Mistaken Identity (12 page)

Twenty-Two

Lucinda went in to work early again, determined to do whatever she could to uncover Jason King’s real identity. She knew of one place in her jurisdiction where she might find fingerprints or DNA. She filled out the paperwork for a search warrant for Victoria Whitehead’s home.

Even though it was Saturday, she was confident she could find a prosecutor willing to get a judge to rule on it. She went up to the sixth floor and roamed around until she found one. She rolled her eyes when she spotted Matt Cummings at his desk. She could not understand why a grown man would sport that licked-up-front style that made him looked like a kitten overgroomed by its mother.

As she approached him, Matt said, “Ah, c’mon, Lieutenant, I’m here because I have work to do, not because I’m bored. Can’t it wait until Monday?”

“If your mother and father were murdered in their home, would you want it to wait?”

“That’s foul play, Lieutenant. But, go on, now that you’ve induced my guilt, tell me what you need.”

Lucinda thrust the documents at him and said, “It’s all here.”

“Give it a few brush strokes before I read it.”

“I want a search warrant for the home of the female victim’s mother in the
Sterling
double homicide.”

“You think the mother did it?”

“No, Cummings. But I’m missing a head and a pair of hands from the male victim.”

“And you think his motherin-law is hoarding his body parts?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But I want to be able to search for them there and I need to see if I can get any fingerprints or DNA samples for Jason King, the grandmother’s boyfriend.”

“Why? You think he could be a suspect?”

“Maybe,” she said and launched into the questions about Freddy’s paternity and the story told by Victoria Whitehead. Then she said, “I’ll also need to obtain buccal swabs for Whitehead as well as her and her grandson’s fingerprints for the purposes of elimination.”

“You don’t need DNA,” Matt contradicted. “You can eliminate any of her DNA simply because it’s female. What about the boy’s DNA?”

“Already have that,” Lucinda said.

Matt grunted, leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands in front of his face. Lucinda squeezed her lips together to remind her not to blurt anything out until he gave some indication of his inclination to move forward. Just as she thought she could keep quiet no longer, Matt spoke. “Okay, let’s go find the judge.”

With search warrant in hand, Lucinda gathered up a forensics team and led them over to the Whitehead home.
Victoria
answered the door with a smile that faded in a flash to an anxious frown when she saw the identity of her visitor. She recovered quickly, popping on a pleasant expression as she welcomed her inside. But when Lucinda pointed to the team standing at the foot of the steps,
Victoria
balked. “What is this, Lieutenant? Am I being invaded by your retinue?”

“I have a search warrant,” Lucinda said, handing the document to her. “You can stay here if you like, but you’ll have to sit outside while we search.”

“What is this all about?”

“We need to search the premises for evidence related to the murder of your daughter and her husband. Read the warrant. It’s all spelled out there. We also have two additional warrants to obtain fingerprint exemplars from you and your grandson.”

“You think I had something to do with the death of my daughter? You think Freddy was involved? This is an outrage. You are going to have to leave right now. I need to call my attorney.”

“Ma’am, you can call your attorney but we’re not leaving. If you don’t have a cellphone to call from outside of the home, an officer will loan you one. But you have to go outside now.”

Victoria
snorted like a deer sensing danger and called for Freddy. When he appeared at the banister on the second floor, he said, “What’s happening, Grandmother?”

“We are being forced out of our home so these police officers can tear it apart for no reason whatsoever.”

Freddy’s head jerked over in Lucinda’s direction and then turned back to his grandmother. “Yes, ma’am, let me get a book and I’ll be right down.”

Lucinda watched without seeing any sight of Freddy for a few minutes and then started up the stairs. Freddy came out of his room with a book under his arm and his hand outstretched. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said.

Perplexed at his reaction, she reached out and took his hand. The explanation of his greeting became clear when she felt a folded note scrape against her palm. She watched his back as he went out the door before unfolding the piece of paper. It read: “Meet me in back of house. Don’t tell Grandmother. Please!”

Lucinda instructed the search team and the forensics team and then slipped out the back door. She scanned the backyard but didn’t see Freddy. Then she heard him. “Lieutenant,” he said in a whispered shout, “over here.”

She followed the sound and saw the boy standing in the shadows of a tall blue spruce in the far corner of the property. She walked towards him, wondering how much she could trust him, how many of his words were the truth as he knew it or if it was all part of a game instigated by his grandmother. “What’s up, Freddy?”

“We had a seance,” he said, leading her to a hidden concrete garden bench tucked under the massive boughs.

Lucinda ducked down as she followed him but once seated she had plenty of headroom. “Who had a seance?”

“Me and my grandmother and a couple of ladies and a man.”

“Did you know any of those people?”

“One of the ladies comes by and visits my grandmother a lot. I knew her even before I lived here. But I never paid much attention to her. She kind of gives me the creeps ’cause she stares at me so weird.”

“But you spent time with her during the seance?”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to – I even had to hold her hand. Grandmother made me sit next to her when we formed a circle.”

“And besides holding her hand, what bothered you, Freddy?”

“Well, nothing bothered me then. I was kind of scared and kind of curious and kind of excited because they said I could talk to my mom.”

“Did you? Did you talk to your mom?”

“Yeah, well, that’s what they said. But, I don’t know. I mean, I believed it at the time but later I started thinking maybe they tricked me. And then, this morning, I was sure of it.”

“What gave you doubts, Freddy?”

“Well, I was talking to my mom and it gave me shivers – it was good but it was kind of icky, too. But I listened and I believed her and when it was over, I hugged my grandmother and even hugged the creepy lady, and thanked them for letting me talk to my mom. I was really excited – and scared, too. Then, in my room, I started thinking and it didn’t seem right.”

“What didn’t seem right, Freddy?” Lucinda asked as she studied his face for any indication of deception.

“What my mom said – or not my mom – it wasn’t right. It sounded like my mom but she wouldn’t tell me stuff like that.”

“How did your mom talk to you? What did she say?”

“Her voice – it sounded like her voice – came out of the creepy lady’s mouth. She told me to believe everything my grandmother told me, but my mom told me before that my grandmother makes up stories. Mom said she loved my grandma, but she got some crazy ideas sometimes.”

“Yes?”

“And then this weird lady with my mom’s voice said that Dad was evil and dangerous and I needed to keep away from him. She said Grandmother and Jason would protect me from him – but my mom never said ‘Grandmother’ to me before she died. She always said ‘Grandma’.

“And then she said I needed to do everything they told me to do and I shouldn’t talk to the police or anybody about my mom or my dad except for them and she said if I ever get confused that I should come talk to her again. And I want to talk to her again but I don’t think I talked to her then. I thought I did but I don’t know. I mean, my mom wouldn’t say those things. I don’t understand. But I started wondering if they were making it all up to scare me or something. And then I heard my grandma talking on the phone and I think she was talking to her boyfriend Jason – you know, the one she says is my half-brother, which doesn’t make any sense, and that’s when I knew she was lying.” Tears streamed down Freddy’s face. He brushed them away with the back of his hand.

Lucinda put an arm around his shoulders. “Freddy, I know you are upset – and you have every reason to be upset. But tell me, what did she say to Jason?”

“She said, ‘We had a seance. The boy won’t be any trouble at all.’”

Twenty-Three

Lucinda went back inside the house, her thoughts focused on Freddy. When she reached the second floor, Marguerite Spellman stuck her head out of the master bedroom. “Lieutenant, come in here. You need to look at this bed.”

A brief glimpse of a sheet-covered mattress was all Lucinda saw before the forensics team leader flipped the light switch, plunging the room into a deep gloom. Marguerite’s face glowed blue as she ran an alternative light source over the top of the bed. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all. Not one single indication of any biological fluids. I’ll take the sheets to the lab but I don’t think I’ll find anything.”

“So, she made the bed this morning. Where’s the dirty laundry?”

“Checked that, it’s not there. Sent someone in search of a washer and dryer but both were empty.”

“Damn. His DNA has to be on something.”

“I know. It should be here somewhere but there’s only one toothbrush and one hairbrush in the bathroom – that doesn’t look promising. The only male clothing in the closet is hanging in dry cleaning bags with the tags still on them. There are two empty dresser drawers which I suspect once held his T-shirts, underwear and socks. We swabbed the insides without much luck. We’ll try to find his DNA, Lieutenant, but it doesn’t look good.”

“Okay. Well, maybe AFIS will give us a fingerprint match.”

Marguerite sighed. “We have to find a fingerprint first.”

“What?”

“Every single surface in this room has been wiped clean. But we will not stop looking. We’ll collect prints all over the house if necessary.”

“Damn, damn, damn,” Lucinda muttered as she walked out into the hall, down the stairs and out to the front porch. Victoria Whitehead sat in a wicker chair chatting with the officer watching over her as if they were best friends.

“Ms. Whitehead, I have a few questions,” Lucinda said.

Victoria smiled apologetically at the officer and graced Lucinda with her most put-upon expression. “Yes, Lieutenant. What is it now?”

“When did you change the sheets on your bed?”

“That is a very rude question.”

“Whatever. Just answer it.”

For a moment, Victoria looked as if she wouldn’t and then she mumbled, “This morning.”

“You haven’t slept on them at all.”

“Oh no, not at all. They are brand new from the store. I just bought them the other day when I went shopping.”

“Where are the dirty sheets?”

“Cleaned, folded and put away, of course.”

“What did you use to launder them, Ms. Whitehead?”

“The normal things – detergent, bleach, fabric softener.”

Lucinda stifled a groan. “What about Jason’s toothbrush or hairbrush or comb?”

“He took them with him, of course.”

“Do you have anything he used regularly? Any soiled clothing?”

“Oh, no, I washed all his clothes before I packed them. He takes nearly everything when he visits his mother. He never knows if a crisis might prevent him from returning when he planned.”

Lucinda considered confronting her with Karen’s denial of having a son but decided against it. If she knew, she would either have a ready excuse or she might muck up the investigation with that knowledge. “If you think of anything, please ask the officer to come and get me right away.”

“When will I have my house back, Lieutenant?”

“I honestly don’t know, Ms. Whitehead. After we get your fingerprints, I would be glad to drive you to a friend’s house – or anywhere you like – if you’d be more comfortable elsewhere.”

Victoria sniffed. “It’s all right. For now. With the nice breeze, it’s quite a pleasant day.”

Back in the house, Lucinda roamed from room to room on the first floor, looking for anything that might harbor a DNA sample or a good fingerprint. She stopped in the middle of the kitchen, spun around, and bounded up the stairs, calling out: “Spellman! Spellman!”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“What is the one place men often touch, but women seldom do? The one place a woman might forget to eliminate a fingerprint?” Lucinda held her breath, watching realization wash away the confusion on the forensics tech’s face.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Marguerite said.

Both women raced into the master bath. Marguerite carefully lifted the toilet seat and dusted powder on the front edge of the underside. They watched the ridges become visible. Four fists went into the air and a jubilant “Yes!” echoed off the tiles.

“Is the crime scene at the Sterling house still sealed?” Marguerite asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t think we checked under the seat there. I’ll get back to you if I find anything.”

It was early evening before the forensics team finished and turned the house over to Victoria Whitehead. Finally, Lucinda’s long day was over. Hopefully, that fingerprint would provide her with Jason King’s real identity. But she knew she still needed his DNA. She needed it to check out Victoria’s story of a genetic link between King and the boy. She doubted that they were brothers but she wondered if King was Freddy’s father.

Lucinda did not like Sunday afternoons. It was a day most folks spent with their families. The thought of that made her stomach queasy. It was also a time when she didn’t feel right intruding on anyone else’s life unless it was an emergency.

She spent her time trying to relax – playing with Chester, reading a book, watching a movie DVD. On this day, though, she was more restless than usual. She’d already spent over an hour working out in the gym, not stopping until her knees wobbled from the exertion.

She couldn’t escape the relentless thoughts in her head. Freddy’s words about the seance and the overheard phone call with Jason made her anxious for him and concerned about his safety. His grandmother’s behavior troubled her, too – was she simply that tidy and devoted to cleanliness all of the time or had she intentionally set about destroying evidence?

It was all on an endless loop; she had to find a way to distract herself. She grabbed her laptop and stretched out on the sofa. Pulling up Google, she typed in Jason King. She was more than dismayed when 37,700,742 entries popped on the screen. She put quotation marks before and after the name. It helped some but she still had 248,000.

Scrolling through them she found a British TV series, a web designer, a journalist, a professor, a band, an architect and an expert on yeast infections – that certainly was something she never expected to find. She went through page after page without finding anything useful at all.

The answer seemed obvious. She needed to go to Texas. She should get the trip approved before she went.
But maybe
, she thought,
I should just head to the airport, fly out today and worry about the expense reimbursement later.

She jumped up from the sofa and pulled a suitcase out of the hall closet and rolled it into her bedroom. Opening her dresser drawer, it hit her:
I can’t go now. Ellen’s competency hearing is tomorrow. And I promised I’d be there.
She slammed the drawer shut and stomped out of her apartment, hoping a walk by the river would clear her head.