Trace Evidence

by Elizabeth Becka

  “I’m beginning to think that man likes you,” Marissa said.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Then why are you blushing? There ain’t nothing silly about falling for a cop. They work lousy hours for lousy pay and they cheat on their wives—that is, if they don’t beat them.”

  Evelyn glared over her shoulder as she opened the door. “Good morning, Detective. This is Marissa, our serologist.” The woman nodded.

  “Hi.” He looked around. “This is smaller than I expected.”

  “No kidding,” Marissa told him. “Besides us, there’s two PhDs who do most of the final DNA work. They stay in the back rooms and emerge for occasional sightings. We had a third person doing the trace stuff with Evelyn, but she quit last year and somehow the county never got around to filling her position. They prefer to run Evelyn’s ass off instead. And mine. We live to be Tony’s grunts.”

  “I take it you won’t be nominating him for boss of the year.”

  Marissa shook her tubes of blood, responding to Evelyn’s frown with an innocent gaze. “He’s a dyed-in-the-wool moron who uses a microscope only to get splinters out of his fingers, but since he never steals anything or stands up to the ME, the only fireable offenses when you work in civil service, he’ll probably be supervisor until he retires or we find him keeled over his desk with his coffee cup still clenched in his chubby little fingers.”

  “Let’s change the subject,” Evelyn suggested, “before Jason wanders in and I wind up at the unemployment office. Did you want something, Detective, or did you suddenly wish to survey employee satisfaction in Cuyahoga County offices?”

  “Are you busy?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Feel like visiting some of our local hardware stores?”

  She smiled for the first time all day. “To look for chains?”

  “Unless you need to pick up some nails or something.”

  “I’ll get my coat.”

  She moved into the back, out of sight but not out of earshot, and left David with Marissa.

  “Hi.” He sounded a bit uncomfortable under her scrutiny. Most men were.

  “Hi.”

  “I get the feeling you don’t like me. That’s mysterious, considering we’ve never met.”

  “We have a mutual friend.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Maria Hardin.”

  “It’s a small world,” David said coldly.

  “Isn’t it.”

  Evelyn returned with her coat, twirling the Egyptian mummy fob, wondering but refusing to ask. Maria Hardin, whoever that might be, had nothing to do with her. David’s past had nothing to do with her. Riley could keep his covert little warnings to himself and so could Marissa. “I’m sorry, but given the choice between hardware stores and jewelry stores, it’s no mystery what I’ll choose.”

  David looked confused.

  From a locked drawer she pulled out Lia Ripetti’s emerald ring. Marissa’s attitude turned a hundred and eighty degrees and she and Evelyn spent several minutes cooing over the jewel before David grew impatient.

  “What is it with women and jewelry?”

  “What is it with men and cars?” Evelyn countered.

  “Point taken. Now what is the significance of this particular piece of jewelry?”

  She explained, adding, “It’s got the name Corelli engraved on the band. Corelli’s is a jewelry store on East Ninth. Been there since 1949. Open seven days a week except holidays.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  “Yellow Pages.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Sometimes it really is that easy.”

  “So before we hit the hardware stores, we can ask the Corellis about Lia Ripetti.”

  “At least we can find out what this ring is worth,” Evelyn said. “I’m curious about how a young bookkeeper like Lia could afford an emerald this big. Unless it’s just green glass.”

  “Find out if they’re having any sales while you’re there,” Marissa added.

  They left via the front door, which stood, unfortunately, in full view of Mrs. Anderson. “Glad you took my advice, sweetie!” she called after them, in a voice that could have carried all the way to Severance Hall.

  “Advice?”

  “Never mind,” Evelyn said, but smiled.

  The Corelli jewelry store in downtown Cleveland had the same hushed atmosphere as most jewelry stores, but the cabinets were real cherrywood and an antique crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. No customers cluttered the plush carpeting. Evelyn felt uncomfortable in expensive shops. She did not belong here; she could not afford any of these fine things and never would. But a short, beaming man greeted them as if they were his first customers in ten years and offered Evelyn a chair. Antonio Corelli (“Junior,” he explained) did everything he could to make her feel like a blue-blooded society matron.

  “What a lovely couple!” he exclaimed. “Engagement rings? I have some beautiful marquis cuts, just in from South Africa.”

  “Pardon?” David asked.

  “No.” Evelyn felt her face flush. “We’re not engaged.”

  “And why not?”

  “Well, er, because this isn’t a social call,” David stammered in the face of the man’s birdlike intensity. “I’m from the police department. We’d like to ask you about a ring.”

  “A retirement ring? Something for a man or woman?”

  “No,” David tried again. “We’re not here to buy a ring—”

  “This.” Evelyn held out the emerald. “We want to ask you about this.”

  Corelli Junior grew quite still as he examined the ring, but out of professionalism, not wariness. He looked up with the bright eyes of one who recognizes greatness. “Yes, this is mine. I designed it myself. See how the setting shows the most of the gem, and yet it is quite secure.”

  “So that’s a real emerald?” Evelyn asked.

  The man grew as close to affronted as he could. “Of course! It’s a Colombian emerald of great quality. See the depth of color? I assure you its clarity is of the highest definition. It’s—”

  “It’s beautiful. Really stunning,” Evelyn assured him, which mollified him somewhat. “I only wish I could afford something so exquisite. I assume you recall who purchased the ring? We have to ask because it belonged to a young lady. A murdered young lady.”

  The man raised his eyebrows in an expression of shock. “Murdered?”

  “Brutally,” she added for good measure. “We’re not sure how this woman could have afforded such a ring. Did someone give it to her?”

  The eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline. “I’m terribly sorry for this poor young lady. But my customers are lovely people and—how do I say it?—privileged. I go to a great deal of trouble to make them happy. One of the ways I do that is by protecting their privacy,” he concluded, giving the word an English pronunciation: prihv-a-see.

  David could have gotten angry and growled phrases like subpoena, search warrant, and drag you down to the station and sort this out there. Instead, he pulled out Lia’s picture.

  “This is her.” He placed the photo on the glass countertop. Lia Ripetti smiled up at the jeweler. “Young, bright, pretty. Now her body is still at the ME’s office because the only person in the world who really cared about her doesn’t have enough money to bury her.” He let that sink in. Beside him, Evelyn didn’t breathe.

  Corelli couldn’t take his eyes off the photo. “She is beautiful. Looks just like my Laurina. She’s about that age. And smart, just like her mother.”

  “So,” David said, “who gave this girl an emerald?”

  Corelli switched his gaze to the ring, still nestled in his left palm, and sighed.

  “I don’t know how she got the ring,” he told them, “but I made two of them, identical. I made them special for Mr. Ashworth.”

  “Mario Ashworth?”

  “Yes. You know him?”

  “We’ve met.”

  Corelli paused and
pursed his lips as if he had something to say, as if he wanted to ask them not to tell Ashworth where they had gotten the information. Then with the barest of sighs he stood back, balanced his weight on both feet, and said nothing. Evelyn thought she could read the set of his jaw—a professional, the son of a self-made man, he would answer to no one. Not even one of his best customers.

  Their sense of accomplishment melted away like a spring snow by the third massive, overbright, crowded home-improvement store. Chains were heavy, cold, and uncooperative. People who inhabited chain aisles were heavy, cold, and pushy. Chain-aisle salesmen were more interested in talking to burly auto mechanics who wanted to buy the half-inch links in order to install a chain hoist in their garage for removing engines than in helping a hapless couple who probably wouldn’t know a decent chain if they tripped over it.

  Then David would flash his badge and the chain-aisle boy would grow sullen or intensely curious and tell them nothing or ask them everything, respectively. They learned that chains came in decorator, twist, straight, and passing links, along with a smaller version called jack chain. The chain from the murders formed the twist design, which meant the chain would lie flat against a level surface.

  With this slow process they assembled a collection of chains of the same approximate size and formation as the ones in the cement block. The backseat of David’s car slowly filled up with brown paper bags covered with black marker, all of which made complaining noises when he took a corner too sharply.

  “Don’t worry,” she told him when he glanced in the rearview mirror. “This is just part of our Other Duties As Assigned.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking—”

  “What’s a girl like me doing in a place like this? Or, as I put it, what kind of sick human being wants to do this for a living?”

  “You said it.” He grinned. “I didn’t.”

  A new noise joined the fray.

  “My stomach,” Evelyn confessed.

  “Mine agrees. Let’s get some lunch. Pizza Hut okay?”

  “Pizza,” she said solemnly, “is nature’s perfect food.” After they settled in the restaurant and ordered, she continued her story. “I just sort of fell into the job. Most people in this line of work do. I had planned to be a chemist like my father. It took me a while to finish school, what with getting married and all. Then one day my biology professor took our class on a field trip to the ME’s office and I just fell in love. This dingy building, these bizarrely cheerful workers, and all these stories. You’d think the victims would all seem the same after a while, but that’s not true. They were all individuals when they were alive and they’re still individuals, with a story to tell. Anyway, it was a chance to work on mysteries, follow the clues, and yet I never have to wrestle a suspect to the ground or interview his cop-hating girlfriend.”

  “Yeah, that’s always a pleasure.”

  “I never looked back.”

  “What does your family think of it?”

  “Rick didn’t care as long as I brought home a paycheck. Angel thinks it’s gross. My mother is supportive and worried in equal amounts. My father thought it was great. He pretty much thought anything I did was great, though.”

  David snorted. “That must be nice. My dad thought anything I did was idiotic. Problem was, he was right.” Evelyn opened her mouth to argue, but he rolled on. “I intended to go to college, major in business, anything just so I wouldn’t wind up at the mill like my dad. But the day before graduation I went to pick up my girlfriend and found her making out with my best friend. Kind of a shock to the system when you’re only eighteen.”

  “It’s a shock to the system at any age.”

  “So of course I had to make it even worse.” He grinned at her with a painfully self-deprecating smile. “I joined the Marines. I figured an idiot like me could at least be a warm body between our citizens and the violent world outside.”

  “Boot camp must have been hard on a kid of eighteen.”

  He dropped the grin. “It was a damn sight easier than seeing the disappointed look in my father’s eyes every time I raised my head.”

  “He was hard on you?”

  “No, he’s—he’s a kindhearted guy. Unfortunately that just made me feel worse. So you see how I know about second-guessing past decisions.” He had made the same comment after Evelyn revealed her past relationship with Darryl Pierson. “I’ve spent my life to date doing just that.”

  “But why a cop?”

  “Another warm body.”

  “Protecting us,” she pointed out. His chin set more firmly and he looked away.

  “Pizza’s here.”

  To smooth over their mutual confessions, they talked about the case. She gave him a list of fiber samples to collect, including the carpet at Lia’s office, her boyfriend’s apartment, and her boyfriend’s car. “And not just the interior of his car—his trunk.”

  “Okay.” David nodded and scribbled illegible notes in a small notebook.

  “Just cut off a thread or two. You don’t have to cut a hole in their carpet.”

  “Would I do that?” he asked innocently.

  “I don’t want to know.” She popped another piece of double-cheese-and-pepperoni into her mouth, using a knife and fork, a practice on which David said he frowned. He glanced at her quickly emptying plate.

  “Nature’s perfect food?”

  “It has all four food groups—grains, meats, dairy products, and vegetables.”

  “Vegetables?”

  “Tomato sauce.”

  “I see.”

  “I could eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Evelyn said.

  “How do you keep that figure?”

  “I eat steamed vegetables for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Why do you think this is such a treat?” She snagged another piece of garlic bread, thinking that no matter what Mrs. Anderson thought, this was not a date. They were discussing the case, right? “There’s no connection between Durling and Destiny Pierson?”

  “Not that we can see. He’s never in her part of town, and there are no obvious common denominators. For that matter, there’s still no connection between Lia and Destiny Pierson. As near as we can tell, the two girls never met. They didn’t go to the same school, church, or hairdresser. Lia Ripetti’s never been in the Beat Club in her life. Destiny wouldn’t be caught dead on Emory Road. Neither of them frequented the park where they were found. Neither of them seemed to be afraid and neither changed their habits or routines in the past few weeks. Destiny Pierson had been featured in Cleveland Magazine last May, but no one had ever heard of Lia Ripetti.”

  “Why do you think Mario Ashworth bought her an expensive ring?”

  “Only one reason I can think of. Same reason he gave her a job. So maybe she threatened to tell the missus, and he’s as likely to take orders from her as from your average third grader. So he gets her out of his life—for good.”

  “That would all make sense. Except . . . what possible reason would he have to kill Destiny?”

  David thought. “There could be some dirty dealings between the mayor and Ashworth that we could never prove or guess at. There always are at that level, and I’m not being a paranoid conspiracy theorist here. I mean there always are. So the mayor double-crosses him and Ashworth kills his daughter.”

  “Not a chance.”

  As if choosing his words with care, he said, “Because you don’t think your . . . old friend could be involved with someone like Ashworth?”

  “Because if he knew Ashworth killed his daughter, he’d stop at nothing to get him back.” Evelyn spoke with conviction, eyes glittering. And he wouldn’t ask me for information if he already had it. “Even if it brought his career down.”

  David held her gaze for a moment, then shrugged. “I didn’t really buy it, either. Not even Mario Ashworth would dare a high-profile killing like this; the one thing he isn’t is stupid. Besides, from everything I’ve been told, the mob kills you, you get two bullets in the back of the skull. T
hey don’t do over-the-top dramatic stuff like this. I can’t shake the feel that this is a nutcase, a serial. Someone who isn’t killing for profit or over a business deal. He kills because he likes it.” He shook his head, black hair falling over his eyes. “And while we’re getting nowhere, he’s somewhere out there picking his next victim.”

  Evelyn shuddered. “Let’s hope not.”

  “Why should he stop? He’s doing okay so far. The Metroparks can keep him supplied with rivers and bridges until next autumn.”

  “No one else has turned up.”

  “Unless we send a dive team through every body of water around here—how do we know? We found these two by accident. How many other corpses are slowly rotting through their chains?”

  Evelyn shivered again and abandoned her garlic bread.

  David reached over and put his hand over hers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your lunch.”

  “Very little could ruin pizza for me,” she insisted, but he didn’t seem fooled by the flippant tone of her voice. “It’s . . . well, I’m used to seeing every kind of death there is. I don’t think about it. I’ll tell you a secret: When you work with dead people, you convince yourself that everyone died quickly. Shot—okay, maybe they bled out, but they were probably unconscious. Car accident—probably never knew what hit them. An unattended death at home—must have died in their sleep. If I really think about it, I know it can’t always be true, so I just don’t think about it. But this—this is different.”

  He nodded and left his hand where it lay. It felt warm and comforting over hers.

  “I just keep wondering what it felt like, to see that cement on your feet and hear the water and know you were down to the last few minutes of life. It’s not just drowning, it’s freezing and drowning. The water had to be like being stabbed with icicles, and yet not cold enough to let you die instantly or to numb the pain when you couldn’t hold your breath any longer.”

  He removed his hand. “Were they conscious? Can we be sure of that?”

  “Anything else?” interrupted the rounded high-school-age waitress as she refilled Evelyn’s Diet Coke.