Mistaken Identity (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery)

by Fanning, Diane

  “What’s his name?”

  “Edwin Prager.”

  “If I find anything, I will get it to you immediately.”

  Twenty minutes after Lucinda took the phone call in Reed’s office, Pamela and her attorney arrived. The stunned and shaken woman of this morning’s encounter was replaced by an über confident professional in Jimmy Choo shoes and a teal suit that would never fit in Lucinda’s budget. The price tag for Prager’s attire rivaled that of his client. Lucinda was not impressed.

  She led them down the hall to the bare walls and fluorescent lighting of an interrogation room. They sat in uncomfortable chairs on opposite sides of a cheap, scarred table. “You have something to tell me?” Lucinda asked, looking at Pamela.

  The other woman turned to her attorney. “My client,” he said, “can explain the DNA match on the sheets. She was, as you suspected, having an affair with a resident of 6423 James Landing Drive. However, she had nothing to do with the homicides committed there.”

  Lucinda turned back to Pamela. “How long were you having an affair with Parker Sterling?”

  “My client was not having an affair with Mr. Sterling.”

  For a split second, Lucinda was perplexed by what sounded like a contradiction. Then it clicked and the realization made sense of the care given to the female victim’s body. “Pamela, are you claiming you were having an affair with Jeanine Sterling?”

  Pamela stared at her but did not say a word. A barely perceptible smile twitched across her lips and she swiveled her head to her attorney.

  “Lieutenant Pierce, please address your questions to me. But, yes, my client Ms. Godfrey was involved in an affair with Ms. Sterling. I urge you, however, not to jump to conclusions. My client has an iron-clad alibi for the morning of the murders.”

  “Iron-clad? Is this closing argument-speak or can you provide corroboration?”

  Prager slid his briefcase on the table, opened it and removed a piece of paper. “Ms. Godfrey arrived in her office at nine thirty a.m. on the morning in question. Here is a statement from her secretary, who witnessed her arrival.” He slid it across the table and pulled out another document. “Here is a list of other members of her staff who are certain they saw her that morning. Included are each of their extensions. Ms. Godfrey received a phone call minutes after her arrival – you’ll see that documented in her secretary’s statement – and she left immediately afterward – also verified by multiple staff members.”

  They were interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Lucinda rose and opened it a crack. Ted slipped her a piece of paper. Before returning to the table, she read it: “Prager was divorced six months ago because of an alleged affair with Pamela Godfrey.” She made sure her smirk was hidden as she sat back down.

  The attorney began, “That leaves us with two hours before the nine-one-one call, as you well know.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Prager. I have an ethical question for you. Is it appropriate for an attorney to be sexually intimate with his client?”

  Lucinda saw Pamela’s head twitch ever so slightly as her eyes widened. Prager’s face turned to stone. Twice he appeared ready to speak but changed his mind before he opened his mouth. Finally, he continued. “As I was saying, Lieutenant, it took Ms. Godfrey approximately ten minutes to drive to her client’s office, arriving just before ten a.m. She remained there until just before eleven forty-five.” He pulled out another sheet of paper. “Here is the name of her client and the receptionist, along with their phone numbers. We trust you will be discreet when you contact them. Ms. Godfrey is a professional woman with a reputation to maintain.”

  “Really?” Lucinda said, and then turned her concentration to the documents, looking for holes. None were obvious. She raised her head and stared at Prager. “That still leaves an hour unaccounted for. I hope you’re not going to tell me she was with you.”

  “I will not dignify that question with a response.”

  Lucinda had seen the crime scene; she knew the time frame was impossible. Nonetheless, she turned to Pamela and said, “Where were you between seven thirty and nine thirty that morning, Ms. Godfrey?”

  “I was at home.”

  “What was the reason that you arrived late to work that morning?”

  “I had something to deal with at home.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Lieutenant, you do realize that my client is not a magician. Travelling from her home – or from the Sterling house – to her office in rush hour traffic would easily consume a half hour. If she went straight to work, staff would have seen blood on her clothing. That means she had to go home first, taking another half an hour away, along with an additional thirty minutes to drive from home to work. When you factor in the time from the Sterling house to her condo and the time required for her to change her outfit, that leaves us with a half hour or less remaining. Not even a professional assassin could kill two people and clean up in that short window of time.”

  “Are these my copies?” Lucinda asked, lifting the papers from the table.

  “Yes, Lieutenant, they are.”

  “If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” she said as she rose. A part of her wanted to pretend she never saw the paperwork in her hand but she did what she needed to do anyway. She went up to the sixth floor and presented it all to the District Attorney.

  Reed read them over and said, “Fine. Check it out. You find one lie or distortion of fact and the search warrant is yours; otherwise it’s a no go. Do you need me down there?”

  “No, sir,” she said.

  “Pierce. It’s time to play nice, now.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said and returned to the interrogation room. She thanked both of them and shook their hands. Then, she scurried off to check out Pamela’s alibi.

  By the time the day was over, Lucinda had confirmed all but the mysterious gap of time between when Freddy left for school and Pamela arrived at work. Even if she operated at the assumption that Pamela was already at the Sterling home watching when Freddy left for school, the time frame seemed too tight – squeezed down close to impossible unless she had an accomplice. But a jealous lover doesn’t usually have one. She dropped Pamela down to the bottom of her suspect list, for now. She wasn’t ready to eliminate her yet. She knew any alibi could be obtained with money, threats, promise or pressure. But for the moment, she would shift her attention to the new star of her list – Jason King.

  Twenty-Two

  Lucinda went in to work early again, determined to do whatever she could to uncover Jason King’s real identity. She knew of one place in her jurisdiction where she might find fingerprints or DNA. She filled out the paperwork for a search warrant for Victoria Whitehead’s home.

  Even though it was Saturday, she was confident she could find a prosecutor willing to get a judge to rule on it. She went up to the sixth floor and roamed around until she found one. She rolled her eyes when she spotted Matt Cummings at his desk. She could not understand why a grown man would sport that licked-up-front style that made him looked like a kitten overgroomed by its mother.

  As she approached him, Matt said, “Ah, c’mon, Lieutenant, I’m here because I have work to do, not because I’m bored. Can’t it wait until Monday?”

  “If your mother and father were murdered in their home, would you want it to wait?”

  “That’s foul play, Lieutenant. But, go on, now that you’ve induced my guilt, tell me what you need.”

  Lucinda thrust the documents at him and said, “It’s all here.”

  “Give it a few brush strokes before I read it.”

  “I want a search warrant for the home of the female victim’s mother in the Sterling double homicide.”

  “You think the mother did it?”

  “No, Cummings. But I’m missing a head and a pair of hands from the male victim.”

  “And you think his motherin-law is hoarding his body parts?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. But I want to be able to search for them there and I need to
see if I can get any fingerprints or DNA samples for Jason King, the grandmother’s boyfriend.”

  “Why? You think he could be a suspect?”

  “Maybe,” she said and launched into the questions about Freddy’s paternity and the story told by Victoria Whitehead. Then she said, “I’ll also need to obtain buccal swabs for Whitehead as well as her and her grandson’s fingerprints for the purposes of elimination.”

  “You don’t need DNA,” Matt contradicted. “You can eliminate any of her DNA simply because it’s female. What about the boy’s DNA?”

  “Already have that,” Lucinda said.

  Matt grunted, leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands in front of his face. Lucinda squeezed her lips together to remind her not to blurt anything out until he gave some indication of his inclination to move forward. Just as she thought she could keep quiet no longer, Matt spoke. “Okay, let’s go find the judge.”

  With search warrant in hand, Lucinda gathered up a forensics team and led them over to the Whitehead home. Victoria answered the door with a smile that faded in a flash to an anxious frown when she saw the identity of her visitor. She recovered quickly, popping on a pleasant expression as she welcomed her inside. But when Lucinda pointed to the team standing at the foot of the steps, Victoria balked. “What is this, Lieutenant? Am I being invaded by your retinue?”

  “I have a search warrant,” Lucinda said, handing the document to her. “You can stay here if you like, but you’ll have to sit outside while we search.”

  “What is this all about?”

  “We need to search the premises for evidence related to the murder of your daughter and her husband. Read the warrant. It’s all spelled out there. We also have two additional warrants to obtain fingerprint exemplars from you and your grandson.”

  “You think I had something to do with the death of my daughter? You think Freddy was involved? This is an outrage. You are going to have to leave right now. I need to call my attorney.”

  “Ma’am, you can call your attorney but we’re not leaving. If you don’t have a cellphone to call from outside of the home, an officer will loan you one. But you have to go outside now.”

  Victoria snorted like a deer sensing danger and called for Freddy. When he appeared at the banister on the second floor, he said, “What’s happening, Grandmother?”

  “We are being forced out of our home so these police officers can tear it apart for no reason whatsoever.”

  Freddy’s head jerked over in Lucinda’s direction and then turned back to his grandmother. “Yes, ma’am, let me get a book and I’ll be right down.”

  Lucinda watched without seeing any sight of Freddy for a few minutes and then started up the stairs. Freddy came out of his room with a book under his arm and his hand outstretched. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said.

  Perplexed at his reaction, she reached out and took his hand. The explanation of his greeting became clear when she felt a folded note scrape against her palm. She watched his back as he went out the door before unfolding the piece of paper. It read: “Meet me in back of house. Don’t tell Grandmother. Please!”

  Lucinda instructed the search team and the forensics team and then slipped out the back door. She scanned the backyard but didn’t see Freddy. Then she heard him. “Lieutenant,” he said in a whispered shout, “over here.”

  She followed the sound and saw the boy standing in the shadows of a tall blue spruce in the far corner of the property. She walked towards him, wondering how much she could trust him, how many of his words were the truth as he knew it or if it was all part of a game instigated by his grandmother. “What’s up, Freddy?”

  “We had a seance,” he said, leading her to a hidden concrete garden bench tucked under the massive boughs.

  Lucinda ducked down as she followed him but once seated she had plenty of headroom. “Who had a seance?”

  “Me and my grandmother and a couple of ladies and a man.”

  “Did you know any of those people?”

  “One of the ladies comes by and visits my grandmother a lot. I knew her even before I lived here. But I never paid much attention to her. She kind of gives me the creeps ’cause she stares at me so weird.”

  “But you spent time with her during the seance?”

  “Yeah, I didn’t want to – I even had to hold her hand. Grandmother made me sit next to her when we formed a circle.”

  “And besides holding her hand, what bothered you, Freddy?”

  “Well, nothing bothered me then. I was kind of scared and kind of curious and kind of excited because they said I could talk to my mom.”

  “Did you? Did you talk to your mom?”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what they said. But, I don’t know. I mean, I believed it at the time but later I started thinking maybe they tricked me. And then, this morning, I was sure of it.”

  “What gave you doubts, Freddy?”

  “Well, I was talking to my mom and it gave me shivers – it was good but it was kind of icky, too. But I listened and I believed her and when it was over, I hugged my grandmother and even hugged the creepy lady, and thanked them for letting me talk to my mom. I was really excited – and scared, too. Then, in my room, I started thinking and it didn’t seem right.”

  “What didn’t seem right, Freddy?” Lucinda asked as she studied his face for any indication of deception.

  “What my mom said – or not my mom – it wasn’t right. It sounded like my mom but she wouldn’t tell me stuff like that.”

  “How did your mom talk to you? What did she say?”

  “Her voice – it sounded like her voice – came out of the creepy lady’s mouth. She told me to believe everything my grandmother told me, but my mom told me before that my grandmother makes up stories. Mom said she loved my grandma, but she got some crazy ideas sometimes.”

  “Yes?”

  “And then this weird lady with my mom’s voice said that Dad was evil and dangerous and I needed to keep away from him. She said Grandmother and Jason would protect me from him – but my mom never said ‘Grandmother’ to me before she died. She always said ‘Grandma’.

  “And then she said I needed to do everything they told me to do and I shouldn’t talk to the police or anybody about my mom or my dad except for them and she said if I ever get confused that I should come talk to her again. And I want to talk to her again but I don’t think I talked to her then. I thought I did but I don’t know. I mean, my mom wouldn’t say those things. I don’t understand. But I started wondering if they were making it all up to scare me or something. And then I heard my grandma talking on the phone and I think she was talking to her boyfriend Jason – you know, the one she says is my half-brother, which doesn’t make any sense, and that’s when I knew she was lying.” Tears streamed down Freddy’s face. He brushed them away with the back of his hand.

  Lucinda put an arm around his shoulders. “Freddy, I know you are upset – and you have every reason to be upset. But tell me, what did she say to Jason?”

  “She said, ‘We had a seance. The boy won’t be any trouble at all.’”

  Twenty-Three

  Lucinda went back inside the house, her thoughts focused on Freddy. When she reached the second floor, Marguerite Spellman stuck her head out of the master bedroom. “Lieutenant, come in here. You need to look at this bed.”

  A brief glimpse of a sheet-covered mattress was all Lucinda saw before the forensics team leader flipped the light switch, plunging the room into a deep gloom. Marguerite’s face glowed blue as she ran an alternative light source over the top of the bed. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all. Not one single indication of any biological fluids. I’ll take the sheets to the lab but I don’t think I’ll find anything.”

  “So, she made the bed this morning. Where’s the dirty laundry?”

  “Checked that, it’s not there. Sent someone in search of a washer and dryer but both were empty.”

  “Damn. His DNA has to be on something.”

  �
��I know. It should be here somewhere but there’s only one toothbrush and one hairbrush in the bathroom – that doesn’t look promising. The only male clothing in the closet is hanging in dry cleaning bags with the tags still on them. There are two empty dresser drawers which I suspect once held his T-shirts, underwear and socks. We swabbed the insides without much luck. We’ll try to find his DNA, Lieutenant, but it doesn’t look good.”

  “Okay. Well, maybe AFIS will give us a fingerprint match.”

  Marguerite sighed. “We have to find a fingerprint first.”

  “What?”

  “Every single surface in this room has been wiped clean. But we will not stop looking. We’ll collect prints all over the house if necessary.”

  “Damn, damn, damn,” Lucinda muttered as she walked out into the hall, down the stairs and out to the front porch. Victoria Whitehead sat in a wicker chair chatting with the officer watching over her as if they were best friends.

  “Ms. Whitehead, I have a few questions,” Lucinda said.

  Victoria smiled apologetically at the officer and graced Lucinda with her most put-upon expression. “Yes, Lieutenant. What is it now?”

  “When did you change the sheets on your bed?”

  “That is a very rude question.”

  “Whatever. Just answer it.”

  For a moment, Victoria looked as if she wouldn’t and then she mumbled, “This morning.”

  “You haven’t slept on them at all.”

  “Oh no, not at all. They are brand new from the store. I just bought them the other day when I went shopping.”

  “Where are the dirty sheets?”

  “Cleaned, folded and put away, of course.”

  “What did you use to launder them, Ms. Whitehead?”

  “The normal things – detergent, bleach, fabric softener.”

  Lucinda stifled a groan. “What about Jason’s toothbrush or hairbrush or comb?”

  “He took them with him, of course.”

  “Do you have anything he used regularly? Any soiled clothing?”