The thought brought on another smile as she retrieved her things from the car and headed downstairs to her shared office. “Good morning,” she practically sang.
“You’re in a good mood.” Jillian smiled, her hazel eyes widening. “I know only one thing that would make you this happy.”
“Yep.”
Jillian’s gaze went to the calendar. “It’s a week early.”
“Fortis needs me on a case.” Ellie keyed in her code and went into the evidence locker room with Jillian right behind her. “Anderson Duncan, almost thirteen years ago.”
“I don’t remember that one. Have we looked at it before?”
Ellie took a left, heading away from the room that held cold cases. “It’s not a cold case.” She glanced down at the case number on the sticky note, turning down the aisle that housed evidence of solved cases, looking for May from thirteen years prior. “Here it is. Anderson Duncan and Ellora Rice. Murder-suicide.”
Behind her, a soft gasp escaped Jillian. “I do remember that. It was all over the news. Didn’t he swan dive into a courtyard fountain?”
The overhead light flickered as Ellie set the white cardboard box down on the nearest table and opened it. A crime scene diagram on the top confirmed what Jillian remembered.
“Looks like you’re right. According to the witnesses, they all agreed that he was smiling when he dove off the railing. Judging by the distance and where Ms. Rice’s body landed, it was quite a leap to ensure he landed in the water and not the concrete bench around the basin.” Ellie handed the diagram to Jillian, picking up the medical examiner’s report. “According to the M.E., Rice could have survived the fall if she’d landed in the flower bed just two feet away.”
Jillian’s face paled, and she grimaced at the color photos Ellie spread out on the table. “She landed with her head in the water and her feet on the pavement, bent over the concrete edge of the fountain. Her spine probably snapped on impact. Hopefully, it was quick.”
Ellie read the report. “The paramedics arrived within five minutes and marked both as dead on arrival without any treatment. The police were on the scene minutes later, so I would say, yeah, they both died on impact or seconds later.”
“How awful for that poor woman. What was the party for?”
“I’m not sure.” Ellie shuffled through the individual witness statements until she found mention of the party. She turned the paper so Jillian could read it for herself. “Looks like it was actually a baby shower, but they told Duncan it was a going-away party and suggested he not attend.” Ellie pointed out a specific line. “Right there, Virgil Hurst told Fortis they purposely hid the real reason for the party from Anderson to protect Ellora.”
“A baby shower?” Jillian’s voice thickened with emotion. “Could he have known?”
“The M.E.’s report said she was only twenty weeks, so possibly not.” Ellie’s gaze met Jillian’s. “With the right wardrobe, I’ve seen socialites hide pregnancy until they gave birth.”
“Do you think he realized something was up? She was only thirty-four. If he was obsessed with her, knowing she was about to leave the company would send him off the edge, wouldn’t it?”
“But it wasn’t Ellora Rice who filed the harassment claims.” Ellie flicked through the stack of papers until she found the printed forms Anderson had filled out in his own words. “I’m not sure who was harassing who here. ‘She stares at me when she walks by, whispering one, two, three, four, then she winks.’ And here’s another one. ‘When she passes my desk, she moves my things when she thinks I’m not looking.’”
Jillian’s eyes darted back and forth as she read the comment section of a few more of the dozens of claims that Anderson had filed. “These are all petty complaints, but at the same time, how do you even prove someone is doing these things?”
“You don’t. It’s her word against his.”
“Did Ellora Rice ever file against him?”
Ellie shook her head, pointing to a lined area at the bottom of every form. “No, but she had to respond to the claims each time, and she always answered with the same response. ‘This is untrue.’”
“That’s short and to the point.” Jillian frowned. “I’m not sure what to believe here. On one hand, Anderson could’ve made the harassment up, and there’s no way to prove Ellora wasn’t harassing him. But if Ellora watched him long enough, maybe she picked up on subtle ways to torture him.”
“That begs the question, though. Why?” Ellie wrote as she thought out loud. “If she had actually been harassing him and he thought she was leaving, wouldn’t he be happy to see her go?”
Jillian shrugged. “You’d think so.”
Ellie tapped her pen on the paper and met Jillian’s gaze. “And the only two people who can answer that question are gone.”
“No matter what the truth is, their toxic relationship made it a horrible work environment for both of them. That’s probably why she was leaving and why she would hide a pregnancy.” Jillian shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself, the misery of Ellora Rice’s final moments leaving a haunted look in her hazel eyes. “This is so awful, but I still don’t understand why Fortis has a sudden interest in reopening the case.”
“Another suspicious suicide came through the department, and there are a lot of similarities that caught Fortis’s attention.”
“Did he tell you what he meant by that? What kind of similarities?”
“He didn’t say much about it.” Ellie shrugged one shoulder. “I got the distinct impression that he didn’t want to color my investigation with any outside information.”
“I’m surprised he remembered this case at all.” Jillian motioned to the seemingly endless line of shelves that held hundreds of evidence boxes. “Out of all these cases, why this one?”
Ellie rifled through the stack of papers, eyes darting as she scanned each one. “I wonder who the detective was. He said
