, I understood caribou.”

  “Boreal woodland caribou, to be precise. They are hunted primarily in Newfoundland and the Mackenzie Mountains during the months of August and September. It seems like Newfoundland is the most popular area based on a Google search.”

  “Newfoundland?” Terry said. “That’s a little journey from here.”

  “Just a little,” Cynthia agreed.

  “So it’s probably safe to assume that our killer was an avid hunter,” Madison began. “Otherwise, what else would Newfoundland have to offer?”

  “Whale watching,” Terry snapped back and had both women looking at him.

  “Anyway…,” Cynthia said through a smile of amusement, “I found a popular outfitter there by the name of Natural Adventure Outfitters. They offer guided hikes, professional hunters to answer their guests’ questions, and accommodations. The place looks quite nice, actually. Dare I even say modern? Given this information, a Bowie knife would make complete sense because caribou have a thick hide, almost like a moose. It would make easy work of tearing through the flesh.”

  Bluck! Madison’s gut turned. All the blood that would result from that… It brought back the vivid memory of Claire lying on the floor in the puddle of deep crimson.

  Cynthia went on. “The Bowie knife, if wielded the right way, could have actually decapitated Claire.”

  “Okay, enough.” Madison looked around the room in search of something else to focus on so she could divert her mind from this unpleasant conversation.

  Cynthia had a huge smile on her face and addressed Terry. “So she’s a major crimes detective, but start talking blood and decapitation and she gets queasy.”

  “Enough about me,” Madison retorted. “Back to the case. We’re looking for a hunter who travels to Newfoundland and hunts caribou. That should help narrow things down.”

  “We’ll have to ask your new boyfriend if he’s a hunter,” Terry said.

  Cynthia glanced between the two of them. “New boyfriend?”

  “Terry thinks he’s funny—” she shot him a glare and jabbed his shoulder “—but he’s not.”

  “Hey!” Terry barked.

  Cynthia looked from Madison to Terry and back to Madison.

  Madison rolled her eyes. “His name is Darren Taylor, and he’s in the drunk tank right now. You said you found two DNA profiles in addition to Claire’s. What did the other profile belong to? A dog? A moose?”

  “Try a human,” Cynthia said. “Male to be specific.”

  “It could belong to the killer. He could have cut himself when he slashed Claire’s neck.”

  “Possibly. Of course, we can’t pinpoint with any certainty whether the killer cut himself at the time or if the blood was on the knife beforehand. Claire obviously didn’t have a caribou in her kitchen, so that transfer got onto the knife from another time.”

  “Either way, the DNA could lead us to the owner of the knife.”

  “It could, but—”

  “I take it no hits in CODIS,” Madison surmised.

  “On the caribou?” Cynthia teased her, but her smile fell short of touching her eyes when she seemed to notice Madison wasn’t amused. “I’ll let you know if there is. It’s still running.”

  -

  Chapter 28

  MADISON AND TERRY WERE BACK at their desks when her cell phone rang. “Knight.” She paused and listened to the person on the other end of the line. “He’s going to be happy about that.” Another pause. “Okay, thanks for letting me know.”

  Terry looked up from his side of the desk. “And why do I sense sarcasm?”

  “Because you’re astute. Taylor’s going to have to spend the nigh
t. His lawyer won’t be here until tomorrow morning. We’ll meet with them at nine.”

  “We might as well get some shut-eye then,” Terry said.

  She looked at the clock on the wall. 7:06.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” she began. “There’s lot of work to be done, and I could use your help.”

  “What could you possibly need done right now?”

  “You have heard of the phrase ‘there’s no time like the present’? I need you to check into Taylor’s story. Confirm with the airline that he really did leave for Tahiti in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. And—”

  “And?”

  “And,” she added further punch to the word, “when you’re finished that, I’d like you to look up the largest trade industries in Tahiti.”

  “What for?”

  “Just more or less for my curiosity. That way when I press Taylor more about this job he had there, we’ll know if it makes sense right away.”

  “Fine.” He sighed. “But if I’m doing all this, what are you going to do?”

  “Don’t worry yourself over that.” She started typing.

  “You’re probably shopping for shoes online.”

  She looked around the monitor at him and searched the top of her desk for the perfect weapon. At first, she eyed some scrap paper, which she could ball up and toss at him, but the impact wouldn’t be hard enough. Then she spotted the perfect instrument, a mailman’s elastic—blue, tight, and holding fantastic snapping quality. She pinged it at him.

  “What the—” He rubbed the point of impact, which was the meaty flesh near the armpit. “What was that for? It’s going to leave a dang bruise.”

  “And you say it like it’s my fault that you bruise easily,” she teased.

  “It would be your fault if I got a bruise.” He glared at her.

  Maybe she should feel bad, and maybe she did a little, but given his comment about searching for shoes online, hitting him brought some sick sort of satisfaction. Besides it wasn’t like she was obsessed with footwear. If she was going to look into anything personal online, it would be researching a behavioral place to take Hershey.

  Her desk phone rang and she answered.

  “It’s Officer Foster,” her caller said. “I’m covering the front desk tonight. I’ve got a caller on the line who claims to be the girlfriend of Simon Angle.”

  Madison sat up straighter. “Okay, put her through.”

  Terry held a phone to his ear, but his attention was on Madison.

  The line clicked. “Hello? This is Detective Knight. You have news about Simon Angle?”

  Terry slowly lowered his receiver back to the cradle.

  Madison spoke into the phone. “Okay. So he’s been staying with you? ... It’s all right. Slow down. Where are you? ... We’ll be right there.” She hung up and Terry was rubbing where the elastic had impacted. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  All right, now the guilt was snaking its way in, but she didn’t have time to wallow in it. “Grab your coat. We’ve got to go.”

  Terry mumbled something incoherently, but she wasn’t about to ask him to repeat himself. She sensed it had to do with the fact that he just wanted to call it a day.

  He followed her out to the car in silence.

  Madison turned to him. “Are you’re going to be like this all night?”

  “All night? Just great.”

  “What is your problem?”

  “My problem is you and your ability to ride me ’til it chafes.”

  “Excuse me.” She stopped with her hand on the car’s door handle.

  “You’re a slave driver, Maddy. Always have been. Suppose you always will be.”

  “Fine. You want to leave, go for it. Just don’t expect me to cover your ass to the sarge when he asks where you were in this investigation.”

  Terry got into the car, closing the door heavily behind him.

  She got behind the wheel.

  “What about Taylor in holding?” he asked.

  “While it’s good to have a suspect, two are even better.”

  He didn’t respond.

  She looked over at him and hoped he wasn’t still upset about the elastic. “Terry, what’s your problem?”

  “My problem is you. You effing pinged me with an elastic, Knight! I still feel where it hit. Hurts like a son of a gun.”

  “I didn’t realize you were so sensitive. You’ve got to grow a thicker skin or you’re going to die young.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’ve got no connections, no life outside of this.”

  His snap back stung more than any elastic would have. Tears misted her eyes.

  “You go home and have a dog waiting on you. No one else,” he stamped out. “You live and breathe this job, and that’s fine. Maybe that’s enough for you, but it’s not enough for me.”

  The words impacted her like blows to the chest, and they rendered her speechless. She couldn’t deny it. She was married to the job and always would be, but since when was that considered a crime or an existence of lesser importance?

  She put the car into gear and headed to the house of Simon Angle’s most recent girlfriend before she said or did something else she’d regret.

  MADISON PARKED THE CAR IN front of the address she was given by Simon’s girlfriend, Candice Sable, and got out without saying anything to Terry. The implication of his comment still hurt: that by her putting the job first she was somehow less.

  The house was older but in a decent neighborhood and had been converted to accommodate four apartments. She led the way around the back as she’d been instructed to do. Apparently, there be would a “never-ending staircase” and a door at the top. Looking up, the woman hadn’t exaggerated about how long the flight of steps were.

  “We need to go up there?” Terry asked.

  Madison didn’t respond but headed up.

  “Come on, you’ve got to speak to me at some point.”

  No, she didn’t. At least not any time soon.

  Just over halfway up, Madison was wishing she made use of the gym at the station.

  Terry, for his earlier whining, didn’t seem to be having an issue at all. He wasn’t even out of breath. Guess that was the benefit of running on a treadmill every morning.

  “Please talk to me.” His voice held an apology.

  It didn’t matter, though. The words still hurt more than she wished to admit, and even if she wanted to respond to him, it would be physically impossible right now. She needed oxygen.

  She looked up. Three more steps.

  Reaching the landing, all she wanted to do was lean on the railing and take in a few deep breaths, but her pride wouldn’t allow this demonstration of her poor cardio health. Instead, she had to settle for shallow breaths and standing on her own strength while hoping Terry didn’t pick up on the fact that it was a show.

  She moved past what resembled the shape of a barbecue, patio table, and a few plastic lawn chairs, all of them heaped with snow.

  Madison had her hand poised to knock when the door opened.

  “Thought I heard someone coming up the stairs.” A woman with damp, frizzy hair stepped back to let them in.

  “Thank you.” Madison brushed the blowing snow off her coat and stomped her boots on the carpet inside the door.

  “Cold one out there.” The woman smiled.

  “Candice Sable?” Madison asked.

  The woman nodded.

  Madison introduced herself and Terry, and asked, “Is Simon here?”

  “Not right now.” Candice headed toward an old dining set and pulled down on an oversized sweater she was wearing as she walked. This action drew Madison’s attention to the olive-green cords she wore, which we also too big for her. As she took a seat at the end of the table, she pulled down o
n her sweater again.

  Madison couldn’t help but think how fake this world was, and how much emphasis was placed on physical appearance. Candice wasn’t overweight in Madison’s opinion at all, but the woman had obviously allowed herself to be inundated by the media as to what size she should be. At best guess, Candice was maybe carrying an extra twenty pounds.

  “So what makes you think that Simon Angle murdered Claire Reeves?” Madison didn’t see a point in delaying the question. When Candice had called, she had shared her suspicion.

  Candice put a hand on a folded newspaper and let her gaze drift to the paper. Madison caught the headline—not that she needed that to know what it was. It was a small article on Claire’s murder, and Madison had it stored to memory. Maybe it wasn’t healthy, but she collected newspaper clippings for cases she worked.

  Candice’s eyes glazed over.

  Maybe it would be best to go about getting answers another way. “How long has Simon been staying with you?”

  “We met last week, Tuesday. He came over and we—” She stopped talking and glanced at Terry, seeming shy to admit to having sex in front of him.

  “I’m sure anything you’re about to tell us we’ve heard before,” Madison assured her.

  Candice nodded. “Yeah, I guess you probably have. Anyway, we met last Tuesday, as I said. We really hit it off and ended up back here.”

  “Was he here all night?”

  “I guess? I’m not really sure.” She let out a self-conscious laugh. “This is where it gets more embarrassing. See, I’m not normally the type of woman to hook up the first time she meets a guy, but we drank a lot. And I mean a lot. We pretty much passed out. I’m sure I did.”

  “So you can’t really say for certain that Simon was here all night?” Terry asked.

  Candice shook her head. “I can’t. Am I in trouble here?”

  “At this point, I don’t see why you would be.”

  “All I know is on Wednesday morning when I came to, he was already up, sitting right there.” She motioned toward the chair Terry was in. “He had brewed coffee and was sipping on a cup. I had such a headache and was chained to the toilet most of the morning. I don’t know how he was doing okay.”