At the Scene of the Crime Page 2

  “They don’t have the same fingerprints.”

  “Not exactly, but there were enough points of similarity not to clash with the partials we got from Angela’s apartment. She gave us the only complete set we got when she pressed Andrea’s fingers around the bathroom glass. By then the barbiturates had made Andrea pliable enough for anything. They were Angela’s prescription, remember; she was the one with the resistance.”

  Davidoff glanced through the rest of the communications on his desk and slid them over. “Angela dipped into the till of every business she ever worked for in three states. She’d’ve done forty years easy when it all caught up with her. Her sister picked a hell of a time to visit.”

  Henry read. The recent death of Andrea’s father had placed his documents in her hands. When she found out she had a twin sister in the U.S., she’d looked her up on the Internet.

  “It was a gift to Angela,” Henry said. “Andrea’s record was clean and she had their father’s trust fund. Angela even had a sample of her sister’s signature on her passport for practice.”

  “She needed it. She had a one-day layover in Germany, just long enough to transfer the fund to a Swiss account before she skedaddled to Amsterdam. She couldn’t risk slipping up in front of her sister’s friends in Germany.”

  “I knew she’d be moving fast. She’d need the cash to fight extradition once we got the official fingerprint file and found out it wasn’t Angela in the morgue.”

  Davidoff grinned. “Congratulations, Aleck. You proved all the scientific bells and whistles in the world are no match for old-fashioned detective work.”

  “I’m not knocking the bells and whistles today. They’ll help make the conviction.”

  “You can afford to be generous; you’re legend now. What was the name of that old-time railroad worker who beat a steam engine?”

  “John Henry.”

  “Any relation?”

  Alexander Henry glanced at the watch on his right wrist. He’d been retired six minutes. “We’ll have to compare DNA to find out.”

  BETTER LUCKY THAN GOOD

  BY JEANNE C. STEIN

  DETECTIVE PATRICK MCDUFF WAS ON A TEAR.

  “We can thank television for this. Not a thing goes on anywhere in the world that we aren’t privy to. We’ve become inured to the horrible atrocities inflicted every day upon the most vulnerable in places whose names we can’t pronounce. Terrorists and tornadoes wipe out entire villages in third world countries and we don’t give them a second thought. Wars are waged, but unless they affect the price of oil, we yawn and click the remote.”

  I had to stifle a yawn myself. I agreed with everything he said, not that it bore the faintest relevance to what we were here to investigate. At best, he was making an ass of himself in front of strangers. At worst, his pontificating in the middle of a case confirmed what some of my colleagues long suspected: my partner was losing it.

  We’re standing in the middle of the Rare Book Room at a major Denver university. McDuff, me—Detective Lorna Fitzgerald of the Felony Theft Squad—and the forensic team. It’s 9:30 a.m. on a Tuesday in late October. The call came in to dispatch two hours ago. The head librarian reported to work and found the door ajar. At first, she thought it was the cleaning team. Again.

  Until she opened the Rare Book Room. Six volumes were missing. Books worth a cool $3.2 million.

  Standing right outside the room now are two hand-wringing librarians: the head librarian who discovered and reported the crime, and her assistant, who arrived moments after we did. Members of the forensic team have taken photographs and are now at work processing the scene.

  The Rare Book Room is a room in name only—in actuality, it’s a vault. About ten feet by ten feet in size. Two walls with floor-to-ceiling glass-fronted bookcases fitted with key locks. Tempered glass, according to the librarians. The vault door is six-inch tempered steel with a combination lock. There is no sign that it was tampered with. The interior is temperature controlled, with a security camera in the upper right-hand corner. A six-foot steel work table and two metal chairs with padded seats and backs are against the third wall. The only items on the table are a computer monitor and a box of latex gloves.

  All my observations. McDuff doesn’t seem interested in anything except continuing his diatribe.

  “The one area we seem to be paying close attention to,” he says, “is crime—specifically how to commit it and get away with it. We have here a perfect example.”

  He draws a breath, poised to rage on.

  I put a hand on his arm. “I think calling this a good example of a perfect crime is disturbing the natives.” I keep my voice low and surreptitiously jerk a thumb toward the librarians. “They’re upset enough without giving them the idea we’ll never recover their books.”

  McDuff pauses at that, looking down at me as he always does, making me feel like a kid who wandered into the adult’s corner by mistake. He’s fifty-something to my twenty-nine, six feet to my five-two and built like a square-bodied wrestler, all planes and angles. He has six months to go until retirement and he’s determined to spend those last six months letting everyone know how he feels about everything.

  He does, however, stop long enough to follow my gaze to the two outside the door. The librarian closest to us has stopped her hand wringing and is frowning. “You don’t think you’ll catch whoever stole our books?”

  Thick, horn-rimmed glasses perched on a thin nose magnify the concern in her owlish eyes. Even with those glasses, she’s pretty in an efficient sort of way. Her short, sun-touched brown hair frames a heart-shaped face. She’s wearing a nicely tailored suit, good shoes. She’s in her forties, and, according to her statement, the head librarian.

  “Not at all, Ms. Simmons,” I reply before McDuff can. He’d probably advise her to file the insurance claim. Now. “We’re giving this case our full attention. These books, besides their monetary value, have immense historical value as well. They are irreplaceable and we intend to get them back.”

  She doesn’t look reassured.

  Probably because McDuff is shaking his head in a way that suggests I have no idea what I’m talking about.

  As usual. The fact that we’ve been partners for a year and have the best record in the major crimes department for closing cases is eternally and irrevocably lost on him.

  Laura Givens, one of the forensic investigators, catches my eye. I excuse myself and step over to where Laura has been swirling fingerprint powder over the glass doors that until a few hours ago held six rare art books. She inclines her head in a curt nod toward McDuff.

  “He’s in fine form today.”

  “Let’s shut him up. Got anything?”

  Givens nods and points to a set of fingerprints caught by the magnetic powder above the catch on the cabinet door. “Clean as a whistle except for this. One full, several partials. Of course, we won’t know if these belong to our thief until I compare them with Ms. Simmons and her assistant. According to her, they’re the only two allowed access to the books.”

  “Run them as soon as you can and let me know.”

  I’ve turned back to Ms. Simmons, now speaking with quiet urgency to the woman introduced earlier as her assistant, Melanie Byers. Byers is a little shorter than Ms. Simmons, heavier, plainer. Ten years older. She’s dressed in tan slacks and a white shirt over which she’s draped a worn cardigan of muddy brown. She’s looking up at Simmons with an expression bordering on hysteria. I step closer to hear the exchange.

  Simmons: “Why did you come back last night?”

  Byers: “I didn’t.”

  “Don’t lie. I saw you. You were spying on me.”

  “Why would I?”

  An eyebrow rises. “Because you wanted something to use against me? You’ve been trying to get in his good graces since I came on board. This must have looked like your best chance.”

  “Use what against whom?” I interject myself into the conversation.

  They jerk away from each other and
turn toward me.

  Simmons speaks first. “No one.”

  Byers: “We weren’t talking about the robbery. We were talking about—something else.”

  And I’m the tooth fairy.

  I’m going to let it go. For now. “The security camera. I need the tape.”

  Simmons nods, regaining composure. “Of course. Come with me.”

  We leave the vault and I follow her to the back of the library, through a door she opens with a key, into a small room. Six by six. Barely bigger than a broom closet. Nothing but a console in here and a computer monitor. Green blinking lights on the console board indicate tapes running. Simmons points to one of them.

  “That’s the camera in the vault. The two next to it are focused on the main reading rooms. The others are cameras above the entrance outside, my office and the stairwell.”

  “I’ll need them all.”

  She reaches to eject the tapes.

  I stop her, slipping gloves on my own hands. “Just show me.”

  She does, pointing to the eject buttons below each tape well. I take each tape as it slides out of the machine, bag and tag, watch as she slips new tapes into the slots and reactivates the system.

  “Are you the only one with access to this room?”

  “Yes. No. My assistant has a key. She’s not very computer savvy so I’m the one who checks the tapes each morning to be sure the system is running. I change the tapes once a week. On Monday morning.”

  Today is Tuesday. The robbery took place last night. Only twenty-four hours to examine. Very efficient, considering most businesses change their tapes once a month. Or once a year, making the tapes worthless as constant rerecording deteriorates the images until they become unrecognizable.

  “What do you do with the old tapes?”

  “We keep them for a year. In a storage area below the administration building.”

  “I’ll want our tech to dust for fingerprints in here.”

  Simmons nods and I speak into my radio, asking Givens to join us. She does and I let her work her magic while Simmons and I return to the vault.

  The forensic team is finishing up. They’ve dusted the surface of the table, the chairs, the area up around the security camera. The supervisor, Will Lahey, a tall, lean black man with hawkish eyes, is speaking to McDuff when I return.

  “Nothing. Whoever broke in probably used the latex gloves so obligingly available on that table. Didn’t even have to bring his own.”

  Simmons catches the undertone of sarcasm and bristles. “The books in this vault are priceless. Some are hundreds of years old. The gloves are used to protect the paper and ink from oils on the human hand that would destroy them over time. Without gloves, we’d have no access to the books at all. We couldn’t touch them.”

  McDuff is listening, a thoughtful rather than abrasive expression on his face. For once.

  “Who is allowed access to the books?” he asks.

  Simmons ticks them off on her fingers as she replies. “Professors, some grad students, occasionally members of the public if they’re doing research and are vouched for by a staff member. Everyone signs in and either Byers or I remain with them while they are using the books. They are allowed one book at a time. They can work two hours at a time. They must make an appointment in advance.” She’s shaking her head. “With all our safeguards, I don’t understand how this could have happened.”

  McDuff says, “Can I see the sign-in book?”

  Simmons leads him over to her desk. Byers, who I’ve almost forgotten about, follows behind.

  I turn to Lahey, consulting my notes. “Simmons said she’s the only one with the combination to this door. She and Byers each have keys to the cabinet, but without access to the combination, the keys aren’t worth much.”

  Lahey smiles. “A real locked door mystery. Maybe the prints on the cabinet will give us a clue. I wouldn’t count on it, though.” He takes the bagged tapes out of my hand and holds them up. “I’ll get these back to the lab. Do you feel lucky?”

  “Unfortunately, no.” McDuff was right. Anyone who has watched Law & Order would know how to disable or cover a security camera lens.

  “Jenkins and Taylor will stay behind to finish up in the outer office,” Lahey says. “I’ll see you back at headquarters.”

  McDuff comes back just as Lahey is leaving. He hands him the sign-in book, also in a plastic evidence bag. Simmons watches Lahey depart; a frown of concern pulls at the corners of her mouth.

  “Ms. Simmons.”

  She drags her eyes off the departing Lahey and refocuses on me. “Yes?”

  “You are the only one with the combination to the vault, is that correct?”

  A nod.

  “You can’t be here every hour of every day. What happens when you’re on vacation? Or have a day off?”

  “Access to the books is restricted by my schedule. If I’m not here, no one goes into the vault. Period.”

  “But the combination must be kept somewhere. What if there was an emergency? A fire? Or something happened to you?”

  “The vault is fireproof. If something happened to me, there is one other person with access to the combination. The president of the university. He keeps it in a safe in his office.”

  Givens rejoins us, giving me a furtive shake of her head. Nothing in the security room either.

  She heads off in the same direction as Lahey had moments before.

  McDuff looks around the vault. “I think we’ve done all we can for now, Ms. Simmons,” he says. “The president of the university is waiting for us downstairs. No one is to have access to the vault until we give the okay. We’ll have to secure the outer office, too. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

  McDuff apologizing? He actually sounds sincere. Unbelievable. Could he be on to something?

  Simmons looks as if she’s about to object. I follow McDuff ’s lead. “We can’t risk missing something that might lead us to the thieves. You want to get those books back, right?”

  That’s something she can’t argue. McDuff motions to Simmons and starts for the door. He casts a backward glance at me and then to Byers, still standing beside the desk that held the sign-in book. Her posture is rigid, her expression drawn and frightened.

  I let McDuff escort Simmons out of the room before I approach Byers.

  “I’m sorry about all this,” I tell her. “It must be very upsetting. I don’t suppose there’s a place we could get coffee, is there? The forensic team needs to finish up in here and it would be easier if they didn’t have to work around us.”

  She shrugs. “There’s a staff lounge down the hall.”

  “Do you mind showing me?”

  She casts an uneasy glance toward the open vault. “What about that?”

  Interesting. Simmons didn’t make that inquiry. She just left with McDuff. “There are two policeman stationed right outside. I’ll ask them to come in and stand guard until we get back. Will that be all right?”

  She reluctantly agrees, I bring the uniforms in, tell them not to let anyone except the forensic team in or out, and we head for the lounge.

  It’s a typical faculty setup. Coffee bar, refrigerator, a few vending machines, utilitarian tables and chairs. Doors marked “women” and “men” against the back wall. There’s no one else in the room. We had moved everyone outside as soon as we began to process the scene. The coffee machine is making gurgling noises, though. It had been started before we arrived.

  I gesture to the coffee machine but Byers shakes her head.

  I motion to a chair and she sinks into it. I perch my butt on the corner of the table. “Have you worked here long?”

  “Twelve years.”

  She’s staring down at her hands. “She’s going to blame me for this,” she says quietly.

  “Who? Simmons? Why would you say that?”

  She doesn’t look up. “Because she wants to get rid of me. She’s wanted to since the day she arrived.”

  “Which was?”


  “Six months ago.”

  I feign surprise. “She’s only been here six months? And she’s your supervisor?”

  Her shoulders draw up. “She has the advanced degree. It’s the way academia works. I trained her. I know more about rare books than anyone else in the state. In the country, probably. But she has the advanced degree so she gets the title.”

  I shake my head sympathetically. “It’s the same with police work. Some kid comes off the street with a college degree and he’s promoted to detective over street cops with ten years’ experience. It’s a bitch.”

  “You’re pretty young to be a detective,” she says, eyeing me warily. “You one of those kids, too?”

  I grimace. “You caught me. But I did my time on the street before I got my degree. And I work hard to prove myself. Have to with a partner like McDuff.”

  I get a half-smile at that. “He’s a character. He doesn’t think we’ll get those books back, does he?”

  “He’s been wrong before.” I let a few heartbeats of silence stretch between us. “What did Simmons mean about your coming back last night?”

  She flinches. “It’s nothing.”

  “I don’t think it’s nothing, Ms. Byers. And if you want to keep Simmons from accusing you of complicity in the theft, maybe even of being an accessory, you should tell me your story before Simmons tells hers to McDuff.”

  Byers’s eyes widen. “Could that happen? Could I be charged with being an accessory?”

  “Depends on what you did.”

  Color floods her cheeks. “She told me I could have the night off even though it was my turn to close. She’s never done that before. I don’t know why I was suspicious, but I was.”

  “Simmons said she saw you. What did you see?”

  The color deepens. She hesitates, then, “This is too embarrassing.”

  “For whom? You?”

  At that question, her reticence evaporates. Words tumble out. “No. Not for me. For Simmons. I might have been wrong to sneak back but what she was doing was certainly worse. She was having sex.”