False Front (Lucinda Pierce) Read online

  The man exhaled loudly. ‘I can’t tell you until I know I won’t be prosecuted.’

  ‘So you were involved in a crime that might be a federal crime?’

  ‘Actually, there are two crimes,’ he said and flashed a grin.

  ‘Two crimes? Are either of them federal?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I don’t think the first one is but I might be wrong about the property lines when it comes to my part of the thing. And the second one, well, I thought it might be because someone who might become a federal employee is involved.’

  Jake bent his head down and scratched the nape of his neck. ‘We are going nowhere here. I think this is a waste of time. You told me that it was a matter of national security. You told me it involved a high-level person in the government. You told me it could damage the President of the United States. But since you walked into my office you have told me nothing to substantiate those claims. I believe it’s time you left,’ Jake said as he rose to his feet.

  The man jumped up. ‘No. No. You can’t send me out there without protection. I was followed here. I know it. If I walk out that door I’m a dead man. They’ll know I’ve been in your office.’

  ‘Sir, please.’ Jake placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and applied minimum pressure to maneuver him towards the door. ‘You go on home and think about this a little more. If you decide to be more forthcoming with your information, you are more than welcome to return.’

  The man dropped to the floor, crossed his legs, and wrapped a hand around the arm of the chair. ‘No. No. You can’t make me. I’ll tell you everything. But I have to have some guarantees. I have to know you will keep me safe. I have to know I won’t be prosecuted.’

  Jake was now convinced he had a nutcase in his office. ‘OK, sir. Calm down.’ He leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms. ‘You’ve gotta spill something if you want my help. Explain what you said about the property lines.’

  ‘I’m not sure whether the body was buried inside the Thomas Jefferson National Forest or just outside of it.’

  ‘Body? Are you saying someone was murdered?’

  ‘Yeah. But I didn’t do that. I just dug the hole and helped throw it in.’

  ‘Who was murdered?’

  ‘I’m not sure. The body was wrapped in a blanket. The only thing that I could see was a little bit of hair that stuck out at one end. Looked like a woman’s hair.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Oh, ’bout thirty years ago.’

  ‘Thirty years ago?’

  ‘Yep. But that’s just the first crime I know about.’

  ‘What’s the second crime?’ Jake asked.

  ‘A death threat.’

  ‘To you?’

  ‘Now why would I threaten myself?’

  Jake shook his head. ‘So you made the death threat?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Sort of? What the heck does that mean?’

  ‘I said the words the other person standing next to me told me to say.’

  ‘Who was standing next to you?’

  The man sighed. ‘C’mon, man. Aren’t you paying any attention? The individual who killed that woman thirty years ago.’

  ‘OK. So who did you threaten?’

  ‘It was that person’s threat really . . .’

  ‘Right. Who was threatened?’

  ‘A woman.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake! What woman?’ Jake said, leaning forward with his hands on his hips.

  ‘I don’t know.’ The man shrugged.

  ‘You don’t know? You—’ An incoming call interrupted Jake. He lifted the receiver and said, ‘Lovett.’

  ‘OK. Face recognition software gave us some possibilities and we narrowed it down from there. We believe you are speaking to Charles David Rowland, currently residing in Norfolk, Virginia, previously a resident of Trenton, New Jersey. A lot of arrests. No felony convictions.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jake said and disconnected the call. ‘Why don’t you get up off the floor, Mr Rowland, and have a seat in the chair.’

  The man started to rise with a smile on his face but froze in place halfway in his ascent. His smile disintegrated as he said, ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Drop the act, Mr Rowland. How long since you’ve paid a visit to Trenton?’

  The man rose to his full height and took two steps backward.

  ‘Sir, have a seat.’

  ‘You’ll regret this,’ he said and bolted for the door.

  Jake followed him into the hall but saw no sign of him. He opened the door to the stairwell but heard no sound of footsteps. He looked at the elevator. The screen indicated that it had stopped one floor below him. He stabbed at the button and swore under his breath as it continued its descent.

  Jake pulled out his cell and called down to the security desk in the lobby. The officer answered but had difficulty understanding him because of the high level of noise. ‘What is going on down there?’ Jake screamed into the mouthpiece.

  ‘Senator Fowler and a flock of media,’ the officer shouted back.

  ‘Stop the man coming off the elevator. He’s about—’

  ‘What?’

  Jake looked at the digital screen. The elevator was already on the ground floor. ‘The man coming out of the elevator—’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Stop him, damn it.’

  ‘The guy in the ball cap?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s already gone.’

  Jake disconnected from the call. He rushed back into his office and pulled up the blinds. He thought he saw a glimpse of someone dart behind the building next door but wasn’t sure if it was Rowland. He slumped down in his chair and picked up the receiver on his desk and dialed the local police department to request a BOLO (Be On the Look-Out) for Charles David Rowland.

  He didn’t know what Rowland’s game was but his curiosity had been piqued. It might be inconsequential but then again, the mention of the President raised the stakes. The man’s talk of the White House occupant threw the investigation into Secret Service territory. He made a note to call and brief them on his strange encounter after he filed a report for his own agency.

  THREE

  Lucinda sent Robin to inform Eagleton that he was being transported to the justice center downtown. She stood in the doorway to watch his reaction. Robin opened the back door of the vehicle and leaned forward. A moment later she staggered backward as Eagleton erupted from the car. A patrolman rushed over and helped Robin get him cuffed once again and shoved back inside. Lucinda could hear the bellows of Eagleton’s voice but could not decipher the words.

  She went upstairs again. If there was dirt under Candace’s fingernails – if she was murdered – there should be signs of a struggle somewhere. She’d seen nothing obvious on her last examination. This time, she’d look closer. Her nose nearly pressed against the outside frame of the door, she peered at every inch up one side and down the other.

  Moving inside the room, she repeated the process. Midway down the unhinged side, she saw light scratch marks in the paint on the wall and tiny grooves in the woodwork. She stuck a red sticker next to the barely perceptible scars.

  She got down on her hands and knees and crawled across the bedroom floor. When she reached the wall, she turned around, moved over a foot, and headed back in the opposite direction. She repeated this process several times until she reached the bottom of the bed. She ran her finger around the indentation that circled one leg, and then crawled forward until she reached the second one. There her finger hit a small, solid object. The shadows of the bed covering made it necessary to pull out her flashlight to see what her finger found.

  She saw one green stone bead and then another. How long had they rested there? Had it been days, weeks, months? Or did they land there earlier that day? The stones appeared to match the jewelry the victim was wearing when she was found. Had she worn a bracelet that morning? Was it broken by force when someone attacked her? Did the perp try to pick up
all the pieces and missed these two? Or was it all just a coincidence? Lucinda’s nose involuntarily crinkled with distaste at the latter possibility.

  Lucinda continued her search of the floor. She was still on all fours when she heard Marguerite Spellman call her name. Lucinda leaned back on her heels and spotted the forensic specialist standing in the door frame, her hands gloved, her body covered in a blue Tyvec suit from the booties on her feet to the hood over her head.

  ‘Glad to see you, Spellman,’ Lucinda said.

  ‘Have you found anything?’ Marguerite asked.

  ‘Take a step inside and look at the spot on and near the frame that I marked. What does it look like to you?’

  Marguerite peered at it without saying a word. She pulled a portable light and a magnifying glass out of her kit bag. She examined the area even more closely. ‘Possibly fingernail scratches but it could have been caused by something else.’

  ‘There is some sort of dirt under the victim’s fingernails,’ Lucinda said.

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Could she have grabbed there when someone extracted her from the room?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Marguerite said. ‘I’d have to compare the paint and the debris under her nails.’ She pulled out a camera and added a macro-lens before shooting a close-up of the area in question. She swabbed the damaged area and then collected paint samples. While she worked, Lucinda returned to her examination of the floor.

  Marguerite packed away the samples and asked, ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lucinda said as she crawled back to the bedpost leg where she found the beads. ‘Take a look at these.’

  Marguerite lowered herself to the floor and followed the beam of Lucinda’s flashlight. ‘No way to tell how long they’ve been there.’

  ‘No, not really,’ Lucinda admitted. ‘They appear to match the other jewelry the victim wore but I won’t know for sure until we collect them. I wanted an in situ shot first.’

  ‘Not going to be easy,’ Marguerite said. ‘I’ll do my best.’ She slid under the bed with her photographic equipment and took shots from several angles. She then retrieved and bagged the stones.

  Lucinda completed her examination of the bedroom floor. ‘I moved slowly and looked very carefully, Spellman. If there is anything else to find in this carpet, it’s going to take someone with more than one eye to find it.’

  ‘I imagine you would have seen anything that’s there, Lieutenant. But I’ll assign the tech with the youngest and sharpest pair of eyes to repeat the scan just to be sure.’

  ‘Good. Your team’s all here?’

  ‘Sure is.’

  ‘OK. I’ll leave it all up to you, then,’ Lucinda said. ‘I need to get down to the justice center to talk to the husband.’

  ‘You think he did it?’

  ‘Don’t know but I sure wouldn’t place a bet on his innocence.’

  As Lucinda drove downtown, she hoped she wouldn’t have to cancel her dinner date with Jake that evening but knew she probably would. It happened too often. Either she had an investigation that interrupted their plans or he did. They rarely seemed to catch a demanding case at the same time. They more often came one after another, sometimes making it impossible for them to get together for days or even weeks. But the first hours of any murder investigation mattered too much and at this point, she knew she couldn’t break for a moment until she at least knew whether she was looking at a homicide or a suicide.

  She called the morgue and asked for Doc Sam. She was told he was in the middle of an autopsy. She was pleased to learn he was working on her victim – if that’s what she was. An answer to that big question should be forthcoming in no time.

  Back at the justice center, she went straight to the basement to check on the doctor’s progress before going upstairs to grill Frank Eagleton. She pulled on a gown and head gear but held her hands behind her back rather than glove-up. She didn’t think she’d be there long.

  ‘Got anything for me, Doc?’

  Doc Sam growled and said, ‘You know I can’t form conclusions until I complete the job and as you can see I’m elbow-deep in it now.’

  Lucinda stifled a grin at his literal use of the hackneyed phrase. ‘Yes, sir, Doctor. I know that but I thought you might be willing to share your brilliant observations.’

  He glared at her over the tops of his glasses. ‘You need to display more respect for your elders, Pierce.’

  ‘Sir, you know—’

  ‘Don’t start, Pierce. I cleaned out under her fingernails and sent the sample upstairs to the lab for the witch that runs the place to examine. She’ll be giving you the official report on that.’

  Lucinda grinned at his description of Audrey Ringo, the head of the forensics lab. ‘What did the sample look like?’ Lucinda asked.

  ‘You know I can’t tell anything just by looking at it.’

  ‘You didn’t—’

  ‘Yes, I did. I popped it under the microscope to give it a quick look before sending it to Audrey. It appears to be skin cells, paint chips and threads of some fiber or another. But I can’t swear to any of that because I didn’t test it. As you well know, that’s not my job. This is my job,’ he said, pointing both hands at the body on the stainless steel slab. ‘Now, will you let me get back to it?’

  ‘Certainly, you old curmudgeon. I’ll send Colter down to observe. I’ve got to talk to the husband.’

  ‘Curmudgeon, Pierce? Now that was uncalled for . . .’

  ‘I know, Doc. But sometimes I simply lose control. And “curmudgeon” sorta rolls across the tongue and tickles the palate, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Get out of here, Pierce.’

  Lucinda chuckled while she slipped out of the surgical garments and hopped in the elevator to go to her office. When she walked into the reception area, she heard pounding and a loud voice drifting down the hall. ‘Let me out of here. Where is that damned detective? Why is this door locked? I demand my freedom.’

  ‘Oh, good grief,’ Lucinda said with a sigh.

  Kristen, the department’s petite and, in Lucinda’s estimation, far too perky secretary and receptionist was still new enough to be amused by the behavior of visitors in the interrogation room. She laughed, tilted her head, tossing her shoulder-length brown hair off to one side and said, ‘Yes. We’ve tried to ply him with hospitality. We offered him coffee, soda, water. Sergeant Colter even offered to run out and get him a sandwich if he would only settle down. But he refused it all – obviously preferring to pound and shout than to indulge in food or drink. Seems like it’s time for a lion tamer – got your whip and chair?’

  As if in response, Eagleton let out a particularly loud and feral bellow that Lucinda thought she could feel in the soles of her feet. ‘This is ridiculous!’ she spat out as she marched down the hall. She landed a fist on the reinforced glass window. ‘Cut it out!’

  He responded with more pounding. ‘I demand . . .’ he shouted.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Eagleton!’

  ‘I demand—’

  ‘No one gives a damn about your demands. Sit your ass down in that chair if you want me to talk to you.’

  Eagleton stopped pounding and pulled back his head as if in shock that she’d spoken to him that way. But he didn’t move away from the door.

  ‘I am serious, Mr Eagleton. Stop this childish display and sit in that chair now or I’ll rustle up a couple beefy cops who will cuff you, shackle you and muscle you down to a holding cell where you can cool your jets for a while.’ Lucinda glared through the window.

  A look of defiance crossed Eagleton’s face. Then his shoulders slumped and he turned, crossed the room and sat in the chair. He lifted both hands and raised his shoulders in a shrug.

  Lucinda opened the door far enough to stick her head through. ‘Now, you just sit there quietly, like a good boy, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

  Eagleton rose from the chair and started to bluster.

  ‘Sit, Mr Eagleton. Sit.’

  His eyes formed s
lits and his lips curled up as he lowered himself into the chair.

  Lucinda sighed and went to her office. She sent an email to the records department requesting any priors on Frank Eagleton and another to Lara Quivey in Research asking for an instant background report on him. She went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. By the time she returned she had a response to her first query, indicating that Eagleton had no record. While she was reading it, the message from Lara arrived in her inbox. She printed it out and read it while she walked back down the hall. As she learned about his background of wealth and privilege, she was surprised that he hadn’t demanded an attorney already and feared he would do just that when she asked her first question.

  FOUR

  Lucinda sat down across from Eagleton and tried to hold his gaze, but in less than ten seconds he turned away. ‘I’m not a cat, Lieutenant. I don’t enjoy staring contests.’

  Instead of responding, she kept her eyes on his averted face. Finally, he turned back towards her and raised his eyebrows. ‘When did you last see your wife, Mr Eagleton?’

  ‘This morning, when I went to work.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Seven fifteen, seven thirty.’

  ‘Was she wearing the same clothing as she was when we arrived at your home?’

  ‘No, Lieutenant,’ he smirked. ‘She was wearing a towel. I stuck my head into her room and asked her if she planned on being home all day.’

  ‘And why did you and your wife have separate bedrooms?’

  ‘It was her decision, Lieutenant. Not mine.’

  ‘Why the separate rooms, Mr Eagleton?’

  ‘As I said, it wasn’t my idea.’

  ‘That didn’t answer my question.’

  ‘I liked sharing a bed with my wife. She might have been getting older but I still appreciated her body and the comfort of her warm presence next to me at night. I haven’t slept all that well since she moved across the hall.’

  ‘One more time, Mr Eagleton: why did the two of you not share a bedroom?’

  He slapped his hands on the table. ‘Simple, Lieutenant. She was really pissed off.’