Cutting Edge

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Nora said.

“You’re thinking this might be murder?” Pete asked.

“Murder or murder-suicide,” Nora said. “I spoke with two witnesses yesterday relating to Anya Ballard’s demeanor in the hours leading up to her death.”

The conference room door opened. Entering was Agent Steve Donovan from Violent Crimes, who doubled as the ERT team leader. Donovan nodded to Nora and sat down next to Pete.

“Both witnesses who saw Anya within hours of her death,” she continued, “said that Anya was upset, but had made plans with them for that week. Highly unusual for someone contemplating suicide. We also learned that Anya had a roommate last year who may have been involved with the arsons. Maggie O’Dell. Rachel? What did you find on her?”

“No California driver’s license. I called the college and they won’t release her records without a warrant. I called the U.S. attorney’s office with the information and they’re supposed to get back to me.”

“Follow up in an hour if you don’t hear from them. Our probable cause is that she’s wanted as a person of interest in the ongoing domestic terrorism arson investigation. We need that information today.” Nora had another thought. “Hey, go down to Rose College and look through the yearbooks in the library, see if we can get a picture. Check the school newspapers as well. If that fails, ask around the dorm and see if anyone has a picture of her. Picture, address, any information about where she might be.”

“I can go now, unless you need me here.” Rachel gathered her papers.

“Great, go now. Finding O’Dell is a priority. And when you get a picture, send it to Sara Ralston in the Reno office. She’ll know what to do with it. Oh, and on your way out ask Jason to surf the Internet and look for any Rose College websites with captioned photos, if the three dead students had blogs or websites, anything that might yield information about Maggie O’Dell.”

Rachel left and Pete said, “Is she a suspect?”

“I’d say a person of interest,” Nora said. “At present, we have no physical evidence that Maggie O’Dell was involved with the arsons, or that she was involved with the poisoning, or that she is even in town. One witness implied Maggie was involved, but had no personal knowledge of her involvement. So I want to talk to her.”

She turned to Steve Donovan. “Steve? You have an evidence report?”

“I sent you an email with the findings for your records. The blood at Payne’s Lake Tahoe house is Payne’s. We confirmed that he was in Lake Tahoe Saturday afternoon. A neighbor saw him walking outside about four o’clock. Payne waved to him, they chatted for a few minutes. The neighbor is a full-time resident, knew Payne casually. He said Payne seemed like he always did, happy but preoccupied. The neighbor invited him for dinner, which Payne declined. Apparently there’s nothing unusual about that, either. He usually declines.”

“You checked with other neighbors?”

“It’s very secluded in his little area. Can’t see any other houses from Payne’s house, there’re lots of trees. It’s not one of the places with a grand lake view. You can only see the lake if you crane your neck on the far corner of the deck. But it’s nice and private.”

Private enough that you can be murdered and no one will hear, Nora thought. She was about to ask another question when Steve added, “The neighbor gave me the contact information for the house closest to Payne, which is owned by a San Francisco couple. They were up for the weekend and left Sunday night. I spoke to the husband who said he saw a dark-colored truck he didn’t recognize parked in Payne’s carport, next to his Jeep. He didn’t think much of it, except that he hadn’t noticed it on Saturday when he walked past the property.”

“He didn’t by chance get a license plate?”

Donovan shook his head. “But Scott Edwards has a 2003 dark blue Ford F-150 registered in his name. It has a camper shell.”

“Bingo,” Nora said. “You could have woken me with that information.”

“I talked to the witness ten minutes before I walked in here.”

“Where’s the truck?”

“I contacted the sheriff’s department and they don’t have it. I sent a tow truck and an agent to the college to impound it. Anya Ballard has a Volkswagen Beetle, one of those new trendy ones, and that’s next up on the tow list. The other dead student didn’t have a car registered to him. We’re looking into two vehicles that are registered to his parents to see if he regularly used one.”

“Great job. Let me know what you find and put out a BOLO on all vehicles. We don’t know whether Maggie O’Dell had access to them, and since she has no car registered in her name she may have taken one of theirs. Keep in mind that they transported ducks late Sunday night, that could tie them to the crime scene.”

“She doesn’t have a driver’s license,” Steve pointed out.

“She doesn’t have a California driver’s license,” Nora said, “but she could be from anywhere. And even if she has no license, that wouldn’t stop her from driving.” Nora’s mother never had a driver’s license, but they’d borrowed plenty of cars. Lorraine had never been pulled over.

Steve made a note. “Pete and I spent half the night going through the evidence from the dorm rooms,” he said. “We sent Anya Ballard’s journals to Quantico for comparative analysis against the letters that were sent to the media claiming credit for the arsons. The one thing we noticed right off is that so far we have found nothing in her room, or the boys’ room, that has evidence of brewing the iced tea that killed them. No utensils, no containers, no jimsonweed leaves. But this morning when I was going over the logs, I saw that the sheriff’s department had documented four glasses with the tainted tea.”

“Four?”

“I triple-checked, and there were definitely four. I reviewed the crime-scene photos and there was one glass on the dresser, full.”

“Where is it now?”

“Bagged, the tea sealed, but there were some problems.”

“What problems?”

“The glasses were bagged properly, but they were labeled wrong. They were numbered, but no one put the numbers in the logs so we don’t know who had which glass. Trace is currently printing the glasses, but we can’t definitively state which glass was on the dresser.”

Pete said, “Whichever glass doesn’t have one of the three kids’ prints.”

“What if one of the dead kids handed out the drinks? What if the glass was meant for someone who didn’t show?”

Nora straightened. “What if someone pretended to drink, then left?”

“You mean chickened out at the last minute?” Ted asked.

“I mean never intended to drink the tea in the first place. It could be first-degree murder if the three dead students didn’t know their tea was poisoned.” She said to Steve, “Make printing those a number-one priority. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Do you have Ballard’s computer? An address book or cell phone?”

“Yes, but we haven’t gotten to her computer yet.”

“When you go through her things, specifically look for anything about Maggie O’Dell.”

“Will do.”

“Anything else?” she asked.

He grinned. “That’s not enough?”

She smiled. “It’s great.”

“I have one more thing,” said Steve. “We processed Payne’s Jeep yesterday afternoon. Someone much shorter than he drove it last.”

“That’s terrific.”

“And she-”

“She?”

“The strands of hair we found on the driver’s seat were fifteen inches long. Possibly a male, but more likely female.”

“DNA?”

“It’s on its way to Quantico. But I can tell you definitively, it doesn’t match Anya Ballard.”

Pete said, “Leif Cole has longish hair.”

Nora asked, “What color?”