Murder in the Aisles (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Mark returned to the precinct and went straight into the captain's office. “This may be related or not, but last night the doctor that found the first body at the library was in an accident.”

“So what?”

“Her brake lines were cut.”

The captain's gaze rose from the papers on his desk to rest on Mark. “And you know that how?”

“Let's just say that I know. This whole thing at the library is for real.”

“What did you get out of Hollis?”

“It ain't him. But, whoever is behind all this works at the library and has it out for Hollis. Once we can find out his connection to someone at the library we'll have our murderer.”

“The DA was here earlier.” He picked up the folded paper from his desk and handed it to Mark. “Here's your warrant. Don't fuck this up.”

Mark grinned. “Do I ever?”

“You don't really want me to answer that. Keep me posted, Rizzo and take McDaniels with you and two blues along with the IT tech.”

A half hour later, Mark arrived at the library along with Eddie, two uniformed officers and a technician. After passing through security they were escorted directly to Human Resources where for the next hour they gathered personnel documents on all employees in the Jefferson Building, while simultaneously the video and employee access logs were being collected.

In the midst of the sweep, Mark's cell rang.

“Rizzo.”

“Mark…I think I know who did it. What
you
need to figure out is why and who may have looked up information on car brakes.”

Mark listened with growing alarm as Felicia laid out her reasoning. It all made sense, but the missing link was motive. The motive, hopefully, would be found in the personnel files or on someone's computer. He knew he was close. He was getting a hard-on thinking about it.

All employees that were on duty were corralled into the conference room to deal with the tech that took all of their passwords for their computers.

More than four hours later Mark and his team were packing up documents and evidence. A police van was parked out front to carry back the materials to the precinct.

Once there, Mark had all the boxes brought into an empty office and he and Eddie began poring over them. After talking with Felicia at least he had some idea of what he was looking for—someone on staff that had a connection to Steven Hollis—and two techs were scouring the videos, access logs and staff computer searches.

They'd been at it for nearly two hours when Mark got his first hit. “Look at this,” he anxiously said to Eddie, shoving the papers in front of him. He excitedly pointed to the information on the personnel files.

Eddie bobbed his head. “Yeah, but is that enough?”

“It's a damn good start.” He snatched up the phone and dialed the computer room. He told the tech to look for anyone that may have done a search on cars, researched poets, and researched drugs that disappear in the system. He gave him the names of the fake poets. If the tech came back with the same name he did…

“What if they did all of their research from a home computer?” Eddie said.

“Well, Mr. Sunshine, we'll deal with that when or if the time comes.”

“What's the drug angle?”

Mark sat back down and rotated his stiff neck. “Dresden's death was ruled natural, but if someone was planning to kill him they wouldn't want the how discovered. I'm figuring some kind of drug. The average person wouldn't know that kind of information, so maybe they looked it up.”

“Or maybe they have some kind of medical background.”

Mark's eyes widened. He snatched up the papers he'd shoved at Eddie and flipped through the pages. His stomach knotted when his gaze landed on the educational background. “Pre-med!” He pointed it out to Eddie and grinned expansively then grabbed the phone to call the captain. He needed another warrant and fast.

* * * * *

It was more than an hour before the search warrant arrived. While he waited he did what he knew he shouldn't, which was to call Felicia and bring her up to date. But to be perfectly honest, a lot of her investigating was what had brought them all to the point of catching a killer. It was Felicia that wouldn't let go of the idea that Dresden's death was no accident. Her investigating had sparked her own attempted murder. Calling her to tell her that they were close was the least he could do.

Mark could visualize her pacing and biting on her lip as she spoke. “When you do your search,” she said, “be sure to check the closet.” She clearly described what he should be looking for.

“Will do. And Felicia?”

“Yes?”

“You can be my wingman anytime.” When he didn't get a response, he told her it was from one of his other favorite movies,
Top Gun
.

“We'll have to watch it together sometime, and that
Untouchables
too.”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “Look, I gotta go. I'll call you.”

“Okay.”

* * * * *

Two police cars and an unmarked vehicle pulled up in front of Emily Windsor's home on Vermont Avenue.

She didn't put up any resistance. If anything she seemed almost relieved and resigned. While Mark plied her with questions, the officers confiscated her desktop computer, laptop, files and a floral dress. Tucked in the back of her closet, wrapped in a pillowcase and shoved in a shoebox, was a metal paperweight that had dried blood.

“Ms. Windsor, I need you to stand up.”

Emily did as she was told.

Mark stepped behind her and placed the handcuffs on her wrists. “Emily Windsor, you are under arrest for the murder of Dr. Paul Dresden, the murder of Dr. Henry Wallington and the attempted murder of Dr. Felicia Swift.” He proceeded to Mirandize her, then led her out to the awaiting patrol car.

“It was all for Steven you know,” she said as if talking through a fog while she was placed in the car.

Mark shut the door and shook his head. A woman scorned was some dangerous shit. He returned to the house to supervise the rest of the search and made a call to Elaine to tell her he was on his way to her office, while Eddie booked Emily Windsor.

Mark arrived at the medical examiner's office and as always was a bit freaked out by the eeriness of the place. The regular staff was gone for the night and Mark was lucky to have caught Elaine as she was finishing up an autopsy. He walked down the echoing corridors until he reached her office. She was just walking into her office from the adjacent door that led to the exam room when Mark walked in.

“Perfect timing,” she said and took off her white coat. “What's going on?” She sat on the edge of her desk.

“We picked up the suspect in the murders at the library.”

“Murders as in plural? Something I don't know?”

“We picked up the alleged killer today. About an hour ago.” He shook his head. “Mousey-looking woman. Go figure.” He heaved a breath. “Anyway you did the post on Wallington. I know Dresden's was ruled natural but we have real reason to believe it was murder as well.” He paused. “I know you were planning to run a tox screen on Dresden but stopped because of his doc. I was hoping that you might have taken some samples to work on and that you haven't tossed 'em.”

“I rarely discard samples. I'm sure I have Dresden's. It hasn't been long enough for them to have degraded.” She tilted her head to the side. “So you want a screen done?”

“Yeah, like yesterday.”

She flicked her brows. “First thing in the morning.”

“E, come on. This is important.”

She ran her tongue across her lips and folded her arms.

“For old times' sake.”

“Oh, old times' sake.” She lifted her chin and the blue of her eyes shimmered in the light. “Guess you decided,” she stated more than asked.

“Elaine…it wouldn't work. I think you know that. We both do.”

She lowered her head. “Can't blame a girl for trying,” she said and forced a smile. “Is it her?”

“Her?”

“Your Dr. Swift?”

Mark didn't quite meet her stare. “Don't know what you mean.”

“I saw how you changed when you were around her. I know you, remember.”

His mouth quirked. “It's not like that.”

Elaine pushed out a breath. “I'll get started tonight. It will take the better part of the day tomorrow.”

“I'm looking for something that wouldn't easily show up.”

She nodded. “I'll let you know.”

“Thanks Elaine.” He turned to leave.

“Hope it works out,” she said to his back.

He wasn't sure if she meant the case or Felicia. He wasn't going to test it.

When Mark returned to the precinct, Emily Windsor was in the interrogation room. “She say anything?” Mark asked as he sidled up to Eddie outside of the one-way window.

“Naw.”

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

They entered the interview room together and two hours later they had a confession that was as twisted as it was intricate. She could have gotten away with it if it had not been for Felicia. Felicia had been right about the dress. The night of Dresden's murder Emily logged out as always but snuck back in by reentering from one of the adjoining buildings. She then came back through the tunnel without having to swipe her ID again. But by the time the deed was done the buildings were locked for the night. She couldn't leave so she stayed in the tunnel, exited in the morning and came back in through the front door. That's why Felicia noticed that she had on the same dress two days in a row. Emily never went home. And Felicia, being a creature of detail, knew from day one that Dresden would have never been in those aisles, and even on the remote chance that he would, he would never leave his office—willingly—without his jacket.

Apparently the idea to frame Steven Hollis blossomed when he was named Poet Laureate. In Emily's mind it was time for payback for what he had done to her in grad school. It was confirmed that they attended the same college from his bio and her HR information. She fell hard for him. They were a thing. He seemed to go along with it until she found out by reading the paper that he was engaged to be married—to someone else. From there she followed his rising career. The search of her house had uncovered scrapbooks in her closet filled with articles written about Hollis, his poetry and photographs of his wedding.

She concocted the entire ruse about his possible plagiarism with the fake poets and the website and fed all that information to Dresden, who became concerned that the Librarian of Congress and his best friend had appointed a fraud. She ultimately had to get rid of Dresden so that she could plant the information and make it look like Hollis—using the disk.

“Which I found instead of the police,” Felicia said as she sat opposite Mark while she sipped sparkling water. He sipped on his own Dewar's with
Top Gun
playing in the background. “She saw me with it. At some point she had to get rid of me, too.”

“Yeah.” Mark twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. “Wallington was simply icing on the cake. With all fingers pointed at Hollis it would look like he had to get rid of them because he'd been found out. What Emily didn't figure into the equation was you.”

Felicia grinned. “The only thing we don't know is how she got Dresden down on the library floor.”

“Hopefully the toxicology report will shed some light on that. A slow-acting agent that mimics a heart attack. She could have slipped it to him and waited around until the effects started to kick in and then she got him downstairs under the pretext of getting him some help.”

“Nothing would surprise me at this point.”

“I'm sure the blood on the paperweight will match Wallington's along with her prints.”

“So it's finally over,” she said.

“Pretty much. And it never would have happened without you. That's the truth. You have great instincts.”

Felicia sipped her water.

“Oh, here's the part.” He reached for the remote and turned up the volume.

“You can be my wingman anytime,” said Val Kilmer, aka “Iceman”.

Mark grinned like a schoolboy.

“Bullshit, you can be mine,” retorts Tom Cruise, aka “Maverick”.

Felicia laughed and looked up into Mark's smiling face. “Yeah, bullshit, you can be mine.”

“I just might like that,” he said before his mouth covered hers.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The morning of the presidential inauguration was bitter cold. The forecast called for temperatures in the low teens. But the sky was a clear crystal blue and the bone-chilling weather didn't deter the enthusiastic crowd from gathering to celebrate the second term of their beloved president.

The president had been provided with possible candidates for a replacement for Dr. Wallington. The new appointee would be in place within the next few weeks, barring any problems with the Senate.

Emily Windsor wouldn't stand trial for the murders and the attempted murder of Felicia as she ultimately confessed to cutting her brake lines, which was confirmed by a search of her computer. Her lawyer would plead her as insane. Who could dispute that? The toxicology report confirmed that she'd used succinylcholine (SUX for short), a neuromuscular paralytic drug that would have been totally overlooked if murder had not been on the table. She admitted to luring Dresden down on the floor under the guise that she'd tucked damning information on Hollis in one of the volumes. She injected him with the drug and he was paralyzed within minutes and dead shortly thereafter.

Felicia had fully recovered from her ordeal and was back at work and actively looking for a replacement for Emily. The search process that she'd gotten from Lucy would come in handy after all, and if there was anything positive that came from all of the ugliness, it was that the library was aggressively upgrading its security system, including in the tunnels.

Felicia and many of the staff had box seats close to the stage. Bundled in her black mink coat and matching hat she was almost outdone by Harriette in her fox coat, hat and muff.

Security was extra tight. Everywhere that she looked there was an officer, a member of the military or secret service on post. The bands and choirs had played and sung, and before the swearing in was a reading from the Poet Laureate.

When Steven Hollis took to the podium, Felicia wondered what the crowd would think if they knew the havoc and destruction that had been inflicted because of him. He was rather ordinary Felicia thought, but she guessed he wasn't ordinary to Emily. Hurt and betrayal were powerful emotions that could get twisted beyond a person's control.

Steven's even baritone reverberated across the Great Lawn, carried along the frigid air through the powerful, strategically placed speakers. Felicia tried to concentrate on the poetic words but her thoughts continued to drift to Mark Rizzo and the lightning speed with which their relationship had gone from zero to one hundred.

It's funny the things that bring two very different people together, she mused. Would it last? Who knew? One day at a time. She still had baggage to unpack about
that night
all those years ago. And she wasn't sure if Mark was ready to see the contents.

Rousing applause jerked her from her daydreaming. Steven was thanking the audience.

“I wanted to wait until our boy up there was done.”

Felicia turned and Mark was hunched down next to her. “Everything okay?”

He lowered his voice. “We have another murder and I could use your insight.”

“Whatever I can do to help, Detective,” she said.

Mark smiled, cupped her elbow and helped her to her feet.