Path of Secrets

by D. F. Hart

  Lizzie grinned despite her best efforts not to. “Yeah, I’m thinking what you said was the smarter choice.”

  “Do you mind if we get the polygraph exam done before we make a trip to your house?” Nathan asked.

  Grant shrugged. “Whatever you guys want to do.”

  “I’ll take you down there,” Nathan answered. “Come with me.”

  “Hey, I just thought of something,” Grant blurted as they all stood. “My car... it’s still out in Bronte. How am I going to get back to it when we’re done here?”

  “We made arrangements for your car to be brought here overnight, Mr. Forrester,” Nathan replied.

  “Oh,” Grant said, startled. “Okay. I assume it’s being... whatever you call it.”

  “Processed for evidence, yes. But as you said, we need to be able to clear you off the suspect list.”

  Nathan and Lizzie escorted him to the elevator, where they traveled two floors down and turned Grant over to Agent Mellery for his polygraph test.

  “We’ll be done in about forty minutes, Agent Thomas,” the examiner noted.

  “Call me when you are, and I’ll have him brought back up to the conference room.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As they traveled back down the hall and stepped into the elevator, Lizzie asked, “Your gut still saying he’s not our guy?”

  “Just as loudly as ever, yes,” came the answer as Nathan pressed the button for the eighth floor.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Once his polygraph was completed, Grant, Nathan, Lizzie, and the technician that had been assigned to travel with them and collect evidence from Grant’s residence headed to his home.

  Grant led the way to the front door, unlocked it, and turned off the alarm.

  “The gun cabinet is in the front parlor,” he said, gesturing to the right. “Follow me.”

  The agents stayed close to him as the technician pulled on latex gloves. She stepped forward.

  “Which one is it, sir?”

  “Fourth from the left,” he said, hands in pockets and completely at ease.

  The technician opened the glass door, reached forward, and frowned.

  “You said the fourth one from the left, correct?’

  “Yes. Why?”

  She retrieved the one Grant was pointing to.

  “Agent Thomas,” she said, “I’m no firearms expert but I can guarantee you that nobody was shot with this one.”

  The hair stood up on Nathan’s neck as he moved closer to the gun cabinet. His motions caused Lizzie to automatically take two steps back and to the side to enable her to keep both men in view.

  “Holy hell,” he said, and turned to Grant. “This is a replica.”

  “I can assure you, it’s real,” Grant replied. “Like I told you yesterday, my mother’s relative several generations back purchased it new when it was first made.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Nathan said, and turned to show it to him.

  Grant’s eyes went huge.

  “What... what is that?”

  “A very cleverly carved placeholder,” Nathan solemnly answered. “Which begs the question – when is the last time you saw the Winchester 1873 .44/40 that you’ve stated on record that you own?”

  “T-t-that rifle’s been right here in that cabinet for over two years, at least,” Grant stammered. “I take them all out every six months or so and clean them and then they go right back into the case. I’ve never even fired most of them.”

  ***

  An hour later they were back at the FBI’s Dallas office. Grant sat at the conference room table, head in hands.

  “I don’t understand. I just... don’t understand,” he said again. “I live alone. I don’t have people over. No one’s had access to that cabinet but me. I know how that sounds, how it looks. But why would I take the gun anywhere?”

  Nathan’s jaw muscle twitched as his mind raced, covering every shred of evidence they’d assimilated so far.

  “And there was nothing else missing that you noticed?”

  “No.”

  A soft rap at the door preceded Annie poking her head in and saying, “Agent Thomas, do you have a moment?”

  “I’ll be right back,” Nathan told Grant, indicating to Lizzie to stay with their guest. She nodded and took a seat across the table as her boss stepped out into the hall.

  ***

  Once the conference room door had closed Nathan said, “What’s up?”

  Annie’s eyes were solemn. “I’ve got good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

  “The good news.”

  “Good news is, he passed the polygraph with flying colors.”

  “And the bad news?’

  “They’ve compared his prints three times, boss, just to make sure,” she said softly, “and the results were the same each time. He’s a match to the fingerprints found at all four crime scenes.”

  Nathan stared her down, the twitch in his jaw shifting into overdrive.

  “What percentage?”

  “Ninety-six-point-two.”

  “So not one hundred. Run them again.”

  “But boss-”

  “Annie. Run them again.”

  “Yes, sir,” she murmured, and headed back to the lab to pass along Nathan’s directive.

  Nathan stood in the hallway, resisting the sudden urge to yell in frustration.

  I know I’m not wrong about this guy. I know I’m not. What the hell am I missing?

  ***

  When Nathan stepped back inside the conference room Lizzie immediately noticed his change in demeanor.

  “Agent Zimmerman, a moment please?” he said quietly, and she looked at Grant.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll be right here,” Grant replied, and tried to smile.

  “Oh, no. I know that look,” Lizzie told her boss when they were out in the hall. “I’ve seen that look before, when you came to Faith’s house that night to tell us that Samantha had escaped.”

  “He passed the poly, but his prints are a match to all four cases,” Nathan said without preamble. “A little over ninety-six percent.”

  Lizzie’s jaw dropped open.

  “I... wasn’t expecting that.”

  “Me either. I still have this really big gut feeling we’re missing something.”

  “Well... prints matching... that’s pure science, Nathan. Science doesn’t lie.”

  “I know. That’s the frustrating part.”

  “Is it something psychological, perhaps? Split personality, anything like that? I mean, you’re the profiler here. What does your experience tell you?”

  He sighed heavily.

  “My experience tells me that right now I have no choice but to place him under arrest.”

  ***

  “Agent Thomas,” Grant began when they returned to the conference room. But his voice trailed off as he looked at them.

  “Something’s changed. What’s going on?”

  Nathan cleared both his throat and his expression and began to speak as Lizzie moved to stand behind Grant.

  “Grant Forrester, you’re under arrest for the murders of Edward Baker, Stella Williams, and Sally Rutherford and the attempted murder of Benji Patterson. I need you to stand up, slowly, and place your hands behind your back, please.”

  Dumbfounded, Grant did as he was told, and flinched when he felt cold steel manacles around his wrists for the second time in as many days.

  Nathan recited the Miranda warning, then directed, “Agent Zimmerman, please transport him for booking and processing. Take Agent Miles with you.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, then murmured to the pale, shaking man, “come on, let’s go.”

  “This isn’t right,” Nathan muttered to himself as he watched Lizzie and Ben walk a devastated Grant Forrester to the elevator. “This isn’t right.”

  ***

  Grant Forrester was booked and processed and placed in a cell in the Dallas County Jail. The chance f
or his single phone call was offered to him a little over two hours into the process.

  He desperately wanted to talk to Kelly but had no idea how he’d even begin to explain the situation. He took a deep breath and called his mother instead.

  Since he was short on time, he hit the highlights, and asked her to call Kelly and let her know.

  “And Mom,” he finished, “I need an attorney. A really, really good attorney.”

  “Everything’s going to work out, honey,” Bernice said. “I know you didn’t do this, and I’m sure evidence will come to light that proves it. Hang in there, honey. We’ll get through it. Okay?”

  He swallowed hard, tears forming, and whispered, “I sure hope so, Mom. I sure hope so.”

  The guard watching him indicated his time was up, and he said, “Mom I have to go now. I love you.”

  “And I love you, Grant. Stay strong. We’ll get this figured out.”

  ***

  Bernice listened to her only child hang up the phone, making sure the call had disconnected before she began to sob. Hands trembling violently, she dialed Trish’s number.

  “Oh, Trish,” she cried out when her sister-in-law answered the phone. “Grant’s been arrested and charged with murder.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true. He just called me from jail.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s in Dallas.”

  “I’m on my way there right now, honey, and I will find out everything I can and call you back, all right?”

  Bernice was crying uncontrollably but managed to get out “Okay,” in a small voice.

  “Love you, Bernie. I’ll keep you posted.”

  ***

  Trish hung up with Bernice and immediately called Joe.

  “Honey, I need you to take on a new case,” she said abruptly as she shrugged off her lab coat and reached for her purse. “I’m swinging by the house to pick you up. We’ve got to go to the Dallas County Jail.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Grant. They’ve arrested him and charged him with murder. That’s all I know right now.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you in the driveway.”

  ***

  “Is there any way that his prints could have been planted at the scenes?” Ben asked once the team had assembled in the conference room. “Any way at all?”

  “Like how?” Annie asked.

  “Well,” Ben thought for a moment. “Just because casings were found at the scenes doesn’t mean they’re the exact casings that were fired through the weapon at the time of the murders.”

  The rest of the group swiveled to look at him as he continued his line of thinking.

  “If he practiced somewhere with that rifle, he wouldn’t have policed his brass, right? I mean, who does? I know I don’t when I go to the range to practice. So, he has shooting practice, and then someone comes behind him and scoops up the spent casings and plants them at the scenes.”

  “It’s farfetched, but not impossible,” Nathan said thoughtfully. “But what about the other prints recovered that weren’t on bullet casings?”

  “There were only two,” Annie said, rifling through notes. “One on the cupola shutter, and one on Stella Williams’ front door.”

  “Well we know he was in Stella’s house visiting her about Fort Chadbourne, so that one can be explained,” Lizzie pointed out. “Would it even be possible to transfer someone else’s print from a casing onto a shutter and it result in a clear, usable, identifiable print?”

  “I don’t know,” Nathan said. “But I know someone I can ask. An acquaintance of mine heads up the crime lab for Tarrant County. Let me make a call.”

  ***

  “Hey, Nathan,” Joe said when he answered.

  “Is Trish with you? I have a forensics question.”

  “Hang on, I’ll put you on speaker.”

  A few moments later, Joe said, “All right, go ahead.”

  “Hi Trish. Do you know if it’s possible to transfer someone else’s print from one surface to another?”

  “Not cleanly. There have been documented cases for forged fingerprints, though, and if done correctly they’re almost impossible to distinguish from the original.”

  “Forged fingerprints?”

  “Yep,” she confirmed. “Essentially, you build a replica, and then you can put it on whatever you want. Couple different ways to do it, depending on whether the original fingerprint donor is involved or not. But it’s not very common at all. Listen, I need to run. Good talking to you, Nathan. Here’s Joe.”

  Nathan heard Joe say, “Go on in, honey, I’ll be there in just a minute.”

  “Is everything all right?” Nathan asked when his old friend took the call off of speakerphone again.

  “Not by a long shot,” Joe confided, and Nathan could hear the strain in the man’s voice. “Her nephew’s been arrested.”

  “For what?”

  “Multiple counts of murder. Trish has asked me to dig and see if I can’t find something that can help him. I tell you, Nathan, I’m gonna have my hands full with this one. There’s no way in hell he did what they’re accusing him of. Grant is just too good a kid.”

  Nathan closed his eyes and felt seasick.

  “Nathan? You there?”

  “Her nephew’s last name doesn’t happen to be Forrester, does it?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  Dammit.

  Nathan sighed. No easy way to say this.

  “I’m the one that arrested him.”

  A long, dangerous pause, then, “You at your office?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll swing by to see you when we leave the jail.”

  ***

  Nathan disconnected the call and looked at Lizzie in disbelief.

  “Guess whose nephew he is?”

  “No way,” Lizzie gasped, and Nathan nodded.

  “What?” Annie interjected, confused. “Who are you talking about? Who’s related to Grant Forrester?”

  “The head of the Tarrant County crime lab is his aunt,” Nathan informed Annie and Ben, “and she’s married to a friend of mine and Lizzie’s - a retired Fort Worth detective named Joe Wallace.”

  “Except Joe’s not just my friend. He was my dad’s best friend and partner on the police force. I’ve known Joe almost all my life – he’s like a second father to me,” Lizzie revealed.

  She turned to Nathan.

  “This just got a lot more complicated,” Lizzie murmured, holding Nathan’s gaze.

  His brown eyes sparked with pain. “I know.”

  ***

  Joe had hoped to be the one to break it to his wife about Nathan Thomas being directly involved, but Grant beat him to it.

  “That’s the funny part, Aunt Ish,” Grant said, his face full of misery as he reached the end of telling her what had happened. “Agent Thomas looked so sad when he told me I was under arrest.”

  “He’s a good man, Grant,” Joe interjected. “A fair man. And I trust that he’ll get to the bottom of all this. I know it’s hard, but have some faith, son.”

  Trish glared at her husband briefly before telling her nephew, “I’m going to try to do whatever I can to help you, okay? Be strong. We’ll figure this out, Little Dude.”

  “I’m sorry, Grant. Time’s up,” the guard said solemnly, and put his hand on Grant’s left elbow.

  “I’ll come back tomorrow and see you, all right? I love you.”

  “I love you too, Aunt Ish,” Grant said over his shoulder as he was led back to his cell.

  ***

  Ben’s phone chirping pierced the strained silence filling the conference room. He read his email and pumped his fist in the air.

  “Yes,” he declared. “Boss. We got the subpoena.”

  “Go pick it up,” Nathan said immediately. “And I want it hand delivered to whoever’s in charge down at Kimble Hospital first thing in the morning, and I want the records hand carried back to this office, even if it means waiting ar
ound to get them. Any volunteers?”

  “Road trip?” Ben looked at Annie, who nodded.

  “Can Ben and I go, boss? It’d be nice to get out of the office, even if it is a drive-and-wait marathon,” she said, crinkling her nose. “The lab techs are talking about assigning me a workstation, I’m down there so much.”

  Nathan managed a small smile.

  “Okay, you both can go. Straight there, get the records, and get back here as quick as you can, and for God’s sake don’t hit any deer.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ben said. “Come on, Annie, let’s roll.”

  “What do you need me to work on?” Lizzie asked Nathan once Ben and Annie had left the room.

  “Start wading through Grant’s receipts. Build out a timeline and road map of precisely where he was, and when,” Nathan directed as he headed toward the door. “I have a feeling knowing that will come in handy.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To tell the crew collecting evidence from Grant’s car and electronics to be as thorough as possible.”

  ***

  They left the jail and returned to the door, a heavy ponderous silence dominating the air.

  Trish clicked her seat belt into place, and sighed.

  “I just – I can’t wrap my head around this, Joe,” she stammered. “Never in a million years did I ever think I’d be visiting that kid in a jail cell.”

  “Honey, if it helps, I think I know why Nathan was asking you that question about fingerprints,” Joe reassured her. “It’s because he doesn’t think Grant is guilty, either.”

  “Then why arrest him? Why?” she snarled, even though she knew the answer.

  “I know Nathan. Once those prints lined up, he didn’t have a choice anymore, Trish. Come on. You know this. You’ve worked in forensics a long time, honey, and you’re just as familiar with procedure as I am. You know that if there was any way possible to avoid having to arrest Grant, Nathan would have.”

  She scowled, staring out the window. And suddenly it hit her like a two-by-four across the back of the head.

  “We need to go see Nathan Thomas right now,” she urged. “I think I know what’s going on.”

  ***

  “Agent Thomas,” the receptionist said, “Joe and Trish Wallace are here to see you.”