Judas Kiss

by J. T. Ellison

  Taylor hadn’t seen any incidence of other men on the tapes, but if Corinne had been having sex with some unseen participants, maybe that could explain the pregnancy jitters. Her mother suspected an affair, Dr. Ricard had said Corinne was being manipulated by everyone and had used the word lover in the list. Sam needed to test the fetus for paternity. She made a note and went back to her thoughts.

  Thalia had mentioned Todd Wolff had a boss. She wouldn’t be surprised if money had changed hands that had nothing to do with the profits of a sale. Wolff was a pimp, plain and simple. Now they needed to focus on finding who he worked for.

  Oh, she should have asked Thalia about drugs. She flipped open the phone and called the girl.

  The voice mail came on and Taylor left her a message.

  She felt good. She could tell things were about to break. That’s the way it was with these cases, either they latched on to a thread that quickly unraveled, or they were stymied for months. Though it sure as hell would be nice if she had a fucking badge so she could do her job.

  Her anger spilled over and she slammed her fists into the steering wheel, imagined Delores’s pug face. There, that was better. She calmed herself, breathing deeply and letting her shoulders relax. Nothing could be done now. She just needed to persevere, know that the truth would come out soon.

  Feeling like her morning was well spent, she lingered in the car, trying to decide what to do next. Damn, this sucked. Couldn’t go to work, couldn’t go home and sit. Maybe she’d take a ride out and see Sam. Always a safe antidote to whatever ailed her. Long before she had Baldwin, Sam was her first sounding board.

  Just to be safe, she called Baldwin and told him where she was headed. He told her he was just down the street from Sam’s office at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation offices, and would meet her up at Forensic Medical in an hour. He reminded her to watch her back.

  She started the truck and waited a moment, giving the followers time to get into place. Turning left on to Charlotte, she took a quick right on 46th and got on the highway. Within fifteen minutes she was at the ME’s office. She didn’t see anyone following her, figured they were playing possum out on Gass Street. If Aiden were anywhere around, she couldn’t see him either. She wondered briefly how they were going to find a killer who managed to drift unseen through countries and jurisdictions, then pushed the worry from her mind. She left the truck, locked it with a double beep and walked to the front doors. She slid her pass card through the monitor and was let into the building.

  The front desk was manned by Kris, smiling a genuine welcome as usual. She waved at Taylor. “Hey, LT. How’s it going?”

  Was it possible that Kris hadn’t heard the news? Taylor walked over to the desk, fiddled with a pen laid out on the counter.

  “Hey, Kris. I’m fine. Do me a favor, will ya? Be sure you don’t let anyone you don’t know into the building while I’m here, okay? I’ve got a creep following me and I’d rather not run into him.”

  “Your boyfriend already warned me. He called a few minutes ago. I’m telling you, Taylor, I don’t know why you don’t marry that boy. He is one fine piece of man, if you know what I mean.” Kris leered. Taylor blushed and rolled her eyes. She didn’t bother answering, just waved and scooted through the second security door that led to Sam’s office.

  Good grief. Kris’s taste in men ran toward the bad boys. Taylor had bumped into her at a local watering hole once. Kris was half in the bag, playing pool and drinking whisky with two guys who looked like Hells Angels. She’d introduced one of the bearded men as her current fling. It made her wonder if Baldwin put off that vibe and she just didn’t see it because she knew him so well. She took a seat in Sam’s office, propped her boots on the corner of the desk, and waited.

  She was deep into a daydream about what Baldwin would look like on a motorcycle when Sam appeared five minutes later, wiping her hands on a paper towel. She took one look at Taylor and her face changed from sunny to stormy.

  “You okay?” she asked without preamble.

  “Not really, but I don’t have much of a choice.”

  Sam gave her a swift, strong hug, then settled into her chair.

  “Do they have any idea what’s going on?”

  “Baldwin is working on it. He’s got a friend who can prove the tapes of the shooting have been faked. The rest is taking longer to sort out. Whoever owns that Web site is well insulated. And I’m stuck out here in the cold, unable to do a damn thing.”

  “So where have you been all morning?” Sam’s eyes sparkled, and Taylor couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Okay, I’ve been doing some digging. I can’t just sit on my ass and do nothing. I’ve tracked down the names of the girls on the videotape with Todd Wolff. Turns out they’re high-schoolers in a secret society, making amateur porn. Can you imagine?”

  “Ambitious,” Sam deadpanned.

  Taylor’s cell rang, Thalia Abbot’s number came up on the screen. “Sam, hold on a sec. Hello? Hi Thalia…Yes, illegal drugs…Okay. Thanks again for all your help.” She hung up, took out her notebook, and spoke aloud as she wrote.

  “Ecstasy, cocaine and pot. Not necessarily only provided by Todd Wolff. Shocking.”

  “Kids these days. I worry about the twins. What am I going to do when they reach that age? When they want to know about sex, and drinking, and drugs? I’m sure these girls’ parents taught them right from wrong. But look at them.”

  “I can’t answer that. My mother gave me as much attention as a she-cat in the wild, and I turned out okay.”

  “That’s debatable,” Sam said.

  “Ha, ha.”

  This time it was Sam’s phone that rang. She held up a finger and answered. She listened for a minute, then hung up. “You’re going to love this.”

  “Let me guess. You’re being suspended for being friends with me.”

  “Better. We’ve got confirmation that the semen that was present in Corinne Wolff’s vaginal vault was viable for DNA.”

  “Really? So whose sperm was it?”

  “Now she asks the smart questions. I had the samples sent off for DNA analysis.”

  “That’s going to take months.” Taylor slumped back down in her chair.

  Sam pushed her bangs off her forehead and gave Taylor an apologetic smile. “Well, maybe not. You know how they’ve got the lab proposal on the ballot again? They needed some samples to work with to show the legislature how it’s all done. So I slipped Corinne’s slides in the stack. Not only was there discernible DNA, we should have the results back by late today. The whole point of the exercise was to show how much faster everything would work, how much quicker crimes could be solved if we were running our own labs. Todd Wolff’s DNA is in the system now, so if there’s a match between them, we’ll know. If there’s not a match, we’ll know that too.”

  “Let’s hope for a match. If it doesn’t, that would confirm another suspect. Someone who was sleeping with the victim. Like we need it to be more complicated.” A thought nagged her, but she couldn’t access it.

  “Look at it this way. The results might answer some questions. If the DNA isn’t Wolff’s, it could be the killer’s. Though I must admit, Wolff certainly looks good for all of this. Did you hear that we matched the blood on the tool chest to Corinne Wolff? There’s still no definitive test we can do to establish when it was left, which a decent defense attorney will pounce on, but it is her blood.”

  “No, I didn’t. Damn it. How can that bitch idiot Norris do this to me? I just want to work the case. All these tidbits are breaking and I don’t have the full picture. How am I supposed to solve a case if I’m not allowed to work it?”

  “I know, sweetie. The Oompa is an old, shriveled-up hag who is desperately jealous of your success. The beauty of it is you’re innocent, Baldwin is about to prove that, then they’ll have to let you back. So keep laying low and wait it out. I know that’s easier said than done, but you can’t run off half-cocked like you did this morning. What were you d
oing anyway?”

  “I met with Corinne’s psychotherapist. After you found the benzodiazepine in her system, I went looking to see who’d prescribed it. Her obstetrician gave her the lorazepam but sent her to counseling too in the hopes she’d be able to conquer her issues that way.”

  “What was the issue?”

  “It seems Miss Corinne might have been dallying in someone else’s pool, if you know what I mean. Any chance you ran DNA on the fetus? She was having some sort of freak out about the baby. Was having full-blown panic attacks.”

  “Of course. We’ll get all the results back at the same time. That’s interesting about Corinne’s pathology. I heard of a case like that in medical school. Woman was convinced she was carrying the anti-Christ, they had to keep her sedated because she kept trying to carve the fetus out of her stomach.”

  “She was having an affair with the devil?”

  “Not that I know of, unless the devil lives in New Jersey and is named Dave. They were a completely normal couple, she developed this pregnancy psychosis after it came to light that she’d been sleeping with her husband’s brother too and didn’t know who the father was. I think the case study concluded that she was just bonkers.”

  “Nice, round catch-all medical term, that. Bonkers.”

  “Well, I’m a pathologist, not a psychiatrist. Speak of the devil.”

  Taylor turned. Baldwin was standing in the door, his tall frame filling the space completely. Arms crossed, he rested his right shoulder against the door frame. She smiled at him. He grinned back.

  “You are a very bad girl. Hi, Sam.”

  “Aw, how come I never get to be the bad girl?” Sam pouted and tossed a balled-up piece of paper at Baldwin, who caught it and expertly shot it into her trashcan in one sweeping motion.

  “Show-off,” Taylor and Sam said in tandem, sending them both into gales of laughter.

  Baldwin joined in, his good-natured laugh reverberating through the room. When they’d finished their giggles, he took a seat next to Taylor.

  “Good news. Sherry has reengineered the tapes, found the splice that was put in. It was a rather sophisticated voice track, not something your everyday hump could do. Whoever did it is an expert with cameras and editing, for sure. The evidence was just couriered to your buddy Delores Norris, with copies sent to Price and the Chief of Police.”

  He settled farther into his chair and crossed his legs. Taylor noticed his socks were mismatched—one had small clocks and the other minute diamonds. She bit back the laugh; he had been pretty shaken up when he got dressed. Maybe he’d make it through the rest of the day without noticing.

  She looked back up and saw he’d been watching her, a crooked half smile on his face. He knew about the socks. He made a gesture with his right hand she’d come to recognize as his nonverbal rendition of “not important.”

  “A couple of copies might have slipped the Net, may show up on the local and national noon broadcasts.”

  Taylor felt the relief bloom in her chest. “Thank God.”

  “Don’t be thanking Him, thank me.”

  “You know what I mean. Thank you, of course. Do you think they’ll reinstate me?”

  “They don’t have a choice. If they don’t get in touch within the hour, I’ve scheduled Sherry for a live interview on Channel 5.”

  Taylor squeezed his hand in gratitude. “So we just have to wait?”

  “Yep. Whatcha talking about?”

  “The Wolff case. Sam has pulled a fast one, slipped some DNA slides into the system. Corinne Wolff was having sex with someone, and hopefully we’ll find out who. The husband first said they hadn’t had sex for a week before her death, then remembered they did right before he left town. But looking at the timeline, if there was active enough sperm for a DNA run, she must have had sex with someone after he left on Friday morning. Think the timing works, Sam?”

  “Well, if she died Saturday morning and we pulled motile but nondiscernible sperm at the post Tuesday morning…it’ll be hard to prove an exact time, but I’m guessing she had sex with someone superlate Friday night or right before she died on Saturday morning.”

  “And Todd Wolff left early Friday.”

  “Ask Baldwin about the pregnancy psychosis,” Sam said.

  “I need to run it down for him first—I haven’t talked about the case with him yet. He was in Virginia until yesterday.” A current ran through the room as if they’d hit a fuse box. Aiden. God, she’d forgotten he was out there. She didn’t elaborate, and neither did Baldwin. Sam picked up on the uncomfortable silence, but was wise enough not to ask.

  Taylor turned to Baldwin. “Let me give you a quick précis of the case. Corinne Wolff, twenty-six, seven months pregnant with a son, her second child. Husband allegedly out of town. She was found Monday morning, beaten to death with a tennis racquet in her bedroom. She’d been dead two days.” She looked at Sam, and saw the shadows in her eyes. The Wolff crime scene still bothered both of them. Taylor continued.

  “Dead two days with her eighteen-month-old daughter wandering around the house, tracking blood everywhere. The husband left Friday, didn’t talk to her all weekend. Temp shows she was killed early Saturday morning.

  “Second round of look-sees into the house uncovers a sex basement where the Wolffs were making amateur porn. The reports I’ve gotten indicate that Corinne was a relative latecomer to participating, she’d always run the cameras. I just found out the girls on the video are underage, part of a pretty twisted secret society that’s running through the private schools around town.

  “Corinne had high levels of lorazepam in her system, and now the news comes that she had viable semen in her. Wolff left her blood on his truck and in the basement, so we arrested him. Her sister is on the news screaming about our idiocy in investigating the case. Thanks to Miss Sam here, DNA is being run as we speak.”

  Sam took a bow from her chair.

  “I interviewed Corinne’s OB and her psychologist, and had a chat with her mother. The mom thinks she was having an affair, the docs claim she was having a hard time with the pregnancy, was suffering from a sort of claustrophobia about having the baby inside her. It was so bad that they needed to prescribe benzos to keep her calmed down. It’s an incongruity in the case. By all accounts, this woman was a health nut. She was seven months pregnant and still competing in her local tennis tournaments. The house was filled with all-natural foods and cleaning products. The basement, on the other hand, was this crazy sex den, full of camera equipment and sex toys. Corinne was leading two lives, no question about it.”

  “Do you think her husband committed the murder?” Baldwin asked.

  “It seems like the most logical place to turn. At least in the beginning. Now there are all these complicating factors. He got back from his trip a little too quick for my taste, and he’s been awfully nonchalant about things so far. Now that we can charge him with a couple of additional sex crimes, I’m thinking that might loosen his tongue. He insists he didn’t kill his wife, but there’s some pretty decent evidence to the contrary.”

  “The baby isn’t his,” Baldwin said.

  Taylor looked at him. “What?”

  “The baby. It wasn’t her husband’s. I’d bet anything that she was pregnant by someone else. That explains the erratic behavior, the sudden dependence on psychotropic medications, the psychosis-based claustrophobia. It all fits. And if I’m right, her husband might have caught her, either in the act with her lover or just after, and killed her in a fit of fury. Pretty classic scenario, actually.”

  Taylor smiled. “That’s exactly where we’ve been going with our theories. When I interviewed Corinne’s psychiatrist, she mentioned that Corinne may have had a lover. For all I know, we might have two bodies. Wolff might have caught her in the act with another man, beat her, killed the lover, then transported his body somewhere. It would explain Corinne’s blood in his truck, that’s for sure.”

  Baldwin was nodding his agreement. “You’re on to something,
Taylor. Did the crime scene techs find more than one type of blood?”

  Taylor looked at Sam. “The DNA won’t be back on that immediately, I assume?”

  Sam shook her head. “Only threw in the autopsy slides, not the evidence collected at the scene. Sorry.”

  Taylor shrugged. “So no idea. I’ve been out of the case for over twenty-four hours. Fitz might have solved it already.”

  “You’d have heard,” Sam said kindly. Taylor shot her a dirty look.

  Sam’s intercom buzzed. Kris’s disembodied voice filled the room.

  “Dr. Loughley, the Chief of Police is looking for Lieutenant Jackson. Can I put him through to your line?”

  Shooting Taylor an I told you so look, Sam said, “Sure thing.”

  The phone beeped twice, then rang. Sam picked it up and handed Taylor the handset.

  “Lieutenant Jackson,” she answered. She was greeted by the deep, heavily Southern voice of the chief. In a few short words, she had her life back. He’d even thrown in an apology. She hung up the phone with a smile, winked at Sam and turned to Baldwin.

  “Let’s go. I’ve got work to catch up on.”

  Thirty-Three

  Taylor didn’t expect a hero’s welcome. She didn’t want one. She just wanted to slip into the CJC and bust open the Wolff murder. And she wanted Aiden to disappear from their lives.

  Instead, news vans lined the streets. Reporters jostled with cameramen looking for the best angle. The national news trucks were parked nose to tail along 2nd Avenue, their remote satellites like a string of herons, balanced on one leg and pushing their crests into the noonday sky.

  “Well, at least we know you’ve got the sympathy of the people,” Baldwin said.

  “Yeah, that’s great. I want the media on my side. This is just going to piss Delores off more. And when the Oompa gets mad, she gets even. I’m sure she’s in there plotting all the ways she can make my life miserable. I think we’re going to have to circle around, sneak in through the parking lot next door.”