Lieutenant Taylor Jackson Collection, Volume 1

by J. T. Ellison

  “Let’s hope for a match. If it doesn’t, that would confirm another suspect. Someone who was sleeping with the victim. Like we need it to be more complicated.” A thought nagged her, but she couldn’t access it.

  “Look at it this way. The results might answer some questions. If the DNA isn’t Wolff’s, it could be the killer’s. Though I must admit, Wolff certainly looks good for all of this. Did you hear that we matched the blood on the tool chest to Corinne Wolff? There’s still no definitive test we can do to establish when it was left, which a decent defense attorney will pounce on, but it is her blood.”

  “No, I didn’t. Damn it. How can that bitch idiot Norris do this to me? I just want to work the case. All these tidbits are breaking and I don’t have the full picture. How am I supposed to solve a case if I’m not allowed to work it?”

  “I know, sweetie. The Oompa is an old, shriveled-up hag who is desperately jealous of your success. The beauty of it is you’re innocent, Baldwin is about to prove that, then they’ll have to let you back. So keep laying low and wait it out. I know that’s easier said than done, but you can’t run off half-cocked like you did this morning. What were you doing anyway?”

  “I met with Corinne’s psychotherapist. After you found the benzodiazepine in her system, I went looking to see who’d prescribed it. Her obstetrician gave her the lorazepam but sent her to counseling too in the hopes she’d be able to conquer her issues that way.”

  “What was the issue?”

  “It seems Miss Corinne might have been dallying in someone else’s pool, if you know what I mean. Any chance you ran DNA on the fetus? She was having some sort of freak out about the baby. Was having full-blown panic attacks.”

  “Of course. We’ll get all the results back at the same time. That’s interesting about Corinne’s pathology. I heard of a case like that in medical school. Woman was convinced she was carrying the anti-Christ, they had to keep her sedated because she kept trying to carve the fetus out of her stomach.”

  “She was having an affair with the devil?”

  “Not that I know of, unless the devil lives in New Jersey and is named Dave. They were a completely normal couple, she developed this pregnancy psychosis after it came to light that she’d been sleeping with her husband’s brother too and didn’t know who the father was. I think the case study concluded that she was just bonkers.”

  “Nice, round catch-all medical term, that. Bonkers.”

  “Well, I’m a pathologist, not a psychiatrist. Speak of the devil.”

  Taylor turned. Baldwin was standing in the door, his tall frame filling the space completely. Arms crossed, he rested his right shoulder against the door frame. She smiled at him. He grinned back.

  “You are a very bad girl. Hi, Sam.”

  “Aw, how come I never get to be the bad girl?” Sam pouted and tossed a balled-up piece of paper at Baldwin, who caught it and expertly shot it into her trashcan in one sweeping motion.

  “Show-off,” Taylor and Sam said in tandem, sending them both into gales of laughter.

  Baldwin joined in, his good-natured laugh reverberating through the room. When they’d finished their giggles, he took a seat next to Taylor.

  “Good news. Sherry has reengineered the tapes, found the splice that was put in. It was a rather sophisticated voice track, not something your everyday hump could do. Whoever did it is an expert with cameras and editing, for sure. The evidence was just couriered to your buddy Delores Norris, with copies sent to Price and the Chief of Police.”

  He settled farther into his chair and crossed his legs. Taylor noticed his socks were mismatched—one had small clocks and the other minute diamonds. She bit back the laugh; he had been pretty shaken up when he got dressed. Maybe he’d make it through the rest of the day without noticing.

  She looked back up and saw he’d been watching her, a crooked half smile on his face. He knew about the socks. He made a gesture with his right hand she’d come to recognize as his nonverbal rendition of “not important.”

  “A couple of copies might have slipped the Net, may show up on the local and national noon broadcasts.”

  Taylor felt the relief bloom in her chest. “Thank God.”

  “Don’t be thanking Him, thank me.”

  “You know what I mean. Thank you, of course. Do you think they’ll reinstate me?”

  “They don’t have a choice. If they don’t get in touch within the hour, I’ve scheduled Sherry for a live interview on Channel 5.”

  Taylor squeezed his hand in gratitude. “So we just have to wait?”

  “Yep. Whatcha talking about?”

  “The Wolff case. Sam has pulled a fast one, slipped some DNA slides into the system. Corinne Wolff was having sex with someone, and hopefully we’ll find out who. The husband first said they hadn’t had sex for a week before her death, then remembered they did right before he left town. But looking at the timeline, if there was active enough sperm for a DNA run, she must have had sex with someone after he left on Friday morning. Think the timing works, Sam?”

  “Well, if she died Saturday morning and we pulled motile but nondiscernible sperm at the post Tuesday morning…it’ll be hard to prove an exact time, but I’m guessing she had sex with someone superlate Friday night or right before she died on Saturday morning.”

  “And Todd Wolff left early Friday.”

  “Ask Baldwin about the pregnancy psychosis,” Sam said.

  “I need to run it down for him first—I haven’t talked about the case with him yet. He was in Virginia until yesterday.” A current ran through the room as if they’d hit a fuse box. Aiden. God, she’d forgotten he was out there. She didn’t elaborate, and neither did Baldwin. Sam picked up on the uncomfortable silence, but was wise enough not to ask.

  Taylor turned to Baldwin. “Let me give you a quick précis of the case. Corinne Wolff, twenty-six, seven months pregnant with a son, her second child. Husband allegedly out of town. She was found Monday morning, beaten to death with a tennis racquet in her bedroom. She’d been dead two days.” She looked at Sam, and saw the shadows in her eyes. The Wolff crime scene still bothered both of them. Taylor continued.

  “Dead two days with her eighteen-month-old daughter wandering around the house, tracking blood everywhere. The husband left Friday, didn’t talk to her all weekend. Temp shows she was killed early Saturday morning.

  “Second round of look-sees into the house uncovers a sex basement where the Wolffs were making amateur porn. The reports I’ve gotten indicate that Corinne was a relative latecomer to participating, she’d always run the cameras. I just found out the girls on the video are underage, part of a pretty twisted secret society that’s running through the private schools around town.

  “Corinne had high levels of lorazepam in her system, and now the news comes that she had viable semen in her. Wolff left her blood on his truck and in the basement, so we arrested him. Her sister is on the news screaming about our idiocy in investigating the case. Thanks to Miss Sam here, DNA is being run as we speak.”

  Sam took a bow from her chair.

  “I interviewed Corinne’s OB and her psychologist, and had a chat with her mother. The mom thinks she was having an affair, the docs claim she was having a hard time with the pregnancy, was suffering from a sort of claustrophobia about having the baby inside her. It was so bad that they needed to prescribe benzos to keep her calmed down. It’s an incongruity in the case. By all accounts, this woman was a health nut. She was seven months pregnant and still competing in her local tennis tournaments. The house was filled with all-natural foods and cleaning products. The basement, on the other hand, was this crazy sex den, full of camera equipment and sex toys. Corinne was leading two lives, no question about it.”

  “Do you think her husband committed the murder?” Baldwin asked.

  “It seems like the most logical place to turn. At least in the beginning. Now there are all these complicating factors. He got back from his trip a little too quick for my taste, and he�
��s been awfully nonchalant about things so far. Now that we can charge him with a couple of additional sex crimes, I’m thinking that might loosen his tongue. He insists he didn’t kill his wife, but there’s some pretty decent evidence to the contrary.”

  “The baby isn’t his,” Baldwin said.

  Taylor looked at him. “What?”

  “The baby. It wasn’t her husband’s. I’d bet anything that she was pregnant by someone else. That explains the erratic behavior, the sudden dependence on psychotropic medications, the psychosis-based claustrophobia. It all fits. And if I’m right, her husband might have caught her, either in the act with her lover or just after, and killed her in a fit of fury. Pretty classic scenario, actually.”

  Taylor smiled. “That’s exactly where we’ve been going with our theories. When I interviewed Corinne’s psychiatrist, she mentioned that Corinne may have had a lover. For all I know, we might have two bodies. Wolff might have caught her in the act with another man, beat her, killed the lover, then transported his body somewhere. It would explain Corinne’s blood in his truck, that’s for sure.”

  Baldwin was nodding his agreement. “You’re on to something, Taylor. Did the crime scene techs find more than one type of blood?”

  Taylor looked at Sam. “The DNA won’t be back on that immediately, I assume?”

  Sam shook her head. “Only threw in the autopsy slides, not the evidence collected at the scene. Sorry.”

  Taylor shrugged. “So no idea. I’ve been out of the case for over twenty-four hours. Fitz might have solved it already.”

  “You’d have heard,” Sam said kindly. Taylor shot her a dirty look.

  Sam’s intercom buzzed. Kris’s disembodied voice filled the room.

  “Dr. Loughley, the Chief of Police is looking for Lieutenant Jackson. Can I put him through to your line?”

  Shooting Taylor an I told you so look, Sam said, “Sure thing.”

  The phone beeped twice, then rang. Sam picked it up and handed Taylor the handset.

  “Lieutenant Jackson,” she answered. She was greeted by the deep, heavily Southern voice of the chief. In a few short words, she had her life back. He’d even thrown in an apology. She hung up the phone with a smile, winked at Sam and turned to Baldwin.

  “Let’s go. I’ve got work to catch up on.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Taylor didn’t expect a hero’s welcome. She didn’t want one. She just wanted to slip into the CJC and bust open the Wolff murder. And she wanted Aiden to disappear from their lives.

  Instead, news vans lined the streets. Reporters jostled with cameramen looking for the best angle. The national news trucks were parked nose to tail along 2nd Avenue, their remote satellites like a string of herons, balanced on one leg and pushing their crests into the noonday sky.

  “Well, at least we know you’ve got the sympathy of the people,” Baldwin said.

  “Yeah, that’s great. I want the media on my side. This is just going to piss Delores off more. And when the Oompa gets mad, she gets even. I’m sure she’s in there plotting all the ways she can make my life miserable. I think we’re going to have to circle around, sneak in through the parking lot next door.”

  “No. I think you should walk the gauntlet.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No. Walk through there like a queen, smile, wave, and say ‘no comment’ in your most gracious Southern style. It’s a nice PR move on your part.”

  “I don’t particularly want to be on the air anymore. And it will give Aiden a target. Surely you don’t want that.”

  “You’ve been maligned, and they want to make it right for you. Let them. He’s not going to do anything in the middle of this crowd. Trust me.”

  “The media wants to make it right for me? Are you high? They’d just as soon cut off my leg as paint me in a favorable light.”

  But she parked in the gravel by the back door. The scrum grew, microphones growing out of the crowd like black mushrooms. They stepped from the car and she was blinded by the flashbulbs. For one insane moment, she thought of what a celebrity’s life must be like, and decided that all this constant attention would suck.

  She waved, smiled, ignored the shouted questions, and Baldwin held the door for her. The inside was pleasantly quiet. They followed the green arrows in the linoleum floor to the homicide office. Fitz, Marcus and Lincoln were all there. Hugs and claps on the back were exchanged, then Fitz pointed toward her office.

  “The Oompa was here a few minutes ago. She wants you. Hurry up, wouldja? We’ve got loads to go over with you. Lincoln’s about to blow this wide open.”

  “Okay, okay.” With a smile, she ducked into her office. On her desk was a handwritten note on a Post-it, the writing surprisingly crabbed.

  *

  Please see me immediately. Captain Norris.

  Taylor raised an eyebrow at Baldwin. “Let’s go see what the wicked witch wants.”

  *

  Delores seemed taller in her chair and Taylor wondered if she was sitting on a phone book. She’d been talking for the past five minutes, but after she said they were discounting the allegations of witness intimidation, Taylor had tuned her out. There was nothing she could do to her now—Taylor had been cleared of the charge of murder publicly, privately and everywhere in between—but she was still droning on about professional responsibility and taking precautions in life, blah, blah, blah.

  Taylor didn’t start listening in earnest until she heard the word shield, then focused on the Oompa’s ridiculously tiny hand. She took the gold with grace, but didn’t feel complete until Norris had returned her Glock as well. Not that she’d been cruising around unarmed, but having that particular gun on her hip meant something to her.

  She turned to go, but the Oompa cleared her throat viciously. Taylor looked down at her expectant face.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t you want to say something?”

  Taylor was thrust back in time. Her mother had said that to her when she was a child, the tone readily recognized as a mild scold when she hadn’t said thank you to a stranger showing a kindness. She would be damned first.

  Taylor stared Norris down for a moment. Carelessly, she replied, “No,” and walked out of the office.

  Baldwin was waiting in the hall, his face a question mark. She just tapped her waist, where she’d already secured her weapon and her shield. She didn’t speak, just kept walking down to the stairwell. Once they were inside, Taylor started to laugh.

  “Dear God, that woman’s patronizing looks just get me every time. She really thinks she’s the bee’s knee.”

  “You should still be careful around her. She’s got a stinger.”

  “Well, she can take that stinger and shove it up her ass. I know she’s got it in for me, but I can’t change who I am or how I work just to stay on her good side. I’ve dealt with women like her before. They are so all-fired busy trying to prove themselves that they lose the respect of everyone around them. She’ll screw up. I’m just going to stay out of her way from now on.”

  *

  They had settled in to work, comfortable and secure, when the call came.

  Taylor was in her office, the door open, getting briefed by Marcus on what he and Lincoln had uncovered about the Wolffs thus far. The films, the money, the double life. When she looked past Marcus, she could see Lincoln’s leg jumping with nervous energy. He had Corinne Wolff’s computer on his desk, Todd Wolff’s laptop on the desk next to him. He was flying through the files, nodding, saying yes, yes aloud every couple of moments.

  Fitz had been called out on a murder, but promised to get back as soon as possible to help. Marcus had just started going over the gas receipts that Wolff had been so shocked to hear they could easily trace when her outside line rang. Taylor answered the phone, was surprised to hear Fitz calling. He’d only been gone twenty minutes, couldn’t have had time to do much at the crime scene.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  His voice was as grave
as she’d ever heard it. “I need you.”

  She didn’t question why, just asked where he was.

  “The Parthenon. Bring Baldwin. I’ve got something you both have to see. Someone’s sending you a message.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Taylor and Baldwin were screaming up West End, a flashing, blaring siren latched to the roof of the car above the driver’s side door. Baldwin was driving. It was too loud to talk, which suited Taylor fine. She knew what this was, why Fitz had called her, his normally boisterous voice filled with dread. Aiden. Aiden had killed. Fitz said someone was sending them a message. The moment she’d hung up the phone, Baldwin had looked at her, his eyes full of questions. He knew too.

  “Might be a trap,” he said.

  She shook her head. A message.

  She let the memory of Aiden standing in her front lawn fill her. Scant moments after killing two men with his bare hands, he was so damned nonchalant, so…unfazed by what he’d just done. A sense of failure, of loss for the two men who’d answered her summons for help, died trying to protect her, crept down her spine. She’d been so wrapped up in her own troubles, she’d neglected to even find out their names.

  The urban spread became Vanderbilt University, a sedate greenness signaled they had arrived. Taylor had always relished the dichotomy that was Nashville; there was something so joyous in downtown’s diversity from block to block. Vandy was always a favorite destination. The hopes of the guileless college students, the ornate buildings teeming with knowledge. Before she could get reflective for her own lost years, Baldwin took a fast right into Centennial Park, narrowly missing the ubiquitous jogger panting down the sidewalk.