Fenway reached out with her hand. Then, when her fingertips were only about an inch from the casing, she pulled her hand back quickly. She stood and went to the front where she opened her fingerprint kit, and then got out a pair of blue nitrile gloves and an evidence baggie.
The hushed voices of conversation stopped, and Fenway felt eyes on her. She turned, and everyone—except Piper, who was still working on the computer at the judge’s seat—stared her direction.
She cleared her throat, snapping the gloves on, and walked to the rear of the courtroom again, squatting and picking up the brass. She turned it over in her hand—9mm luger fc was stamped on the bottom of the casing.
She dropped it in the clear evidence bag and, still kneeling, wondered how she’d make sure the bag followed an acceptable chain of custody. She only had her purse and her fingerprint kit, neither of which had a lock, and neither of which would be a proper place to store evidence. With everyone’s eyes on her, she knew she couldn’t depend on subterfuge, either—it was clear to all those in the courtroom that Fenway had discovered something worthy of being in an evidence bag.
Cynthia Schimmelhorn peered around the column. “What did you find?”
Fenway looked up at Cynthia. The older woman’s face was impassive, not even casually curious.
Hold on a minute—even though everyone knew there was evidence, they didn’t know what the evidence was. They didn’t know it was a shell casing—it could be a button or a piece of dirt or a paper clip. She balled up the baggie around the brass and gripped it in her fist. “It’s probably nothing,” Fenway said, “but better safe than sorry, right?”
Schimmelhorn nodded and tilted her head as if she were about to ask a question, but kept silent.
Fenway turned toward the front again, and watched as her father, his suit jacket draped over his arm, walked delicately toward the defense table. He stepped in front of it, crouched down and draped his jacket over Cygnus’s body.
He stood up, put his hands on his hips, and whispered. Fenway jumped, startled.
“There you go, Professor. I hope that gives you at least a little peace.”
His voice was loud, as if he was standing right next to Fenway.
She looked at the ceiling. Fenway had seen acoustic tricks before, usually in cathedrals or museums, where you could whisper in one spot and hear it in another spot on the other side of the room. It usually had to do with parabolic ceilings focusing the sound waves. Fenway looked up. The ceiling was designed in squares and rectangles, but a section over Fenway’s head was shaped like an ellipse, and rose more toward the center of the room. Above the defense table was a similar elliptical shape.
“Dad,” she whispered.
Now it was Ferris’s turn to jump. He spun around, a look of bemusement on his face.
“Say something, Dad.”
“What’s going on?” Ferris whispered back.
“Some weird acoustic thing is happening. It’s the way the ceiling is shaped. Parabolas or something. ”
Ferris’s eyes widened. “Does this have to do with the murder?”
Fenway shrugged and leaned her left shoulder on the square column. “I’m really not sure.” But she was sure. The killer had heard everything at the defense table that was being discussed. While Fenway could barely make out the conversation even though she was in the first row, the killer, who had no doubt stood right where she was standing, could hear Cygnus talk about naming names as if they were right next to him.
“Do you need anything else?” Ferris asked.
She shook her head, and then walked up the aisle, with everyone’s eyes still following her, to the judge’s bench area. Without making it obvious, she tried to look for places where she could secure the evidence bag. Maybe one of the cabinets behind the judge’s bench. She wasn’t sure if any of the cabinets locked, or if they did, if she had access to a key. She was so lost in thought she jumped again at the sight of Professor Cygnus’s dead body, now with Ferris’s coat draped over it.
Piper would probably have an excellent idea of where to keep evidence, especially since she had been on the security design committee of the courthouse, but since she’d been forced to resign the Friday before, she was no longer a county employee and wasn’t allowed to have knowledge of the chain of custody.
That wasn’t the case for Jennifer Kim, however. As much as Fenway was angry at Kim for being the one to force Piper out, she was a county employee, and had all the reason in the world to hold onto the evidence and make sure the chain of custody was followed. Not only that, but she had a locking briefcase, too.
“Jennifer? Could I see you a moment?”
Kim got up from the seat in the gallery and walked through the gate to where Fenway stood. Motioning with her head toward the corner, Fenway turned and walked behind the judge’s bench and next to the wall, where the American and California flags both stood in their floor-mounted poles. Kim gave the corpse a wide berth and shuddered as she went past.
Jennifer crossed her arms. “What is it?”
Fenway looked out at the courtroom; no one seemed to pay attention to their conversation. “I found a shell casing under the last row of seats,” she whispered. “I think the shooter was on the nook side of that column. That’s one reason no one saw the shots.” Fenway stopped before telling the ada about the acoustic anomaly. Even though Jennifer Kim was a sworn officer of the court, Fenway didn’t trust her. At times, she seemed almost maniacally focused on following the law closely, and then at other times she forced Piper to quit or threatened Fenway for talking with Charlotte.
“Oh!” Jennifer Kim jumped slightly. “What—what will you do with it?”
Fenway shook her head. “I have no idea. I don’t have a place to secure it. Neither my purse nor my fingerprint case lock. You have a briefcase, right?”
Jennifer hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
“What? Isn’t that the best place for it? You’re an officer of the court. We can’t follow chain of custody rules to the letter in here, but in your locked briefcase, can’t we get pretty close?”
“Well….” Kim paused. “Since I’m a prosecutor, it might look suspicious. Whomever we arrest for the murder of Professor Cygnus could argue that because I had access to the shell casing, I somehow tampered with the evidence to fit the theory of the crime.”
“We don’t have a theory of the crime.”
“Well, I know that, Fenway, but the defense could argue that we were trying to capture a specific person all along.” Kim tilted her head at Fenway. “Aren’t you the one saying that Rose Morgan is the most likely suspect? What do you think her lawyer would do if her fingerprints turn out to be on that casing?”
That was a problem—the casing. Rose Morgan had been on the other side of the aisle, hadn’t she? It would have been difficult for anyone to shoot Cygnus from that side of the courtroom—and while shell casings can eject forcefully, would it have all the way across the aisle through a potential maze of people? Of course, maybe Rose hadn’t been on that side of the room at all—in the mêlée afterward, she could have crossed over the aisle easily.
Of course, it might have been easier to just leave the courtroom.
Exasperated, Fenway grunted. “Fine. I get your point. But still, I need to figure out where to put this. Somewhere safe.”
“Maybe you should put it in your fingerprint case, then put the case in one of those cabinets.”
“Or—doesn’t the courtroom have something they use to store evidence?” Fenway snapped her fingers. “I bet they do. Piper would probably know—she was on the security committee to design the courtroom.”
Jennifer screwed up her mouth. “That won’t work. We can’t let a civilian know where we’re storing evidence.”
An idea popped into Fenway’s head. “It depends on how we ask her. If we say, ‘Hey, Piper, we found some evidence. Where can we store it?’ Then no, that’s against the chain of custody guidelines. But if we say, ‘Hey, Piper, where do they store the evidence used at trial?’ then we’re asking a reasonable question.”
“Do you honestly think Rose Morgan’s lawyer wouldn’t sniff that out in about five seconds?”
“It’s not against the chain of custody guidelines, is it?”
“No,” Kim admitted.
“So if it follows guidelines, we’re good.”
Kim shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re willing to suggest this.”
“I wouldn’t ordinarily suggest it, Jennifer, but we don’t have a lot of options. Given the choice between securing the evidence in a place that follows chain of custody and twenty other places that don’t follow chain of custody, I’ll take chain of custody every time.”
“Fair enough.” Jennifer thrust her chin at Piper, still glued to the laptop, typing away. “You go talk to her. She can’t stand me.”
“For good reason.”
Jennifer Kim pursed her lips.
Fenway walked to Piper, who sat at the judge’s seat, typing furiously in a screen full of text, obviously a command line interface. She bent over slightly and whispered near Piper’s ear.
“You have a second?”
“Almost.” She finished typing the line and hit Enter. “Okay.”
“So do you know if there’s some sort of evidence locker in the courtroom for when they need to store evidence for trial?”
“Is that what you were doing? Getting evidence and now you have to find somewhere to secure it?”
“I can’t answer that question. Do you know or not?”
Piper smirked and nodded. “Down by the clerk’s station. Under the table, there’s a small cabinet for evidence. It was meant for guns, jewelry boxes, smaller items like that. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s where they installed it. I didn’t see the implementation blueprints, but it was part of the final design we submitted.” She paused. “Before you go look for it, do you want me to see if I can get to the implementation blueprints?”
“Not if you aren’t supposed to have access to them.”
“Isn’t this a life or death situation?”
Fenway rolled her eyes. “You want an excuse to go digging around somewhere you shouldn’t. And I know you’re on my father’s payroll. So no.”
“You don’t trust me?” Piper batted her eyelashes.
Fenway chuckled. “Not enough to risk my job and my reputation when it comes to you digging up the truth. Besides, it’s probably faster to go check myself.”
She walked around the side of the judge’s bench, down the three steps, and to the clerk’s station. She looked around for a moment but didn’t see anything that looked like a safe. However, in the smooth mahogany of the judge’s bench, a thin line in the shape of a rectangle, about three feet wide by a foot tall looked etched into the wood about at head height for a person sitting at the clerk’s station. Fenway ran her finger around the rectangle. It looked etched, but it felt to her fingers like a panel. She tried to pull the edges of the box and then attempted to get her fingernails underneath. After a moment she remembered that pushing the flush door of the cabinet had activated a spring to open it. Sure enough, when she pushed the right side of the rectangle, it popped out slightly, and she caught the ridge with her fingertips and slid it to the side. Opening the panel revealed the beige metal door to a small safe, slightly smaller than the panel. Its rough, mottled paint didn’t fit with the smooth, rich finish of the mahogany which gave a stateliness to the judge’s bench. Fenway didn’t disapprove of the aesthetics, although she wondered how much that single hidden panel had cost the taxpayers of the county.
The door had a single-line display that said ready in light green digital letters, and a numeric keypad underneath. Two small circular led lights to right of the keypad were labeled armed and open, but were both dark.
“Great,” Fenway mumbled. “I’m sure I won’t be able to get into the safe without a code.”
“I can see if I have the code on my laptop.”
Fenway jumped at ada Kim’s voice.
“Oh—sorry,” she said. “I thought you knew I was behind you.”
Fenway’s heart raced but she tried to calm down. “You almost gave me a heart attack, Jennifer.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Kim held her hands palms out in front of her, like a basketball player trying to convince the referee he hadn’t committed a foul. “I know that evidence locker is for us to use during trial. I might have the code on my laptop. Maybe in an email.”
“Really?” Fenway said. “If I can’t use your briefcase, how in the world can I use an evidence locker that you have the code for?”
Jennifer Kim shifted uncomfortably. “Well—in the county guidelines, evidence lockers in courtrooms are specifically called out as one of the places you can store physical evidence and keep the chain of custody. My briefcase isn’t.”
Fenway shook her head. “I get the feeling that the people who made these rules didn’t actually ever work in law enforcement.” She sighed. “Fine. Go see if you have the code in an email.”
Jennifer walked through the gate to the seat she’d chosen in the gallery.
Fenway looked up and Piper’s head was sticking over the top of the judge’s bench.
“You found it,” Piper said.
“Jennifer’s seeing if she has the code.”
“Nine-nine-three-one, zero-two-eight-five.”
“What?”
Piper rolled her eyes. “Nine-nine-three-one, zero-two-eight-five.”
Fenway turned her attention to the keypad and punched in the numbers. 9-9-3-1 hit three of the four corners on the pad. All the numbers in 0-2-8-5 pleasingly lined up vertically. The green light next to open lit up and the door released with a soft click.
She looked back up at Piper. “Should I ask where you got the code?”
A slight smile touched the corners of Piper’s mouth. “It’s probably best that you don’t.”
Fenway placed the evidence baggie with the shell casing in the safe, then closed it. The red light next to armed lit up and the display changed to in use.
“How much did this safe set us back in the budget, Piper?”
“I didn’t spec it out, but these are surprisingly affordable. It’s not the gadgetry in front that’s expensive—it’s the quality of the materials and how difficult they are to break into. I hope they didn’t skimp on the quality there. Okay—I’m still trying to get McVie to respond. I’ll get back to it.”
Fenway nodded and Piper’s face disappeared.
She’s doing more than trying to connect with McVie. Fenway hoped that Piper wasn’t getting any information using access that she shouldn’t have. Although, as Fenway pulled the mahogany wood panel back over the door of the safe, hiding the watchful eye of the red led, that was probably too much to ask.