Psychobyte (35 page)

“It’s possible,” Kurt replied.

I looked at the shower head and at the position of Fallon’s body. The way she lay, the water couldn’t quite reach her; blood ran from her body and joined the stream of water, diluted, down the drain.

I turned and left the room in search of fresh air. I called out before opening the back door. Not locked. She’d made it easy for us to get in and find her.

“Conway coming out.”

Two SWAT men greeted me when I stepped through the doorway.

“What happened?” one asked.

“Possible suicide,” I replied, dragging my phone from my pocket and sitting on the back step. “Stand down.”

The men turned and walked away. Dead people don’t fight. There was no need for SWAT to stay with me. Watching them walk away, I saw Andrews heading back to the truck. He probably had the same thought as me.

I made a call to Delta A. “Sandra, send the ME to my location, please.”

“Trouble?”

“No. Troy Fallon was dead when we arrived.”

I flicked a small stone off the step and watched it bounce across the path.

“Anything else?”

“No. We’re good. Send the ME. Let Sam and Lee know that Fallon is dead.”

“Consider it done, O Genie of the Arrest.”

I hung up but stayed where I was. Going back into the house wasn’t a good idea. I flicked another small stone off the step and watched it bounce as it hit the concrete. She killed herself. Made sense after what she’d done. My finger smacked another small stone, harder this time; it flew off at an angle into the side of the garbage bin near the back corner of the house before landing on the ground. There was something on the garbage bin.

Dirt. A smudge.

I jumped to my feet. Four strides and I was next to the bin. Definitely a dark smudge on the side of the bin. I looked at my legs in relation to the smudge. Almost hip height. Transfer. I was sure I was looking at blood.

Someone with blood on their clothing bumped into the bin.

Spinning around to face the house, I yelled, “Kurt. It’s a crime scene!”

I ran out to the curb and signaled the closest police car. The car door opened and a cop ran toward me.

“Ma’am?”

“Did you note all traffic using this street since you were stationed here?”

He nodded and pulled his notebook from his top pocket, opened it, and showed me the page. I ran my finger down the list. Times, car description and tags. On the second pass, I paused on a red car. Why? I checked my watch. Two hours since the red Ford Taurus was seen.

We’d come across a lot of cars since the case began but only one red Ford Taurus leaped to the fore. Emilio Herrera’s car.

“SSA Conway, have a QV for you.” I rattled off the tag number to comms.

“Registered owner Emilio Herrera.” Comms paused before giving me his address.

The sound of Emilio’s name dragged spiky twigs up my spine.

Moments later I handed the notebook back to the cop in front of me.

Herrera lived two blocks away. Could be that he traveled that way regularly. Maybe this was nothing but a coincidence. The voices in my head laughed.

Maybe’s ass.

The cop waited. I smiled at him. “Good work.”

“Need anything else, ma’am?”

“Set up a perimeter please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I headed for the SWAT truck. Andrews swung open the door and climbed down.

“Problem?”

“Yeah. You could say that. We need to go visit an FBI employee.”

Kurt ran up. “We’ve got evidence of her involvement in creating and running support groups and found some police complaints matching our victims. We’ve also found shredded evidence,” he said. “She was about as involved as she could get without actually killing anyone herself.”

“That’s good.” Not for the victims but from our point of view. I thought about the destroyed evidence. “We can reassemble shredded paper.”

Kurt smiled. “Yes.”

Maybe she did kill herself. If someone killed her then why leave evidence behind?

“Any mention of Emilio Herrera in what you saw?”

“No.” He took a step back and eyed me with interest. “Strange question to ask.”

“It may be nothing,” I said.

Yeah. I didn’t believe that for one second.

“Conway, it’s
never
nothing when it comes out of your mouth.”

One day it will be.

“Herrera’s car was seen two hours ago on this street but he lives nearby so could be his usual route.”

“You think otherwise …”

“Hmm, I don’t know what to think.” Herrera being in the vicinity bugged me. “If someone intended to visit Fallon and saw the police cars, how else could they get into the house?”

“All the properties on this side of the road back onto woods, those woods back onto properties on the next street over.” Andrews climbed into the truck and emerged with his iPad. “Take a look at this.” He showed us a satellite image of the area. “See that?” He pointed to what looked like an access way into the woods.

“There’s one farther up Fallon’s street too,” I said, pointing to another access way. “The woods are public land?”

“Yes, they are. No back fences to speak of, either,” Andrews said.

He was right. Fallon and her neighbors backed right onto the woods. No problem for someone to walk up the access way on the other street, through the five hundred yards of woods and into her property. I waved at the cop I’d spoken to and he came back.

“Ma’am?”

“I want you and your partner to take a walk through the woods behind Fallon’s house and see what you can find. You’re looking for evidence. Also, find the access way to the next street and see if anyone over there saw that red car on your list.” Too narrow a field of inquiry. “See if they recognize any of the cars on your list.”

“Right away, ma’am.”

I heard the radio squawk as he called his partner while he walked away.

Kurt hovered.

“Okay, what?” I asked.

“You wanna go talk to Herrera?”

“Yeah, let’s drop in because we’re in the area to see how he is after losing his colleague and let him know we’ve made arrests in the case.”

Kurt laughed. “Clever.”

“Sandra said a few days ago that he’d made inquiries about the case. I told her to tell him we were doing all we could.”

Kurt smiled. “Standard company line.”

My phone rang. Sandra.

Uncanny.

“What can I do for you?” I asked, tapping the speaker icon on my phone. “And you’re on speaker.”

“Jane Daughtry’s team leader dropped off a greeting card. They were packing up her office and found it. It’s from someone called Emilio who professed his love for Jane and said he liked Black Amethyst and hoped she did too.”

My heart rate slowed. I knew that wasn’t random. Cogs clicked as they turned. She did like black something but not Black Amethyst. Her taste was more expensive than that.

“I know what that is …”

“A range of products from Bath and Body Works?”

Conjuring images of the first Fairfax crime scene, I put myself back in the shower with Jane.

What was missing? Shower gel.

“Yes. Check they do shower gel?”

“They do.”

Petrovovich was right.

“Was the card from Emilio Herrera?”

“Cannot confirm but the team leader said it looked like Herrera’s handwriting.”

“Anything else about the card?”

“Sending you a photo of the handwriting now. It was at the bottom of a locked drawer.” My phone buzzed in my hand as the image from Sandra arrived.

I opened it as she talked. “Colleagues knew they carpooled together but apparently Jane was looking for someone else to either join the carpool or to carpool with her alone.”

I read the words on the photograph. My mind compared the handwriting to the notes from the crime scenes. I couldn’t be sure.

“Thanks, Sandra. We’re on our way to Herrera’s now,” Kurt replied.

“Bag the card, Sandra, and send it for analysis. Have them compare the writing to all the crime scene notes,” I said. “Anything from the Darknet?”

“I’m throwing everything I have at it, this is some impressive encryption. Stay safe,” Sandra said. The screen went black as the call ended.

Kurt and I looked at each other. His eyes mirrored my feelings with regard to Herrera.

Jilted wannabe lover.

“We’ll wait here unless you need an escort,” Andrews said.

“We should be good, if we rock up with SWAT he’ll be suspicious. On our own, he’s less likely to act up,” I said. My words tumbled around the ground in front of me picking up dirt and leaves as they rolled to the curb.

The words that took the longest to fall into the gutter were ‘less likely to act up’.

Nobody Takes Me Seriously

Herrera’s red Ford stood in the driveway of his home. We pulled up at the end of the driveway. Blocking him in. I checked my weapon. Wearing a holster on the left felt awkward. Part of me hoped that would serve as a warning or a reminder to keep my emotions in check when next faced with an asshole.

No guarantees.

My emotions had never been closer to the surface.

“Let’s go say hello,” Kurt said and climbed out of the car. He straightened his tie and adjusted his suit jacket. I joined him on the sidewalk.

“Smile and relax,” I said in a half-whisper. “Friendly, friendly, friendly.”

Kurt glanced at me as we walked up the driveway to the front door but said nothing. I knocked.

Emilio Herrera’s smile lit his face. “Agent Conway, what brings you out here?”

“We were in the area and wanted to see how you were doing.” I returned his smile with less enthusiasm.

“The whole department misses Jane,” he replied, swinging the door open wider. “Come in.”

“Just for a minute or two, we’re on our way back to the office,” I said, stepping over the threshold and hoping there was something in plain sight that would give me cause to get a warrant and justify the sick feeling I had about his car being on Fallon’s street.

Herrera showed us into the living room. “Please, sit,” he said, gesturing at a large sofa.

“Won’t be here long,” I replied. “Just making sure you’re coping and thought you’d like to know that we’ve made some arrests.”

“That’s good,” he said, still smiling. “Yes. Very good. Closure for the families is very important.”

“Yes,” Kurt said. “One of the arrests was only two blocks from here.”

Cunning. Calling Fallon an arrest.

“Really?” Surprise registered on his face.

I watched Herrera as Kurt talked.

“Yes. She is a police detective,” Kurt added. “Always upsetting when one of our colleagues is involved in violent crime.”

Herrera’s smile changed; it slipped, morphing into more of a smirk. Kurt talked. I listened and observed while I tried to think of a way to look through the house. Bathroom. The urge to pee grew stronger by the second.

“Sorry, Emilio, but could I use your bathroom?” I said, interrupting their conversation. When he didn’t immediately say yes and point me in the right direction, a little red flag flew at half-mast in my mind. “Bathroom?”

“I’m sorry. It’s, ah, not been cleaned this week. My cleaning lady is … on vacation.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“No,” he said. All trace of his smile disappeared.

Who stops people using their bathroom?

Kurt looked at me then at Herrera. He stepped closer to Herrera, dropped his voice to a conspiratorial tone and said, “Agent Conway is pregnant. If she needs the bathroom, she
needs
the bathroom.”

Herrera faltered. I could see his thought process on his face. Caught between a rock and a hard place. If he said no again, he’d look like an asshole and raise too much suspicion but if he said yes, I’d see whatever it was he didn’t want me near.

“Sorry, Agent Conway, how rude of me. Of course. Down the hall second door on the right.”

“Thank you,” I said and hurried away leaving Kurt to spend more time chatting with Herrera.

The hallway doors were all open. Handy. I glanced into the first room I came to. Master bedroom by the look of it. Nothing out of place or of interest in the open. Opposite, another bedroom, possibly a guest room; nothing stood out. Next to that, the bathroom.

I knew immediately why he didn’t want me in there. I could smell blood from the doorway. I closed the door, used the toilet, washed up and then checked out the laundry hamper sitting next to the shower. The smell hit me hard when I opened the lid. Peering inside I saw bloody clothes.

Dropping the lid didn’t do a lot to contain the smell. Saliva filled my mouth and I swallowed hard in an effort to stem the churning in my stomach. Bloodied clothes were an amateurish mistake. I didn’t know if he was stupid, or confident we wouldn’t link him to the murders.

My curiosity insisted I check out the shower. Three shelves on the far wall of the spacious shower contained assorted body washes, soaps, shampoos and conditioners. I checked the rest of the bathroom. Very male orientated. No makeup, nothing I’d associate with a girlfriend or wife. I took another look at the shower shelves and snapped a photo with my phone and sent it to our perfume expert.

One bottle stood out. Purple with a silvery lid. Black Amethyst. I was dying to know what the shower gel smelled like straight from the bottle and had a feeling there’d be base notes of patchouli among other things.

My phone beeped quicker than I expected. A text message congratulating me on finding all the missing items from the victims’ showers. The only thing missing now was a bottle of perfume and I had a feeling we’d find that at Troy Fallon’s place, somewhere.

I texted Kurt:
Herrera is involved. Laundry hamper full of bloody clothing and all the missing items from our victims’ showers on the shelves in his shower. Found the Black Amethyst.

Kurt’s reply was fast and short:
Bastard.

I left the bathroom door open and rejoined Kurt and Herrera. One of them didn’t look happy.

“Emilio, thank you for the use of your bathroom. I feel much better,” I said with a smile. “A little tip … when you murder someone, wear coveralls and dispose of them before you get home. Nothing screams amateur like a laundry hamper full of bloody clothing.”