Dead Write: A Forensic Handwriting Mystery (15 page)

“It was so easy,” said Annabelle, sounding smug. “I hooked up with my friend, Scooter, before school, and he drove me over to stake out Joel’s apartment. We just waited till he came out. When he did, we followed him.” She snickered. “He’s supposed to be a detective, but he didn’t even see us.”

“Wait a minute; who’s Scooter? What’s his real name?”

“Scooter’s one of my old homies. They just use nicknames. When I was hanging out with them before, they used to call me Baby Brown Eyes.”

“Jesus, Annabelle! You’re not hanging out with gang members again?”

“Scooter ’s cool.”

“I don’t care how cool he is, this is
not
happening. You cannot socialize with gang members! Do you understand me?”

“Well, you’re not here and . . .”

“Don’t lay a guilt trip on me, Annabelle. I’ll be back in a few days. Please don’t make me worry about you any more than I already do.” Claudia took a deep breath and refocused. “You still haven’t told me how you got that video.”

“We followed him to this gas station over by Sawtelle and Washington. He met that girl there, Alex. She brought him some Starbucks—it was a venti, too. She’s such a suck-up.”

“Enough editorial comments. Just tell me how it went down.”

“Okay, fine. They both got in his Jeep and drove up the street; then they parked. Scooter parked down the block across the street and we watched them for a while, but they were just sitting there. I can’t believe they didn’t see us.”

“You had absolutely no business being there.”

Again, the smug snicker. “It’s like those videos on YouTube, of cops who get caught doing all kinds of stupid stuff. They never even saw the person video-taping them.”

“Joel didn’t expect you to be spying on him.”

Why am I defending him?
It was an old feeling that reminded her of things she didn’t want to remember, and she didn’t want to connect it to Jovanic.

Claudia got up and went into the bathroom and shook four ibuprofen from the bottle she carried in her travel kit. A pain like an ice pick hacking at the back of her right eye warned of an impending migraine. “What happened next?” She gulped the caplets with a glass of water from the bottle she kept on the nightstand.

“After they sat there for a while, Joel got out of the Jeep and went back to the gas station.” Annabelle giggled. “He was walking fast. I guess he shouldn’t have drunk that whole venti. Alex stayed in the Jeep, but right as he was coming back, she got out and ran over to him and they started kissing. I knew you wouldn’t believe me, so I took the video with my cell phone.”

The girl could be so infuriating!

“Believing you is not the point. You weren’t supposed to be following him. You were supposed to be going to school with Monica.”

“Don’t you even
care
that your boyfriend is swapping spit with some other chick?”

Claudia bit back the sharp retort that was on the tip of her tongue. She knew that in Annabelle’s mind she was just trying to help. “Look, kiddo, my relationship with Joel is something I have to work on myself, okay? I don’t need to have you spying for me. I need you to behave yourself and stay out of trouble.”IT

There was an exaggerated “tch” at the other end of the line. “What
ever
.”

“By the way, where was Monica while all the spying was going on?”

“She wanted to go with us, but I didn’t want her to get in trouble if we got caught.”

“Well, that was semiresponsible of you,” Claudia said. “I wish you’d applied it to yourself.”IT

“You know she’s my BFF. I couldn’t let her get in trouble.”

BFF?
It took her a second to remember the twenty-first century teen jargon stood for Best Friend Forever.

Claudia could hear her brother ’s voice in the background. Annabelle said, “Pete’s calling me. I have to go do my homework.”

“Excellent idea. Remember to do your graphotherapy exercises, too.”

Annabelle mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “Love ya,” but Claudia knew better than to ask her to repeat it, and they rang off. She lay back on the pillows, waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in.

After a restless night filled with unhappy dreams of Jovanic telling her that he wanted to be free to play the field, Claudia woke in a funk.

She made herself some lukewarm coffee in the coffeemaker on the dresser.
Ugh, powdered creamer. Nasty.

While she was in the shower, she decided to call the police department in Stowe.

The detective who had investigated Heather Lloyd’s death was out of the office, she was told, attending a seminar in Manhattan.

“Could I speak to another detective?”

“We don’t have another detective,” the voice on the other end of the line informed her. “We’re a very small department. Except for the detective sergeant, who’s not here, either, Jim Gray is the only one we’ve got. You could call him on his cell phone. The seminar finished last night. I imagine he’s on his way back up here by now.”

Claudia jotted down the number as the woman recited it. She thanked her, clicked off, and punched in Jim Gray’s number. The detective answered on the second ring.

“Gray.”

“Hi, Detective Gray, my name is Claudia Rose. I got your number from your office.” She hesitated. “I was hoping to speak with you about the death of Heather Lloyd a couple of months ago. I’m just visiting New York.”

“And how might you be connected to Ms. Lloyd?” His New England accent flattened the vowels to a hard edge.

Claudia explained that she worked with Elite Introductions and that she was looking for information on the progress of the case.

He seemed to deliberate for a moment. “ME’s office ruled it an accident. There’s nothing to progress on.”

“Detective, do you think you and I could get together and talk about this?”

“Not sure what there is left to talk about.”IT

“If you’re still in the city, how about letting me buy you a cup of coffee and maybe we’ll find something?”

He admitted that he had not yet left Manhattan. “I’m in a cab,” Detective Gray said. “On the way to meet the Vermonter.”

“The Vermonter?”

“The train. There’s only one a day back. Leaves at eleven thirty.”

“What station are you leaving from? I’ll meet you there.”

“Penn.”

“Perfect, it’s just a few blocks from my hotel.”

His scheduled departure allowed Claudia plenty of time to get dressed and make the twenty-minute walk to Pennsylvania Plaza to meet him—down to the underground level of the busiest train station in the country via escalator; another five minutes to locate the Starbucks where she’d arranged to meet the Vermont detective at eleven o’clock.

Detective Jim Gray was a compact man in his fifties with thinning brown hair and dark eyebrows, frameless eyeglasses, a square face and just the hint of a moustache. He waved her over to a table at the back of the noisy coffeehouse as soon as she walked through the door.

She’d told him she would be wearing a black pantsuit with a pink top. The description had been sufficient for him to recognize her. “Good detecting, Detective,” she said, taking a seat across from him.

He wore a cranberry-colored polo shirt, with a slate gray sport jacket draped neatly over the back of his chair. He was nursing a cardboard cup with the familiar green logo. “Get you one?” he offered.

“I thought
I
was buying.”IT

“Nah,” he said good-naturedly. “Against department regs.”

“I appreciate you agreeing to meet with me on short notice,” Claudia said after the social niceties were out of the way. “I won’t take up much of your time.”

“’S okay,” Gray said. “My train’s delayed. One a day to Vermont, and it’s got the worst on-time record of any of ’em. Might as well have a little company while I wait. What can I get ya?”

He made his way to the counter and ordered the Breakfast Blend she had asked for. When they both had their coffees in front of them, he asked, “What’s your interest in the Lloyd case again?”

Claudia tore open two packets of sugar and stirred them into her cup. “As I mentioned on the phone, I’m working for a dating service that Heather had joined. I’m analyzing the handwritings of some of the members.”

“Handwriting analysis, huh?”

She prepared herself for skepticism, but his next words pleased her.

“Hey, that’s fascinatin’ stuff. Back when I was working for Boston PD we had a girl come in once, claimed she was raped. Had her write out a statement and took it to a handwritin’ expert. The expert said she was lyin’ about what happened. Turns out the expert was right. In the end, she admitted she just wanted to get back at this guy she’d been dating. So, what do you want to know about the Lloyd accident?”

“Just wanted to make sure it really was an accident.”IT

He gave her the eagle eye. “You got reason to believe otherwise?”

Claudia thought about it and tried to decide how much to say. He was a cop, so talking to him wouldn’t breach any professional ethics, but she was certain that Grusha wouldn’t thank her for revealing her suspicions to him. Besides, she had not seen any direct evidence of murder. She shook her head no.

Gray leveled a look at her that said he was doubting her answer. “Then why would you be all fired up about meetin’ me here? You think something else happened to that girl, you’d best tell me what it is.”

“I
don’t
have any information. Honestly.”

“Lady, I’ve been a detective for twenty-three years. I know bullshit when I hear it and right now, my bullshit meter is on tilt.”

“I’m not bullshitting you, Detective. It’s just, well, I was under the impression that she was a good skier, and it seemed odd she’d go off trail like that.”

He finished his coffee and balled his napkin into the cup. “What’s a handwriting analyst need this information for?”

Claudia sipped at her coffee, trying to figure out how to make the story sound anything other than bizarre. She decided to come clean.

“Three young members of the dating club have died in a short period of time. The deaths appear natural and I don’t have any evidence to say they’re not. It just seems there are too many of them in a short time.”

Behind his glasses, Gray’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘appear natural’?”

She told him about Heather, Shellee, and Ryan.

“Were they all investigated by the local authorities?”

“Yes, but—”

“Were they all autopsied?”

“As far as I know.”

He looked unconvinced. “Means, motive, opportunity,” Gray said. “That’s what it takes to prove guilt. You got those?”

Claudia quickly shook her head. “Nothing conclusive.”

“Well, then . . .”

“Can you at least tell me what the medical examiner said about Heather?”

“Sure, it’s public record. There was a bunch of antihistamine in her system—cold medicine. That stuff’ll make you sleepy. Shouldn’t have gone out after taking it. Slows the reflexes.” The detective took off his glasses and breathed on the lenses, wiped them with care on a paper napkin and replaced them. “She’d taken a double dose.”

“A double dose? Isn’t that suspicious?”

“Not particularly. We went all through her room; the box was right there on the nightstand. Prob’ly forgot she’d taken one, took another and went out groggy. No sign of foul play at all.”

“What about the man she was with?”

“We asked around. Far as we know, she went out alone that day,” Gray said. He drew his brows together and he showed some uncertainty for the first time. “I do recall hearing about a fella she was seen with at the lodge one night, at the bar. Tried to get his name, but no luck. Nobody registered with her and nobody remembers anyone being with her the day she died.”

“I don’t suppose anyone had a description of this fella she was seen with?”

“Matter of fact, they did. Tall, brown hair, bearded.”

“That’s pretty nonspecific,” Claudia said.

“Your typical eyewitness description.”IT

A description that matched Ian McAllister, or Marcus Bernard’s Elite Introductions photo before he shaved his beard.

Chapter 14

Detective Gray had nothing further to add and was disinclined to pursue the matter. So Claudia walked back to the hotel thinking about cold medicine and antihistamines, which she knew were also used to treat allergies.

Antihistamine made her think of anaphylactic shock and Shellee Jones. Then her thoughts jumped to Ryan Turner, the young doctor who had perished in the Bahamas.

Scuba diving.

Scuba diving. Skiing. Anaphylactic shock. Instinct told her that there was a connection somewhere, but where? The available information wasn’t providing the answer.