Justification for Murder (13 page)

S
orensen opened his notes and perused them for leads to follow up. There was so much legwork he needed to do, and he didn’t know where to start.

“Boss, we need more people,” he yelled toward Virago’s office.

“You got Jon,” she shouted back.

“We need more people besides Jon.”

“Do you have a couple mil to donate to the department?”

“Yeah, I’ve been saving my yearly bonuses just for this.”

“If you didn’t waste so much time complaining, you’d be halfway done by now, and you wouldn’t need more people to help you.”

“Yeah, right,” he said under his breath, knowing the conversation was over.

Sorensen started typing yesterday’s notes into the case file before he forgot them. He tapped at the keyboard harder than he needed to, making the keystrokes resonate throughout the office. When the phone rang, he picked it up, thankful for the break.

“Sorensen,” he said without looking at the caller ID.

“Guess what?” Mauricio said in his high-pitched voice.

Sorensen checked his watch. Mauricio was fast but not that fast. “You can’t possibly have the results already.”

“No.”

Sorensen pictured him waving his hand in dismissal.

“I just got done collecting all the evidence from the car.”

“Great. Anything interesting?”

“Everything’s interesting.”

Sorensen rephrased. “Anything that will help me solve this case?”

“Maybe. That’s up to you, detective. I just sent a messenger over to you with all the bags.” He went on: “I’ll start working on the evidence you gave Lou earlier as soon as I get back to the office. If I find anything, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, Mauricio. Work fast.”

“Always do.”

Sorensen hung up and looked for the Post-it note with Mrs. Chopra’s number. When she answered, he asked her to come by the office to identify some items found in her stolen car. Before he was done giving her directions, the box with the evidence showed up.

He started looking through it. Everything was bagged and sealed. There weren’t that many things—a couple pens, a baby juice bottle, a couple toys, a small blanket, a phone charger and a book with crossword puzzles open somewhere in the middle, with a puzzle halfway done. Sorensen put everything back into the box and returned to writing his notes.

Almost an hour later, his concentration was broken by another call.

“Sorensen, a Mrs. Chopra is here to see you,” the receptionist told him.

“Send her up, please.”

He saved his notes so a system crash wouldn’t lose the entire hour’s worth of progress and grabbed the box. When the elevator doors opened, he was there to greet her.

“Mrs. Chopra?” he asked even though she was the only woman in the elevator.

“Yes,” Still inside, she moved the child she was holding from one hip to the other.

Sorensen introduced himself and led her to an interview room. Once there, he took out all of the items from the box, placing them carefully in front of her, equidistant from each other.

“Mrs. Chopra, do you see anything here you do not recognize?”

She took the sippy cup and, smiling, said, “This is definitely mine. Well, Sudhir’s.” She patted the head of the small boy, who sat peacefully on her lap.

Methodically, she picked one bag after another, and without spending too much time looking at the item, moved it to the end of the table, saying “Mine” each time. Finally, there was only one item left. She reached for the crossword puzzle booklet.

“Can I open this?” she said, extending her arm, pushing the bag closer to Sorensen’s face as if he couldn’t see it otherwise.

“Is it yours?”

“I don’t recognize it.”

Chopra looked at it again. Her son moved a little. “No, I don’t think it’s mine.”

“Do you think maybe somebody who’s been in your car recently forgot it there?”

She thought for a few seconds. “No, I doubt it. Everybody has the games on their smartphones.”

“Can you double check that everything else is yours?”

She looked back at all of the bags she had already checked. She shook her head but hesitated for a second.

“Mrs. Chopra, it’s really important to figure out what is yours and what isn’t so we can catch the person who stole your car. If there’s something you’re not sure about, let me know.”

She vacillated, looked again and discarded the obvious items, but finally picked the bag containing a white pen with a chewed blue cap. “I don’t think this is mine.”

“Why don’t you think so?”

“Neither I nor my husband chew on pens. It’s bad for the teeth.”

After reconfirming there wasn’t anything else that looked out of place, Sorensen walked her out.

“Can I take my car now?” she said after they shook hands.

“No, we still need to run a few more tests. Somebody will call you as soon as you can pick it up.”

“But I thought that’s why I was called to come here,” she said, switching her son from one hip to the other.

“I’m sorry. We needed to identify the items we found in the car so we could rush the investigation. Your help today was invaluable. And I promise you, it won’t be that long before your car is ready.”

She nodded and left. Sorensen continued on to the lab to give the two evidence bags to Mauricio in person.

“Do you have the results yet?” he asked the moment he was within earshot of the lab technician.

“No. And I won’t get them faster by you asking me every five minutes.”

“I got two more for you. Super top priority.”

“Isn’t everything?”

T
raffic was slow and it wasn’t even three thirty in the afternoon yet. Darcy cursed himself for not having taken surface streets, and now they were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on 101. The Cobra’s top was down and the sun was blazing.

“I should have grabbed the sunscreen,” Saffron said.

Before Darcy could reply, his phone rang.

“Lynch.”

“You have to come back to the station,” Mauricio said, using the tone of a confidant. “I found something peculiar.”

“Can’t you tell me over the phone? I’m in the middle of something.”

“No. I think you need to come.”

“Okay.” Darcy looked at his watch and said, “I’ll be there in ten.”

Saffron looked at him.

“Change of plans. We have to go back to the office for a minute.” He said when he hung up.

“But we were so close,” she said, whining a little.

“Not close enough. Besides, this way you get to spend more time with me.” He turned his face to see her expression.

“And that’s a plus… how?”

Back at the station they stopped at the reception area, and he signed for Saffron’s clearance. Darcy offered her the spare chair next to his desk, and phoned Mauricio.

“I’m here. Where are you?”

“Close.” Mauricio appeared through the door a minute later. “Where’s Sorensen?” he asked, looking around.

Jon looked up. “He was here a minute ago.”

“He needs to be here too. Can you call him?”

Before Jon had the time to punch in all the numbers, Sorensen came into the large room, stuffing his shirt into his pants. All eyes fell on him.

“What?” He turnerd his back to them and finished adjusting his pants. “Man, there is no privacy in this place.”

Mauricio sat across from them and pulled two bags of evidence from his satchel.

“Is it okay to talk?” He looked at Lynch, but nodded toward Saffron.

“Yes, she’s a victim/witness in one of my cases.”

“Which one?”

“The hit and run on Highway 17.”

Saffron looked up, her interest was piqued.

“Oh, okay. This isn’t about that one.”

She grabbed her phone and it slid from her hand, crashing to the floor. They all looked at her. She blushed and moved to pick it up.

“Sorry. I’ve been meaning to get a case so it’s not so slippery.”

Sorensen and Lynch focused back on Mauricio, who had set the evidence on the table. When he was sure he had the detectives’ full attention, he said, “Darcy, remember that piece of fabric Rachel found under Pritchard’s car?”

Darcy nodded.

“Sorensen, remember that piece of fabric you gave me just a few hours ago to check from Hughes?”

“Jesus, Mauricio, get to the frigging point,” Sorensen said, rolling his eyes.

“Okay, okay, spoil the fun, will you?” Mauricio protested, but he grabbed both bags, one in each hand. Lifting them up, he said, “Well, they are the exact same material.”

“They come from the same place?” Darcy asked, more confused than excited.

“I can’t tell you that without having the piece they come from, but they are exactly the same composition.”

Sorensen and Darcy exchanged glances.

“What’s even more interesting is that the Hughes sample contains a glycol ethers.”

His smug faced beamed.

“Are you sure you didn’t get them mixed up?” Lynch asked.

Before Mauricio could protest, Sorensen asked, “What’s glycol ethers?”

“Brake fluid,” Darcy said, not wanting them to get sidetracked. “It makes no sense at all. You’re a hundred percent sure you have the right sample?”

“Please, don’t offend me, Detective Lynch. This is why I wanted both of you in this room together before I shared the news.”

“This is crazy,” Sorensen said, shaking his head. “What you’re saying is that the piece you found in Hughes’ teeth has brake fluid, and not the one that came from under the car?”

“You win the prize, Sherlock.”

“Oh, fuck you.” Looking at Lynch, he added, “What the hell’s going on?”

“I have no clue.”

“Any info on the pen and the crossword puzzle yet?” Sorensen asked Mauricio.

“Working on it. Rachel’s helping, so I should have something for you very soon.”

He got to his feet and grabbed both evidence bags. “Okay, I’m taking these back with me.”

He left the room, moving in short little hops like a sparrow.

Darcy stared at the desk where the evidence had been, wondering how the pieces fit together. Normally things were much more straightforward, like making a puzzle with a lot of sky. You had to try each piece to see if it fit, and most didn’t. But eventually you found one that did and then another and another, until you were done. In this case, it seemed that as you tried to find a piece that fit, you eventually discovered it actually belonged to a different puzzle. It made no sense.

He turned around to ask Sorensen what he made of the whole thing, but he was on the phone.

“Bring him up. Thanks,” he said.

“What do you think?” Darcy asked after Sorensen hung up.

“I think it means you get to have my mugging, as I told you you would.”

“Whatever. Seriously. Could it be a coincidence?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to have to talk about this later, because the husband of the mugging victim is just about to come up.”

Darcy went back to his desk and turned on the computer. He typed “glycol ethers” in the browser and scanned through the results. There were many different uses for it. Maybe it was just a weird coincidence.

“Detective Sorensen?” a man said from the doorway.

Saffron looked up and jumped from her chair. “Bob?” She walked toward her best friend’s husband and asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Saffron?”

His eyes were bloodshot, his demeanor uncharacteristically shy. He stood by the door, as if he needed a formal invitation to cross the threshold.

A
fter talking to Harper, Tyler made a few calls to catch up with some of his closest investors. Sheldon Michaels was right. Their tone was curt and they were losing patience. He went to the lab to check the work for himself.

The place was buzzing with PhDs testing, formulating, computing, talking and arguing about details that mostly escaped him. Nobody noticed him, and he liked that. He knew it was better not to disrupt their flow, and what he really needed was to have them all at their best.

After walking around awhile, he headed toward Qiang’s office at the end of the lab. She wasn’t there, but he entered anyway. He sat on her chair and for the first time, he got to see her world with his own eyes. He could feel the energy of the lab, even though the door was closed. He no longer wondered why she wanted to work there, in that room, with no outside windows and a light hum coming from the air conditioning, rather than in her other beautiful office, next to his on the second floor, where all the upper management offices were located.

His chest puffed a little. He was so proud of his team, of the company he’d built. He knew deep down they would come up with the cure for breast cancer. They would all be famous one day. They would save lives—hell, maybe even win the Nobel Prize. He then noticed he had been clenching the armrests of Qiang’s chair. He let go and decided to leave the office. There was nothing else he could do to help out today. When he got back to his desk, he shut down his laptop, put it in his briefcase and left, leaving the door open.

“Your dinner with Rox and Tory from Arcadia Ventures has been rescheduled to tomorrow, but breakfast instead,” his secretary said when she saw his jacket trailing behind him.

“Okay,” he said over his shoulder without slowing down his pace. One more clue that his investors were pulling away.

“Where are you going?” she asked behind him, a little louder.

“I’m getting out of here. My cell phone works everywhere.”

He turned the corner and didn’t hear anything else from her. The left side of his mouth tilted upwards, even though he wasn’t really sure why he was smiling.

Tyler knew he should go to his sister’s to pick Lucas up. But he needed to do something else first. He got in his car, but before he started the engine, he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed.

“Hey, buddy, how’s aunty Julia treating you?”

“We’re building a hospital.”

Tyler pulled the handset away from his ear a little.

“That’s a big project. Do you have that many Legos?”

“We stopped at the store and got more on the way home.”

“Don’t tell him that,” he heard Julia whisper on the other side of the line.

“Oops, sorry,” he whispered back, but he was still talking into the phone.

Tyler smiled. He breathed in deeply and could almost smell his son’s scent.

“Okay, buddy, make me proud.”

“It’s going to be really big and we even have three ambulances.”

“That’s impressive. I’ll see it tonight when I pick you up.”

When Lucas gave the phone to Julia, Tyler told her he would be a few hours late. After hanging up, he dialed a different number.

“Where are you?” he asked when Eva picked up.

“I’m busy,” she said, but her voice rolled over her tongue like a purr.

“I want to see you.”

“I thought we made plans for tomorrow.”

After a few seconds, he said, “I want to see you now.”

“I want to see you too, but I can’t today. I’m busy.”

“Get un-busy.”

Another moment passed.

“Will have to be tomorrow.” Her voice was colder, a little more distant, as if she were entering a tunnel.

“Don’t play games with me. I want to see you now. Meet me at the W in thirty minutes.”

“I can’t today. I just told you.”

“Stop playing,” he yelled and punched the wheel with his open hand. A sharp bolt of pain shot up his arm.

She hung up, and he hit the wheel again, but this time not as hard. He started the car and sped away, scraping the bottom of his Tesla on a speed bump.