Trace Evidence

by Elizabeth Becka

  “Do you use chloroform at the hospital?” Evelyn asked. She might as well take a stab at him, they weren’t getting anywhere anyway.

  He knocked over his Diet Coke. Then he used the edge of the green tablecloth to mop it up, giving him several seconds in which to avoid eye contact.

  “Sorry,” Evelyn said automatically.

  “It’s okay. I got the tablecloth for free anyway,” he added. “What did you say?”

  “Chloroform.”

  His eyes widened despite the pause. “N-n-n-oo,” he stammered. “No one uses chloroform anymore. It’s carcinogenic.”

  “Not even in the laboratories?” she pressed.

  “I don’t know. All I know is, nurses don’t have anything like that. Why would we?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Mr. Neal—” David began.

  “No. You have to go now. We’re through talking.”

  “What’s the rush?” Riley asked, settling back in his chair as if he were prepared to stay there all night. “This is just a little informational chat.”

  “No.” Neal got up and crossed to the door. He opened it and snow rode in on a gust of arctic air. “I don’t know why the hell you’re trying to connect me with Destiny Pierson, but I’m not going to help you do it.”

  Riley didn’t move. “We were hoping we could talk awhile longer, maybe take a tour of the house.”

  “I want a lawyer,” Neal said. “I want a lawyer, I want a lawyer, I want a lawyer. You can’t question me after I say that, and if you did, anything I said would be inadmissible anyway.”

  The front two legs of Riley’s chair settled to the ground with a shuddering thump. “You watch too much TV, kid. The admissible thing only applies if you’re under arrest, and you ain’t.”

  The three got up and filed out of Neal’s house. He stood as far away from them as he could and still keep one hand on the open door, as if they were diseased.

  “Now what?” Evelyn demanded, as soon as the Grand Marquis’s car doors slammed shut.

  “He’s got one thing right from TV—we can’t search his house without his permission or a search warrant. We have neither.”

  Riley started the car. “He’s hiding something.”

  “But what?” Evelyn asked as they reluctantly drove away from the bungalow. “He genuinely seemed not to know Lia.”

  “I’m not so sure,” David said. “Maybe he just realized his mistake in admitting his attraction to Destiny, so he thought he’d be more prudent when it came to Lia. Besides, we only have a picture. Maybe she looked different at first—had her hair arranged differently or something.”

  “So now what?” Evelyn asked again.

  “Now we find out as much as we can about Jimmy Neal,” Riley said. “See if he’s got a past, that kind of thing.”

  “Meanwhile, he’s running around loose.”

  David shook his head. “We don’t have enough to pick him up, Evelyn. We’ll get Lia’s medical records, see if he’s on any of them. If not, we can talk to the other ER nurses, see if they noticed any interaction between the two. It still wouldn’t be enough for a warrant.”

  “Yes, it will,” Evelyn said. “It’s a high-profile case and he’s the only thing remotely like a suspect so far. It will be enough for a warrant to search his house and car. If we don’t find anything else, at least I can get some fiber samples.”

  David looked at her. “You mean if the mayor gets involved, it will be enough for a warrant.”

  She felt betrayed. “He won’t have to. I’m sure your chief wants to see this solved, and the district attorney, and the county judges.”

  “I’m sure they do. But not as much as the mayor. You make one phone call, and James Neal will find himself in a holding cell, won’t he?”

  Riley caught the malice in the air. “Now, children, clue Uncle Bruce in to what you’re talking about—”

  Evelyn sat up, ignoring him. “There I go again, circumventing the criminal justice system to further the interests of Darryl Pierson,” she spat out.

  “I don’t give a shit about the criminal justice system,” David said, his voice low and angry. “I do give one about blowing any chance we have of making this case stick.”

  Only the barrier of the car seat kept her from hitting him. “He keeps talking about my daughter!” she burst out, her voice escaping from the dam. “He keeps mentioning her name! What am I supposed to do, sit back and wait for him to look up our home address in the hospital records? You have to get a warrant now! Lock him up now!”

  David looked torn, as if he vacillated between agreeing with her and worrying that she would make this case completely unprosecutable. “There’s no reason to think Angel’s in danger.”

  “There’s no reason to think she’s not. There were only three, maybe four days between Lia and Destiny. It’s been five days since Destiny. How much longer is he going to wait?”

  Riley stopped at a red light. An inexorable snow fell and the sun slipped toward the horizon. Evelyn viewed the encroaching darkness with panic. “Let me use your cell phone,” she said to David.

  He handed it back. “Can’t you ship her off to your great-aunt Agnes or something?”

  She dialed, peering at the tiny buttons in the dimming light, and muttered: “I don’t have a great-aunt.” Rick’s number, as before, rang uselessly before the answering machine picked up. She disconnected and gave the phone to David.

  “I need to go back to the ME’s office,” she said. “Now.”

  Once there, she tried Rick one more time—still no answer, but this time she left a message—and then pulled out the Beavell Scientific catalog and found the ordering information number. Through the dark lab she heard someone moving around in the back. Probably Marissa, working oddly late. She turned on the desk lamp over her blotter and dialed the phone. Thank God for twenty-four-hour customer service.

  “Good evening, this is Beavell Scientific, Marla speaking, can I help you?”

  “Hi.” Evelyn hesitated, for she couldn’t lie even as well as the average five-year-old. “I’m calling from Riverside Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, on behalf of James Neal.”

  “Uh-huh.” Marla made it sound like a question.

  “He needs to know when he can expect his latest order of chloroform. It was supposed to be here last week and he hasn’t received it yet.”

  “Your account number?” Marla asked without any real interest.

  Evelyn’s mind froze shut with panic. “Um . . . I don’t have it handy. I’m filling in for another person tonight and her office is a shambles.” A metal clank sounded from the back room; the mystery worker had just opened the water bath.

  The customer service representative sighed, no doubt cursing customers who didn’t have the sense to get the proper information together before they wasted time on the phone. But Marla, willing to go the extra mile, asked: “What is the name of your business again?”

  “Riverside Hospital.” Evelyn tried to keep the relief out of her voice. Tell me what I want to know, she inwardly promised, and if I ever have another girl I’ll call her Marla. She could afford it—the odds of a pregnancy were none to don’t even think about it.

  Muted clicks sounded over the wire as Marla dutifully pulled up the Riverside account on her computer. Evelyn tried to think ahead and frantically turned pages to the Cs.

  “What did he order?”

  “Chloroform.”

  “Item number?”

  Evelyn scanned the page. “Uh . . . the anhydrous kind. The 99.9 percent pure.”

  A pause, and another sigh. Then the woman said, “No.”

  “No?”

  “Nuh-uh,” Marla repeated absently.

  “No, it’s not on its way, or no he didn’t order it?”

  “Who are you again?” Marla was either suddenly suspicious or just curious.

  “I’m his supervisor.” Evelyn made an effort to sound firm. “We’re getting a little behind here and I’m trying to get rid of some of
the excuses for things like missing reagents.”

  Marla let air pass through her nose into the receiver, no doubt to express her opinion of supervisors who complained about employees being “a little behind.” “No, that’s not the kind he ordered. He ordered the HPLC quality, which has .75 percent ethanol as a preservative. But he received that order a month and a half ago. If he’s placed another one, we don’t have it.”

  “And it was sent to James Neal? At Riverside Hospital?” Evelyn pressed as her eyes darted around the room to burn off a sudden burst of adrenaline. A figure in a white lab coat emerged from the back hallway.

  “Yeah. James Neal, emergency room. Shipped on September twenty-third.”

  “Do you know who signed for it?”

  “No.” Marla seemed annoyed that she would ask. “You’d have to contact billing for that. They’ll be in at eight A.M.”

  “Do you show any previous orders?”

  Marla seemed to be getting very suspicious indeed, or maybe just tired. “Why?”

  “Just trying to get the stockroom in order.”

  Another sigh, more quiet clicking. “Yes,” Marla said, in the “can I go now?” voice of a child. “We shipped a hundred milliliters on July first. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “No. Thanks very much.”

  She hung up. The white lab coat spoke.

  “You’re working late.” He moved into the weak circle of light distributed by her desk lamp.

  “Hi, Jason.” She still heard Marla’s voice in her mind. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just changing over a gel. What are you—”

  The phone rang, and Evelyn gave the jump of the guilty. Had Marla tracked her down so quickly? Ready to accuse her of obtaining chemical information under false pretenses. “Hello?”

  “Evelyn?”

  “Terrie?”

  “Yeah, hi,” Terrie said. “I just wanted to know—do you know where Angel is?”

  chapter 25

  THE ROADS WERE SLICK but she didn’t notice. Some particularly sympathetic angel of God kept her tires from skidding all over I-71 as she drove home at an unsafe speed. Some other angel kept the highway patrol from ticketing her, or perhaps they were too sensible to pursue her in the freezing rain.

  She replayed the conversation—although conversation seemed too genteel a word—in her mind, once more.

  EVELYN: What do you mean, where is she? She’s supposed to be with you.

  TERRIE: She was until tonight.

  EVELYN: What happened tonight?

  TERRIE: Well, she and her dad had a little . . . argument and stalked off to their respective rooms. I tried to give them some quiet time, and—

  EVELYN: Where the hell’s my daughter?

  TERRIE: She left.

  EVELYN: She has no car. It’s freezing out. Her stitches from Tuesday night’s surgery are still delicate. What do you mean, she left?

  TERRIE: I’m sure she’s fine. Angel’s very sensible. She—

  EVELYN: How long has she been gone?

  TERRIE: We’re not sure.

  EVELYN: Terrie, I swear to all the stars in the heavens, if you don’t start making sense real soon, you’re going to be our next customer here, you got it?

  TERRIE: There’s no reason to lose your temper. I’m sure Angel walked to her friend Melissa’s house. It’s only on the next block, and Melissa’s mom says that Melissa went out about an hour ago without telling her where or why, which frankly I don’t see why she puts up with—

  EVELYN: What does Melissa drive?

  After she wrote down the information so she could call the Strongsville Police Department and have them put out an APB on Angel—a lieutenant on the night shift there who was grateful for a speedy gunshot-residue result would be willing to do her a favor—Evelyn asked one last question before she freed herself from the telephone to make a panicked dash to her car: Why did they argue?

  Terrie clearly didn’t want to answer.

  “Spit it out. I need to get out of here so I can go find my daughter. What did she and Rick argue about?”

  “About me. I wanted to be honest with her. I think it’s important that—”

  “Spit it out.”

  “I told her that her father and I had a . . . relationship before your divorce. I feel it’s vital that—”

  Evelyn felt her heart disintegrate into a shower of sparks, and when she spoke her voice echoed from dark, frightening places. “You told a girl four days out of the hospital that her darling father boinked you when he was still married to her mother?”

  “Well, I didn’t say it like—”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “I thought that you might tell her, so—”

  “Listen to me, you bitch. My daughter is wandering around in the snow in a weakened physical state while a depraved psycho might be ready to check her name off his list, tortured with the thought that her own father is a lying, cheating bastard, all because you wanted to cover your ass?”

  It took Terrie a moment to catch up with all of that, and as usual, she honed in on her most pressing point: “He didn’t lie. You knew he—wait, what was that about a psycho?”

  Evelyn hung up.

  The trip home had taken a few lifetimes. She hadn’t even gotten up from her desk and Darryl called; too upset to care, she blurted out his name in front of Jason, then told him abruptly to call her at home later. So she had hurt Darryl’s feelings and given Jason more gossip fodder, and she still had to stop for gas or she wouldn’t make it home at all. At the station she’d phoned her own home—no answer. This day would be the stuff of nightmares for months to come.

  She pulled into her driveway, where a short skid put her rhododendron bush out of its misery, and made one more effort to calm herself. She tried unsuccessfully to pull her mind away from the satisfying image of cooking Terrie over a spit and reluctantly admitted that perhaps the woman had just tried to do the right thing. No matter what, Evelyn respected sincerity. If it happened to come with a healthy dollop of self-righteousness and a smidgen of sheer stupidity, well, no one was perfect. Besides, Angel had argued with Rick, not Terrie. Evelyn pulled her car into the garage.

  She stormed into her dark house and dumped her too-heavy purse on the kitchen table, snatching up the phone. She had already pressed the talk button before she realized she had no one to call. No one could help her.

  She heard a faint rustle upstairs, like a light scrape of a foot along the carpet. Evelyn froze.

  It’s Angel!

  What if it’s not?

  She flew up the steps and called her daughter’s name. Even if the psycho killer lurked above, at least her daughter would be with him, maybe still alive, probably still alive. She could discern no sound over the pounding of her feet.

  She reached the hallway, then Angel’s bedroom. She flicked on the light.

  Her daughter sat on her bed, arms crossed, giving her mother a look to make her think perhaps the psycho killer would have been the better option.

  Evelyn’s knees gave out and she slumped against the doorjamb. “Where have you been? Everyone’s looking for you. Are you hurt? Where have you been?”

  Angel was unimpressed with this show of emotion.

  “Where have you been?”

  Her jaw set, Angel spoke. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Evelyn took a few deep breaths, then picked up her daughter’s phone and dialed Rick’s number. When he answered, she said, “She’s here. She’s home. She’s okay . . . I don’t know, haven’t asked yet, I called you first, which frankly is damn nice of me.” She hung up. “You scared the crap out of everyone, you know.”

  Angel continued to glare, in the white-hot intense way that only adolescent girls who truly believe in evil can glower.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” she repeated.

  “I can’t believe she did.”

  “She said you’d probably tell me, and she wanted to explain first.”

&nb
sp; A preemptive strike. “And did she?”

  “What?”

  “Explain.”

  Angel’s face contorted in disgust. “Yeah, they were in love, da-dee-da, all this other bullshit.”

  “Language,” Evelyn warned automatically.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I would only have been making you miserable in order to make myself look better in your eyes. I don’t consider that responsible parenting.”

  Angel didn’t see it that way. “I deserved to know!”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  Her daughter looked at her in amazement.

  “Your father and I were a married couple,” Evelyn went on. “We are allowed to have things between us that no one else knows about. That is not unfair. Now Terrie and your father are a married couple. They deserve to have things between them that no one else knows about. That’s the way it is.”

  “He’s a liar! He lied to you and he lied to me,” Angel shouted, unable to keep up the appearance of anger rather than misery. She burst into tears and flung herself facedown on the blue-and-white quilt, her shoulders quaking as they had at ten when she was told she could not have a pony. But she wasn’t ten anymore.

  Evelyn moved closer, perching on the edge of the mattress, trying to guess what her daughter felt. Angel wanted to hate her father and couldn’t; she wanted to blame her mother and couldn’t; and she probably couldn’t even decide why the whole thing bothered her so.

  “Everyone does things they’re not proud of later. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “It has everything to do with me,” Angel insisted between sobs. “It’s my parents.”

  “Our divorce doesn’t mean we love you any less.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” This annoyed Angel enough to stop her tears. “Like that makes everything okay.”

  “It makes up for a lot, yes. You’ll see that when you’re older.”

  “Could you be a little more condescending?” Angel asked between sniffs. “I mean, if you really worked at it?”