It was after ten o’clock by the time I got everyone out of the funeral home. That included Jack and Cal after quite a bit of protest from both sides, but at least I was able to convince Jack to bring my Suburban from the house and leave it in the driveway so I’d have a way to get back home.
We had plans to debrief the following morning, and I knew they would be getting as much sleep as I would. I need eight solid hours alone with my bodies to finish the autopsies. The evidence the bodies gave me was like a puzzle that only I could sort from my end. The evidence collected on Jack and Cal’s end was the same—the timelines and stories of people’s lives, never quite as honest as they’d like you to believe—coming together to paint the complete picture.
According to Jack, Anthony Connelli had one brother, and he was the closest living relative to claim the remains once I’d finished the autopsies. I’d be shipping the Connellis to a crematorium in D.C. and Cassandra Owens to a funeral home her parents had selected. It took weight off my shoulders to not have to keep them there and deal with the services. The media frenzy by itself would be a mess. I’d had several local reporters try to sneak in as mourners during the viewings earlier so they could get the scoop on the Connellis. Mrs. Lawson had been especially happy to show them to the door.
Years of working twenty-four hour shifts made nights like this one more bearable. My brain remembered the grueling pace automatically and went into that mode that shut off everything else—all bodily discomforts—and allowed me to focus on nothing but the job.
There were no windows in the lab, so I missed the sunrise as I slid the last body back inside the freezer and made a few final notes. There would be time for me to notice the exhaustion later. Or maybe not. My phone alarm beeped, reminding me we had the rehearsal dinner that evening. Apparently that was something I had to be presentable for.
It was just past six-thirty when I made the drive home and parked next to Jack’s cruiser. He had a black truck he kept in the garage and drove when he wasn’t on duty, which didn’t seem to be very often.
The smell of something amazing greeted me as I came inside and I headed straight for the kitchen, thinking if I could get another pot of coffee in me I might make it through the whole rehearsal thing without falling asleep in my soup. Or whatever we were having. I was assuming that was one of the details Vaughn and Mrs. Lawson had seen to.
I was surprised to find Cal in the kitchen with Jack when I came in. I grunted to both of them and took the cup of coffee Jack held out at me. They both still wore the same clothes as they had from the night before.
“Anything interesting on your end?” Jack asked.
“Just your good old garden variety murder victims. The little girl, Rose, had Crohn’s disease. Anthony had a pretty serious blockage in his heart that would’ve needed to be seen to pretty quick had he lived. Damian was a healthy seventeen year old kid. And Julia Connelli was your basic Russian Frankenstein’s monster. I’m not sure there was any part of her that was real. In this case, the autopsies didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.”
“You releasing them to the families?” Cal asked.
“They’ll be transported this afternoon. I’ve got a funeral at eleven o’clock and another at three, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed the timeline works out. I need to clone myself.”
“Let’s not get carried away, sweetheart,” Jack said. “I can barely keep up with one of you. Now eat your bacon. The protein is good for you.”
“You know, I’m a doctor. I know exactly what the bacon is doing to the inside of my body. But it is delicious and I’m going to eat it anyway. I also want one of those cinnamon rolls I smell in the oven.”
“You’ve got a nose like a K-9.”
Jack wasn’t just an average cook. He was an exceptional cook, and he seemed to enjoy it. And believe me, it didn’t detract from his alpha status one bit. Watching him in the kitchen was one of the sexiest things I’d ever seen. He pulled out two trays of cinnamon rolls and divided them up to place on a tray.
“Jesus, I’m going to weigh three hundred pounds by the time I’m done with this case,” Cal said. “But it would be rude not to eat one.”
I snickered and grabbed at a gooey bun. “You don’t have to worry about the whole cloning thing,” I told Jack. “My interns are going to pinch hit for me during the funerals today. I’ve got enough on my plate with getting the bodies transferred. And I don’t suppose you know anything about all this wedding shit that magically popped up on my calendar for today? I think Vaughn keeps adding things just to fuck with me.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. What kind of wedding stuff?”
“Girl stuff. Manicure and pedicure. Some kind of hair treatment that I’m already dreading. I’m assuming you’re not being held to the same kind of torture?”
“No. I just have to show up and get married. You should try that.”
“Don’t tell Vaughn, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a technology glitch and delete those appointments from my calendar. You like my fingers and toes like they are, right?”
“Is this one of those trick questions that can have no right answer?” Jack asked.
“Only if you answer wrong.” I realized my plate was empty and took it to the sink. “What about you guys? What’s new on the law and order side of things?”
“We started setting up the boards last night. Lewis will be back in a little bit. He left to shower and change clothes. You know how he is. And Martinez is upstairs catching some shut eye.”
“He said he needed his beauty sleep for the wedding tomorrow,” Cal said. “Weddings are prime territory for picking up the ladies.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Not to mention the fact that Martinez turns into a real bitch when he doesn’t get regular sleep or meals. Good thing he’s not a cop in a bigger city.”
I followed the guys into the front living area across from the kitchen. It had been turned into an office of sorts over the last few months. Gone was the comfortable furniture that had once been placed in front of the fireplace, and in its place was a long wooden table and walls of white boards with extra markers and magnets so we could rearrange things quickly if we needed to.
They’d gotten a good start on setting things up. On the center white board were pictures of the Connelli family in a straight line across the top. Next to them was a picture of Cassandra Owens. Below their smiling images were pictures of each body from the fire scene. It was always important to never forget the victim. And to have those faces staring at us kept everyone motivated to find justice.
On the white board to the left of the victims was a picture of Wayne Macerne. I wasn’t sure what he did at the firm he worked for in Manhattan, but just looking at his picture gave me chills. The look in his eyes didn’t inspire trust.
On the white board on the right side was a different set of pictures. Lance and Helen Owens and John and Cherise Bruce. And next to them was a picture of Michael Bruce.
“Who’s this?” I asked, pointing to the unfamiliar female next to Michael.
“Kelsey Donaldson is her name. She’s Michael’s girlfriend. Lewis tracked her down yesterday afternoon. She waits tables at a restaurant near the capitol building, but she lives with an aunt in Fredericksburg. A rough neighborhood, according to Lewis. Rough enough that he didn’t stop at the aunt’s house, but waited to catch Kelsey at work. It would have caused problems if people in that neighborhood had seen them talking to the cops.”
“I can’t see a Senator’s kid shacking up in a neighborhood like that, even for the sex.”
“He’s not stupid,” Jack said, nodding. “He’s got a bottomless trust fund and access to the money, so he reserves a hotel room at the Marriott downtown. He stays there often enough that the staff recognized him, but he and Kelsey never enter or leave together.
“Kelsey said Michael was already at the hotel waiting for her when she got there at seven. She said they ordered room service and didn’t leave until Michael got the call from his parents the next afternoon. Lewis said she seemed like a sweet kid. She’s a couple years older than Michael but has a head on her shoulders.”
“Any luck tracking down Wayne Macerne?” I asked.
“I called a friend with NYPD and he did some legwork for us. According to his employer, Macerne’s been at work every day this week, arriving about twenty till eight and leaving right at six o’clock in the evening. There’s no record of him leaving the state. No purchases on his credit cards or debit card for anything outside the state. He’s got a small house in Brooklyn. My buddy says his neighbors describe him as quiet and staying to himself. He never has company that they’ve noticed.”
“That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have made the drive. It’s a five hour drive from Manhattan to here. That would put him at the Connelli’s house right at eleven o’clock or a little after if he left work at six. Plenty of time for him to break in and administer the drug. And he’s an engineer. He’d have the skills to bypass their security system and rig the coffee pot to start the fire.”
“Speaking of the coffee pot,” Cal said. “I was able to finish the reconstruction.”
I’d completely missed the little table in the corner where pieces of the coffee pot were laid out. It looked like a mess to me, but to Cal it was something completely different.
“The protective coating around the coils was removed. There’s a maximum temperature they’re allowed to reach in order to be sold to the public, but without those protective coatings the coils get hot enough to melt anything they touch. There was no evidence that coffee had been prepared, which meant he set it to run dry. The way the coffee maker was placed under the kitchen cabinets, as soon as it got hot enough to catch fire, those cabinets were perfect tinder.
“The house was old and they’d used as much of the original craftsmanship as possible. The wood of the cabinets was old, and when you combine it with the lead paint that was still part of the wood, the whole thing would’ve spread very quickly. Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been a good way to commit the crime. If he’d set the timer of the coffee maker to where it went off in the middle of the night, there wouldn’t have been sufficient evidence for you to declare it a homicide. But he made a mistake administering the drug.”
“Which begs the question, where’d he get the drug? And how are we going to prove he did it?” I said.
“If we can find substantial evidence to tie him to the crime, we’ll get him. There was blood on the coil. It looks like when he stripped off the coating he pricked his finger. Fire doesn’t destroy DNA.”
I looked at the enormity of this case and felt frustration well up inside me. Normally I was invigorated by the process of bringing victims justice. But I was tired. We’d just come off a big case less than two weeks before, and truth be told, I was still shaken up by it. I’d come way too close to losing Jack. And now we were staring down what seemed to be an impossible case, with more red tape and wrong turns than we could ever hope to weave through. All I wanted was to get married and take a small break. But looking at the victims’ faces in front of me, I wasn’t sure that was going to happen.
“Jaye,” Jack said. “We’re getting married tomorrow. This case doesn’t live and die by us, as much as it may feel like. They can solve this case without us.”
“Right,” I agreed.
Though it felt like we were quitting, and that didn’t settle too well with me. But I knew Jack was right. We deserved a personal life. And as much as both of us entrenched ourselves in work, it was sometimes hard to remember to take time out for ourselves and make sure we were nourishing the personal relationship as well as the professional.
Three rapid knocks sounded at the door and Jack went to let in Lewis. His hair was still damp and he was dressed down from his usual work attire. Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him in jeans before.
“Anything new?” Lewis asked
“We were just catching Jaye up to speed,” Cal said.
“Did you tell her about Doctor Owens?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, remembering Jack had mentioned something about it last night. My brain was starting to get foggy from lack of sleep. “What did you find?”
“Lance Owens and Anthony Connelli went to high school together. They attended different colleges, but were roommates up in Boston until Lance started medical school and moved to New York. Connelli stayed on in Boston to finish his Master’s, but they stayed in touch. And it was actually Connelli who introduced Lance to his wife at a party. She was a law student at the same college Connelli attended.”
“Mrs. Owens is an attorney?” I asked, trying to picture the woman I’d met yesterday in a courtroom.
“She quit her last semester when she married Lance. But she heads a lot of charitable organizations,” Lewis explained.
“So Connelli and Owens grew up together. That’s not really a surprise, I guess. He said they were all very close when we talked to him yesterday.”
“Owens is a plastic surgeon,” Jack said. “One of the best in the nation from what we understand. There’s a reason all the work done on Julia Connelli never showed up in her medical reports.”
“Oh,” I said, the light dawning. “Sorry. My brain is sleep deprived. Owens performed the surgery. No records. And probably a hell of a discount.”
“Bingo,” Jack said.
“I invited him in for questioning,” Lewis said. “He’ll be arriving at the station in about an hour.”
“If he performed the surgery then he more than likely knew where she came from,” I said. “That kind of information is potential blackmail, especially if Julia was acting as a double agent on behalf of Russia.”
“But what would Owens be blackmailing Connelli for?” Cal asked. “There’s no motive there that I can see. The only thing Connelli has of value is the work he does for the Department of Defense. What’s a plastic surgeon going to do with that?”
“Someone who could do something with that is a Senator on the Defense Committee,” Jack said.
“Except our hands are tied there as far as requesting information,” I said. “Were you able to find out anything from a surface look?”
“Just the basics,” Jack said, rubbing his hands across the top of his head. “Bruce’s father was Governor, so he came by politics naturally. Was an average student. Got his business degree from Yale. Married at twenty-eight to Cherise Whitcomb-Weiss, the daughter of former Secretary of State Edgar Weiss. Bruce is on his third term as Senator, and is fairly popular. They have two children. Their oldest daughter Charlotte is in her third year of law school. And Michael is seventeen and a senior at Downton Academy. Second in his class. He’ll be attending Yale in the fall as a biochemistry major. IQ is off the charts, but has a tendency to be lazy, though he’s seen quite a bit doing community work. Has a soft spot for the less fortunate.
“The Bruces were at a fundraiser like they said the night of the fire. Thanks to the Internet there’s plenty of pictures to prove it. There’s even one showing them leaving the event, just after midnight.”
“The media are so helpful,” I said. “I don’t know how law enforcement survives without them.”
“Funny,” Jack said, straight-faced. “The bottom line is, we need to know more about the Bruces and any ties they might have to the Connellis that aren’t just on the surface. With Anthony with the Department of Defense and the Senator on the Defense Committee, you know their paths cross. And they may not always cross on amicable terms. If the Senator found out the truth about Julia, there are any number of scenarios that could’ve played out.”
“Surely Ben owes us a favor,” I said.
“I’m pretty sure we owe Ben our first born child after all the favors he’s done us,” Jack said. “Sometimes there are ways to work around the law to get what’s needed. Sometimes there’s not. This is one of those times. And we might just have to face the reality that this case might not be solved any time soon. We’re going to have to go through the appropriate channels and do everything by the book. Especially if there’s a Senator involved.”
I shook my head and looked at Jack carefully. Jack was one of the most patient men I’d ever known. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him lose his temper. But there was a definite bite in his words. My own hackles rose, but I knew better than to argue in front of his men. The air was definitely charged though, and the others must have sensed it.
“I’m going to go catch an hour of sleep before I have to turn evidence over to the DOD,” Cal said.
Lewis put his hands on his hips and rocked back on his heels. “Yeah. I’m, uh—I’m going to grab Martinez and head into the station to prep for Doctor Owens.”
Everyone scattered and left Jack and I facing each other. He was leaning against the table, his arms crossed over his chest and staring at me with disinterest in his gaze. It was an effective tactic when fighting. Aloneness and feeling isolated was a trigger point for me. I’d felt that way all my life, and Jack knew it.
When Jack got mad, he didn’t argue and his voice didn’t become louder. He didn’t throw his hands around in frustration or pace back and forth. He shut down completely. He became indifferent.
And to me that was worse than if he did have a normal reaction. Because when he got angry he closed himself off and you didn’t know what he was thinking or feeling. He was an island unto himself. His features and heart hardened, and the distance he put between himself and anyone else felt like a canyon.
I was the first to break the silence. “What the hell, Jack? This doesn’t sound like you. Why are you angry?”
“I’m not angry.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes at the most blatant lie I’d ever heard. “Fine. You’re not angry. So what’s the problem? Other than the fact that there are five victims weighing on your shoulders and you haven’t slept?”
“I know we’re at the forty-eight hour mark on this case and we’ve got nothing. And it feels like you’ve done nothing but pressure me to break the law so we can solve this case, and to hell with ethics or anything else.”
“I beg your pardon?” I asked, my voice becoming very level, which was never a good sign. “I’m pressuring you to break the law? Really?”
“What do you think suggesting we call in Carver would be doing, Jaye?”
“A joke? And don’t say my name in that tone of voice. I’m not a child to be disciplined.”
“Well, you’re not acting like an adult. We don’t have time for this.” He moved to leave the room and I stood in front of the door.
“Oh, no. You’re not going to just walk away and leave me like I’m in the wrong here. I know you believe in the law above all else. I wouldn’t love you the way I do if you didn’t. But it’s not like you to just shrug your shoulders and give up on a case before we’ve barely gotten started. The Connellis deserve better than that. And so does Cassandra Owens.”
“You don’t have to fucking remind me who the victims are. I can see their faces as well as you can.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise and felt genuine worry seep into my soul. I’d never seen Jack like this. Or heard him take that tone of voice with me.
“What is going on, Jack? This isn’t you.”
“I don’t know. But if you’d rather see this case out to the end instead of leave on our honeymoon, just let me know.”
I gasped and my body jerked back as if he’d struck me. “You’ve changed your mind about getting married? You don’t want to?”
Somewhere deep inside of me, it’s what I’d been afraid of from the beginning. Why would a man like Jack—a good and honorable man in all things—want someone like me? A girl who came from the worst of the worst. Who didn’t mind bending the rules or walking in those shades of gray from time to time if it served a purpose. Jack would always do what was right, even if it was detrimental to himself.
I had a strong moral code, but it was my own definition. I believed that right should always win and that good should always prevail. But even though I was the one who’d had the kind of upbringing that exposed me to some of the darker things in life, Jack had actually lived in those dark areas. And sometimes, like now, I wondered if he’d ever really come back from it.
“Jesus, Jaye,” he said, exasperated. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying if you’re so fixated on this case and finding answers then we can do whatever you want. Just let me know.”
“Just let you know?” I asked, a tear escaping to fall down my cheek. “Did someone just inhabit your body in the last twenty minutes and take over? You know what my answer is to “Just let you know?” I swiped at the tear on my cheek, my breath coming in big gulps. “My answer to that is fuck you. When you decide to be honest with me and tell me what’s really wrong, how about you just let me know.”
I turned on my heel and grabbed my bag from the hall table, shutting the front door behind me softly. Jack didn’t try to stop me.