“What about the TPL investigation?” she asked.
“Back burner again,” I answered her, immediately thinking of the three names that Gail had indicated might have potential. “If anything comes up accidentally, great-spread the word. Otherwise, we’re going to have to divide and conquer here. TPL will have to wait.”
David Hawke had started out at the state crime lab as a civilian scientist back when it was run by the Vermont State Police. That it was now an independent branch of the Department of Public Safety-just as we were-and directed by Hawke instead of a state police captain, spoke volumes about recent efforts the DPS had been making to distribute its resources more efficiently, much to the distress of state police old-timers nostalgic for the days when they’d controlled almost every law enforcement function beyond the municipal level. The VSP was still king of the mountain in terms of size and political muscle, but that mountain was visibly, if slowly, changing shape.
The metamorphosis of the crime lab had been gradual, smooth, and driven by increasingly stringent and sophisticated scientific necessities, antiquating the erstwhile practice of having uniformed troopers do forensics rotations and then leaving just as they became competent. But Hawke still understood the pain of organizational change and thus knew how loaded his opening question was when he asked me on the phone, “How’re things in your neck of the woods? Cold and lonely?”
I could only laugh and admit, “Yeah, pretty much. At least I’m not being taken for a state food inspector quite as often.”
“But you’re still not Vermont’s FBI?”
“Not even close. How’re you settling in?”
“Great,” he said cheerily. “We’re now nationally accredited, and I just had to break the news to the powers-that-be that in order to stay that way, we’ll have to get out of this building and into something that doesn’t date back to the 1800s. So, I’m a happy camper, but I have a lot of depressed bosses. Speaking of which, you call to cry on my shoulder, or are you scrounging for a favor?”
“Ouch,” I said. “I sound that desperate?”
“I read the papers, Joe. How’s the arm?”
“It hurts.”
“I am sorry about that.” Then he admitted, “But it may be just the beginning. The buzz downstairs is that none of them would’ve ever fallen into something like that with their pants down, and that they sure hope you boys get your shit sorted out before one of you gets killed-all quote-unquote, of course.”
I sighed. “Them” in Hawke’s parlance meant the state police, and in particular their Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
I ducked that debate altogether. “You’re right, David, I am scrounging for a favor. You still have access to Jorja Duval’s body?”
“So long as it’s an unsolved case-you bet.”
“Then can you get anything more out of her? We’re heading straight up the creek with this one.”
There was a long pause at the other end as David Hawke considered the request. “We pretty much gave her the full battery, more than just the standard checklist. We could run her blood for specifics, if you have any suggestions. What’re you looking for? Drugs? Environmental chemicals?”
“That’s the problem,” I had to tell him. “I don’t know. We have no idea who killed her, or who spooked the guy we just killed. Basically, she’s the only one left we can interrogate, even if it’s after the fact.”
I could almost see him nodding at the phone in comprehension. This was, as I’d hoped it would be, just the kind of problem he and his colleagues liked to tackle most.
“There is something I could try,” he finally said slowly. “There’s a retired guy in Florida who’s been trying to sell people on how to lift prints from human skin. Has something to do with temperature differences between the skin surface and the material you want to transpose the print to. Anyhow, he’s been fiddling with it since the late seventies, and just recently started getting some consistent results.”
“That sounds perfect,” I said, almost cutting him off.
“Yeah, well, ‘sounds’ may be the operative word. This is still considered iffy stuff, and it has a pile of variables that’ll render it null and void: the body’s temperature, exposure, cleanliness, extent of decay, and a bunch of other things. They all have to work together, more or less, as do factors like was the assailant wearing gloves, were his fingers oily enough, was it the right type of oil, did he press too hard or not hard enough, and so on. You get the idea.”
“Unfortunately,” I admitted.
He sounded apologetic for overdoing the caveat. “Hey, don’t get depressed until I give you good reason. I will try this out, right on the bruises we think his hands left on her arms. In fact, I’ve been looking forward to giving this technique a shot.”
“Okay,” I said. “I appreciate it. And I promise not to hold my breath.”
He laughed. “You can if you want to. This won’t take long. I’ll call you tomorrow or the next day and let you know what I’ve found.”
Shayla Rossi was being housed in the basement, courtesy of the Brattleboro police, sitting in a narrow cell with the traditional metal toilet and a bunk. There were no other short-term residents at the moment, so instead of moving her to the interrogation room upstairs, I left her behind bars. I merely dragged a folding chair to the other side of her door and made myself comfortable.
“Who the hell are you people?” she demanded.
I remembered what the constable had said about her cranky personality. “Vermont Bureau of Investigation. My name’s Joe Gunther.”
“Never heard of it.” She was sitting on the bunk, her back against the wall, her knees drawn up before her. My mind flashed back to what I’d just told David Hawke about our persistent low visibility, a problem I sensed I’d soon be yearning for.
“We work on major felonies, Ms. Rossi-the really bad stuff.”
“That has nothing to do with me. That’s Bobby’s rap.”
I flapped my injured arm slightly, remembering that she’d known Richie Lane by his real name of Bobby Lanier. “Your dog gave me this.”
“I didn’t set him on you.”
“You trained him,” I said.
Shayla Rossi merely pressed her lips into a thin, straight line.
I glanced down at the file I’d brought with me. “I see the gun Bobby fired was yours, too.”
“I didn’t know he was going to use it.”
“You knew he was on the run.”
“So?”
“That’s harboring a fugitive, Ms. Rossi, and aiding and abetting. And say what you want about Vermont being soft on crime, we still take assaulting a police officer pretty seriously. Unless you help me out, you could spend a long time in a cell.” I thought back to her isolated home and what it said about her choices in life, and added, “Except that you’d be living with dozens of other women, some pretty nasty, all piled on top of one another. We have a real overcrowding problem in our jails.”
Her arms slipped around her knees to hug them closer to her. “You’re so full of shit you can’t see straight. I didn’t do a damn thing. My lawyer’ll have me out of here like that.” She tried to snap her fingers, but either her technique or her sweaty hands betrayed her-there was no sound beyond a pathetic plop.
I referred back to the file. “Right-your lawyer. Public defender. Seems like he had a little trouble spelling your name, kept writing down ‘Sheila.’”
I actually had no idea if that were true. There was no mention of it in my paperwork. But it had the desired effect.
“That fucking idiot,” she said, her hot, narrowed eyes watching me as if I might suddenly strike out.
I shook my head sympathetically. “Shayla. I know you don’t think much of us, or the system in general. But you’re between a rock and a hard place here.” I paused before suggesting, “It’s not where you have to be.”