As Rosebud drove to Lucy’s place of employment, Kate sat in the passenger seat, going through her notes from the interviews she’d conducted already. The father and one of their neighbors had stated that Jessica wasn’t seeing anyone that they knew of (nobody came to the apartment on a regular basis).
The medical examiner’s findings sure didn’t add up with what those two had said.
Jessica had obviously been seeing someone. Or perhaps the killer had left his DNA and was indeed raping his victims. The lack of struggle… But with unprotected sex, fluids would have oozed out of her if sexual intercourse had occurred just prior to or post death. It would have been a mess to clean up. Leaving blatant DNA behind like that when all of the prints had been wiped clean? Nope.
That scenario didn’t make sense.
Not for the killer. And not for Jessica.
“Jessica had to have been seeing someone. And not a woman, obviously. So this removes homosexuality from the list—or at least makes it much less likely. Who knows? She could have been bi, but she had obviously had sex with a man recently. What else did you have on that list again?”
“What list?” Rosebud asked, taking his eyes off of the road for a second.
“The list of sins from the Bible. For Jessica.”
Rosebud tilted his head. “Idolatry, sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, hatred, anger, jealousy, selfishness, envy, drunkenness, sorcery—”
“Sorcery?”
“Yeah, that one’s on the list. Ri-di-cu-lous. I don’t think it applies here. I think our killer has to get his kicks from one particular sin.”
“But why the two passages then?”
“Damned if I know. But let’s start with giving Jessica the facts, and we’ll see where things go from there.”
After finding a parking spot near the Italian coffee shop where Lucy worked, Kate and Rosebud headed in.
The aroma of freshly baked pizza and the delighted faces on various patrons made Kate turn to Rosebud. “What do you think? A pizza to go?”
“I thought you’d never ask, you slave driver!”
“Let’s find Lucy and see if we can have our questions answered and get an order ready to go in time.”
The order ended up being the easiest of both tasks, the chef insisting on Lucy being absolutely essential for the next five minutes. After the detectives showed their badges, Caesar salads appeared. “On the house,” a short man said as he delivered the plates.
“We can’t accept free food,” Kate explained, “we just need to talk with Lucy for a few minutes.”
“Ah, come on. It’s not a big deal,” Rosebud said.
“Accepting free food is clearly against our department’s policy.”
He’d already stuffed two forkfuls down his throat. “In your world. But fine. We’ll leave a generous tip that covers the cost of those salads. How about that?”
“It blows my mind. How you can navigate through shades of gray like this when the policies are black and white.”
“It gets easier with time. I promise. I’ve got a solid decade of detective work over you, so—”
“Detectives, you wanted to see me?” Lucy said.
Kate turned away from Rosebud to stare at the woman wearing white from head to toe—except for various orange stains on her apron. Her eyes were hollow and heavy, as though she hadn’t slept much the previous night.
“I assume this has to do with Jessica. Her dad called me last night. It’s so horrible what happened to her—”
“Lucy!” someone yelled from the kitchen.
“That’s the chef. I really don’t have much time. We’re understaffed and have lots of orders to fill.”
“We’ll make it quick. I attended the autopsy earlier today. Turns out that Jessica was seeing a special someone.”
“Well, she was seeing someone. But it was very secretive. Nobody but me knew about it.”
“You, Jessica, and him,” Rosebud said, his mouth not fully empty yet.
Kate resisted the urge to elbow him. “Who’s he?” she asked Lucy instead.
“If I tell you, will it stay private?”
“We’ll have to look into him. He could be a suspect.”
“No, I don’t think so. Plus, he’s married. Nobody can find out.”
Rosebud cleared his throat. “Perhaps the man’s wife found out. We need to know.”
“Well—”
“Lucy!” the chef yelled again from the kitchen.
“Give us a name and you can get back to work,” Kate prompted, noticing the hesitation in the brunette’s eyes.
She exhaled deeply. “All I know is that his first initial is A, he’s married, and he’s friends with her dad. That’s it. I’m sorry I can’t give you any more because I don’t know anything else. Please don’t smear her name. Or his.”
“Thanks, Lucy,” Kate said as she finished noting things down.
A pizza box arrived just as Lucy returned to the kitchen. The waiter insisted on transferring Kate’s untouched salad to a to-go container, then they covered their meal—all of it at Kate’s insistence—and headed to the station.
With heavenly smelling pizza in their hands, a solid lead, and their upcoming meeting with the profiler, things were starting to look up.