Chain Reaction (9 page)

‘Times a-wastin’? Are you feeling all right?’

‘Never felt better,’ Jake said with a cheeriness that struck Lucinda as false.

‘Jake, what is—’

Jake emphatically pressed his index finger to his lips. ‘I’ll wait for you downstairs.’

Lucinda watched him leave. She was totally perplexed but she knew the only way to get any answers was to pull on her shoes and meet him outside. And he was still wearing his suit. He was going to take a walk dressed like that? Something was wrong. Instead of waiting for the elevator, she took the stairs down. She wasn’t sure if it was any quicker but at least she wouldn’t be standing around doing nothing.

‘Jake?’ Lucinda said as she approached him.

He put an arm around her shoulder and said, ‘Listen, I know you probably think I’m nuts. And I am probably being excessively paranoid. But when the Wicked Witch forms an alliance with her counterpart in the ATF, anything is possible.’

‘You think they bugged our apartment?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘Really?’

‘The Wicked Witch has my home address, and from what I saw of the two of them today, I’m sure she’d have no reluctance about sharing that information with Deputy Director Wesley.’

‘Oh jeez,’ Lucinda moaned. ‘My captain told me not to socialize with you until the case is resolved.’

‘You don’t need to worry about that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Both the FBI and the ATF are pretty ticked off at your police chief.’

‘But he took me off the case.’

‘Yeah. But that’s where he drew the line. He refused to fire you. He told them that they had no control over his department and hiring and firing decisions were internal matters not subject to their review or approval.’

‘He did? That’s a surprise. The captain made it sound like everyone was one big happy family.’

‘They want everyone to think that. They don’t want to risk seeing the conflict blaring in headlines or on television. But there’s a lot of animosity brewing on both sides, which is probably for the best as far as our job security goes.’

‘But what if they find out we’re living together?’

Jake shrugged. ‘We’ll deal with that when it happens. But, quite frankly, if they haven’t already bugged the apartment, that will give them a reason. As long as they never hear us discuss the case, they’ll be too busy trying to figure out how to turn the situation to their advantage.’

‘By having you spy on the police department through me?’

‘Maybe. But just because they ask and just because I might agree, that still doesn’t mean I’d do it.’

‘And you think your cell might be tapped, too?’

‘Mine and yours. Maybe. I just don’t want to take any chances.’

‘Well, I took a big one today, Jake.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I held on to some of the case information I had and didn’t turn it over to the captain. I wanted to give it to you.’

‘Risky. Risky, Lucy. What is it?’

‘I found two notes in David’s room when I searched. One was from a girl only identified by the letter “E”, asking for his help with a problem. The other was a note from an unidentified person asking for a meeting behind the Walking Dog the night before he died.’

‘Oh, c’mon, Lucy. That’s actual evidence. You’re withholding actual evidence. And what about the chain of custody?’

‘I handled the notes only with gloves on and I placed them in separate plastic sleeves. I labeled and sealed them.’

‘Where are they now?’

‘In the safe in our walk-in closet.’

‘You’ve got to turn that in. Tell the captain they were in the trunk of your car and you just remembered them.’

‘No, Jake. I will not. Not with Connelly involved in the case. Listen. I have one more thing that probably will help identify who wrote the notes. The Bayneses gave me a list of David’s friends – fifty-seven of them. I started getting addresses and phone numbers and even called a few of them. But I don’t want Connelly bullying those people. Either he’ll terrify the kids into shutting up or the parents will hire attorneys and slam the door.’

‘You’re probably right about that. It’s not going to be easy to hide what I’m doing from Connelly. I’ll have to run two simultaneous investigations – one for his eyes and another that’s not. Hopefully, if I get results in the latter, I’ll be able to think of some way to slip it unnoticed into the former. Man, this could get really complicated. Hey, you want to keep walking up to El Sol and La Luna and grab some dinner and a margarita before heading back home to get to work on your list?’

At the restaurant, they both ordered crab and shrimp quesadillas and loaded the tops with sour cream, avocado and salsa. The margaritas took the edge off of their anxiety and the good meal left them in a state of contentment that they each contemplated quietly as they walked home holding hands.

Inside, they fell into a work pattern of keeping legal pads by their sides and using them to communicate everything about the case. They threw in bits of idle, phony conversation about the books they were reading and leaned over to exchange noisy kisses. If anyone was listening, they wanted their activities to seem harmless.

Just after eleven that night, Jake stood, stretched and jotted, ‘Well, we’ve got it all together for everyone on the list with a last name. I’m calling it quits; my brain is fried from the tedium.’ He pulled Lucinda tight against him, pressing a hand into her lower back.

‘I think I know what’s on your mind,’ Lucinda said.

‘I think you’re probably right,’ he said before kissing her again.

‘So, what if they are listening?’ she whispered in his ear.

‘What if they are?’

‘I can try to be quiet but if, well, you know, if that happens, I doubt if I can,’ she continued in a
sub rosa
voice.

‘Let ’er rip,’ Jake whispered back. ‘Let them think we’re having wild, monkey sex – better than anything they’ve ever imagined.’

Lucinda laughed out loud and then put her mouth back to his ear, ‘Wild monkey sex? Where did you come up with that?’

‘I read it in a book somewhere. Not completely sure I know what they meant but I’m up for defining it in any way you see fit.’

‘As long as I’m not going to have to scratch under my arms and make those weird monkey grunting noises.’

‘Everything is optional, Lucy. It’s time to pick and choose and enjoy.’ He pressed her against the wall and kissed her breath away. When he let her up for air, she raced down the hall, discarding pieces of clothing as she ran.

L
ucinda sat at her desk in the Justice Center, sorting, filing and filling out forms. She startled when she heard her name. She looked up and saw Captain Holland in her doorway.

‘Need you on a suspicious death,’ he said.

‘Look like homicide?’ Lucinda asked.

‘Nope. Looks like a suicide but we’ve got to investigate it until we’re sure.’

‘You want me to investigate?’ Lucinda said, pointing a finger to her chest. ‘I thought I was deskbound.’

‘Give me a break, Pierce. Considering how stretched we are manpower-wise, you must have known that couldn’t last long.’

On her feet, Lucinda slipped her arms into a khaki blazer. ‘Didn’t know but I did hope,’ she said with a grin. ‘Who is it?’

‘Looks like the other high school student that went missing last weekend.’

‘Could it be—’

‘Don’t get your hopes up, Pierce. It doesn’t look like it. It sounds like a suicide from the responders at the scene. But just in case, if you see any hint of a possible connection to the explosion, come straight to me. Stop what you are doing and come straight to me. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

Holland pointed a finger at Pierce. ‘I’m serious now. I’m not playing games. You find a link, we’ll talk it over, see how far you can run with it. You overstep without my seal of approval and you’ll be out on the street.’

Lucinda nodded. ‘Yes, sir, I understand.’

‘Just be sure you do it,’ he said. He turned around and walked away.

Grateful of her release from the desk and eager to poke around for a connection to the explosion at the school, Lucinda rushed out of the parking lot to the site where patrolmen now watched over the body of a teenage boy. Partway to the location, more sobering thoughts supplanted her excitement. A young man was dead and, whether it was a suicide or a homicide, his parents would be devastated – even if he was a constant source of problems, the emotions of his mother and father would crumble like a termite-hollowed log.

Lucinda pulled into a quiet neighborhood and on to Guinevere Lane. The road ended in a cul de sac where two police cars were parked. She pulled her car to the side behind them. A uniformed patrolman stood a short distance away in the grass between two houses. Neither of the backyards had fences, making it easy to walk between them down to a grove of trees. Looking at the ground, Lucinda saw a faint but obvious flattening that indicated it was a well-traveled path.

On the way back, Lucinda asked, ‘Gruesome scene?’

‘Actually, not,’ the officer said. ‘He looks very peaceful, maybe even content.’

‘Doesn’t sound like any kind of attack.’

‘Doesn’t look like one at all.’

Entering the wooded area, Lucinda felt a sense of irony. Here she was investigating death while, all around her, life seemed to be erupting with vigor. The deciduous trees had all leaved out but still bore the bright, vibrant green of new growth. Old brown undergrowth was now overrun by a fresh crop of green shoots. A blackberry bramble off of the beaten path was covered with white buds not yet opened in full blossoms.

In a small clearing to the right, Lucinda saw the body. At first glance, the boy appeared to be sleeping, his mouth hanging open with the corners of his lips turned up in a shy smile. His arms rested flat on the ground. The curled-up fingers of one hand held a prescription container, the other a bottle of water. Next to him, she spotted a makeshift fire pit, a ring of soot-covered rocks surrounding a circle of blackened earth.

Lucinda made a broad circle around the perimeter and approached in a straight line to minimize the disturbance of the site. Crouching down, she peered at the pharmacy label: OxyContin, prescribed for Barbara Matthews. It clearly was not the woman’s body but it definitely indicated to Lucinda that she was looking at the remains of Todd Matthews, the other student missing from Woodrow Wilson High School.

She looked over the body and saw no signs of injury. She couldn’t flip him over and check his back, though, until Doc Sam or one of the other forensic pathologists arrived. Although some perpetrators try to mask a homicide with the appearance of suicide, at this point Lucinda was not seeing any evidence indicating that this was anything more than a tragic, self-inflicted loss of life.

As she rose, she visually followed the path that brought her here and saw it continued on through the woods, slipping out of sight. ‘Any idea of where it leads?’ she asked the officers.

Both of the men shrugged their shoulders and said, ‘No, Lieutenant.’

The patrolman who led her back added, ‘You want me to go check?’

‘No, one of you needs to stay with the body. The other one needs to be out near the street, directing new arrivals. Whoever that is can start running yellow tape from the street, up the path and around this location,’ she said and took off to follow the beaten earth of the trail.

As soon as Lucinda went around the small bend that blocked the rest of it from her view earlier, the path crossed a narrow trickle of a creek and headed up a small rise. She dodged the muddy spots by the running water and trudged uphill. When she reached the crest, she was surprised to realize that she was behind the high school. She felt a flutter of excitement in her chest. Did that indicate a connection to the explosion? Or was it serendipity?

Walking back to the body, she spotted two new patrol officers rolling out the yellow tape, wrapping it around trees. She approached them and said, ‘Run the tape all the way down this trail and block it off at the far edge of the woods. The high school is back that way and I imagine this path was made by students so I want both entrances blocked off and an officer posted at each end.’

Back at the body, Lucinda pulled out her iPhone and snapped a close-up photo of the dead boy’s face for confirmation of his identity. As she put it away, she spotted a man approaching, wearing a medical examiner’s windbreaker, followed by two men in white uniforms. The first man held out his hand, I’m Dr Perry, but you can call me Mike.’

Lucinda shook his hand and said, ‘Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce, but you can call me whatever you like.’

Perry chuckled. ‘I have a message for you from Doc Sam. He said, “Tell Pierce I truly regret not being able to join her for a picnic in the woods but at the moment, I am elbow deep in viscera.” And he wanted to know if he could get a rain check for another forest rendezvous.’

Lucinda rolled her eyes. ‘Leave it to Doc Sam to add the romantic touch to any occasion.’

Perry kneeled down beside the body, examining it
in situ
. When he leaned back, Lucinda asked, ‘Do you need a hand turning him over?’

‘Yeah, sure. Thanks.’ Together, they gently placed the body face down. ‘No sign of trauma back here, either,’ Perry said.

‘Look like a drug overdose?’ Lucinda asked.

‘That’s a good possibility at first glance, but I won’t know for sure until I get toxicology. It wouldn’t take much with OxyContin if that’s what he used.’

Rising back up, Lucinda said, ‘Well, I’d better go see Mr and Mrs Matthews, get confirmation that this is their son.’

‘Good luck, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone.’

A
fter contacting dispatch, Lucinda had an address for the Matthews, just one street over on Lancelot Lane. She pulled up in front of a split-level ranch and walked up the sidewalk. When she touched the doorbell, the door flew open as if programed to do so. Standing on the other side was a T-shirt-and-sweatpants-clad woman who appeared to have gone to hell but hadn’t completely found her way back. Lucinda held up her badge.

‘Did you find him?’ she asked.