“So it was a woman, the lover’s wife?” says Andy. “She kills two birds with one stone. She kills Lauren and frames her husband. All because a phone got moved not once, but twice?”
“Maybe it’s not a smoking gun, I grant you,” she says. “But something doesn’t fit.”
“A woman picked up Lauren and chucked her over the side, while she’s kicking and screaming.”
“Who said she was kicking and screaming? The blow to the head could have knocked her out. She’s unconscious, the offender gets the noose around Lauren’s neck and chucks her over the side. It might not be the easiest thing, but plenty of women could pull that off. Just—just do me a favor and keep an open mind.”
“Here you go, Jane.” Marta Glasgow, from Major Crimes forensics, pops up the image on her computer screen. “That’s it. That’s your boot.”
Jane leans over Marta’s shoulder, peering at the screen. “A . . . Peak Explorer.”
“Right. The brand is Paul Roy. They have a Peak collection, and this is the Explorer. See the treads?”
On the right side of the split screen is the bottom of the boot, a diagonal tread with a strip down the middle, a triangular shape of a mountain peak, filled by small treads of the same shape.
“A Paul Roy Peak Explorer.”
“Yup. Men’s size thirteen.”
“And you’re sure.”
“Yup. Matches the dental stone cast and the photographs from the impressions on the front door. Good thing for you it rained that afternoon. Just enough to moisten the mud behind the shrubs by the window.”
“Any idea how old these shoes are?” Jane asks.
Marta laughs. “I’m not a miracle worker, Jane. But I will say this much. The treads weren’t very worn. The shoes could’ve been new or not used very often.”
“Thanks, Marta.”
Jane dares to glance at Andy. “Don’t even say it.”
He leans into her. “A woman with a man’s size thirteen foot?”
“Do you have any idea how many calls I’ve gotten in just twenty-four hours? People are incredibly upset. Some are scared.” The Village president, Alex Galanis, hikes a knee up on a chair inside the chief’s office. “I’ve had more than one person say to me they moved here from Chicago to get away from this kind of violence.”
“I think they’re overreacting, Alex,” says Chief Carlyle. “My statement said the public was not in danger.”
“That statement wasn’t strong enough. Do we have a suspect or a person of interest at least?” Galanis sighs, plays with his tie. Alex Galanis is a downtown lawyer in his second term as village president. The word around town is he’s being groomed for a shot at the state senate in 2024. Jane knew his younger brother, Nikos, in high school.
“Sergeant Burke has been running this investigation around the clock,” says the chief. “She’s our best. Jane, why don’t you take that?”
Her instinct is to appreciate the chief letting her field the question, giving her the rope to do her job and take the credit. But credit can quickly turn to blame, and that rope to a noose.
“It seems clear to us that this was personal,” she says. “We have text messages from a prepaid burner phone. Love notes. She was having an affair. And the text messages indicate that she’d just broken things off. So that gives us a pretty clear motive. Finding the person on the other end of those phone calls is the challenge.”
Jane doesn’t think it’s quite that simple, but the summary is accurate enough.
“Well, that’s good, at least, the personal part.” Galanis throws up a hand. “We don’t have some roving serial killer or something. And you think this killer . . . might have killed himself?”
“Well, sir, his last text to her, after she was dead, sure seemed like a suicide note, yes.”
Galanis nods, not wanting to hope for someone’s death, but it would obviously eliminate any further violence in his town. “So how long will this take?”
“I wish I could say, sir.”
“Weeks? Months?”
“I hope not. It’s too early.”
“So it could take months?”
“It will take as long as it takes, sir,” she says, steeling herself.
“Oh, it won’t be months, Alex,” the chief intervenes. “Sergeant Burke is very methodical. We’re hopeful it won’t take long at all. But we can’t guarantee anything.”
“You know what everyone’s going to say,” says Galanis. “They’re going to say we’re dealing with a small-town batch of keystone cops. We’re in over our heads. Are we?” He looks around. “Are we?”
“Of course not. We’re working with the FBI and with WESTAF, the West Suburban Major Crimes Task Force. And we have full manpower on this.”
That doesn’t seem to satisfy the Village president. “I want daily updates.” He buttons his suit coat and leaves the office.
The chief looks at Jane and winks. “Another satisfied customer. Who’s doing the CSLI with us? WESTAF or the FBI?”
“FBI,” says Jane. “I know an agent there who can decode that stuff like the back of her hand.”
“Okay. And that’ll be today?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Oh and, Jane—what did Grace Park just send over to us? A bunch of file boxes.”
“Everything they have on Simon Dobias,” says Jane.
“That’s the . . . guy who filed that complaint back in ’04?”
“Right.”
“He’s still in town? Grace Park?”
“According to property tax records, he is.”
“So you think there might be something to that? That was a long time ago.”
“I know,” says Jane. “I know this guy a little. Went to high school with him.”
“And you could see him doing this?”
“Oh, well, it’s been so long. I never really knew him.”
“Yeah, but tell him that story you told me, Jane,” says Andy Tate. “From high school. That story about Mitchell Kitchens.”
74
Jane
“Simon and I were freshmen together,” says Jane. “I didn’t know him well. We had some classes together. He was this little guy. He grew a lot by senior year, and he was a pretty good runner, one of those skinny track guys. But back when Simon was first entering high school, he was this small, skinny, shy, super-smart kid. And he got picked on.”
“Sounds right,” says the chief.
“When we were freshmen, there was this senior named Mitchell Kitchens,” she says. “Big wrestler. Like the best in the state at his weight class. I was dating a sophomore on the wrestling team back then, and to him, to the younger kids, Mitchell Kitchens was like this god, right? This senior stud wrestler? All-state, looking at a scholarship, that whole thing?”
“Okay,” says Chief Carlyle.
“So apparently, Mitchell bullied Simon pretty badly. This all came out afterward.”
“After what?”
“Well, so here’s the story. Apparently, Mitchell would pick on Simon. They said when Simon got off the bus every morning, Mitchell would pick him up and throw him.”
“He’d— What do you mean, ‘throw him’?”
“I mean, like, pick him up by the shirt collar and belt and toss him through the air.”