Candide gives me some gloves and opens the door, keys jingling. “Don’t touch anything. Don’t run off. Don’t pick anything up.”
“I know how to manage a crime scene. Plus, I already touched things when I was here on Saturday. You’ve got my prints on file.”
We make our way through the maze of halls to Daniel’s office. The room is much as I had last seen it. Fingerprinting dust is everywhere, and to my surprise, the papers and computer and books are still all present.
“Aren’t you guys going to analyze the computer?” I can’t believe they haven’t taken the electronics into evidence. Not only does it likely contain pertinent information, it has intrinsic value. Someone might steal it.
“We don’t have all the resources you had in Denver. Gotta wait for a forensic team from the State Police to help us out, and they’ve been tied up with a shooting at one of the parks.”
“Aren’t you originally from Portland?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So, don’t you have some pull? Can’t you get some CSI guys from your old home county? Favor for an old friend, that kind of thing?”
“I don’t have those kinds of relationships.”
She must have left some bad blood behind her. But I’m one to talk. “Candide, it’s been over three days since the crime.”
She glares. “Leave it, Audrey. It’s not my call. Or yours.”
“Okay, okay.” It’s not okay, but whatever. She’s right. It’s not my call.
“Well? Any weapon ideas?”
“Let me just look, all right? I need a few minutes to stand here and remember, and then see what’s different.” I walk over behind the desk. Close my eyes. I want to sit down but I know Jane won’t like that. I understand — preserve the scene, especially if the forensic guys haven’t been here yet.
Plus, there’s blood in the chair.
I don’t know what I’m doing, and having Jane hovering in the background is distracting. The memory of the office, and what I’d seen while talking to Daniel previously, are vague and unformed. I’d been concentrating on him, and not on the surroundings. The images that come to mind are hazy, and I don’t know if they’re more my imagination than not.
I count backwards slowly, trying to simply let it happen. Slowly, the pressure of the chair forms behind me. The feeling of plastic under my fingers, the click of keys. Papers, slightly haphazard, on the desk. I glance at the clock: just after midnight.
It’s not the same as my experience on the beach. This vision is less immersive. I’m aware of Jane’s presence, of the blood. I screw my eyes shut. Clock at five past twelve. Fluorescent light. Hot and stuffy room. The doorknob turns, creaks open. Is it who I’ve been expecting? A tall figure. A man. It looks like Eric North — but is that because I want to see him? And he’s carrying something in his right hand. But I don’t feel the same sense of menace that I felt with Victoria, the invasive unwelcome awareness of danger.
I’m afraid I’m making it all up in my head. Flowers said sometimes people do just that.
I think you’re pulling it out of your backside.
Ignoring Zoe’s interjection, I open my eyes and look around, back to my detective brain and Jane’s toe-tapping impatience. The desire to find something amiss, something that will justify getting her to break procedure, is strong, but there’s nothing.
I close my eyes again, letting the image of Eric coalesce, focus on what he’s carrying. This time it seems like a narrow cylinder of some kind, hanging down from his hand. But he isn’t holding it like a pipe. I try to get a clearer image, but the object changes to a paintbrush, and then to a beer bottle. His face flickers to that of Jason Morganstern before reverting back to the artist.
Okay, I have to stop. There’s too much chance of my imagining things. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Just exercising my super-power to solve crimes like Wonder Woman. I rub my eyes and blink the room back into focus.
“Sorry, detective, I’m not remembering anything. I don’t recall seeing anything like what you’ve described. It was all papers and files and stuff. My guess is that the perp brought whatever it was with him. I wish I could hand it to you on a platter, especially after you’ve taken the trouble to bring me here. But I can’t, and I don’t want to give you a false lead.”
My honesty could elicit a couple of different reactions, but it succeeds in disarming the detective. She sighs and runs a gloved hand through her hair, then grimaces because she’s just possibly shed a few fibers into the forensic traces in the room. “I didn’t think it would work, anyway. Too much to hope for.” She gestures for me to precede her out the door.
To offer a carrot, I say, “You might want to check into the church finances. Chandler told me he had sold some of the artwork to pay bills.”
“We’ll do that anyway. Money is usually right up there in the top tier of motives for murder.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“We’ve got our eyes on some possible perps.”
“How, when you haven’t even processed the crime scene?”
“Don’t start. Forensics aren’t everything. Means, motive, opportunity — those things are telling, too.”
“Any tie to Harkness’s death?”
“That’s been ruled accidental.”
“And do you believe that?”
The detective doesn’t reply. There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say. Candide closes the office door and ostentatiously makes a big X over the portal with yellow crime scene tape.
“Listen,” I say. “Thanks for this. If I come up with anything I’ll let you
