by Brenda Novak
She needed to find it. She no longer cared what Greg thought or said.
That decision made, she started to fall asleep as she tried to remember where she might have packed it away. Like counting sheep, Maggie opened and closed drawers in her mind. She unfolded and folded, looking for the jersey. She knew it was here. Maybe at the back of the closet. There was no sense of panic. Instead it became a quiet and lulling search. Comforted by the memory of its softness. For a long time it even smelled like her father.
She had drifted off when the banging of pots and pans woke her up. Behind the sofa in the kitchen she could hear a skillet pulled from the hanging rack. The refrigerator door opened and closed. A metal whisk click-clacked against a glass bowl. Fresh brewed coffee filled the air.
Greg never made breakfast. He even picked up coffee on his way to work. But of course, he would make breakfast this morning. And she realized she hadn’t avoided anything by going to great length to not wake him last night. Instead she had only made things worse. He was upset. She hadn’t avoided his lecture. She’d only just delayed it.
Chapter 13
Washington, D.C.
Gwen had left the girl’s side only once to get some coffee. And only then because a nurse had come in to go through her checklist. A sheriff’s deputy was posted outside Katie’s room. He simply nodded at Gwen when she returned, watching her step carefully over the freshly scrubbed floor in the hallway. The slick floor was one more obstacle to make her regret the three-inch heels.
She barely sat back down and the door opened again. Cunningham hesitated, glancing at the girl then Gwen.
“Has she said anything at all?”
“She hasn’t woken up. They had to sedate her before I arrived.”
He came in slowly, almost on tiptoes, holding the door as it closed to keep it from making a noise. Then he approached the bed with the same caution. When he looked at Gwen a second time she felt his eyes run over her.
“I pulled you away from an evening out.”
She wondered if he was surprised. But instead he looked genuinely sorry.
She shrugged but stopped herself from using the same line she’d used with Delaney to make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe she wanted Cunningham to think it had been a big deal.
Just then she noticed the girl’s eyes flutter open. She made a slight groan.
Cunningham looked to Gwen and she put a finger up to stop him from moving. Then she sat up and leaned in. She touched the girl’s hand and waited a second.
“Hi Katie.”
The girl’s eyes darted around the room. She noticed the IV, saw the needle in the back her hand. Panic sat her up and Gwen came out of the chair, calming her with gentle but firm hands on her shoulders.
“It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re in the hospital but you’re okay.”
The girl’s head swiveled, taking in the surroundings. She saw Cunningham and seemed to recognize him.
She asked him, “My dad…he fell in the river. You went to look for him.”
Again, Cunningham looked to Gwen but instead of waiting for instruction he said, “We found your dad in the river, Katie.”
Gwen rubbed the girl’s shoulder and back, keeping her hands close in case she needed to hold her down. She didn’t want Katie to jump out of the bed and rip the needle out of her hand. Gwen glanced around to see where the call button was. Maybe they should have a nurse here.
But the girl sat still. Silent tears slid down her face. The sedative was probably still in her system. There was no hitch in her throat, no thrashing around like the night before. Just a sad, quiet acceptance of what Cunningham had said and what it meant.
“Katie,” Gwen said, waiting for the girl to look at her. “I’m Dr. Patterson. This is Mr. Cunningham. We’re here to help you. We’re going to make sure you’re okay and that nothing bad is going to happen to you.”
Gwen sat on the edge of bed now and put her hand over Katie’s. She gestured for Cunningham to sit in the chair. She didn’t want them towering over the girl. They needed to appear on her same level, less threatening and more sincere.
“Are you hungry?” Gwen asked.
She knew one of the IV lines was probably providing some nutrients but sometimes food was one of the best ways to gain a child’s attention and trust.
“How about we order you some soup? Do you like grilled cheese?”
The girl nodded. Gwen glanced at Cunningham. Without a word he scooted the chair backward so he could reach the phone.
“Katie,” Gwen said, waiting again, for the girl’s eyes. “Did you see what happened to your dad?”
She stared at Gwen then her eyes drifted over Gwen’s shoulder and she shook her head. “He told me to hide. Something was wrong.”
“So you went down into the cellar?”
She nodded but her eyes didn’t return to Gwen’s.
Cunningham was finished ordering the food and now she could see him sitting as still as possible, watching and listening.
“Katie.” Another few seconds waiting until the girl looked at her. And then Gwen asked the million-dollar question. “If you were in the cellar how do know your dad fell in the river?”
Chapter 14
Quantico
When Maggie arrived at the forensic lab she realized she shouldn’t be so relieved to be at work instead of at home. But she felt like she had dodged a bullet. She had made it through breakfast and even managed to switch the conversation quickly from her first real crime scene to Greg’s upcoming trial. His law firm was taking on a mega lawsuit and Greg would be the lead attorney.
When they met in college he couldn’t wait to get into a courtroom. They used to laugh about how Maggie would hunt down the criminals and Greg would put them behind bars. Somewhere along the way he decided to take on the bad guys in corporations instead of killers and rapists.
Actually she was glad he enjoyed what he was doing. She only wished he felt the same way about what she was doing. These days, too many of their conversations turned into yelling matches. If he wasn’t lecturing her, he was trying to convince her to come work for his law firm as an investigator.
“Seriously, Maggie, wouldn’t you rather be digging through computer files than Dumpster-diving for body parts?”
Maybe something was wrong with her, but the thought of spending hours going over cell phone records and credit card statements, hunting for indiscretions of a scandalous nature seemed mind numbing to her. And yes, as crazy as it sounded and as nauseated as she felt back at that double-wide trailer, she would not trade places.
Thankfully this morning Greg was more anxious to share his good news than he was about sharing hers. And she almost got out the door before he noticed her hands.
“What happened to your wedding ring?”
She knew he would be angry but less so if it was something he already expected.
“You were right. I should have been more careful.”
“Oh Maggie, for God’s sake! I told you a dozen times.”
“I know. At least a dozen.”
“What am I always telling you? Take it off when you’re washing dishes or you’ll lose it down the sink.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t more careful.”
On the drive to Quantico she wondered why she wasn’t more upset about losing the ring. Yes, she was sorry she hadn’t been more careful. But why wasn’t she upset? In some ways she wondered if losing the ring was just another piece of their relationship that had slipped away.
She walked into the lab and saw that Keith Ganza had already started without her. Pieces of evidence were lined up on the counter – at least those that didn’t require refrigeration.
He nodded at her as she gloved up. Yesterday had been her first visit to a real crime scene but Ganza and her had been working together on evidence and trace for a couple of years. The law enforcement departments that sent in crime scene photographs for her to analyze also included bags of evidence. The two of them would work the
puzzle pieces.
Ganza reminded Maggie of an aging drummer for a rock band. Tall and lanky, he slouched a bit and looked out of sorts in the long white – more gray than white – lab coat. Underneath he had on a black T-shirt and blue jeans. He kept his stringy hair tied in a ponytail. Sometimes he wore a goatee. Lately he was sporting a soul patch.
“Heard you won a trip to your very first rodeo yesterday.”
Immediately she felt the heat flush her face, but Ganza remained bent over a slide he was preparing.
“So you heard about me flipping my cookies.”
Now he looked up, eyeglasses almost at the tip of his nose.
“No, I didn’t hear about that.”
“Seriously?”
“Turner just said what I just said – that you won a trip to your very first rodeo.”
She could see he was telling the truth. She was surprised.
“Sorry about the cookies,” he said and went back to his slide. “Was it the pie?”
“More or less the combination of pie and flies and whatever he left on top.”
“It’s a spleen.” He pointed to a photograph to his left. It looked like the CSU techs had managed to keep the gooey masterpiece all together. “Dutch apple pie and French vanilla ice cream.”
“You can tell that it’s French vanilla?”
“CSU tech found the container in the freezer. Bought it in for us to test.”
“How can you be sure it’s a spleen?”
“I have the plate zipped up in the frig if you want to take a look,” he said. “Wenhoff’s doing the autopsies later today. He’ll make the final determination but I’m pretty sure it’s a spleen.”
“It doesn’t make sense?”
“You mean mixing Dutch and French?”
She rolled her eyes at him. He grinned, pleased with himself.
“Killers have done stranger things,” he told her.
“The scene was chaotic. He improvised. Used electrical cords from a couple of lamps at the scene to tie their hands and feet. I’m guessing he took a knife from their kitchen to slit their throats. Doesn’t seem like the type of guy who’d know where the spleen was let alone expertly extract it.”
“Expertly?”
“I saw the two bodies. Other than slitting their throats he didn’t carve them up. A spleen isn’t something you slice open a body and accidentally pull out. It sits under your rib cage tucked in at the upper left part of the abdomen. And it’s actually toward the back.”
Ganza was staring at her and bobbing his head. “Interesting,” he said.
He pulled off his latex gloves and washed his hands, drying them as he headed for the refrigerator in the corner. For a second she thought he was going to pull out the bagged plate, but thankfully he grabbed a couple cans of Diet Pepsi instead.
He handed one to Maggie and popped the tab of his, guzzling it. It used to freak her out that he kept his lunch and his stash of Diet Pepsis in the same refrigerator that housed the specimens from crime scenes. When he wasn’t looking she wiped down the can. Maybe it did still freak her out a bit.
“Here’s one for you,” Ganza said. “Maybe the spleen doesn’t even belong to either of these two victims.”
“He doesn’t bring rope to tie them up. He uses a knife he finds in their kitchen but he remembers to bring the spleen he cut out of someone else?”
“Again, I remind you – we have seen stranger things.”
Chapter 15
Washington, D.C.
Katie had no answers for them. Instead, she shut down. Gwen saw it coming. Even expected it, but she had needed to ask that question anyway.
In medicine, they called it “the critical hour.” In criminal investigations, they called it “the first 48 hours.” If investigators don't have a lead, a suspect or an arrest within forty-eight hours, their chances of solving the case were cut in half. And with eyewitnesses it was even more important to capture their account while it was still fresh and not manipulated by hearsay or second-guessing.
Cunningham insisted they let Katie rest. She actually looked interested in the chicken noodle soup and her grilled cheese sandwich. A nurse was with her when they left the room.
Cunningham stopped to talk to the uniformed deputy stationed outside the door. He called him by name. She heard the man ask if the girl had told them anything yet. Cunningham shook his head then offered to bring the man something from the hospital cafeteria.
As they got on the elevator Cunningham explained to her that the Warren County sheriff had volunteered his deputies to watch over the girl. The investigation was too complex for the county sheriff’s department handle, but he and his men had insisted they would contribute even if it meant driving to D.C. to sit in the hospital hallway.
It wasn’t the first time Gwen had seen such cooperation. Usually it was the other way around – a battle of jurisdictions.
“You must be exhausted,” he told her when they finally settled in at a table in the corner. The cafeteria was almost empty except for two doctors at the opposite end. It was between breakfast and lunch but Cunningham had convinced the grill cook to scramble some eggs and throw on some bacon. Now he put Gwen’s plate down in front of her and she saw that he had also grabbed a handful of the tiny grape jelly containers for her toast.
Maybe it was simply a coincidence. Maybe grape was all they had but the last time they worked together and had breakfast at Quantico’s cafeteria he had teased her about slathering so much grape jelly on her toast.
Silly of her to even be thinking he’d remembered that.
“You believe she saw something,” Cunningham said. Not a question. He was looking for confirmation of what he already believed.
“How else would she know he fell in the river?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. So is she blocking it out?”
“Delaney said that she may have spent as many as three days in that storm cellar?”
He nodded.
“The mental shock, the physical toll on her body…she might not remember right away.”
“I hate to press you but how long? Are we talking hours? Days?”
“You know I can’t answer that.”
He nodded, removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes.
“Her father was shot in the back,” he told her. “Probably at the river’s edge.”
“And he fell into the water?”
“CSU techs were out there most of the night. Agent O’Dell and I went back out. We tried to retrace his steps. He and his daughter may have been out in a rowboat when the killer arrived. The river’s about a hundred feet from the back of the house. There were bed sheets on the clothesline that blocked the view.”
He paused and took a sip of his coffee. Watched Gwen spread jelly on her toast. She noticed and caught his eyes. They stared at each other a beat too long. He looked away, took another sip. So he did feel it, too. She had no idea what to do with that piece of information.
“So they came back to the trailer and interrupted?” she asked. She needed them to stay on a professional track right now. She had only a couple of hours of sleep which didn’t count since she was sitting in a hard hospital chair and wearing pantyhose.
“I think it was like Katie said it was. Her dad recognized that something was wrong before they got to the trailer. He must have told her to hide in the cellar. Maybe he thought he could go get help or find a weapon.”
“The killer came out of the trailer and saw him.”
He nodded. “But the killer didn’t see Katie. So she must have already been in the cellar. Agent O’Dell saw her peeking out the door. That’s how we found her. I think she was peeking out the door when the killer shot her father.”
“If the killer didn’t see Katie, he has no reason to believe she exists. So why have the deputies outside her room?”
“You know the way these investigations are when it happens in a small town or rural area where everyone knows everyone. As soon as we release the victi
ms’ names someone going to remember that this guy had a young daughter. Maybe even know that she was with him.”
“Where everyone knows everyone? Are you saying you think the killer is someone the victims knew? Someone Katie knows?”
Chapter 16
“Property taxes list Louis and Elizabeth Tanner as the owners,” Maggie told Ganza.
She was working the computer as he studied a piece of carpeting the CSU techs had cut out and brought.
“Katie called the victims Uncle Lou and Aunt Beth. I still haven’t figured out Katie’s last name or her father’s.”
“No I.D. in his pockets?”
“Could be at the bottom of the river.”
She took a break to stretch and ventured over to Ganza’s side of the counter.
“Did the techs recover any shoe prints?” Maggie asked.
“They said this was one of the best ones. I have three others.” He slid a stack of photographs to her. “And we have these.”
“But all of them are bare foot prints.” She started going through the photos and laying them out like cards from a deck. “The girl had blood on the soles of her feet. She must have gone inside at some point.”
She had to work her way through the various shots of the blood spattered walls along with several close-ups of the wounds filled with maggots. Cunningham wanted her at the autopsies. Not a problem. She had attended dozens. But she hated maggots. Still, something else bothered her.
“There was a lot of blood. He had to be close enough to slit Mr. Tanner’s throat. It splattered all over the walls. It would have sprayed him, too. Why are there none of his footprints?”
“Maybe he had his shoes off, too. Some of the footprints are smeared so badly we probably won’t be able to determine size. Sure the girl might have gone in with bare feet, but maybe he did, too.”
She came across the photos of the ceiling.
“He had to tie up Mr. Tanner and suspend him from the ceiling before he cut his throat,” she told Ganza. “How difficult would that be?”
