Taylor hadn’t seen any incidence of other men on the tapes, but if Corinne had been having sex with some unseen participants, maybe that could explain the pregnancy jitters. Her mother suspected an affair, Dr. Ricard had said Corinne was being manipulated by everyone and had used the word lover in the list. Sam needed to test the fetus for paternity. She made a note and went back to her thoughts.
Thalia had mentioned Todd Wolff had a boss. She wouldn’t be surprised if money had changed hands that had nothing to do with the profits of a sale. Wolff was a pimp, plain and simple. Now they needed to focus on finding who he worked for.
Oh, she should have asked Thalia about drugs. She flipped open the phone and called the girl.
The voice mail came on and Taylor left her a message.
She felt good. She could tell things were about to break. That’s the way it was with these cases, either they latched on to a thread that quickly unraveled, or they were stymied for months. Though it sure as hell would be nice if she had a fucking badge so she could do her job.
Her anger spilled over and she slammed her fists into the steering wheel, imagined Delores’s pug face. There, that was better. She calmed herself, breathing deeply and letting her shoulders relax. Nothing could be done now. She just needed to persevere, know that the truth would come out soon.
Feeling like her morning was well spent, she lingered in the car, trying to decide what to do next. Damn, this sucked. Couldn’t go to work, couldn’t go home and sit. Maybe she’d take a ride out and see Sam. Always a safe antidote to whatever ailed her. Long before she had Baldwin, Sam was her first sounding board.
Just to be safe, she called Baldwin and told him where she was headed. He told her he was just down the street from Sam’s office at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation offices, and would meet her up at Forensic Medical in an hour. He reminded her to watch her back.
She started the truck and waited a moment, giving the followers time to get into place. Turning left on to Charlotte, she took a quick right on 46th and got on the highway. Within fifteen minutes she was at the ME’s office. She didn’t see anyone following her, figured they were playing possum out on Gass Street. If Aiden were anywhere around, she couldn’t see him either. She wondered briefly how they were going to find a killer who managed to drift unseen through countries and jurisdictions, then pushed the worry from her mind. She left the truck, locked it with a double beep and walked to the front doors. She slid her pass card through the monitor and was let into the building.
The front desk was manned by Kris, smiling a genuine welcome as usual. She waved at Taylor. “Hey, LT. How’s it going?”
Was it possible that Kris hadn’t heard the news? Taylor walked over to the desk, fiddled with a pen laid out on the counter.
“Hey, Kris. I’m fine. Do me a favor, will ya? Be sure you don’t let anyone you don’t know into the building while I’m here, okay? I’ve got a creep following me and I’d rather not run into him.”
“Your boyfriend already warned me. He called a few minutes ago. I’m telling you, Taylor, I don’t know why you don’t marry that boy. He is one fine piece of man, if you know what I mean.” Kris leered. Taylor blushed and rolled her eyes. She didn’t bother answering, just waved and scooted through the second security door that led to Sam’s office.
Good grief. Kris’s taste in men ran toward the bad boys. Taylor had bumped into her at a local watering hole once. Kris was half in the bag, playing pool and drinking whisky with two guys who looked like Hells Angels. She’d introduced one of the bearded men as her current fling. It made her wonder if Baldwin put off that vibe and she just didn’t see it because she knew him so well. She took a seat in Sam’s office, propped her boots on the corner of the desk, and waited.
She was deep into a daydream about what Baldwin would look like on a motorcycle when Sam appeared five minutes later, wiping her hands on a paper towel. She took one look at Taylor and her face changed from sunny to stormy.
“You okay?” she asked without preamble.
“Not really, but I don’t have much of a choice.”
Sam gave her a swift, strong hug, then settled into her chair.
“Do they have any idea what’s going on?”
“Baldwin is working on it. He’s got a friend who can prove the tapes of the shooting have been faked. The rest is taking longer to sort out. Whoever owns that Web site is well insulated. And I’m stuck out here in the cold, unable to do a damn thing.”
“So where have you been all morning?” Sam’s eyes sparkled, and Taylor couldn’t help but smile back.
“Okay, I’ve been doing some digging. I can’t just sit on my ass and do nothing. I’ve tracked down the names of the girls on the videotape with Todd Wolff. Turns out they’re high-schoolers in a secret society, making amateur porn. Can you imagine?”
“Ambitious,” Sam deadpanned.
Taylor’s cell rang, Thalia Abbot’s number came up on the screen. “Sam, hold on a sec. Hello? Hi Thalia…Yes, illegal drugs…Okay. Thanks again for all your help.” She hung up, took out her notebook, and spoke aloud as she wrote.
“Ecstasy, cocaine and pot. Not necessarily only provided by Todd Wolff. Shocking.”
“Kids these days. I worry about the twins. What am I going to do when they reach that age? When they want to know about sex, and drinking, and drugs? I’m sure these girls’ parents taught them right from wrong. But look at them.”
“I can’t answer that. My mother gave me as much attention as a she-cat in the wild, and I turned out okay.”
“That’s debatable,” Sam said.
“Ha, ha.”
This time it was Sam’s phone that rang. She held up a finger and answered. She listened for a minute, then hung up. “You’re going to love this.”
“Let me guess. You’re being suspended for being friends with me.”
“Better. We’ve got confirmation that the semen that was present in Corinne Wolff’s vaginal vault was viable for DNA.”
“Really? So whose sperm was it?”
“Now she asks the smart questions. I had the samples sent off for DNA analysis.”
“That’s going to take months.” Taylor slumped back down in her chair.
Sam pushed her bangs off her forehead and gave Taylor an apologetic smile. “Well, maybe not. You know how they’ve got the lab proposal on the ballot again? They needed some samples to work with to show the legislature how it’s all done. So I slipped Corinne’s slides in the stack. Not only was there discernible DNA, we should have the results back by late today. The whole point of the exercise was to show how much faster everything would work, how much quicker crimes could be solved if we were running our own labs. Todd Wolff’s DNA is in the system now, so if there’s a match between them, we’ll know. If there’s not a match, we’ll know that too.”
“Let’s hope for a match. If it doesn’t, that would confirm another suspect. Someone who was sleeping with the victim. Like we need it to be more complicated.” A thought nagged her, but she couldn’t access it.
“Look at it this way. The results might answer some questions. If the DNA isn’t Wolff’s, it could be the killer’s. Though I must admit, Wolff certainly looks good for all of this. Did you hear that we matched the blood on the tool chest to Corinne Wolff? There’s still no definitive test we can do to establish when it was left, which a decent defense attorney will pounce on, but it is her blood.”
“No, I didn’t. Damn it. How can that bitch idiot Norris do this to me? I just want to work the case. All these tidbits are breaking and I don’t have the full picture. How am I supposed to solve a case if I’m not allowed to work it?”
“I know, sweetie. The Oompa is an old, shriveled-up hag who is desperately jealous of your success. The beauty of it is you’re innocent, Baldwin is about to prove that, then they’ll have to let you back. So keep laying low and wait it out. I know that’s easier said than done, but you can’t run off half-cocked like you did this morning. What were you doing anyway?”
“I met with Corinne’s psychotherapist. After you found the benzodiazepine in her system, I went looking to see who’d prescribed it. Her obstetrician gave her the lorazepam but sent her to counseling too in the hopes she’d
