Poisoned Blue (Jamie Stanley Crime Scene Investigation Series Book 1) (3 page)

They were
talking like she wasn’t standing right behind them. She didn’t like it.

“Do you always
go out in uniform?” Jamie asked, partly to change the topic off her family and
partly to make her presence known.

Danny nodded.
“Why wouldn’t I? Everyone knows who I am and it makes the locals feel safer.”

Jamie was glad
that she didn’t have to wear uniform every day; she’d definitely never choose
to wear it out of hours.

“Is the area
generally unsafe?” Alex asked, a worried expression on his face.

“Of course
not. It’s a small village, crime rates are low.”

Alex wondered
why, if crime rates were low, they’d hired a Detective Inspector.

Danny held the
door to the pub open. “Carl’s probably sitting in our regular spot.”

Jamie could
see Carl sitting at a table on the other side of the room. He was still wearing
his uniform.

“Hey Jamie, I
didn’t know you were coming. Who’s your friend?” Carl said.

Alex did his introduction
again.

“You guys stay
here,” Carl said, standing up. “I’ll go and grab us a couple more beers … or
would you prefer punch? The punch here is fantastic.” Neither Alex nor Jamie
spoke. “You know what, I’ll get both.”

“How does he
have so much energy so late in the day?” Alex asked once Carl was at the bar.

Danny
shrugged.

“You’re
probably jet lagged,” Jamie said, although she too was quite tired.

“We’ve got
another meeting with the husband,” Danny said.

Jamie looked
interested. It was odd talking about work stuff outside the police station.
Didn’t they worry about people overhearing?

“He’s got a
business meeting in the morning so he can’t see us till the afternoon.” He took
a swig from the beer Carl handed him.

“He doesn’t
seem at all fazed by his wife’s death,” Carl interjected. “Seems as though he’s
going through life as though nothing’s happened.”

“I guess
that’s just his way of coping,” Jamie said.

Alex sat back
and listened, sipping his punch through a straw.

Chapter Four

Jamie ran up the steps to the
police station. Her alarm hadn’t gone off, and she was going to be late. Very
late.

“Nice to see
you’ve arrived,” Danny said.

“I’m so sorry.
My alarm didn’t–”

“I was
joking.”

“Oh.”

“Your
whiteboard’s up,” he pointed to the corner of the room.

“Thank you.
Did it take you long?” After the way they’d reacted yesterday, she was
surprised by the gesture.

“Not really.
It was only five poles.”

“Oh … uh … thanks.”

“You’ve
already thanked me once.”

“Uh … I
suppose I have. Well, thanks again.” Jamie stood facing the whiteboard, she
could feel her face turning red. Why did she find speaking normally so hard?

Alex had been
great the night before. He’d brought them all together, and she’d felt like one
of the gang. Now that he wasn’t there, she felt lost.

“I’ve made
some copies of the stuff we’ve got so that you can stick it on your board, and
I bought a couple of whiteboard pens from the corner shop this morning.”

Jamie felt
touched. “Thank you.” She took the file and the pens.

Carl looked up
from his computer screen. “There should be some Blu-Tack around here somewhere.
I think there’s a blob of it stuck on the inside of that cupboard door.”

Once Jamie had
found the blob of Blu-Tack, Carl turned his attention back to his computer
screen, and Danny joined her by the whiteboard to see what she was going to do.

“So, what do
we know so far? Our victim is Sara June Longacre. She’s thirty-three and pregnant
with twins.” She scribbled some notes down at the top of the board and then
used a blob of Blu-tack to stick up one of the photographs Danny had taken on
the body. “How did they do it?”

“Arsenic
Trioxide.” Danny wasn’t sure whether she was asking him or talking to herself,
but he answered anyway.

“Good. How was
it used though? That’s a question we need to find an answer to.”

Danny frowned.
She was speaking as though she was talking to a young child.

“The important
things to cover are means, motive and opportunity. The means are the arsenic
trioxide. Not everyone can get hold of that easily.” Jamie separated the board
into three columns and headed them as ‘suspect’, ‘motive’ and ‘opportunity’.

“Suspects.
We’ve got the husband, the cleaner, possibly a neighbour or someone at her
work.” Danny said.

“And, we can’t
forget the parents’ death,” she added.

“Great guys,
sounds like you’ve really got a hold on this case.” Carl didn’t even bother to
look up from the computer screen.

“The husband,
Neil,” Jamie said, writing his name at the top of the ‘suspects’ column, “I
can’t see any opportunity, he has alibis from eight o’clock in the morning till
midday, but does he have a motive? What would he gain from her death?” She put
a slash through the ‘opportunity’ box.

“Money,” Carl
said. He still didn’t look up.

“Really? Does
she have a lot of money?” Jamie didn’t know why she hadn’t been told about this
before.

“Or sex,” Carl
said. “It’s always about money or sex.”

She sighed.
“Well thanks for your help.”

“He has a point,”
Danny said. “Check the accounts. See if there is anything he’d gain from her
death.”

“Okay boss.”
Carl saluted.

“Let’s move on
to the cleaner, Marion. She had the opportunity. She even had her own key. And,
if it was her, she’d have had the chance to tidy up any evidence before we got
there.” Jamie tapped the end of the pen against the board.

“But, as we
said before, why would she want to?” Danny clicked his tongue annoyingly.

“Motive,”
Jamie said.

“There doesn’t
seem to be one.”

She put a
slash through the ‘motive’ box and a tick in the ‘opportunity’ box.

“I think you
should look at this, guys,” Carl said. He rubbed his head. “She was loaded.”

“How
“loaded”?” Danny made quote marks with his fingers.

“About three
months ago she gained hundreds of thousands of pounds.”

“The parents’
death,” Jamie said. “The more we look into this the more I’m certain that has
something to do with it.”

“Good work.
Have you looked at the phone yet?” Danny asked.

“I left it
downloading onto Jamie’s computer. It might be done by now.” Carl stood up and
walked across the room. Their eyes followed him. “Okay guys, it’s going to take
a little while. Stop staring at me.”

“Okay, so the
husband has a motive,” Jamie said, walking back over to the whiteboard, “but,
as far as we know, he still doesn’t have the opportunity.”

“Maybe he was
in on it with someone else.”

The idea had
crossed Jamie’s mind before. His behaviour towards his wife’s death was odd –
she’d never seen anyone react quite so calmly to such horrible news.

“I told you
not to rule him out.” They could tell that Carl was smirking even though his
back was to them.

“The
neighbours,” Jamie said. “The husband said they didn’t speak to any of them and
that they didn’t like the condition of his house.”

“Quite
understandable, given the state of it.”

“Yes, but is
that enough of a motive to kill someone?”

“Probably not
and it doesn’t look as though any of them had an opportunity to do it.”

“Ask around
the neighbourhood, see if anyone saw anything suspicious.” Carl was still waiting
for the last three percent of information from the mobile to download before he
could look through any of it. “I’m not going to have anything to report anytime
soon.”

“Can you do a
background check on Neil, Sara and Marion if you get a spare second?” Jamie
asked.

He nodded.

Jamie and Danny split up, taking
one side of the road each. There were only five houses on each side of the
street so it wouldn’t take them long and it was the middle of the day so there
wasn’t any guarantee that there’d be anyone for them to talk to.

Jamie rang the
doorbell before straightening out her checked shirt.

“Yes love, how
may I help you? Are you lost?”

Jamie frowned.
“Uh no, not lost. I don’t know if you heard about the murder a few houses
down.”

“I think
everyone heard, dear.”

“I’m Detective
Inspector Jamie Stanley. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

The lady’s
eyes widened. “You don’t look old enough to be a Detective inspector. I’m
sorry, I thought you were from the Girl Guides.”

“Can you tell
me anything about Mrs Longacre? Did you see anything suspicious on Saturday
morning?”

“They keep
pretty much to themselves. No one around here likes them. I mean, look at the
state of that house. I’ve complained so many times. Sorry … that’s not what
you’re here for, is it?” She looked around as if looking for someone to help
her out. “I really don’t know anything about them. They never seem to have
anyone over. I think they just keep to themselves.”

Jamie looked
disappointed.

“I’m sorry to
disappoint you, dear. I could give you the history on anyone else on this
street.”

“Well, if you
think of anything–”

“Actually,
there was one thing. On Saturday morning a young girl got out of a car and
walked over to the door. She stood there for about ten minutes, and no one
opened the door, so the car came back and picked her up.” The lady took a step
forward. “See that house over there, two from the end? They told me about it.
We all thought it was weird at the time.”

“Thanks,”
Jamie said, writing in her notebook.

“Now that
really is all I know.”

Jamie said
goodbye and crossed the road to join Danny before he went into the house second
from the end that the lady had pointed out.

“Looks like
you’re having more luck than me,” Danny complained. “All three of the houses
I’ve been to are either empty or the owners say they know nothing about the
couple and moan about the state of the house.”

Jamie gave him
a rundown of what the lady had told her.

“Well the
reason no one opened the door was, because there was no one there to open it.
The wife was probably already dead and the husband was away.”

“But, who was
the girl?”

“Beats me.
Maybe we should have another look around the house.”

After going
back to the station to pick up the keys, Danny and Jamie went to look around
the Longacres’ house to see if there was anything they’d missed.

“The tidiness
of this house still spooks me,” Jamie said. “The only time I’ve seen a house
look anywhere near this tidy is when my nan’s coming to stay. Mum always goes
into ultra tidy mode when Nan’s due a visit or when she’s nervous about
something.”

“What did you
just say?” Danny looked at her expectantly.

“The tidiness
of this house–”

“No. Not that
bit, the bit about your nan coming to visit or your mum being nervous. Maybe
she was worried about seeing that girl the neighbour told us about.”

“We didn’t go
upstairs the last time we were here. Maybe there’s a laptop or something up
there that could give us some clues.”

As they walked
through the house and up the stairs, they looked out for any photographs in
frames but the only ones they could see were of Sara and Neil.

Upstairs was a
lot different from downstairs. The beds were unmade and clothes were covering
most of the floor in, what they assumed was, the master bedroom.

Danny kicked
the clothes aside with his foot to see if there was anything underneath them.
There wasn’t.

“How many
households these days don’t own a laptop or computer?”

Jamie
shrugged. “I suppose the husband will have his laptop with him. Maybe they
share a laptop.”

“What about a
work computer?” Danny asked, seeing a card with Sara’s name on it on the
bedside table.

“Sara
Longacre. Pass 163. ABC Productions,” Jamie read out. They’d forgotten to ask
the husband where she worked the last time they’d met. He’d been in such a
hurry. “Have you ever heard of ABC Productions?”

“Yes. It’s a decent
sized company. Supplies all the local schools with equipment. The office is
quite a way away though, no wonder she’d always left for work by the time the
cleaner got here.”

There was a
bang downstairs. Jamie and Danny stood up straight.

“You stay
here,” Danny instructed.

“I’m not
staying here.”

Danny
shrugged, now wasn’t the time to argue. “Stay behind me then.”

From the
stairs they could see someone walking about downstairs. The intruder was a
blonde lady, about five foot two, dressed head to toe in black. Her hair was
down, blocking out their sight of her face.

She was
walking through the living room when she spotted them on the stairs. Part of
Jamie wished she’d stayed out of sight in the master bedroom.

“You do realise
this is a crime scene?” Danny said.

“A what?”

“A crime
scene. Who are you and what are you doing here?” He was getting fed up.

“I’m Marion,
the cleaner.”

“No you’re
not. We’ve met Marion and you’re not her. Even if you were her you’re not
allowed in here.”

The lady
looked towards the front door and started to run. Danny followed after her. He
tripped on the bottom step of the stairs and started falling, head first
towards the front door.

“Danny,” a
voice screamed, which Jamie realised must have been her voice although she
didn’t remember saying it.

The lady ran
in front of Danny as he fell and slammed the door shut onto his head.

Jamie heard
herself scream again. She could see blood dripping down his forehead.

“Danny,” she
got onto the floor beside him and nudged his shoulder. When he didn’t respond
she searched him for a pulse. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found one.

“What do I do
now?” Jamie muttered. She pulled Danny’s mobile out of his trouser pocket and
searched the list of contacts for the number for the station. “Come on,” Jamie
said. The phone bleeped and a ‘no signal’ message flashed onto the screen.

Nothing like
this had ever happened to her before. Most of the cases she’d inspected at her
old job had been burglaries.