Known (18 page)

“Can we leave in five minutes?”

“I’m ready when you are.”

Chris thought Portland police detective Drew Sanchez didn’t look old enough to buy cigarettes. He’d greeted Chris and Gianna and invited them into Gianna’s home like he was the owner. Chris saw the amusement in Gianna’s expression, but she didn’t say anything. Not that she could get a word in edgewise. The detective talked like he’d drunk a triple espresso on an empty stomach.

The three of them stood in Gianna’s home office. It was a pale room with white crown molding, white wainscoting, and a huge white desk. The walls were a faint blue, and he wondered if she’d simply kept the decor from the previous owner. In Chris’s opinion it didn’t fit Gianna’s personality at all. To him she was about color. He’d envisioned a home full of deep reds and yellows and purples. He’d always associated people with colors. Jamie was the cool, calm green of her eyes. Michael was red for his impatience and intensity.

Gianna was not lifeless pale blue and white.

Black powder had been lightly fanned all over the filing cabinet, light switches, and desk. The evidence team had already left, but Detective Sanchez had waited to speak with Gianna. The files that the police had said had been all over the floor were gone, and the drawers of the filing cabinet were empty.

“The police took every file?” Gianna was stunned.

“Whoever broke in pulled every file out of the cabinet and dumped them on the floor. We took them for prints. Would you know what was missing from an inventory?”

“I have no idea. I can look, but there had to be at least forty files in there. Everything from appliance warranties to Violet’s report cards from grade school.”

“Can they pull prints off those paper files?” Chris asked.

“Yep. You’d be amazed what they can get prints off these days.”

Gianna nodded in agreement.

“Anything else look missing or out of place?” Sanchez asked.

“No,” said Gianna after a long look. “The computer tower is gone, obviously, but everything else looks normal.”

“Let’s walk through the rest of the house.”

They followed the detective. Gianna checked some cupboards in the kitchen and drawers in her bedroom but couldn’t spot anything missing. She rooted through a box of jewelry, shaking her head. “I would have at least expected them to take these rings. They’re pretty valuable.”

“What about the walk-in closet?” Chris asked. “You’d said you leave that door closed.” Again, black dust on the handle of the closet door.

Sanchez followed the two of them into the closet. Gianna appeared to have a weakness for bags and shoes. Two walls of the large closet were covered with shelves neatly displaying an obscene number of both. In contrast the section of clothing seemed quite small.

Gianna tapped her toe against a pink-striped shopping bag on the floor. “This shouldn’t be empty. I just bought this stuff the other day, and it still had the price tags on it.”

Chris glanced in the bag. A sheet of pink tissue paper lay in the bottom. “What was in it?”

“Lingerie. Two bras. Three pairs of panties,” she stated.

Sanchez’s cheeks reddened, and Chris’s mouth suddenly went dry as he tried to look anywhere but at Gianna’s chest. She wasn’t top-heavy. He’d noticed early on that her proportions were perfect, but her description of the bag’s contents suddenly seemed to shine a spotlight on her body. She stood there in his sister’s rolled-up sweat pants with her long hair casually twisted and clipped on top of her head, and he realized he had no desire to look at another woman.

Gianna Trask was stunning even at her worst.

“Any other . . . lingerie missing?” Sanchez asked.

Gianna went back to the dresser and dug through two more drawers, a frown on her face. Chris looked away again. Bits of black and pink and lace and satin flew through her fingers. She shoved the drawers closed. “I don’t think so. But frankly, I don’t think I’d be able to tell. I have a lot of stuff.”

Sanchez nodded and made a careful note on his pad.

“That’s kinda creepy.” Gianna wrinkled her nose. “Although maybe they’ll just try to return it to the store for cash since it still had tags.”

“Or someone has a girlfriend the right size,” Sanchez said with a small grin.

“If they wanted something to sell for money, they would have taken the jewelry.” Chris pointed out. “They took the computer tower but left your huge expensive monitor. You were targeted; they wanted the information on your computer.”

Gianna stood perfectly still, holding his gaze. A small tremor flickered near one eye.

I rattled her.

“Do you know why someone would want your computer?” Sanchez asked.

“Identity theft,” she said.

Her tone told Chris she didn’t believe her own words.

“I can see the computer being stolen along with other items if these were thieves looking for a fast buck,” stated Sanchez. “But they left the easy stuff. Unless you have all your passwords on an easily accessible Word document, they’ll have to do some work to get anything useful. Most thieves are pretty lazy. I have to agree with Chris’s suggestion on this one.”

“Let me look around a little more.” Gianna abruptly left the bedroom.

“What’s she not telling me?” Sanchez asked Chris. He tapped his notepad with his pencil. “This will be a lot easier if I don’t have to guess everything. I think she has an idea of what’s going on.”

“I don’t think she knows,” Chris said slowly. “I think she’s stunned and a bit overwhelmed.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to believe that someone she knows would do this to her.”

“No one wants to believe that sort of thing. But I don’t think Gianna’s the type to sugarcoat things. If she knew of someone threatening in her life, I think she’d immediately speak up.”

“Detective Sanchez?” Gianna called from down the hall.

The two men found her in a nook adjacent to her kitchen. She pointed at a small wooden side table that had a few glass figures and framed photos. “There’s a photo missing.”

“What’s it a picture of?” Chris asked.

“Violet and me.”

Sanchez pointed his pencil at the figurines. “Are those glass things valuable?”

“They’re crystal, not glass.”

“So, yes,” stated Sanchez. “But our thief was interested only in a family photo.”

Alarm shot through Chris. Even if Gianna had struggled to believe the break-in wasn’t personal, she had to believe now. The thief hadn’t just stolen information, he’d taken trophies for himself.

“I can’t stay here tonight.” Gianna shuddered as she stared at the empty spot. “I don’t know if I can ever sleep in this house again.”

Nora Hawes leaned against the wall of the autopsy suite, waiting for Dr. Rutledge to finish recording his notes. The stainless steel table in front of him held the burned remains of the man found in Gianna Trask’s rented cabin. The suite was clean and orderly. Empty silver tables were lined up in a row beyond Dr. Rutledge’s current work site. Sprayers that appeared to belong in a small car wash hung behind the four tables. A scale dangled over each station, waiting to weigh organs. Nora wondered what the room sounded like when several autopsies were occurring at once. Right now it was very quiet except for the low hum of fans and the doctor’s voice.

Autopsies didn’t bother her, but she didn’t have any desire to get up close and personal. Henry would rather pay for her Starbucks habit for a week than attend, so she’d made him a deal. He didn’t realize she would have done it without the offer of free coffee. He was a solid partner, but knowing he had a weak stomach gave her something to harass him about.

Gianna Trask and Chris Jacobs entered the suite, and Nora held her position in a shallow alcove as she studied the couple. Drew Sanchez from the Portland Police Department had briefly updated her with a phone call and told her the couple were on their way. She’d spent the last few minutes processing Sanchez’s findings. Especially the fact that all stolen items were personal and didn’t appear to have been taken for their value on the street. Someone had wanted very specific items from Gianna’s home.

But how does it tie to the deaths during the storm?

It was a big juicy riddle. She loved figuring out answers.

Especially with people as interesting as the two who’d just entered. She’d done her research last night. She’d noticed the scars on Chris’s neck and the side of his face yesterday, but hadn’t realized she was talking with a local legend.
The boy who survived.
He’d managed to stay out of the limelight for decades. Now Chris Jacobs had a new cause that was making him step forward.

Dr. Gianna Trask.

Chris had stood directly behind the petite medical examiner and scanned the room as if checking for hidden assassins; he’d spotted Nora within seconds, forcing her to step out of her lousy hiding spot and cross the floor to meet them. Gianna lifted one hand in greeting to Dr. Rutledge, who returned the wave but continued his monologue into the microphone over the burned remains, and then turned her attention to Nora. Gianna had a solid handshake.

“I hear you’ve had a busy day already,” said Nora after shaking hands with Chris.

“Sanchez said he would call you,” said Gianna. She glanced over at the work area, an eagerness in her gaze. “Was there identification on the body?”

She cuts to the chase.

“He didn’t have ID on him,” offered Nora. “I haven’t had a chance to ask Dr. Rutledge about his findings, but I believe he’s almost done.”

“Yes, he is,” Gianna said with confidence after a glance at Dr. Rutledge.

Nora figured Gianna experienced the same curiosity and desire for answers that she did when presented with a dead body. There was a reason the woman had become a forensic pathologist. The ones Nora had met all had a thirst for answers. Nora’s primary motivations usually centered around making the perpetrators pay for their crimes, but she loved uncovering the science and evidence that paved the path to the suspect. And the more unusual the case the better. This case had all her neurons firing. A fire, a medical examiner with some missing memory, a local legend, and an unknown assassin and victim.

Am I wrong to be fascinated?

Dr. Rutledge removed some of his protective gear and crossed the suite to the group. “I’m glad to hear you’re all right, Dr. Trask. I’m sorry your introduction to Oregon has started off on such a bad note.” He jerked his head back at the corpse. “Not what you want to discover in your home.”

Nora had dealt with Seth Rutledge several times and liked the sharp chief medical examiner. If she’d met him outside the ME’s office, she would never have guessed that he spent his days with death. He was simply enjoyable to be around, witty and pleasant.

Too bad he’s taken.

“What’d you find?” Nora asked.

“Dr. Trask was right that he was shot before the fire.” He tipped his head at Gianna. “But before that he was hit twice in the head. Hard. First on the back of the head and then on the left temple. The blows were enough to eventually be the cause of death, but the two shots assured his death. I suspect he was lying down when he was shot . . . he probably fell after the blows to the head.”

“I didn’t see any evidence that he was shot in the cabin. There wasn’t a blood pool,” said Gianna. “Plus I believe Violet would have heard shots if it’d happened after we were out in my truck.”

Dr. Rutledge looked at Nora. “Did you find bullet holes under him? The angle of the entry and exit wounds indicate a prone position to me.”

Nora knew the body had been shot elsewhere. The lack of bullet holes in the floor and Dr. Rutledge’s assessment of the gunshot angles backed it up. “No bullet holes were found in the floor near the body. No shells nearby either. But we recovered the slugs and shells from the shots at the forest ranger.” She glanced at Chris Jacobs. Her research on him had indicated that he owned nearly a dozen weapons. Five of them rifles.

His face gave her no clue to his thoughts.

“You’re welcome to compare my weapons,” he stated.

Nora nodded. It was already on her list, but she had a hunch it wouldn’t bear fruit.

“Then our John Doe was moved to his position in the cabin very soon after he was shot,” Dr. Rutledge continued. “Lividity matches up with the photographs of the position he was found in.”