Fenway stared at the left thumbprint for what seemed like a very long time. Jennifer finally cleared her throat and Fenway blinked.
The ridge was fairly dynamic as well. She looked at the card with the partial print found on the gun. She took a deep breath and willed her hands not to shake as she placed the two prints next to each other.
The print on the gun was likely only the top two-thirds of the finger, but the lines looked very similar to the naked eye.
Wait.
Yes, the hill of the tented arch was just as high, but her father’s fingerprint showed lines that merged above the right side of the arch. On the print on the gun, the lines didn’t merge. And they grew towards a circular path a little earlier as well.
It wasn’t a match after all.
The relief washed over Fenway like high tide, and she shook her head at Jennifer. “Nothing.”
“No matches?”
“I thought there was a thumbprint match on that last one. But no, it’s different.”
“Okay.” Jennifer Kim lowered her voice. “So you’re still thinking Rose Morgan is the killer?”
“Of everyone in the room, she makes the most sense.”
“Right. I’m not sure if we can get the sheriff’s department to hold her, but I’ll do my best to see if we can keep eyes on her until we get something to stick.” She paused. “Surely she has her fingerprints on file somewhere.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I think when we took her in last week, we fingerprinted her, but I wasn’t there. I don’t really know. But if there—” Fenway clamped her mouth shut.
Jennifer Kim tilted her head. “What is it?”
I almost told ada Kim about McVie and me suspecting that there’s a mole in the department. She frantically searched her brain for something—anything—that she could say that wouldn’t make it look like she was hiding something.
“I was about to say, if there was any doubt that we could take fingerprints, what with Rose’s lawyer showing up, we might have erred on the side of caution.”
ada Kim shook her head. “I know these rules are in place for a reason, but wow, sometimes it makes it really hard to do our jobs.”
“Right. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?”
Jennifer laughed. “Says the woman who was yelled at for violating everyone’s Fourth Amendment rights.”
Fenway tapped her chin and squinted for a moment. “Did I? I didn’t think I was getting anyone’s prints without their consent.”
Kim screwed up her mouth. “Well, maybe it’s a gray area. In this situation, with everyone stuck in the courtroom, it’s not like everyone is free to go. People might think they have no choice but to give their fingerprints up. Or look guilty.”
Fenway felt a pang of shame. “Like I’m doing with Rose.”
“I guess so,” Kim said. “I mean, only two-thirds of the people in here gave their prints, and you’re still betting it was Rose. But I haven’t given my prints. Neither has Evans. Or you.”
“Oh, come on. The two of you were next to Cygnus when the shots were fired. And obviously I know I didn’t do it.”
“But we don’t know that. The other people don’t know it wasn’t me. They don’t know it wasn’t Evans. They weren’t watching. Or they weren’t at the correct angle.”
Fenway stuck her hand out in front of her, palm up. “Okay, fine then. Take a look for yourself. I won’t match.”
“I believe you didn’t do it, Fenway,” ada Kim said. “But you don’t have to convince me. You have to convince them.”
“Seriously, people think that I might have been the shooter?”
“No one’s willing to say anything, not even Bryce Heissner, but I bet at least a couple of them are thinking it.” Jennifer took Fenway’s hand and examined her fingertips. “Not this hand. Not a single print with that kind of mountain shape on it.”
“Tented arch.”
“Right, tented arch. Jeez, how do you remember all that?”
Fenway shrugged. “I only took those forensic classes last year.”
“And I never took forensics in law school.” She let go of Fenway’s right hand and took her left. “Swirl, swirl. Okay—this is an arch but it doesn’t have nearly the kind of hard tent-shape that the print on the gun has. And then you’ve got some, uh, loops on the last two.” She dropped Fenway’s hand. “Congratulations. You’re not the murderer.”
“Now you.”
Jennifer hesitated, then put both her hands face up for Fenway to study.
“Everything okay?”
“It reminded me of something.”
“Of what?”
ada Kim shrugged. “It’s stupid. When I was a teenager I went to a palm reader, and she said I was going to die an early death. It freaked me out. I couldn’t sleep for a couple of days. The palmist was very convincing, and it didn’t seem to me like she’d tricked me until much later. Like—when I found her file in our records. She’d been arrested for bank fraud, wire fraud, home invasion, embezzlement—she was a real piece of work.”
“Sounds like she’d fit right in with our investigation.” Fenway forced herself to smile as she studied the ada’s fingerprints. Not a single tented arch on either hand. She tapped Jennifer’s fingers. “You’re good.”
“Anyway, enough about my traumatic childhood. Looks like we’re back at square one.”
“We’ve got a print. We’ve got the murder weapon. We’ve got a shell casing. And Piper’s bound to find something in her search.”
Jennifer motioned with her head to the side. Fenway followed her next to the flagpoles.
“What’s up, Jennifer?”
“Look, I know you and Piper are friends, but what the hell is she doing with a laptop in here?”
“Oh.” Fenway shuffled her feet. “Well, she’s the best forensic financial analyst I know. My father hired her to clear his name.”
“He what? With her insider knowledge of the case?”
“Yes, he sure did. I’m sure her job experience with the county was a positive.”
“That’s such a conflict of interest. She’s lucky we don’t arrest her.”
“For what? For you firing her?”
“She knows she’s skating on thin ice and the first person she starts working for is the defendant of one of the biggest murder cases this county has ever seen?”
“It was a serious job offer, and she happens to be killing it,” Fenway said. “If anyone can track down who made those payments look like they came from my father, Piper can. What do you think she’s been doing all morning? Playing the new Halo?”
“You’re treating this like a joke.”
“And you’re not looking very hard and any other suspects besides my father.”
“I could have her arrested.”
“Okay,” Fenway snapped, “that’s enough. Get off your high horse. Unless she’s in direct violation of her separation agreement or her employee agreement, you don’t have any right to tell her who she can and can’t work for.”
Jennifer Kim folded her arms. “Okay, obviously you introduced her to the little career fair with your dad. Haha, fine, I get it. It’s absolutely hilarious. But now, she has to stop.”
Fenway put her hands on her hips. “You aren’t the boss of her—and you can’t threaten her with anything having to do with the Central Auto Body break-in without a direct violation of her separation agreement. Do you have a direct violation?”
Jennifer grumbled. “You’re not great at keeping your law enforcement friends, Fenway.”
“I’m great at keeping my real friends, though,” Fenway shot back, then spun on her heel and stomped down the two steps at the side of the witness stand.
She got to the gate to the gallery and had no idea where she was going to go.
Rose Morgan in one back corner. Bryce Heissner in the other. Nowhere to sit and collect her thoughts.
This was already a very long day, and it was getting longer.
Fenway found her way over to the nook, pointedly avoiding eye contact with Bryce Heissner, and sat down on the chair she’d brought in earlier.
Her breaths came shallow and fast.
I need to think.
The images all bombarded her, jockeying for position in her head in front of each other, and Fenway closed her eyes.
I’m trapped in the courtroom with a killer and I don’t know how to get out of this.
My father is being set up to take the fall for everything—murder, money laundering, even buying oil from an embargoed country and selling it to terrorists. What’s a little bit of treason when you’re already going to jail for murder and money laundering?
What’s Charlotte going to do? Will they seize all my father’s assets? Will Charlotte have to move in with me?
Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no.
I’m trapped in a courtroom with a killer and I’m more worried about the remote possibility of living with my stepmother. I’m a horrible person.
Fenway opened her eyes. There was a spot on the wall in shadow, an artifact of paint that hadn’t been properly applied. She looked closer; it wasn’t shadow at all. It was the black paint, the cellphone-signal-destroying black paint, showing through.
If she got out of this—because someone had tried to kill her, that bullet had whizzed right by her ear—she’d have to deal with what McVie had said to her.
She closed her eyes again, and suddenly she was back on the floor, feeling the weight of McVie’s taut, muscular body on her, his breath on the skin of her neck. She smelled like his bedsheets and he smelled like cardamom and fennel and leather, and he pressed his body into hers. Like she was the most important thing in the world, like he treasured her more than anyone else.
And she knew that duty called. That McVie had the physical need to run toward the fire, to pull as many people as possible from danger. But he hadn’t thrown his body in the way of anybody else. It had been her, taken to the floor, and his words in her ear.
I love you, Fenway.
A chill started at the nape of Fenway’s neck and slithered down her spine. His words weren’t strained or forced. They were authentic. He didn’t say them to manipulate her or get her to say it back. He knew there was no time for Fenway to reciprocate.
He said it because he didn’t know what fate awaited him once he got up from the floor and ran out of the courtroom.
He said it because it was true.
He said it because he wanted her to know in case it was the last thing he said to her.
And she didn’t know if she could say it back.
She looked up at the ceiling. What was wrong with her? McVie was kind and decent and handsome and a good kisser. He was a little tone-deaf sometimes, but he was more teachable and more willing to make himself better than most of the guys she’d dated.
And he listened to her, which was also a little different.
Of course, Fenway hadn’t had a lot of serious relationships. Certainly not many long ones. And while she’d known McVie for six months, they’d only just started dating.
The pressure wasn’t fair. It was way too soon. She didn’t even know if she had the capability to love another person. Not in that way.
And dammit, she had a murder to solve. With only the items in her purse and her fingerprint kit, and with only Piper’s text messages to communicate with the outside world.
“Fenway?”
Fenway tilted her head down. Piper stood at the edge of the nook, left arm wrapped around the edge of the wall, laptop balanced on her right hand. “What is it?”
“I found more information connected to the money laundering. You have a minute?”
Fenway smiled sadly. “Until McVie lets us out of here, I have all the time in the world.”
Piper nodded. “No update on that front. I’ve been keeping McVie informed of everything that’s going on, though.”
“Texted him that we have a fingerprint for the gun, but no match of most of the people in the room.”
“Has he responded?”
“Not yet.”
“I’d like to—” Fenway started, then blinked and looked down.
“You’d like to what?”
“When he texts back, would you let me know? And maybe I could message him for a bit?”
Piper tilted her head and smirked. “You know I’ll be able to read anything you guys text. I’m not sure I can un-see that kind of stuff. I’ll have nightmares for weeks.”
Fenway grinned. “Yeah, I know. We’re going to get extra-goopy with the baby talk just for you.”
“Ugh.” Piper rolled her eyes.
“It’ll be worse than you and Migs,” Fenway said, lacing her fingers behind her head and stretching her spine up and her legs out. “I’ll use all the kissing emojis too.”
“You would never. McVie is too old to understand emoji.”
A little snap in her head. Ouch. That was definitely a trigger. Something to ask about when she found another therapist. But she pushed the emotion down and smiled widely. “I can teach him all about emoji and he can teach me about eggplants and peaches.”
Piper winced, and looked like she wanted to clamp her hands over her ears were she not holding her laptop. “Okay, fine, you out-grossed me that time. And no problem. I know it’s hard not being in contact with the outside world.”
“You’ve been texting Migs.”
“I have.” Piper cleared her throat. “Anyway, do you want to see what I’ve found?”
Fenway nodded and sat up straight, turning the chair in front of her around. Piper sat in the chair and turned the laptop so they both could see it.
“Okay,” she said, “now, look, there’s a codename here, Effect3125. I’ve followed every place that it shows up in the ledgers and in the files that I sent to you.”
“Does that codename mean anything?”
“Not that I can find. Besides, I think they’re too clever for that, now. Probably just a name and number combination assigned randomly. That prevents geeks like me from digging around in personal data and getting the name of a pet dog or an old elementary school. It’s most secure when these mean nothing—and I think they’ve followed that rule.”
“Okay.”
“So you see that this set of payments—” Piper pointed to a list of numbers “—and this set of deposits—” she clicked an another spreadsheet popped up “—has regular transactions twice a week. Wednesdays and Fridays.
“Gotcha.”
“Well, almost two weeks ago, the regular payment went through, and the deposit was made. Then—nothing.”
“Okay.”
“Now look. There was a cash deposit made to the account from an atm in Yuma, Arizona, yesterday morning, right around ten o’clock.”
“This is Effect3175’s account?”
“Yes.”
“Yesterday.” Fenway looked up at Piper. “Is that supposed to be significant?”
Piper had an exasperated look on her face.
“Okay—do you see that the payments are all from Central Auto Body’s ledgers?”
“Oh—and Domingo Velasquez’s son was killed on Friday, and then he disappeared.”
“Yes. All before he could make the deposit.”
“And everyone thinks Velásquez is on the run.”
“You think the deposit was made by Domingo Velásquez?”
“I do. Right before he crossed the border into Mexico. You ever been to Los Algodones?”
Fenway shook her head.
“Cute little town. Mostly for retirees to go get cheap prescriptions that cost too much in the States.”
“And that’s where you think he went?”
“That’s where I think he crossed. He has a sister in Hermosillo. That’s about an eight-hour drive.”
“Shit.” Fenway exhaled hard. “I thought he might be able to help us.”
“His family’s still here. He might come back.”
“The question is,” Fenway said, “why is Rose Morgan still here? She was having an affair with him. But I think it went a lot deeper than sex. When he found out about his son, he went to Rose, not his wife. I think Domingo was in love with her.” She paused. “So why didn’t the two of them strike out for Mexico together? It’s not like she had anything left to do for the money-laundering group. Her job was making sure Domingo stayed on the up-and-up.”
“Maybe you got too close to her, Fenway. With the cops crawling around her house, maybe he had to cut his losses. Maybe she wanted him to cut his losses. Maybe she thought she’d catch up with him later or something.” Piper squinted. “Or maybe she was only pretending with Domingo Velásquez. Pretending to have feelings for him so that she’d be able to get as close to him as the money launderers wanted. And when he disappeared, when he was no longer useful to them, her job ended.”
“It’s time I had a talk with her.”
Piper tilted her head. “Didn’t she decline to say anything without a lawyer present?”
Fenway shrugged. “I can still talk to her. She doesn’t have to respond.” She stood up.
“Do you want the laptop?” Piper scrambled out of her chair as well, closing the laptop and following Fenway out of the nook.
“We’ll keep it informal. I don’t need exact dates and figures, right?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
“I’m starting to get used to playing things by ear. You know how you hear in cop shows that you never ask a question you don’t know the answer to?”
“Sure.”
“For me, that only applies in court. In the interrogation room, though, you have to ask questions you don’t know the answer to.” Fenway tapped her temple as they crossed the courtroom behind the last row of chairs, Piper just a step behind her. She stared right at Rose Morgan, who had her head turned, her eyes fixed on the back of the chair in front of her, in a trancelike state.
Rose jumped when Fenway stopped next to her.
“I’ve got nothing to say, I told you,” Rose said through gritted teeth.
“You just have to listen,” Fenway said. “So your boyfriend, the one who disappeared, who came to you instead of his wife when his son was killed? It looks like he made a deposit yesterday at an atm in Yuma, Arizona. That’s about a twenty-minute drive to a border crossing. And another eight hours to his sister’s house in Hermosillo. You think it’s reasonable to conclude that he went there?”
Rose pressed her lips together.
“Right, I forgot. You’re not talking.” Fenway cleared her throat. “So today is the start of Domingo’s brand new life. Do you think he woke up this morning, wishing you had made the trip with him? Wishing you were next to him?”
Rose turned her head and looked down at the arm of the chair.
“I wondered why you hadn’t gone with Domingo,” Fenway said, leaning closer, “and then it hit me. You don’t really love him. You were pretending to be in love with him to get close to him. So he’d tell you where the ledgers were, so he’d tell you where the backup drives were, so he’d tell you how to cover your tracks. You didn’t love him. It was a way to get him to trust you. You basically sold your body for money.”
Rose flinched and Fenway tasted rust in her mouth. But she pressed on.
“That’s not quite accurate,” Fenway continued. “You didn’t sell your body for money—you exchanged it for information about money. When he bought you flowers and little gifts, when he took you to Santa Barbara for dinner so no one around here would see the two of you together, all of that was for show, wasn’t it?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rose Morgan mumbled.
“I don’t?” Fenway asked, batting her eyelashes and placing the palm of her right hand theatrically on her upper chest. “Perhaps you can tell me how it is, then. Because from where I’m standing, it looks like he fell hard for you and you took advantage of that. You sold him out to your bosses.”
Rose flinched. “I told you, I’m not saying anything.”
“Of course. That’s your right.” Fenway stepped to the row of chairs in front of Rose and put one foot up on the last chair in the row, still facing Rose. “Maybe I’m wrong, Rose. I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll be wrong again. I’m telling you what it looks like from my perspective.” She paused and studied Rose’s face.
Rose’s curly long hair hung in front of her eyes, and she was looking down at the carpet.
“Or,” Fenway said softly, “maybe you were the one in love.” She watched Rose’s eyes, still unreadable. “Maybe he’s the one who betrayed you. Is that it? Did you say you’d slip away from the sheriff’s office and meet him?”
Rose sunk in her seat.
Fenway nodded. “And he wasn’t there. Domingo was already on the run.”
Rose lifted her hands to cover her face.
“Oh—Rose,” Fenway said, reaching out a hand to touch her shoulder.
Rose shrugged her hand off.
Fenway took a deep breath and continued. “I’m sorry. You were supposed to get close to him. I bet your bosses loved it when you started having the affair with him. I don’t know who came on to who first—”
“I did,” Rose croaked miserably. “I seduced him in the office one night while everyone had gone home. He was one of the best businesses we had, and lots of people paid in lots of different ways, so we wanted to make sure there was no skimming.” She sighed. “He seemed like such a good guy. Trapped in a loveless marriage. Oh, God, I cannot believe I fell for that. For every line in the book. Not an original thought in his head.” She closed her eyes. “And the way he—” She shook her head. “I cannot believe I fell for that,” she said again.
“We’ve all been there, girl,” Fenway said.
“Don’t girl me, Miss Stevenson,” Rose said. “You don’t know what I’ve been through. You don’t know how tough I had to be to survive the last five years. You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know enough to figure out that you and Domingo Velásquez were in love and that he’s in Mexico and you’re not.”
Rose laughed sharply.
“But why are you here, Rose? To get information, maybe? To find where Domingo Velásquez went? Maybe you were meeting your boss here to ask where he was?”
Rose Morgan sank even further into her seat.
“You’ve got many interesting interpersonal relationships, Miss Morgan,” Fenway said. “I bet if I keep digging, we’ll find out how you’re connected to Yesterday Audio. Once we get out of here, we’ll find out who that Sig Sauer is registered to. Maybe we’ll figure out how you’re connected to the registered owner. Or maybe it’s registered to you.”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Rose said, almost inaudibly.
“And what will you do now? Run after Domingo to Mexico? You think he’ll be glad to see you? Will he introduce you to his sister, you think?”
Rose shrugged. “He’s not with me now, is he?”
“No, he isn’t. Now I’m thinking that he abandoned you and left with your share of the money. I mean, it’s not the billions and billions the whole scheme is making in profit, but it’s still a lot of money. It’s certainly enough where he could live in reasonable comfort in a place like, I don’t know, Hermosillo. For example. But maybe not enough that he would want to share it. No matter how good you are in bed.”
Rose swallowed hard. “You didn’t strike me as this mean when we first met, Miss Stevenson.”
“And you didn’t strike me as such a softie, Miss Morgan.”
“Well, there you go. I’m not a gold digger, and Domingo Velásquez isn’t a wronged man. He left his wife and he left me, and all I want to do I go see him and beg him to take me back. Some tough bitch I am.”
Fenway took her foot down from the chair. “This insight into your psyche is fascinating,” she said, “but it still doesn’t tell me why you did it.”
“I’m not admitting to knowing anything about any money laundering operation. I’m only admitting to being a fool in love.”
Fenway scoffed. “I’m not talking about money laundering, I’m talking about murdering Professor Cygnus.”
Rose stared at Fenway. “Really? You still think I’m the one who killed him?”
“You don’t talk to me, you don’t give me fingerprints—and you’re the only one who won’t. Tell me, what would you think if you were me?”
“That the killer had escaped with the rest of the crowd? Given the two hundred or so people who ran out of here, I’m pretty sure the odds are with that big group, not the lucky thirteen people in here.”
“Yet you won’t let me take your fingerprints.”
“Just because I know my way around the Constitution doesn’t mean I’m guilty of anything, Miss Stevenson.” Rose set her jaw. “And as much as I appreciate the shoulder to cry on, I think I’ll go back to shutting my damn mouth.”