Justification for Murder (9 page)

Thursday

L
ynch didn’t leave the crime scene until past midnight, even though the case wasn’t his. He hadn’t slept much and felt run down.

On the way to work he made Starbucks his first stop. The line was longer than normal. Darcy wondered if it was because he was there earlier than his usual nine-ish. The woman before him started ordering drinks for a full regiment. Then she decided she wanted food too. Darcy shifted the weight on his feet. He wasn’t in a hurry but felt uneasy wasting time with coffee. His phone vibrated with a new voice mail. He was annoyed he hadn’t heard it ring.

“Detective Lynch, I think I found something interesting. Come by the lab when you have a moment.” Rachel’s voice was vibrant. It almost gave him hope.

He was about to skip the coffee when the woman before him started to pay.

A few minutes later he arrived at the lab’s reception area, where Mary greeted him from behind the desk.

“Ah, you truly are the man of my dreams.”

“No, I’m not,” Darcy said embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I brought this one for Rachel.”

“You owe me one, then.” She raised her steaming mug and took a sip. When she saw Darcy’s relived expression, she winked. “Rachel’s in the garage.”

“Thank you.”

He turned around and headed back to the elevator. Once inside, he swiped his security badge by the electronic reader and pushed the button for the basement after the light turned green. When the doors opened, the temperature dropped at least ten degrees and the place was noisy, even though there weren’t that many people working this early.

The garage looked exactly like a body shop. There were three frame racks, two of them occupied by different vehicles. There was a Kansas Jack Auto body-measuring machine on wheels, two pulling towers, chains and many tools worthy of any professional body shop. Between all the regular tools for vehicles, the wall shelves were also filled with typical CSI equipment: magnifiers, evidence bags, seals and labels, scales, luminol kits, and a couple serial-number restoration kits.

“Excuse me, where can I find Rachel?” Darcy asked a young man in a lab coat testing a piece of gray carpet for blood.

“She’s under number two,” he said, pointing to the left with his head.

“Thanks.”

When he reached the second frame rack, Darcy saw two tiny feet in white tennis shoes sticking out from under the car.

“I got you a short caramel mocha with extra whipped cream.”

Rachel rolled out from under the car, avoiding hitting him at the last second. “Yum.”

She raised her arms so he could help her stand up. She had a grease smudge on her forehead and right cheek, and her lab coat was covered in soot.

“You’ve got some good news for me?” Darcy asked, wanting to brush the spots off her face but refraining from doing so.

“Well, I don’t know about that. I wouldn’t want to get your hopes up. But I did find something interesting.”

She moved toward the table that stood by the frame rack and searched through the different evidence bags lying there. When she found what she was looking for, she handed it to Darcy.

“A really tiny black…piece of fabric?” he asked after inspecting the content.

“Rather, a plastic thread.”

“I want my caramel mocha back,” he said, trying to exchange the baggie for the coffee.

Rachel smiled. “I found it yesterday when I was inspecting the bottom of Pritchard’s car. I thought it odd that it would be lodged on the tie-down bracket holding the brake line. So I tested it.”

She placed the baggie on the table and had a long sip of coffee while she stared at Darcy.

“Rachel, you know you’re my favorite mad scientist, but if you don’t get to the point soon, I am taking my coffee back.”

“This is not the type of thing that normally gets stuck to the bottom of cars, unless you drive over a Goodwill drop-off container full of clothes or something.”

Darcy nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“It’s pleather.”

His face was blank.

“Plastic leather. Fake leather. The material used in fake leather gloves, for example.”

His face lit up, and a smile started growing, lining his eyes with tiny creases.

“I’m not saying they’re from fake leather gloves, but with the theory that the lines were punctured, maybe the perpetrator was wearing gloves to avoid leaving prints.”

She grabbed the bag again and shook it in the air, as if to reiterate that she did have something important to share.

“You have an endless caramel mocha supply until Christmas,” Darcy said, running toward the door. “Oh, and you’re still my favorite,” he shouted over his shoulder.

He walked the few blocks back to the station and went directly to his board. “Pleather gloves,” he wrote in Jacqueline Pritchard’s column. Under “Saffron Meadows” he added a dash from “black gloves” to the word “leather,” followed by a question mark. He made a mental note to remember to ask Saffron if she could tell if the gloves her assailant wore were leather or fabric.

T
yler Warren inserted two Eggo frozen waffles in the toaster. The kitchen was large, white and sunbathed by a large window. He placed the maple syrup and butter on the table and took the tea bag out of his steaming cup. He added a drop of milk and emptied a packet of Splenda.

“Lucas, you’re going to be late,” he said toward the stairs.

“Coming,” Lucas yelled as he stomped down. “Sorry, Dad, I couldn’t find my glove. We have practice after school.” He raised the baseball mitt and placed it by the plate. His broad smile showed a missing tooth.

“You still liking it?” Tyler asked, ruffling his hair.

“Yeah. I think me and Simon are the best on the team.”

The toaster ejected the waffles. Tyler put both on Lucas’ plate and watched him drench them in syrup.

“I told you you were good,” he said to his son.

“I know, I know. But parents always say stuff like that to their kids.”

“What? I’ve never heard that before.” He faked a shocked expression.

Lucas laughed, his mouth full of half-chewed waffles.

“That’s disgusting,” Tyler complained, covering his eyes with his hand. “Close that mouth immediately, Lucas Warren.”

Lucas laughed more and had to run to the sink to spit out the food before choking on it.

“Smart move, little man.”

The kid coughed a little and smiled back at his dad with bright blue eyes.

“Let’s go,” Tyler said.

Lucas grabbed his glove and headed out of the kitchen. He stopped by the stairs to pick up his backpack and the bag with his baseball gear and then held the door to the garage open for his dad to go through first.

Tyler got in the car and pressed the button to open the trunk of his Tesla.

“Dad, the trunk’s full.”

Tyler got out of the car and removed his gun bag.

“Wait in the car.”

He left the garage and placed the full black canvas bag into the gun safe and locked it, making a mental note to clean the guns later.

A few minutes later he pulled by the entrance of Bowman International School and hugged his boy good-bye.

“Have a great day. Tell me tonight how practice went.”

“I will, Dad. I love you.”

“I love you too, Lucas.”

They waved at each other, and Tyler sped away from the school. He checked the time. He had less than twenty minutes to make it to his staff meeting.

Traffic on 101 was worse than normal. He called his secretary to let her know he was going to be late and turned the radio on. He decided to listen to music, instead of the news, and relive his encounter with Eva while inching away on the crowded California Highway in rush hour. A few minutes later he got off the freeway and drove through every yellow light until he reached El Camino Real. He was still smiling.

The office was off of the main artery, in a technology park that had been built in 2005. When it opened, the entire building was occupied, even though a square foot was going for over $200. Now, when Tyler’s company moved in, they were able to get the entire two floors of Building C for less than just the lab would have cost them back then.

“Good morning, Mr. Warren.”

“Good morning, Sebastian,” Tyler said to the security guard watching the entrance as he hurried past into the elevator.

Bright windows overlooking Silicon Valley greeted him when he got out. His secretary saw him walking down the hallway and opened the door to the largest conference room they had when he came closer. He’d missed the first quarter of the meeting.

When he stepped in, all heads turned.

“Nice of you to join us,” Sheldon Michaels, the VP of sales, said, shaking his head. Everybody else avoided him.

Tyler nodded in response, silently moving toward the middle of the table, where he found a couple empty chairs.

Qiang Li, the VP of research, was in the middle of presenting her latest test results. She nodded at him and blinked several times as her bangs got into her eyes. She had called him the night before to tell him the news, so the grim expressions around the table did not surprise him.

“As I was saying, we’re getting closer, but we’re not there yet,” Qiang said, tapping the table. When everybody was looking back at her, she moved on to the next slide.

Before she could start explaining the changes in the research, Sheldon interrupted her. “Qiang, isn’t this the same information you presented in the last Exec meeting?”

Qiang sucked in her cheeks and blinked again.

“What am I missing?” he pushed.

“It’s not the same. I just described the progress we’ve made—”

“All I see is more ‘close but not quite,’ and let me tell you, there’s no way to sell this bullshit.” Before she could respond, Sheldon turned to Tyler. “This is not good enough. I don’t need to tell you that if we don’t come up with something we can generate buzz about ASAP, we may as well start selling off our assets to pay the rent.”

“We’ve assembled one of the most talented teams in the medical research industry,” Tyler said. “You need to give them enough time to do their jobs.”

“That may be the case,” said Dolores Fabruko, VP of finance, “but Sheldon’s right. We’re running out of money fast.” She pushed her Fendi glasses up the bridge of her nose. “If we don’t get a viable product for trials soon, we woun’t generate enough interest for a third round of VC funding.” She looked around the room to make sure she had everybody’s attention. “We’ll go under.”

They all started talking at the same time. Tyler just watched but didn’t listen. He knew Qiang was really close to finding out what the issue with the first cure was. Once they solved that, and he managed to take care of the other glitch, they would have no problem finding VC backing.

C
aptain Virago entered the room. Her stride was more determined than usual. She marched past Darcy’s desk and stopped in front of his whiteboard. Darcy watched her but didn’t disturb her concentration.

“I see that you’re finally bonding with Sorensen,” she said, her eyes still glued to the board.

“Nah. I’m just smart enough to know a good idea when I see one.”

Virago looked at him. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes were warm. “Call it what you wish.” She sat on the corner of his desk after moving a few files out of the way. “What was that about you showing up at the crime scene yesterday?”

“I was at McGee’s with Sorensen when your call came in. I had nothing better to do with my evening, so I offered to come along. He didn’t object too loudly, so I went.”

“So you’re bonding.” Only the left side of her mouth rose a little.

Darcy ignored her smirk. He wondered where she was going with the conversation. She passed her hand over her mouth as if she were trying to hide the smile.

“If what you’re worrying about is me intruding in Sorensen’s cases, there’s no need to worry about that. Sorensen made the boundaries very clear last night.”

She started saying something, paused, and moved on. “Tell me about your cases.”

“I don’t have a lot to go on with Pritchard’s. The poor woman was going to die anyway in a few months, according to her sister. She had a very small savings account, no life insurance, a huge mortgage on her house and a very old car. There’s no apparent reason why anybody would go through the trouble. The only possible evidence we’ve found so far is the punctures on the brake lines. The marks are not distinctive enough to narrow down what they were made with, but it may have been something as common as a pushpin. Rachel also found a bit of fabric that could be from the gloves the purp wore when he was tampering with the brake lines.”

“Is there any way the holes could’ve been caused by degradation? You said it was a really old car.” She stretched her back, forcing herself to a better posture. Darcy heard her spine crack twice.

“Rachel was positive they were man-made.”

“Do you have anything more?” she asked without looking too hopeful.

“I wish.”

Virago nodded.

“I’m going to go to the school where she taught and visit her doctor later today. Maybe they know more than her sister did.”

She pointed back to the board and asked, “What about the Meadows case?”

“I’ve got nothing on that one. The woman seems to have a completely common Silicon Valley life. I have no idea where to go from here. She’s coming this morning to go through some knives and see if she can spot the one used to cut the seat belt, but even if she does, I’m not counting on it leading us to the perpetrator.”

“It would be better than nothing.”

“Indeed.”

Virago got off Darcy’s desk. “By the way, your qualification’s coming up. Let me know when you’ve done it.”

“What? I got at least half a year.”

“No, you don’t if you are going to work on cases.”

“But I’m not going to work on cases.”

She turned and faced him. Without a word she pointed to the whiteboard with her index finger.

“I’m just doing this as a favor to you for taking me into your department. I’m not on active duty and will not be. I don’t need to requalify for another six months to work desk duty.”

“Get it done before the end of the week,” she said over her shoulder. “I want the results on my desk before I go to Tahoe on Friday. I’m leaving at three p.m.”

Darcy threw his pen hard. It hit the keyboard where it met the desk, and the weird angle sent it bouncing back, almost hitting his good eye.