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Darby
We swung by Fluffy Fresh and picked up two dozen of their freshest donuts and huge coffees for both of us, then scurried to the lab. A cheer rang out when we walked in. I had to smile. Xander came over to help with the boxes.
“Blimey, they’re still warm!”
Relieved of the boxes, I sipped my coffee. “Only the best for our squints.”
Xander placed the boxes on a table far from the work, took a plain donut out, then came back over to us. Techs flocked the table.
He took a bite. “We expected you a couple hours ago.”
I nodded. “Sorry. It was unavoidable.”
Mark glanced at me and gave me a look. Can I tell him?
I nodded.
In quiet tones, my partner described what had happened. As Mark spoke, Xander’s jaw tightened.
After making a suggestion on what could be done to William Young and his genitalia, Xander sighed. “Do you need anything, Darby?”
“Mark took care of me,” I said with a small smile for my partner. “I’m shaken, but I’ll be fine.”
“You let me know if you do need something,” Xander said.
We started to leave, but there was a sudden flurry behind me.
“Don’t leave yet, Detectives!” one of the techs called. “I think we’ve got something.”
Xander was already in motion. “What do you have?”
I stepped up behind the taller men. They pulled apart to give me room.
“I’m analyzing the security cam footage from your place the other day. Your complex has some excellent security, so we’ve had a lot of footage to pour through.”
“Get to the point, Kris,” Xander said.
“Right. Here.” He pointed at the screen. “I’m looking through the footage from the entrance of your complex. If you look here, you’ll see what I mean. It’s at 12:45:37 and I think it’s important.”
We watched as a car drove by. I started. “Wait, is that—”
“Let me blow it up and enhance.” He tapped the side of the screen, and it zoomed in and became clearer.
“I know that car,” I said, dumbfounded. “That’s William’s car.”
Mark took my hand.
“Keep watching,” Kris instructed.
The camera view changed, and it followed the car—Will’s car, I was certain—through the complex to my building.
Winifred Labbee parked and stepped out.
My heart raced. “Can we trace the car? Is it really Young’s?”
“Yes, and yes,” Kris said, bringing up a registration report on a second screen. “I ran it as soon as I figured out it was one of your suspects. Why would Young lend her his car?”
“Maybe she stole it,” Mark said. “Can we get our own security cams and see if she stole it from the lot?”
Xander nodded. “Kris, they’re in a file on the server.” He turned to us. “How long does it take to get to your place from here, observing all the traffic laws?”
“Twenty minutes, tops? Maybe twenty-five if there’s an accident. But even if I stop for coffee and a breakfast burrito, I’m here in under thirty minutes. Usually far, far less.”
“Got it. Wednesday, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Scanning the employee lot,” Kris said.
A moment later, the computer matched the car to the one in the lot. “There,” he said. “At 11:45.”
At noon, Winifred had walked up from somewhere out of range of the camera. She put a comm over her ear and made a call, the video of which didn’t come through clearly. She talked briefly, then put it in her pocket. Not ten minutes later, William came out. He talked to Winifred for a moment, then put something in her hand. The passkeys for his car? They chatted for another minute, then he leaned in and gave her a hug.
“Can we get audio?” I asked.
“Probably not,” Xander said, “but we can try to get an approximation with lip reading.”
“Do it,” Mark said.
“Keep us posted,” I added. “We’ll be across the street, doing our own research.”
“Got it,” Xander said, but he was distracted now, having shifted to work on one of the screens alongside Kris.
I sipped my coffee on the way over. It was a chilly day, but sunny. The early autumn wind blew hard from the northeast and tousled my hair. I tried to get it out of my face, but had no luck until I went inside headquarters. Mark was quiet, not interrupting my thoughts.
At my desk, I logged in, taking a few minutes to look through e-mail, hoping for some overlooked nugget. Kris and Xander had already sent the images with Winifred driving in William’s car, and of William giving her his keys.
A minute or two after we both got settled, a flash message came in from Xander. I read it to Mark aloud, even though he probably had the same thing on his screen. “Xander says the particulates from the wounds came back. It’s nail polish.”
My partner nodded. “Huh. I wonder how nail polish got in the wounds?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. Did Holly say it was in all of them?”
Mark scrunched up his face. “Check the autopsy report.”
I nodded and went looking for the file.
As I did, Mark put in a call to Captain Moustakas. Apparently, he’d be taking the questioning of Young and had been on his way in anyway. As we waited on the captain to get there, Mark leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling, absently tossing a stress ball up and catching it, over and over again.
“How old is Labbee compared to Young?” he said after several minutes.
I frowned. “Where are you heading with that?”
“A theory. How old do you judge them both to be?”
“It’s in the records.” I shifted and pulled up the files. “Young is thirty-three, Labbee a couple years older.”
“Put their pictures next to each other. Their official pictures for the DSHA and Bendex.”
I had no idea what he was getting at but did what he asked, blowing the images up so they ran the length of my screen.
He rolled around so he was right at my elbow and examined the pictures closely. “No background on family?”
“Not that I’ve seen. Labbee’s are meager at best, even her military records. Young told me he had a sister, but nothing more than that.”
“Computer, analyze facial formation on both subjects and determine likelihood they are related.”
Processing.
I turned to Mark in surprise. “Partner?”
“Look at their eyes. Look at their mouths. I don’t know about you, but they’re virtually identical. Eye color’s different, but it frequently is in siblings.”
I looked again, isolating the eyes and mouths so I could focus. Sure enough, it jumped out at me that they were very close if they weren’t identical.
“I met Winifred and William both for the first time on Monday. I can’t believe I didn’t catch it.”
“If Young’s been messing with your head most of the week, and if he’s as strong empathically as is possible, it wouldn’t surprise me if he put up a block so you wouldn’t see the resemblance.”
Analysis complete. Likelihood subjects are related is approximately 92-point-7 percent.
I rested my chin in my hand and tried to refrain from letting a low growl emanate. Upset Darby was drastically different than pissed off and angry Darby. Upset Darby could deal with having a crappy case with two bodies in the morgue and a date who had tried to rape her. Pissed-off Darby couldn’t deal as easily when figuring out that the murderer and the rapist were related.
“I want both of their asses in cages by the end of the day,” I said flatly. Watch out criminals of the world, you don’t know what you’re getting when I get in this mood.
“Agreed. Let’s see if we can figure out where Winifred is.”