Close to the Bone (14 page)

He fidgeted, which gave Theresa pause. Something that made Causer feel awkward would likely make most human beings faint dead away.

‘Her uterus,’ he started. This time she couldn’t stop her face from grimacing in wary anticipation, and he hastily went on: ‘It looked swollen to me.’

Theresa, not a pathologist, took a moment to catch up. ‘You mean she was pregnant?’

‘I don’t know, do I? I just thought it looked a little … fullish. But the doc said no, so I guess I was wrong. Rare, but still possible.’

Theresa thought over the crime scene photos. Maybe Diana simply liked ginger ale, but it could also serve as a good stomach-settler for the queasiness of morning sickness. Ditto for saltines. And B complex vitamins were also known as folic acid, recommended for a healthy pregnancy. But there had been no mention in the autopsy report, and no reasonably competent pathologist would miss a pregnancy. Certainly not the particular and thorough Dr Reese.

And Diana would have told her, Theresa. She certainly would have told her
that
. ‘Anything else?’

‘No … no disrespect to your pal, but not really worth getting up early on a day off.’

‘So sorry to disappoint.’

‘Oh, I wasn’t
disappointed
– the D-cups were real. I lost a ten-dollar bet with Johnson, but it was worth it to know. Like I said, impressive girl.’

Theresa couldn’t wait to get away from him.

FIFTEEN

S
hephard found Theresa with her eyes to the ocular lens of a stereomicroscope, poring over the ten-year-old acetate sheets with pieces of tape stuck to them. A sharpie marker labeled each sheet:
Shirt-front. Shirt-back. Pants-front
. ‘What is that?’ he asked.

‘The tapings from Diana’s clothing. I never looked at them.’

He slumped into a task chair, scooted it up to the counter. He looked as tired as she felt … and probably looked, she thought with discomfort. When
had
she last combed her hair?

‘And what can they tell you?’ he asked with a sigh, as if he didn’t really care about the answer, only that someone else do the talking for a while.

So she started from the beginning. ‘We press adhesive tape to the surface of the clothing or bedding or upholstery, and it picks up loose hairs and fibers and other trace evidence, like paint flakes. With luck, the hair will belong to the suspect and the fibers to the clothes he wore.’

‘Really.’ He seemed a bit perplexed, no doubt wondering why he didn’t hear more about hairs and fibers.

So she added the qualifiers. ‘I can screen the hair for similarities microscopically, but can’t individualize it to the person – that would be sent for DNA. As for fibers, I can tell you it’s red nylon of so many microns diameter, but even if the suspect owns a red nylon shirt, I can’t tell you how many of those shirts were made, how many were sold in the area, how many are still in existence or how likely it is that a fiber from someone else’s red nylon shirt might have wound up on the victim.’

‘They can on TV,’ he pointed out.

‘How nice for them.’

This made him laugh. ‘Okay, then. What can
you
tell me from these taping things?’

Now
she
sighed. ‘Not much. I don’t know why I’m even looking at them, other than because they were here and easy to get to. The few hairs are long and black, so almost certainly Diana’s. There’s one short black one, maybe James’, which means nothing since they lived in the same house. Then we have different fibers, cotton, nylon, various colors. The only interesting thing is this weird animal hair – weird only because it’s neither cat nor dog.’

‘People have all sorts of strange things as pets.’

‘But Diana didn’t have any pets. Of course, she did have a backyard and she liked to garden, so she could have come into contact with raccoons or possums or deer, for all I know.’ Theresa paused. ‘She was always trying to give me bulbs and seedlings, but everything I try to grow winds up a thin brown stalk. I wonder what happened to all her flowers?’

Shephard said nothing, waiting out her spell of melancholy.

‘What did Yin and Yang say?’ she asked him.

‘Same thing we did: why would James Allman want to get revenge on the ME staff instead of the cops and the judge who arrested and sentenced him – for a crime, by the way, he pled guilty to? It’s not like he went to the can protesting his innocence. The judge and prosecutor haven’t heard from him. The arresting officers haven’t heard from him. Yin and Yang talked to his parole officer, who thought he was working at Giant Eagle.’

‘How did that get by him?’

‘Because James Allman – not Justin Warner – really
was
working at Giant Eagle. Part-time, just enough to have a paycheck to prove gainful employment. Giant Eagle found James to be a pleasant and reliable employee. He had been on the late shift, restocking shelves, but recently asked to switch to mornings.’

‘Because he changed to the night shift here.’

‘Sounded like when he finished his stint as a deskman, he went there, worked a few hours, went home.’

Theresa pondered this, pushing around a box of Kimwipes. ‘This guy worked two jobs just to keep anyone from looking more closely at James Allman.’

Shephard nodded gravely. ‘Yeah. That’s a lot more dedication than we usually see from the average wife-killing drug addict.’

‘It’s an incredible amount of dedication – and all to get revenge for his incarceration for a crime that he himself committed?’

‘Guys like him aren’t terribly reasonable.
Fair
doesn’t enter into their thinking. Something like “it’s my own bloody fault that I’m sitting in this jail cell and I’ve got no one to blame but myself” would never light up their brain cells. Don’t expect logic.’

‘It just doesn’t make any sense—’

‘Don’t expect sense, either.’

‘Then what should I expect?’

‘Violence,’ Shephard said. ‘Expect violence. Whatever this guy is up to, he’s serious about it. And Theresa – your name is on that report.’

‘I know.’

Don emerged from the DNA lab room as if something had abruptly occurred to him. ‘What about where he lives? Allman, I mean.’

‘We
did
think of that,’ Shephard said mildly. ‘He’s got an apartment off of Eddy Road. But he’s not home. His neighbors have no idea where he might be, and no one has spotted his car. We’ve got a guy stationed there in case he comes home, but of course Allman had a head start. He could be hours in any direction by now.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Theresa said.

‘Why not? He probably didn’t plan to murder Darryl Johnson or he would have done a better job of covering it up.’

‘Maybe he intended to,’ Don said, ‘but Theresa interrupted him.’

She said, ‘We’re forgetting that he left us a message.’

‘Message?’

‘The one written in Darryl’s blood.
Confess
.’

‘And what does that mean?’ Shephard asked, his patience obviously beginning fade together with the long day.

‘It means the same thing that him working two jobs means. James Allman – provided Justin Warner
is
James Allman – has an agenda, and he’s expended way too much effort toward it to leave town before he gets what he wants.’

‘And that is?’

‘I have no idea.’

Shephard rubbed an oily face with one hand, clearly displeased with their progress or lack of same. ‘Okay. The situation remains the same, then – you, both of you, are potential targets, and you need to act accordingly.’

‘We intend to,’ Don said. ‘We’ll be doubling up tonight, watching each other’s backs.’

Theresa nodded.

‘I’m happy to hear it,’ Shephard said. But he didn’t look happy at all.

SIXTEEN

W
hen Theresa had woken up to the incredibly annoying vibration of her cellphone nearly twenty-four hours previously, she certainly had not expected the very long workday to end with an intimate dinner in Don’s apartment, alone with him and his pet ferret.

And she could not make up her mind how she felt about that.

On the one hand she had longed (if she were being honest) for years (if she were being
really
honest) to have Don’s attention without the distractions of the lab and the work and the other county employees. She loved the kid, of that she had no doubt. But no matter how much she tried to school herself to love him like a son or even a younger brother, her mind always traveled to activities best not completed with blood relatives.

She loved his warm brown eyes and his deep, comforting voice and the gentle way he had of asking questions that needed to be asked. Don didn’t do small talk. When he asked how you were he really wanted to know. An answer of, ‘Fine,’ would not be accepted if you were clearly in distress, when most men would be finding an excuse to sidle out of the room. Out of everyone else in the world, her mother and Don Delgado would always be in her corner. She loved him, and seeing him in a snug T-shirt instead of a lab coat was just about doing her in entirely.

However, she also wore a T-shirt, and it didn’t seem to be doing anything to him. The relaxed serenity she found so appealing at work did not abate at suddenly putting up a co-worker in his home. He lived much closer to the lab than she did, and since they couldn’t shake the feeling that something more could happen at any moment, they had eliminated her home in the suburbs from consideration. Theresa’s daughter Rachael was safely ensconced at college, and her mother had gone out of town to visit a sick relative, so if Justin – she still thought of him as Justin – showed up at her home he would find no one around to attack. Even the dog had been collected by a neighbor, and no one could find the cats when they didn’t want to be found.

So she had gathered up whatever extra clothes and toiletries she kept in her desk drawer for long-day or really-sweaty-crime-scene emergencies and went home with him. Just not in the way she’d been imagining.

Now they sat at a bistro table in his tiny eat-in kitchen, knees nearly touching under the tiled surface. Apparently, Don considered Chinese to be comfort food – which would not have been her choice; not only had she eaten enough fried rice to last a lifetime during her marriage, but the sodium content would plump up the extra five pounds she perpetually tried to lose. But since she had invaded his space she felt he should get his way on this, and truthfully she would eat live squid if that would make him happy.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ he said over an order of General Tso’s.

‘This isn’t messy at all.’ Compared to the hundreds of homes she had seen in the course of her work, a few cereal boxes out of place and loose socks visible on his bedroom floor still left him eligible for a
Good Housekeeping
spread. ‘I like your colors. The pillows on the couch really tie it in with the burnt sienna walls.’

‘I can’t take credit for that. A former tenant picked out the paint, and the pillows were a gift from my ex-girlfriend.’

‘Oh.’ Carefully casual, she asked: ‘Are you dating anyone now? You haven’t mentioned—’

‘No. Not since the shoe psycho.’

Theresa laughed. ‘I remember her.’

He held out one perfectly-formed arm. ‘I still have the scar from that stiletto.’

She caught his wrist and pressed her lips to the smooth skin of his inner arm, without giving herself time to be horrified at her boldness. ‘There. Better.’

‘Definitely,’ he said. But then he added, with the air of asking whether she’d bought a new set of tires: ‘Are you seeing anyone?’

Her last love interest had a homicide in his past and, when in danger from it, had led that danger straight into her home. Whereas Don had opened his own home just to keep her safe. ‘No.’

Don paused over a piece of broccoli. ‘You were friends with Diana.’

‘Yes.’

‘What did she say about her husband? Can you remember anything that might explain what he’s doing now?’

‘No. I’ve been thinking of little else for the past five hours, and I can’t. She complained about his spending habits, his taste in movies and his avoidance of any and all household chores. Just routine marriage stuff. I have a hard time reconciling the guy she spoke of with someone who would work two jobs, fake his fingerprint records, dot every I and cross every T while working with dead bodies just to – just to kill people.’

‘None of it makes sense,’ Don agreed.

‘All her misgivings about him – it seemed like typical spouse-type griping. All his crimes – some drugs, some theft – were completely non-violent. I never thought he’d kill her.’

‘She probably didn’t, either. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known or even suspected.’

‘I even thought it was getting better. The last few months – she seemed happier, somehow. Humming tunes all the time, smiling more. She had that glow that women have when—’

‘When what?’

When they’re around a man they find fascinating, Theresa thought. Aware of every vibrating molecule in the atmosphere and thrilled by each one.
Like I am with you
. ‘When they’re happy.’

‘So they’d been getting along all right. Well, you know how that can turn on a dime.’

‘True. She didn’t say anything specific … and the last thing I wanted to talk about right at that point in time would have been marriage. I probably didn’t seem too open to discussion on the topic.’

He put one hand over hers. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’

She started to curl her fingers around his, but he patted the back of her hand and said, ‘What else did she say about him? What was his job? Hobbies? Who were his friends?’

Theresa swallowed and poked at a piece of chicken. ‘He worked in machine shops or auto repair places, but seemed to be out of work a lot. It wasn’t always his fault – one of the car repair shops got busted for chopping stolen cars, and he barely avoided going to jail with the owner. I think he’d been out of work for a while when the murder happened.’

‘Another stressor.’

‘Yeah. If he had any hobbies other then drinking and occasionally snorting, she didn’t mention them. She didn’t care for his friends, street bums who – according to Diana – were always trying to drag him back down into the gutter.’ Theresa stirred her tea. ‘He did have a cousin who was a cop. Diana said once that he was the only friend she didn’t mind James hanging around with. She hoped he’d be a good influence, the cousin. Do
you
remember Diana? You had just started working at the lab.’