Shadow Fall (Tracers Series Book 9) (6 page)

Catie again.

“What was your relationship with her?” Tara asked.

“I told you, she was a client.”

“What about after that?”

“She was a friend.” Tara waited, but he didn’t elaborate.

“This phone call about her security system,” she said. “It would be useful if you could give me a ballpark of the timing. You can check your calendar later.”

“Before Thanksgiving.” He pulled a phone from the pocket of his jeans, then checked the screen and answered it. “Yeah.”

She watched him as he stared at the ground, listening. She hadn’t heard the phone, so he must have had it on vibrate.

“Tell him five minutes.” He ended the call and walked to the driver’s side. “Back to work.”

Tara dusted her hands on her jacket and climbed into the warm cab. The ride back was faster, maybe because of his meeting or maybe because he was ready to get away from her pesky questions.

He didn’t talk. Sitting close to him in the silence, she realized it wasn’t his size that captured her attention so much as his confidence. It was in the way he moved, the way he spoke. It permeated everything he did, even something as basic as steering his truck over the rutted road.

They reached the clearing, and Tara noted the shiny black Suburban parked at the far end of the house. By its dark-tinted windows and specialized antennae, she guessed it was Someone Important, probably one of his confidential clients. M.J. was standing beside the Explorer talking to Jeremy.

Liam rolled to a stop beside them. He turned to Tara and nodded. “Special Agent.” She was being dismissed.

“Thanks for your time,” she said, shoving open the door and pulling a business card from her pocket. “Please call me if anything comes up. I’ll be in touch after we have more information.”

He gave her a wry look and took the card. “I’m sure you will.”

THE HILLY OPENNESS
was a relief after the dense woods. Tara neared the Delphi Center crime lab, going over the facts in her mind. She’d been on the case thirty-six hours now, and yesterday’s legwork had uncovered more questions than answers.

She and M.J. had spent the afternoon at Silver Springs Park, interviewing potential witnesses, including a dog walker who remembered seeing a woman matching Catalina’s description on the trail around 5:40
P.M.
They’d found two other people who had been at the park that evening, both bird watchers in their late seventies. They remembered seeing the white Lexus but not Catalina.

None of the witnesses recalled suspicious vehicles or people around the trail. Silver Springs PD and M.J. were checking out everyone’s background, but all of their stories raised the same troubling point.

If the witness accounts were accurate, then whoever grabbed Catalina from the trail hadn’t parked at the trailhead. The most likely alternative was a back access road used primarily by park employees.

But why hadn’t anyone heard a struggle or a call for help?

Maybe Catalina’s assailant had disabled her. But then he would have had to carry or drag her to his vehicle, a good half mile from the trail through thick woods. On the other hand, he could have forced her at gunpoint.

But Tara didn’t buy that scenario.

A smart, educated woman—particularly one who’d been trained in self-defense by the likes of Liam Wolfe—would know better than to go willingly with an assailant, even one wielding a gun. Her chances were much better if she ran.

So maybe she hadn’t been forced. Maybe she hadn’t been murdered at all but simply walked away from her Lexus and her life. She could have run away with a secret lover. She could be running from tax problems or a bad marriage or anything at all. Until the ID came back on the victim in the woods, all Tara knew for sure was that Catalina Reyes was missing, and there were plenty of ways to be missing, not all of them bad.

But Tara knew what her instincts told her.

It was the same thing Liam Wolfe seemed to know, too.

Tara fully expected the victim in the woods to be identified as Catalina Reyes. Tara had glimpsed the body—under adverse conditions, yes, but she’d seen it. Liam hadn’t, presumably, so what made him so sure? The answer was simple. Either he’d killed Catalina or he knew details about her death.

Assuming for a minute that he
hadn’t
killed her, that meant he was getting info somewhere, possibly from one of those sheriff’s deputies who’d been talking about him the night the body was discovered.

So . . . a murder suspect who had an in with the sheriff’s office, an in that could easily be exploited. The prospect didn’t sit well with Tara, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. She was the outsider in this investigation—a fact everyone she’d met had made abundantly clear.

Tara spied the turnoff for the Delphi Center crime lab. She pulled onto the private drive and stopped at the gatehouse. As she showed her ID to the guard, Tara’s phone chimed from the console. It was M.J.

“I talked to the husband,” M.J. informed her. “He doesn’t think it’s her.”

“He talked to you?”

“He had a lawyer present, but he agreed to the interview. I think he was worried about how it would look if he stonewalled us.”

The guard handed back Tara’s ID and waved her through.

“And he doesn’t think it’s her?” Tara asked.

“Says he’s sure it isn’t. Fact, he doesn’t even think it was Catalina who drove the Lexus to the park.”

“Who, then?”

“I don’t know. But this guy’s adamant. Says she never left work before seven. And she wasn’t a jogger. She didn’t take care of her health, according to him. He said she rarely exercised, and if she did, it was in the comfort of the air-conditioned gym at their country club.”

Tara thought of the eyewitness account about a woman on the trail. But eyewitness accounts were notoriously unreliable. People saw what they expected to see. Or what they wanted to see. Or what they believed they
should
see. More and more, lawyers were managing to debunk eyewitness testimony in court.

“Well, how does he explain her Lexus?” Tara asked, curving up the road.

“He doesn’t. He just insists she didn’t drive it there. At least not to go jogging—and those are his words, not mine.”

“And what’s
that
mean?”

“I don’t know, but we’re looking into it,” M.J. said. “I’m wondering if she had a boyfriend, maybe someone she was meeting at the park. Because—get this—the husband admits they were separated.”

“Okay, hubs just catapulted to the top of my suspect list,” Tara said. Ahead of Liam Wolfe.

“David Reyes says he moved out six weeks ago, says they’d been in counseling for months, but it wasn’t working out. And I know your next question. Yes, we got his alibi, and no, we have not yet confirmed it.”

The Delphi Center came into view, an imposing white building at the top of a hill. Tara had seen pictures but never visited in person. With its tall white columns and wide marble steps, it looked like a Greek monument. She pulled into the parking lot and found a space near the front.

“You need to vet that alibi,” she told M.J. “The soon-to-be-ex-husband is looking like our prime suspect.”

“Hence the lawyer,” M.J. said. “And I’m inclined to agree with you, except for the obvious.”

“What’s that?”

“The
body
, Tara.”

The emotion in her voice gave Tara pause. And she knew what M.J. meant. The crime was horrendously violent. Could a man really do that to his own wife?

The answer was yes. But M.J. was new to the job so not as jaded as Tara was.

“It might also explain the lack of noise,” Tara said logically, “or signs of struggle at the park. Maybe she knew her killer.”

“But why go public?” M.J. said. “That’s risky. If her husband wanted to kill her, why not do it at home and set it up like an accident?”

“We’re not even sure it’s her yet,” Tara pointed out. “And anyway, maybe he wanted it to look like a stranger killed her. A random act of violence. Or a hate crime. Or someone stalking her for political reasons, like one of the people who prompted her to hire bodyguards when she was running for Congress.”

“Yes, but if he wanted it to look like that, why argue with investigators about her driving her car to the park?”

They both got quiet, thinking it through.

Tara slid from the SUV, and a cold January wind whipped against her face. “I’ll call you later. I’m at the crime lab.”

“Good luck,” M.J. said. “I hope you get some answers.”

T
ara was looking for Dr. Walter Crumbley, and she expected a balding man in a white lab coat.

Instead she got an auburn-haired woman in faded jeans.

“I’m Kelsey Quinn,” she said, striding up to the reception desk. “I understand you’re here for Walt?”

“That’s right.”

“He’s out this week. Knee surgery. I’m covering his cases.” She glanced at the receptionist, who was handing Tara a visitor’s badge. “We set here?”

“All checked in, Dr. Quinn.”

Tara followed the doctor through the spacious lobby and down a sloping corridor where she stopped at a door and swiped her ID against a keypad. The door slid open, and they stepped into a wall of cold air.

“I’m in the Bones Unit,” she told Tara over her shoulder. “They call it the Crypt because it’s so chilly.”

Another swipe of her ID, and she stepped through a door.

The temperature wasn’t the only reason they called it the Crypt. The room was filled with stainless-steel tables. On each was a set of bones.

“You’re a forensic odontologist?” Tara glanced at the doctor.

“Forensic anthropologist,” she said, slipping into a lab coat. “I deal with the whole skeleton, not only the teeth. Come on back here and we’ll have a look. I’ve been working on her since this morning.”

Tara darted a look at the tables as she passed by. On some were full skeletons, on others just a few small bones no bigger than twigs. Atop one of the tables was a lone skull. Counters and stainless-steel sinks lined the wall. The room smelled like formaldehyde, and Tara stifled a shudder.

“You’ll have to excuse the mess. It’s our high season. We’ve been inundated with cases since November.”

Tara followed the woman into a darkened room, where she switched on a light. Tara had braced herself for a corpse, but on the table in the center of the room was a microscope.

“Why November?” Tara asked.

The doctor picked up a large manila envelope from the counter. “Deer season.”

Tara must have looked blank.

“Hunters are a forensic anthropologist’s best friend,” she explained. “See, in cities, bodies tend to be found quickly, and they typically go to the medical examiner. In rural settings, not so much. I get the cases where more time has elapsed, remains that have been discovered weeks or months or even years later. Remains that have been buried or otherwise hidden by nature. Around here, skeletonized remains are often discovered by hunters in the autumn and winter. Nature helps, too. When leaves fall, that increases visibility in the brush. So November to February is our busy time, but right now we’re especially slammed because Walt’s on medical leave.”

“In that case, thanks for getting to this so quickly.”

“Of course.” She smiled. “Mia, our DNA specialist, said it’s top priority. I think Greenwood called her.”

The doctor pulled an X-ray from the envelope and clipped it to a light panel, which she then switched on to illuminate the film. Tara relaxed a bit. She could look at X-rays all day long. Autopsies were tougher to stomach.

“These are the dental records,” she said. Then she tapped a few keys on a notebook computer, and a digitized X-ray popped up on the screen. “And these are the films Greenwood sent me for comparison. As you can see, it’s a match.”

A match.

The mutilated body in the woods belonged to Catalina Reyes, forty-two, former candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. She’d been a controversial figure from the start of her political career, and her FBI file included death threats made within the last eighteen months.

The Bureau was officially involved now, even if it didn’t turn out to be a hate crime.

Tara studied the skull X-ray and then the dental X-rays, looking for telltale similarities. But to her untrained eye, it could have been anyone.

“Actually, I’m not seeing it,” Tara said. “You’re going to have to help me out here, Doctor.”

“Call me Kelsey.” She pointed at the computer screen with her pen. “See the maxillary second molar here? It tilts inward, just as you see on this dental X-ray. Also note the slight malocclusion. She’d had orthodontic treatment, but either they didn’t correct it completely or maybe she didn’t wear her retainer.”

Tara stared at the dental X-ray, thinking of Catalina—Catie to her friends, probably—as a teenager in braces. She studied the X-ray Dr. Greenwood had taken of the skull.

“What’s that in her throat?” Tara asked.

“A tooth.”

Tara looked at her.

“Her right first molar was knocked out around the time of death. Same with her second premolar. See here?” She pointed at a gap where a tooth should have been. “The molar she swallowed. The premolar’s still missing. It was the only tooth she had with a filling, which is a very distinguishing characteristic. So that might explain Dr. Greenwood’s reluctance to make a positive ID using dental records alone.”