prominent nose set in the middle of a face full of freckles. She had grown up on a tobacco farm near Makely, and after finishing a two-year course in computer programming at Colleton Community College, she had tried to sit at a desk in the Research Triangle, but the work was too sedentary for her muscular frame and she had hated the petty office politics. After six years of it, she abruptly quit, divorced the white-collar husband who was on a slow track to middle management, and talked Sheriff Bo Poole into hiring her to update the department’s computer system while she trained to become a sworn officer. Uniformed patrol was a step in the right direction, but the detective squad was her ultimate goal, and now that she had her chance, she wanted desperately to prove herself to Major Bryant.
Not for one single minute would Richards ever admit to having a crush on her boss, not even to herself. The only emotion she would consciously acknowledge was gratitude that he had approved her promotion to his command in October. All the same, he had delegated primary responsibility for uncovering details about Tracy Johnson’s personal life to her, and she was frustrated by how little there was to report.
Yesterday morning, Johnson’s brother and his wife had driven over from Widdington with a key to the house, a two-bedroom condo at the western edge of Dobbs. Dr. Johnson, a history professor at Eastern U., was several years older than his sister, and while the two were fond of each other, they hadn’t shared much in common beyond their parents, who were both long dead. “We usually got together for birthdays and holidays,” said Mrs. Johnson, “and we were always there for each other in emergencies, but you know how it is.”
Yes, the detectives were told, Dr. Johnson was executor of Tracy’s will and would have been Mei’s guardian, had the child survived. Tears glistened in the eyes of both when he said that. “We never had children either. She would have been more like a granddaughter than a niece.”
They wished they could say who might have wanted to kill Tracy, but they were clueless. “You’ll let us know when you’ve finished with the house?” asked Mrs. Johnson. “We’ll need to clean out the refrigerator before everything spoils.”
Mayleen Richards and her colleague, Detective Jack Jamison, spent the next few hours interviewing neighbors and searching the house. Unfortunately, it was not a Norman Rockwell development with block parties, potluck suppers, and neighbors running in and out of one another’s kitchens. Here on a Saturday morning, they were able to find a lot of people home. On the other hand, most of the residents were young professionals who worked and played in Raleigh and had little interest in cultivating close ties in a place where they didn’t expect to live more than four or five years before moving up to something larger. Johnson’s condo was an end unit, and the unit next door was owned by a retired doctor who had closed the place in November before leaving to spend the winter in Florida. The next nearest neighbors were childless workaholics, who claimed nothing beyond a nodding acquaintance.
A quick canvass of the street gave them three more who thought they might recognize Tracy if she had the baby with her, but the general response was either a blank stare or a momentary curiosity about the tragedy. “Oh, yeah, I saw that on the news this morning. You mean that was the woman who lives at one-thirty-eight? Jeez Louise! Who you think did it?”
The inside of the condo was only slightly more revealing. For starters, it was much tidier than Jamison would have expected for the home of a toddler, and it smelled of a woodsy air freshener augmented by the live Christmas tree that stood in front of the living room window. At the base of the slender tree were four or five brightly wrapped presents.
The two detectives pulled on latex gloves, and while Jamison searched the office area for the Palm Pilot Tracy Johnson was known to use, Richards went straight to the dead woman’s bedroom and bath.
Paydirt.
In the medicine cabinet, amid three different over-the-counter cold remedies for infants, were an opened packet of condoms and a wheel of birth control pills with five empty slots. Lace-trimmed teddies and satin thongs were in the lingerie drawer of a bedroom bureau, but utilitarian cotton briefs and simple, no-nonsense bras made up the bulk of Johnson’s underwear.
Mayleen Richards thought of her own lingerie drawer. Since her divorce, she hadn’t been in a relationship serious enough to warrant going out and buying new frills. Unbidden came an image of herself wearing peach- colored bra and panties and Major Bryant running his finger along the elastic waistband. She instantly flushed so hotly that her face was one large orange freckle when her guilty eyes looked back from the mirror above the bureau.
Where the dickens did that come from? she wondered, then flushed even deeper as she suddenly remembered the erotic dream she’d had last night. A dream that had left her wet and throbbing.
Major Bryant was going to marry Judge Knott week after next. She was going to a party in their honor tonight, for pete’s sake. Dreams were nothing, she told herself. Hell, she’d dreamed about half the guys in the department. All it meant was that her subconscious wanted a man in her life. Any man. Not necessarily Major Dwight Bryant, who was totally off-limits.
Giving herself a mental shake, she willed herself to forget about dreams and focus on reality.
Indications were good that Johnson was probably sexually involved with someone, but the bathroom was spotless. Ditto the rest of the condo. The hamper was empty and folded laundry lay in neat piles on the washer. Fresh towels hung on the racks, clean sheets were on the bed, and the tracks of a vacuum cleaner could be seen on all the carpets. On the kitchen counter was a note: “You need more bleach and scouring powder.”
The evidence was unmistakable. “Her cleaning woman must have been here yesterday,” she told Jamison.
“No Palm Pilot or Rolodex on her desk or in the drawers,” Jamison reported. “You want to check out her computer?”
“Sure.”
Easier said than done. Richards pressed the power button and nothing happened. No lights, no familiar hum. She pulled out the CPU tower from beneath the desk. Well, there was the problem. It wasn’t plugged in. The cover felt loose to her, though, and it needed only a slight tug to come off because the screws were right there on the floor. She took one look and realized that the inside had been gutted. Everything that made this personal computer personal was gone.
“Damn!” she said. She would process the CPU inside and out for prints, but whoever did this was not only savvy enough to know that deleted data could be retrieved but had probably worn gloves, too. “Damn, damn, damn!” she swore again.
“What?” asked Jamison.
When she told him, they checked the entrances and discovered that someone had simply shoved through the flimsy lock on the back door, ripping the keeper from the doorjamb, and then had pushed the keeper back into place
