by Lisa Black
A fingerprint. The killer had left his fingerprint, in blood.
His blood would be good, giving them two forms of positive identification—a latent print match and DNA. But hers would be better, pinning him inside that room at the time of the murder.
She swabbed up a sample from the beginning of the streak, where there were no visible ridges, so they could get a DNA profile without disturbing the pattern she needed to photograph. She’d collected swabs from the small pool at Jennifer Toner’s side as well, not that anyone who viewed a photograph of the scene could have any doubt as to whom that blood belonged. But surely if she didn’t, some attorney, at some point in the future, would ask why she hadn’t.
Then she needed to photograph the print. Lifting it as she usually did when prints were developed with black powder would not be possible. Blood would not transfer to the tape adhesive like powder, and powder wouldn’t stick well to the dried blood. Ideally she should take a jigsaw and cut a wide square around the print—the laminate surface didn’t suggest a valuable antique and Jennifer would no longer care. Maggie could also take the whole credenza—something she hadn’t ruled out, but she would try other methods first before stacking up random furniture in the lab, or risk disturbing the print while wrestling the large item out of the building and into a city vehicle.
Usually she dyed blood prints with Amido Black, a stain that turned even the faintest bloodstains to a deep purply black. But against the walnut-colored laminate, making the print darker would not help. A fluorescent dye like Luminol or Bluestar would increase the contrast but might also wash away part of the ridges and the glow only lasted for a second. No, she’d start with basic photography, no dyes, no filters, and see how it went.
The two detectives moved on to Jennifer’s browsing history, while Maggie set up her tripod and detachable flash.
“She wasn’t lying,” Riley said to no one in particular. “She had been hunting for this Phillip Castleman on Ohio eLicense, Healthgrades, and RateMDs. The state Attorney General’s Office—I bet she checked out how to file a complaint with the medical board.”
“Why?” Maggie asked as she worked. “What was she complaining about?”
Jack told her how the victim had believed the doctor had turned her brother into an addict. “Of course just because she didn’t think her brother needed medication didn’t mean he didn’t.”
Riley said, “True. Big sisters are always hot on toughening you up.”
Maggie attached the flash cord to her camera and watched Jack for any reaction. Did he have a big sister? A little sister? Any siblings at all? An ex-wife somewhere? A child?
Sometimes she wondered. Most of the time she didn’t let herself. Curiosity might teach a harsh lesson in this case. “She said he had been cashing large checks from this doctor?”
“Yes. That’s the weird part. The brother should be paying the doc, not the other way around.”
“Medical fraud.”
Both detectives stared at her.
“There’s a million ways to do it. Usually doctors file insurance claims for procedures they didn’t do or exams they didn’t make. They say they did a complete physical when the patient was in and out in five minutes. They’ll say a patient is diabetic or has cancer, bill for meds and equipment that was never ordered or used. Often the patient doesn’t even know about it.”
Jack said, “Okay. But then why is Toner cashing the checks?”
She positioned her tripod carefully, propping a piece of cardboard under the camera mount because the worn-out item couldn’t keep the heavy camera from falling against the tripod pole. “Laundering money? The government’s been trying to cut down on medical fraud for years. Maybe there’s a red flag if a doctor gets outsize reimbursements. But if the patients are paid individually it’s spread out.”
“So the doctor files the forms for the patient, and the patient gives the money back to the doctor.”
Riley said, “He’d have to really trust his patients.”
“He’s got their pills,” Jack said. “A reliable, steady supply. And they want those more than they want money. Spread it among enough patients, even if one does a runner here and there, it’s still lucrative and low-risk.”
“It’s only a guess,” Maggie said, and focused on the bloody fingerprint.
Jack said, “We need to find Marlon Toner.”
Riley said, “Will said she spoke to him. We could probably get a damned sight closer to him if we could find her damned phone. Why do our victims never have their phones?”
“Because the killer knew it might connect them to the victim. Killers,” Jack amended. “Or because Toner and Harding were killed by an addict and a mugger respectively, and a phone can be sold on the street for a couple of bucks. To them it would be like leaving a ten-dollar bill on the floor. What are you doing?”
Maggie realized he was speaking to her. “I think I have a usable print.” In the silence she heard them wondering what would be interesting about one particular fingerprint in a person’s home, so she added, “In blood.”
Jack left Jennifer Toner’s browser history with Riley while he used Maggie’s flashlight to see the tiny lines of the dried blood. She didn’t have to point out that the victim couldn’t have left the print; his quick turn to the body and back again meant he had figured that out.
Jack didn’t exactly peer over her shoulder as she photographed the print, but he stayed close. A fingerprint hit could solve their case for them before bedtime, if she were so inclined to go back to the lab and get the print into the system that day.
She was so inclined, but first she had to get the photograph and the laminate did not make a good surface. Even its low gloss reflected the camera’s flash. Without it the photo came out too dark, with it the bright light blanked out the print’s ridges. It took a good deal of trial and error to get the angle, the lens, and the flash level working in harmony.
While she toiled, the Medical Examiner’s Office investigator arrived, a different man from the lean one she’d met that morning. This one was larger and more talkative, his white cheeks rounded and flushed with cold like Jolly St. Nick—all well and good, except the credenza happened to be the item of furniture closest to the door and he managed to jostle her tripod four times before he got himself settled to examine the body. She worked fast while the detectives brought him up to speed, and from what she could see in the small screen on the back of the camera, the print appeared legible enough.
The investigator confirmed her estimate of the rigor mortis timing and thought Jennifer had been dead since midafternoon. He also didn’t make any comments they hadn’t already made—the victim had no defensive wounds and had died relatively quickly, without even enough time to clasp her hands to her chest. When he pulled the sweater up, they could see a deep red, gelatinous blob where a wound sat underneath her left breast.
“Gunshot?” Riley asked.
The investigator examined the sweater, then the skin. “Possible, but I don’t think so. No singeing of the edges. I’d guess a knife. Probably went straight to the heart.”
“Professional,” Riley said.
“Or lucky. I see a lot of deaths from single stab wounds. All they have to do is see a movie where the assassin steps up close and drives a stiletto up and under the rib cage. Shred the ventricles or aorta and unless you’re actually standing inside the emergency room when it happens—and probably even then—you’re dead. There’s no chance.”
“Is that what you think it was?” Maggie asked. “A stiletto?”
The investigator paused and rethought, in light of the intensity of her question, examined the wound again. “It’s very small, and . . . more circular than linear.”
“Like something round and thin. Like an ice pick.”
He gazed at her. “Yeah. Why?”
Jack said, “Because we had a guy this morning with the same kind of wound.”
“Huh. Really.”
“Is that unusual?” Maggie asked.<
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“Well, yes. Most stabbing are knives. Wide, thin blades with or without serrations, double-edge or single-edged. Something like this . . . yes, it’s unusual. Where would you even find an ice pick in this day and age?”
“Maybe it’s some kind of industrial tool?” Maggie asked.
“Maybe,” he said doubtfully. “What’s this lady got to do with your guy this morning?”
Riley said, “We haven’t the slightest idea.”
The investigator turned the body over, with Maggie’s help. Some blood had pooled on the floor and soaked into the sweater, but not much. Jennifer Toner’s heart had stopped beating too quickly.
No wounds in the back—and no cell phone either. Riley grumbled.
The body snatchers came and loaded up the earthly remains of Jennifer Toner, while Maggie decided against taking a Sawzall to the credenza. She had a series of photographs and the DNA swabs. There wouldn’t be much more she could do with the credenza at the lab.
Leaving a crime scene always made her uncomfortable. Had she done everything? Seen everything? Collected everything that needed to be collected? There could be no do-overs. Once they released the apartment, they couldn’t come back without getting a warrant and, more importantly, creating serious chain-of-custody issues down the road since none of them would be able to swear to the integrity of the scene in the meantime. But on the other hand, they couldn’t stay there forever, nor did Maggie want to. It had been a long day and she still had presents to wrap.
Yet on still another hand, two people who had encountered each other only the night before were now dead. Murdered. That could be coincidence, yes, but . . .
“What now?” she asked the two detectives.
“We need to find Marlon Toner,” Jack said.
“I can’t believe no one in this building has video surveillance,” Riley said. “A bubble over the cash register, a nanny cam, anything.”
Jack said, “He had the best motive. Sister was nagging him about his drug habit and threatening to run down his source. We can do a warrant request to get her phone history from her carrier.”
Maggie said, “What about Evan Harding?”
“I think he’s got an alibi,” Riley said. “Ah, I crack myself up.”
“I mean in his case. What’s the, er, next step there?”
Jack said, “We find out what that key opens. Though since the killer didn’t take it or even seem to look for it, it was probably some stash he was hiding from his girlfriend and had nothing to do with his death by random mugging. We’ll wait for her to come in and ask for it, then maybe we can get some more information out of her. Only two places along Bolivar had video surveillance and they both had to call their tech guys to retrieve it, so maybe that will bear fruit tomorrow—I mean today.” The clock dials had passed midnight, and now that she knew it Maggie could feel the weariness flood into her.
“Other than the girlfriend and Ralph, the guy seemed to have no enemies, no friends, no dealings or relationships at all. So,” Jack summed up, “we’re open to suggestions.”
“I wish I had some,” Maggie said.
Chapter 15
Saturday, 1:10 a.m.
Shanaya turned over, tangling the sheet and nearly shoving the pillow out onto the dog-hair-covered carpeting. When her girlfriend from the next row of cubicles offered Shanaya a place to flop she hadn’t clarified that her “couch” was actually a love seat, so that Shanaya’s knees had to stay bent at a ninety-degree angle, unless she wanted to stretch her calves over the armrest until her feet fell asleep. She also hadn’t mentioned that every possible surface held a thick layer of animal dander, produced by the Rottweiler now snuffling around her shoes and the at-death’s-door Pomeranian now dragging itself to the water bowl with a series of grunts and wheezes too loud for such a tiny being to produce. Both of them were clearly visible since the thin curtains didn’t even try to block out the streetlights outside the building. She shouldn’t have left the apartment—that had been an overreaction. No one could have found her there. The cops had only done it through Evani’s key card. She hadn’t needed to run to this flea-infested coop.
Still, though, better safe than sorry. That mantra had kept her from serious pain for most of her life. People got caught because they waited too long, downplayed the signs, got too comfortable in place. At least on her friend’s sofa—correction, love seat—Shanaya could close her eyes and take a few easy breaths. And she rather liked the Rottweiler, other than his penchant for shedding, an animal of such heft that the floorboards creaked when he walked. Anyone who came through that door would get a deep-throated growl and two rows of terrifyingly big teeth. She found the animal more reassuring than Evani had ever been.
If she really wanted to be safe, she should stop going to work at the call center, from which all her problems stemmed. But it wasn’t easy to get decent-paying work when you didn’t have much of an education, or experience, or even the correct personal identification. And she certainly wasn’t leaving town without their savings. So she might as well keep showing up for her shift.
To get her mind off her cramping calves, she delineated her problems. There were two: getting Evani’s property back from those two cops, and evading The Guy.
The Rottweiler nudged her hand, and she patted his head. His tail thumped against the wooden floor. The downstairs neighbors often called to complain that the dog made more noise than a herd of buffalo when he ran around the room, claws clicking against the planks. Shanaya had told her friend to ask them how they knew what a herd of buffalo sounded like, but her friend thought that might not be prudent.
Shanaya didn’t know The Guy’s name, or how he had found her, or how he kept getting the correct phone number to the call center. At first he hadn’t seemed threatening at all, more curious than annoyed. Certainly not dangerous.
But that had changed over the past month. Since the scam required people to call “the IRS” back, he just kept calling until he connected to her. And she had to pick up the phone when a call routed to her. If she didn’t, she’d be out on her ass before the next break. The pit bull would see to that.
She thought The Guy had been following her, as well. She would catch a movement out of the corner of her eye, a shadow lingering in a doorway fifty paces behind her, quite noticeable during these days when people hustled inside and out of the cold as quickly as possible. There would be a figure hovering outside the empty ballpark, a burnt-orange car driving slowly behind her as she walked home. She had searched for a back exit to the center, but found only one, with chains and a padlock on it. The bosses really didn’t want workers to leave during working hours, fire safety laws be damned.
She tried to leave with a group each day, and when the other people broke off, she took a different route back to the apartment, going out of the way as much as her paranoia and the frigid temps would allow.
It could be her imagination. Big deal if some former customer who had lost money to them couldn’t get over it. Shanaya had heard of that once—a friend of hers had a target get so nasty and personal occasionally that he made the mistake of calling the man back to berate him. His real phone number showed up on the person’s caller ID and they kept calling. Really ruined his intake for the day with the line tied up like that.
Since he wasn’t getting petted, the Rottweiler wandered away.
She had a risky occupation, she knew that. Most of the time failed calls resulted in obscenities and comments about her personal defects, but when real money had been lost, a customer’s feelings could go way beyond annoyance. And it worried her that she didn’t know what The Guy looked like. If those fleeting shadows were real, they only told her that he was big. Other than that he could be anyone. Even one of those two cops.
But The Guy couldn’t have had anything to do with Evani getting killed, could he? Even if he found her, how could he connect her to Evani? Perhaps he had followed her home despite her efforts, but then why not attack her instead?
But
if not The Guy, then who?
She heard the angry-bee sound of her cell phone on vibrate. It started her heart pounding with an instinctive, visceral terror that made no sense, and yet it did, because no one except Evani had her number.
And Evani was dead.
She had spread her coat across herself for warmth and now she reached into the pocket. It would be a wrong number, she told herself. It would be someone exactly like her, someone from some shit country who couldn’t even figure out world time zones, who wanted to lower her credit card interest rates or get her a great deal on satellite TV. That would be hilarious, she decided, and maybe even a little karmic.
But the display showed Evani’s number. Not his name, of course. They both used burners and kept all personal information off of them. No data plan, no selfies, no texts that would reveal anything more than what they wanted for dinner. Definitely no names, not even their nicknames. Only their numbers.
Evani was dead. This meant that whoever had made him dead had taken his phone, knew what they’d been doing and was now trying to find her.
It stopped vibrating.
Shanaya threw off the blankets and coat and padded to the kitchen. She flicked on the light and ripped open the back of the cell phone—lucky for her it was such a cheap one that she could remove the battery and the chip thing that had all the information on it. She looked around for tools, wanting to smash it with a hammer but had to content herself with a pliers. With that she snapped the chip in two. A dirty popcorn bowl sat in the sink; Shanaya filled it with water and dropped the rest of the phone inside. That should do it, right? With the battery out, the phone couldn’t do anything and it didn’t have a GPS or “find my phone” ability anyway. The chip looked irreparable but to be safe she could drop it in a garbage can on her next trip to work.... On second thought she fished it out and put it in the old and noisy microwave. The circuits sparked and made a bad smell. She stopped when a tiny flame appeared, so that the chip left only a small brown mark on its rotating plate. She inspected the few melted spots with satisfaction and dropped it into the bowl’s sparse soapsuds. Then she turned out the light and bundled herself back into the couch.
