Red Blooded Murder

by Laura Caldwell

  “Nah. You know as well as I do, the only person I’ve got to explain something to is the judge. And I already did that.” He nodded at the warrant. “It’s all there.” He turned and walked toward my office.

  I drew Maggie toward the door. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  She looked at the warrant, reading. She flipped to the complaint and affidavit attached to the back. “It says here they’re looking for any evidence of a relationship, romantic or sexual, between you and Jane Augustine. They can take any information or data stored in the form of electronic or magnetic coding.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means they can take your…”

  Right then the not-so-nice cop walked by. Carrying my computer.

  “…Computer,” Maggie finished, watching him, her eyes dropping back to the affidavit. “And any correspondence or communications between you and Jane, including chat logs, e-mails, letters. And they’re also looking for awards or trophies,” she said, still reading, “specifically, an Emmy Award, described as a gold statuette depicting a winged woman holding a globe.”

  “What is that about?” I said.

  “I don’t know.” More squinting as Maggie kept reading.

  “Why is the address for Trial TV listed on there?”

  “Probably because they started working on this when you were still employed there, and it got thrown into the order.” She flipped another page and bit her lip. “Huh.”

  “Huh, what?”

  “The warrant also allows them to take secondary standards.”

  “What are standards?”

  “Fingerprints, hair samples, stuff where they can get your DNA.” Maggie’s head snapped up. “What else have they taken out of here other than the computer?”

  “Nothing that I know of.” Right then, the not-so-nice cop came back inside and headed for the office.

  “Have they been in your bathroom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you see them looking at anything like your toothbrush or hairbrush?”

  “Yes.”

  She took off running. “Vaughn!” she yelled.

  I followed her. He and one of the cops were in my office, going through file folders-copies of work documents I used to keep at home when I still represented Pickett Enterprises. “Those are privileged,” I said.

  Vaughn pointed at something in a manila file. “These are communications between you and Jane Augustine.”

  I stepped forward and looked at what he was holding. “Yeah, I was negotiating her contract with Pickett Enterprises. And most of those communications were between her attorney and me. Those are privileged. You can’t take them. Or look at them for that matter.” I snatched them from his hand.

  He snatched them back. Looked at Maggie. “You better tell your client not to touch a police officer. Or come even close.”

  I glanced at Mags. She gave me a little nod and made a face like, Careful.

  Vaughn handed the file to the uniformed cop, who dropped it in a plastic bag and took it from the room.

  “Vaughn,” Maggie said. “I’d like to know why you’re looking for DNA from my client.”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Her fingerprints were at Jane’s place. We all know that.”

  “So maybe we want more than prints.”

  “Did you remove anything from her bathroom?” Maggie demanded.

  “Not yet, but hey, we’re not done.”

  Maggie studied Vaughn. She took me by the arm and led me outside the apartment into the dim stairwell. “I wish I knew why they wanted your DNA. It might tell us more about why they’re looking at you as a potential suspect. I mean, we already know that your fingerprints are in Jane’s house. You were there. But they probably want standards to match with something else.”

  “Like what?”

  She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “It could be blood at the scene that wasn’t Jane’s, something like that.”

  “Maybe Spence can call his friend at the police department and see if they know something?”

  “Excellent! Call him.”

  I scrolled fast through my speed dial. Spence had no kids of his own and was devoted to being a good stepdad, even when we didn’t want his help. As such, he almost always answered my calls. And with everything going on now, I knew he was probably watching his phone, just waiting for an SOS.

  “Izzy, darlin’,” he said in his big voice. “Are you all right?”

  “Not exactly. The cops are here searching my place.”

  “What the-Why didn’t George give me a heads-up on that?” George was his friend at the police department.

  “Considering the detective on the case, it could have happened fast and without many people knowing.” I explained about the warrant, how they wanted “standards” from my place. “Maggie is here with me, and we’re trying to figure out specifically why they want my DNA. Can you call-”

  “Immediately,” he said before I could finish, and he hung up.

  Maggie and I stood in the hallway, waiting.

  “Let me read the rest of this stuff,” Maggie said. She continued scanning the warrant. Two vertical lines appeared between her eyes. “It says that Vaughn interviewed Zac Ellis, Jane’s husband, and as of yesterday Zac informed him that Jane’s Emmy Award is missing from the living room of their home.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  Maggie pursed her mouth as she flicked through the pages of the other affidavit. “They think that due to the nature of the trauma, blah, blah, blah…Wow.”

  “Wow, what?” I was so anxious my skin twitched.

  “They think whoever killed Jane beat her with an Emmy Award before they strangled her.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not kidding.” Maggie glanced up at me, eyes scared. “And they think it was you.”

  77

  I was still standing there, staring at Maggie, when my phone rang. It was my mother.

  “Hi, Boo,” she said. “Are you…are you somewhere you can talk?”

  “I’m standing outside my front door with Maggie. The cops are inside.” I looked around. The landing outside my condo was nondescript, decorated with mustard-colored walls and wood moldings. The stairs, which had never bothered me before, seemed too close to my front door now, giving me the feeling that one wrong move would send me tumbling into a dark chasm.

  “Spence asked me to call,” my mother said.

  “Oh, no, is it that bad?”

  “Well, it’s…Listen, Izzy, you know I’m not judgmental, right? Whatever you want to experiment with in your life and your lifestyle, especially now that you and Sam have hit a rough patch, I’m fine with that. You know that, right?”

  I pointed at the phone and made a She’s crazy face at Maggie. “Thanks, Mom. I appreciate that. And if you’re referring to the cops saying they thought I kissed Jane or whatever, it’s not true. Jane and I were just friends. If I do decide to come out of the closet, I’ll let you take me shopping for my first rainbow T-shirt. In the meantime, please tell me if Spence learned anything.”

  “Yes, well, that’s what I’m referring to.” She said nothing.

  “Mom, c’mon!” I said exasperated.

  “I don’t know how to say it.”

  “Just say it!”

  “Well, Spence told his friend he wouldn’t say anything, and this is rather distasteful.” She exhaled loudly. “Okay, George told Spence that they found a small amount of fluid on Jane’s bed on the day she died. They shined some kind of light on it. I don’t know what the light was…Spence!” she yelled away from the phone. “What kind of light was it?”

  “Doesn’t matter, Mom. Keep going.”

  “Of course. So the fluid didn’t appear to be male or whatever. It wasn’t…” A pause. “Sperm.”

  It was the first time I’d heard my mom say that word. She wasn’t the one who had told me about sex. It was Bunny Loveland.

  N
ow, my mother kept rolling along, though. “They tested the fluid in the lab just to be sure, and they were right. It wasn’t sperm. In fact, DNA analysis showed that the fluid was actually from two different people, both female.” My mother sighed here, as if in pain from what she was relating, but she soldiered on. “Because of this finding, your detective apparently believes it was vaginal fluid from two women.” She said this quickly, as if she was desperate to get the conversation over with. “He wants DNA samples to try and show that one of the fluid samples belonged to you.”

  “What?” I said, but inside my brain, things were adding up. That’s why Vaughn suspected me. He believed the killer was a woman, someone who’d been with Jane, in her bed, that day.

  Maggie mouthed, What? What?

  I heard Spence yelling in the background.

  “Yes, yes,” my mother said. “Spence is telling me that the fluids could be mucus, saliva, what have you. They can only say it was from two different people, both women. But this apparently was enough for the search warrant for DNA materials from you.”

  Vaughn opened my front door, the two uniformed cops behind him like statues, both holding black plastic bags.

  “I have to go, Mom. Tell Spence thanks.”

  Vaughn handed Maggie a handwritten list. “Here’s a recovered item inventory.” I saw a few things on the list-computer, laptop… “We’ll get you an official inventory later.” He took a step forward. “See you, ladies.”

  “Hold up.” I put my hands on my hips and blocked Vaughn, not caring that my back was to the stairs now, to that dark well. “You found fluids in Jane’s bed from two women, and you think she and I were in bed together on the day she died? You really think I killed her?”

  “Yeah,” Vaughn said. “That’s what I think.”

  He tried to move around me but I held firm, fists digging further into my hips. “Why? Why me?”

  “There were secretions in her bed. They were fresh. And DNA shows the fluids were from two different women.” He cocked his head and gave me a pleased smile. “And who was Jane supposed to get together with? Who took over her job? Who took over her boyfriend? Who was obsessed with Jane?” He leaned forward at the waist. “You.”

  “It wasn’t me!” My yell ricocheted off the walls of the small stairwell. One of the cops actually flinched.

  “Iz,” Maggie said in a stern voice, a hand on my arm. “Quiet. Don’t say anything else.”

  I shook off her hand. I leaned forward so that Vaughn’s face and mine were about two inches apart. “I’m telling you. It. Wasn’t. Me.”

  He didn’t flinch like the other cop. He didn’t even blink. “So if it wasn’t you, who was it?”

  “Maybe Zoey. Zac’s ex, who he’s dating again. He said that Jane knew Zoey, that they were sort of friends. He said Jane was fine with Zoey being around their lives. Maybe that’s because she and Zoey had something going on?”

  I didn’t like throwing out accusations when they might not be true, but I was scrambling to think of what woman Jane might have been involved with. And then, I wasn’t scrambling. My fury drained away, the swirling questions and suspicions disappeared. And they left in their wake only the image of one face.

  78

  M aggie and I sprinted toward her car, leading a trail of shouting, scrambling reporters.

  “Go!” I yelled when we were in the car.

  A minute ago in the stairwell, I’d asked Vaughn if he was going to arrest me. When he’d said, “Not yet,” I grabbed Maggie and propelled her down the stairs with me.

  Now she peeled away from the curb in her little Honda.

  I turned around and saw Vaughn coming out of my building. He stood on the front step watching us, while most of the media ran back to him, holding up microphones and pointing cameras.

  I had the fear, familiar now, that Vaughn would make a statement, that he would say something horrible about me. But the damage had been done, I realized. There was no reason to struggle against that damage. Just a reason-my life-to fight it.

  “So where are we going?” Maggie looked in the rearview mirror. “I think I lost the press.”

  “Trial TV.”

  She sped up Sedgwick, then glanced at me. Maybe she could see me thinking, maybe she could tell that there was nothing, as a lawyer or a best friend, that she could do now. Except drive.

  I ran through it all in my head. “What do I need to do to establish chain of custody in a criminal case?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If we find something incriminating, how do we make sure it’s admissible later in court?”

  Maggie thought about it. “Make sure other people see you find the evidence. Be careful that it doesn’t look like it’s planted.”

  “How do I do that?”

  She turned onto Clybourn and floored the Honda. “Well, the best way would be to let the cops find it.”

  “So they’d need a warrant.”

  “Right.”

  “And Trial TV is already listed on the search warrant,” I said, excited.

  “That’s true.”

  I stared at Maggie. “So basically, you’re saying that I should make Vaughn work for me?”

  She shrugged. “If you can.”

  I pulled out my cell phone, called the Belmont police station and got his damned message again. I called back and spoke to the dispatcher, telling her I was sure Vaughn would want to call me back if she could reach him.

  A minute later, my phone rang with a 773 area code.

  “It’s Izzy,” I answered.

  “I got that much,” Vaughn said dryly.

  “Meet me at Trial TV. And bring that search warrant.”

  I hung up. He called back. I let it go to voice mail. Ten minutes later, we pulled into the Trial TV parking lot. I knew Vaughn would be heading there. He wouldn’t be able to resist.

  Maggie barreled up to the curb and put her hazards on. She scampered behind me as I went into the building and sweet-talked the security guard so he would give Maggie a visitor’s pass.

  It was Sunday and a quiet news day, so the hallway was deserted. I’d been told that a skeleton crew manned the network on the weekends, showing mostly pretaped shows. It dawned on me that the executive offices were probably going to be locked, especially the one I wanted to get in.

  But when I reached the door, it was open, the lights on inside.

  I stood in the hallway, Maggie behind me. I looked at my watch. Vaughn probably wouldn’t be here for at least five minutes.

  “Izzy?”

  I turned. It was Faith Lowe, the producer who’d come into the Fig Leaf with her bridesmaids.

  “Faith, hi,” I said. “What are you doing here on a Sunday?”

  “I’m working overtime so I can take time off for my honeymoon. But, uh…what are you doing here?”

  Faith had nearly blown my cover when I was at the Fig Leaf, but maybe like Vaughn, she could help me now.

  “Faith,” I said, “did you just see me walk in here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, I have a favor to ask you. Could you wait here with us for a few minutes? The cops are coming. It has to do with Jane’s death. I just don’t want to do anything without them here.”

  “I guess,” she said slowly, as if she was thinking. “We’re running tape. Won’t be done for twenty minutes or so.” She glanced around the hallway and seemed to realize we were alone, that she was alone with a “person of interest” and her friend.

  “Faith,” I said. “I didn’t do anything to Jane.”

  “Right. Sure. It’s just that…” She looked around the hall again. Muted sounds trickled in from the set, but otherwise all was quiet. There seemed to be no one around. “This is kind of weird.”

  “Who else is here today?” I asked. Maybe we should get whoever was at the station out here with us. I didn’t want this woman to be frightened.

  “Uh…let’s see. Well, C.J. is in an editing suite.”

  “C.J. is here?
” I couldn’t help the alarm from creeping into my voice.

  “Yeah, she’s working with an editor on a tribute to Jane. They’re going to run it this week. Anyway, I should probably tell her you’re here.”

  “No, let me tell her. Which suite is she in?”

  “Number eight, but…” Faith’s eyes narrowed, as if she was unsure what to do. She looked around again.

  “Faith, let me ask you something,” I said. “How long have you been in the news business?”

  She looked at the ceiling for a minute. “I left the law three years ago.”

  “Do you remember when Jane won an Emmy Award for some story about a vice cop?”

  Ever since Vaughn had looked at me in the stairwell and said, So if it wasn’t you, who was it? I hadn’t been able to get C.J. from my mind. I glanced in the office now-C.J.’s office. The moving boxes were still there, still unpacked-full of office crap and personal mementos. And awards. I could see that box, the one with the plaques and trophies sitting right there by C.J.’s desk. I itched to look inside.

  I kept thinking of C.J. telling me that the story about Jackson Prince was one that could win an Emmy. I thought about how, during that same conversation, I’d mentioned that Jane had won an Emmy. C.J. told me then that she had worked on the story with Jane. There had been a moment when she had sighed and looked over my shoulder, and her face had been awash with grief. It hadn’t been a surprise. After all, C.J. and Jane had been a team for years. Everyone knew how close they were-C.J. often wrote Jane’s stories, while Jane did the interviewing and the research. Working with them, I’d once thought their professional relationship was almost symbiotic. But now I wondered if their relationship had been more than that outside the business world. I wondered if that grief of C.J.’s was because she had loved Jane. And she had killed Jane.

  “Oh, yeah,” Faith was saying, “everyone remembers the Emmy Awards from that year. It was right after I started at Chicagoland TV.”

  “C.J. was the producer on that story, right?”

  Faith laughed, then she looked around as if feeling guilty.

  “What?” I asked. “Did C.J. get an Emmy, too? Isn’t that what usually happens?”