At the Scene of the Crime Read online

  Byers spits out the word like it tastes bad. It’s such a visceral reaction, I have to keep from smiling. She doesn’t notice though, because she’s still caught up in her story.

  “It was the most shameful thing I’ve ever seen. They were doing it on a chair. She was straddling the guy. That’s how she saw me. Of course, as soon as I realized what was happening, I got out of there.”

  I’m visualizing the layout of the office. The vault. The outer office. The outside door opens directly into the office space. The vault door is in the back, out of sight. For Byers to approach unnoticed, Simmons must have been having sex—

  “They were in the vault?”

  Byers nods. “Awful, isn’t it?”

  “Could you see who she was having sex with?”

  She shakes her head. “No. They were on one of the chairs. She was facing the door. He had his back to me. She didn’t even stop when she saw me. Just gave me a look and I left.”

  The chairs in the vault are metal but the seats and backs are cushioned. “Excuse me a minute,” I tell Byers. “I need to check in with headquarters.”

  She nods and I step into the hall. I dial one of the CSIs still working the office. Don’t want to risk walking down there and having Byers follow. I keep my voice low.

  “Jenkins? Check for DNA evidence in the vault. The chairs, specifically. There might have been some extracurricular activity there last night. Thanks. Let me know what you find.”

  Byers doesn’t look as if she’s moved a muscle since I left the room. Is she even breathing?

  “Sorry for the interruption. Let’s get back to what you saw last night. Can you tell me anything at all about the man with Simmons?”

  Byers draws a breath. “Not much. I only saw him from behind. He had short brown hair. He was wearing a red plaid flannel shirt. Jeans.” She frowns in distaste. “I know because I could see them bunched around his ankles. And he wore glasses.”

  “Glasses?”

  She looks pleased that I picked up on that. “They were on the table. Horn-rimmed frames. Tinted lenses.”

  “Wow. That’s very observant of you. Anything else?”

  She shakes her head. “No. I’m sorry.”

  “Was there anything about him that you found familiar? Do you think you may have seen him before?”

  She considers the question a minute before answering. “You know, there was something about him. I’m just not sure what. Can I think about that awhile?”

  “Of course. While you do that, I’ll go back down to the office to check on the crime scene techs. See if they’ve come up with anything to help us.”

  She nods.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee or some water before I go?”

  A smile. “Water would be nice. There are some bottles in the refrigerator.”

  I fetch one for her. I leave her sipping from the bottle, her expression veiled and serious, anxious, I’m sure, to dredge up anything to identify Simmons’ lover.

  I’m just at the door when she snaps her fingers. “Wait. The security camera. It would have caught them. Have you checked it?”

  I shake my head. “The tape is at the lab. I’m sure as soon as a technician examines it, he’ll let me know if it can help us.” I pause again. “But Simmons knows the vault has a camera. I doubt she’d let herself be caught on tape.”

  A cloud darkens Byers’s eyes. “And she knows how to manipulate the tapes, too. I’ll bet she’s erased everything that happened last night.”

  “If she has, we’ll know.”

  This time when I start out the door, she doesn’t stop me.

  Jenkins is working the vault when I come in. He’s using an LED lamp on the chair cushions. He slips off orange UV glasses and hands them to me.

  “Bingo.”

  I look through the lenses. Semen is naturally fluorescent and under the lamp, the sample glows. “And the other chair?”

  Smith nods. On the table rests a plastic tube containing a pad stained orange-red. He takes a second from his kit, opens the cardboard cap, and moistens the pad with distilled water. He runs the pad over the chair seat and slips it back into the tube. He crushes a vial, squeezes, and this pad, too, turns color.

  “Who knew rare books were such a turn-on?” he says.

  Not me. Of course, none of this brings us any closer to knowing who stole the books. Consensual sex is not a crime.

  Smith is putting his toys away. “I’ll get the samples back to the lab. Any idea who the donors are?”

  “Not sure. For now, run them through CODIS. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Smith grins and holds up the tubes. “Somebody did.”

  Byers is right where I left her when I head back to the lounge. She’s finished the water, is rolling the empty bottle nervously between her hands. She looks up when I appear in the doorway. “I haven’t remembered anything else yet,” she says with a sigh. “I’m sorry.”

  I shake my head. “Nothing to be sorry about. You’re doing your best. Why don’t you join Ms. Simmons and my partner downstairs? I’ll finish up here and join you in a minute.”

  I stand aside for her to precede me out of the lounge door. She tosses the empty water bottle into the trash can to the right of the door on her way out. It’s a natural, reflexive thing to do.

  Just as it’s a natural, reflexive thing for me to pick it out of the trash and take it to Jenkins.

  McDuff is standing in the foyer of the library with Simmons and Byers and a tall, lean, graying man in a well-tailored suit and Gucci loafers. Outside, there’s a knot of about thirty or so students and a half dozen faculty members either drawn by curiosity because of the police cars parked around the entrance, or waiting for the library to open. They’ve been corralled by uniforms and moved to the side.

  McDuff spies me coming out of the elevator and calls me over.

  “Detective Fitzgerald, this is Arthur Nichols, president of the university. Dr. Nichols, my partner.”

  We shake hands, briefly because he drops mine at the moment of contact, and says, “Are you finished with the library yet?”

  The question catches me off guard. I would have expected his first inquiry would be whether or not I had any idea who stole the school’s most valuable books. I frown. “We’ll finish up as soon as possible. We have a team checking the entire building as well as investigators working the Rare Book Room and the outer office. I must tell you, though, it may be tomorrow before we can allow general access to the library and longer for the Rare Book Room. We’ll have to seal that area until our investigation is done.”

  He isn’t happy with my answer. He has the kind of face that you see featured on ads for retirement villages—distinguished, tan, comfortably well off. However, the vibe he’s throwing off—abrupt, aggressive, almost hostile—is at odds with the image.

  We’ve been together long enough for McDuff to pick up on my vibes and right now, he reads my negative impression of Dr. Nichols. “We’ll hurry things along as much as we can,” he says to him in a placating tone. “You must realize, though, that our first priority is getting the books back. I’m sure it’s your first priority, as well.”

  Nichols grumbles that of course, it’s important to find the books. He throws Simmons and Byers a look that suggests regardless of the outcome, their tenure at the university is in serious jeopardy. Then he’s charging back through the door, avoiding questions thrown at him by the milling crowd outside.

  McDuff follows. Simmons said Nichols had the only copy of the combination in his safe. McDuff will be on his way to see if it’s still where it’s supposed to be.

  Simmons and Byers look shocked at Nichols’ attitude. Simmons breaks the silence first. “He thinks it’s my fault.”

  Byers opens her mouth as if to respond, then abruptly closes it. After a moment, she says, “He blames me, too. How could he blame me? You’re the only one with the combination to the vault. Did you forget to lock it last night? After all, you were distracted.”

 
Simmons’s eyes flash. She looks at me, then back to Byers. “You told her?”

  Byers’ jaw tightens, her shoulders tense. “What the hell,” she snaps. “What do I have to lose? I’m probably going to be fired, too. At least I’ll have the satisfaction of taking you down with me.”

  My own shoulders are tensing as well. Am I going to have to break up a catfight? “Ladies, ladies.” I motion to a uniform standing a few feet away. “Ms. Byers, will you go with this officer? Just for a few minutes. I need to talk to Ms. Simmons.”

  She doesn’t argue. She has the self-satisfied look of one who is about to witness something wonderful.

  Simmons, on the other hand, is exhibiting great concern.

  I take her into an alcove and she leans against the wall. She covers her face with her hands.

  “It was stupid,” she says. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Shouldn’t have had sex at work or shouldn’t have stolen the books?”

  She straightens up. “I didn’t steal the books.”

  “What about your boyfriend?”

  “Boyfriend? God. He’s not a boyfriend. Exactly.”

  “He have a name?”

  “Jeffrey Talbot.”

  “Did Jeffrey steal the books?”

  “No. The cabinet was locked when we were—” she blanches, “when we were having sex.”

  “Why the vault?”

  A shrug. “It was different. It’s a game. We take turns coming up with inventive places to have sex.”

  “You’ve only been with the university for six months. How long have you and Jeffrey been playing this game?”

  “We’ve known each other since I moved to Denver. Almost two years. It’s not what you think. He’s married to my cousin. We get together once a month or so. None of this makes me sound like a very nice person, or a smart one, but having an affair is not against the law.”

  Her tone is becoming defensive. Her bearing is, too: she’s leaning toward me, hands in fists at her side.

  “If you want a suspect, look at Byers. She’s jealous of me. She wants my job. She may have the combination to the vault for all I know. She’s been undercutting me with the president since the day I arrived.”

  “What about the security camera in the vault? What am I going to see when I look at it?”

  That deflates the aggressiveness. She sinks back against the wall. “I rewound the tape when we finished. There will be a time lapse of about forty minutes.” Her voice drops, then brightens. “But doesn’t that prove I had nothing to do with the burglary? You’ll be able to see the cabinet and the books inside. I closed the vault at ten. The books were there.”

  My cell phone chirps. I excuse myself, telling Simmons to stay put until I come back.

  When I’m out of earshot, I open the connection. “Fitzgerald.”

  “It’s Laura. Ran the fingerprints on the cabinet. They belong to Byers. Found tiny particles of something foreign in the prints. I’m running tests on that now. Lahey is processing the DNA from the chairs. Any chance you can get samples from Byers and Simmons for comparison?”

  “I’ll ask. I gave Jenkins a water bottle. Start with that. In the meantime, I’ll call for a warrant. Just in case I can’t persuade the librarians to volunteer.”

  Laura signs off and I call an assistant DA to request a warrant. When I return to the lobby, Simmons is no longer where I left her.

  She’s squaring off with Byers.

  “You bitch. You’re not going to get what you want. You saw Dr. Nichols. He’ll fire both of us as soon as this is sorted out. I won’t have any trouble getting another job. What are you going to do?”

  Byers isn’t rising to the bait. “I can take care of myself,” she says. “But I wouldn’t be too sure about finding another job if I were you. With the Internet these days, you never know what’s going to show up.”

  Simmons’s face darkens. “You post anything defamatory about me and I’ll sue you.”

  Once again, Byers opens her mouth as if she’s going to fire back, then stops herself, takes a deep breath, remains silent.

  I touch Simmons’s arm. She turns toward me, her expression angry, combative. This time, I tell the uniform to escort her to the other side of the lobby. She looks like she wants to resist, but doesn’t, casting one last, fury-filled frown Byers’ way.

  “She’s something, isn’t she?” Byers says to me. “I’ll bet she and her boyfriend plan to sell the books and run off to Tahiti. She doesn’t care about the loss to the university. She only cares about herself.”

  My cell phone chirps. I shake a finger at Byers. “Stay here.”

  She nods and I walk away to take the call.

  “It’s Lahey. I’ve got two interesting bits for you. First, the stains from the chairs in the vault. Semen and vaginal fluids in one. The other—just vaginal fluids. The combination we can’t match. Not until we get samples from Simmons and her boyfriend. The vaginal fluids, though, are Byers’s. We were able to match it from the water bottle.”

  “No semen in that one?”

  “Not a trace. And nothing to indicate a condom was used. No lubricant, no spermicide, no residuals of any kind. I’d guess it was a party of one. Second, the substance in Byers’s fingerprints? Coal dust. Minute particles.”

  I snap my phone shut. Coal dust?

  I look around the building. The university is one of the oldest in Denver. It’s been retrofitted many times with new heating and air conditioning systems. Originally, though, I’d bet there was a combustion heating system of some kind. I dial McDuff.

  He picks up on the first ring. “Yes?”

  “Are you still with Nichols?”

  “In his office as we speak. The combination was in the safe in an envelope with a notarized stamp across the seal. Doesn’t look as if it has been tampered with.”

  “Ask him if the library had a coal-burning heating system at one time. And if there’s an old furnace room somewhere in the building.”

  I hear him put the question to Nichols. And I hear Nichols’ answer. When McDuff comes back on the line, I ask, “When was the last retrofit?”

  Nichols answer comes through.

  Ten years ago.

  McDuff says he’s on his way back to the library and I sign off.

  The next call I put through is to the search team making a sweep of the building. They’d started on the top floor of the five-story building and were making their way down. I tell them to send a team to the basement and look for an old furnace room.

  Byers has been watching me. Not out of concern. Her expression is detached, more curious than anxious. I’m about to start back to her when my cell phone rings again.

  “Fitzgerald? This is Dan Lowrey from the computer lab. Ran through the tape you sent us of the vault. Had no idea librarians were so frisky.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The tape from last night? Twenty-two minutes of nonstop sex in glorious color. Followed by ten minutes of black screen. Then, the camera is back on and the books are missing.”

  Whoa. Not what I expected to hear. “Have the tapes been doctored in any way?”

  “It’s possible. We’ll look at that next. Just thought you might want a preliminary report.”

  I snap my phone shut. Simmons thought she’d erased the tape. I look over at her. She’s talking to the uniform, gesturing toward Byers, her posture tense, angry, incredulous. She admitted to erasing the tape. Obviously, the tape she erased was not the one she expected it to be. That tape must have been removed before she got to it.

  I cross the room and tell the uniform he can go back to Byers. Simmons’s expression is wary.

  “Ms. Simmons, I just heard from the computer lab. The tape we took from the player isn’t missing any time. At least, not the time you were with Talbot in the vault.”

  Color drains from her face. “That’s not possible. I took careful note of the time. I erased ten minutes before and ten minutes after . . . after what we did.”

  �
�Did you watch the tape before you erased it?”

  “Of course not. Why would I? I used the time indicator on the control. I was very precise.”

  I feel Byers’s eyes on me. When I glance over, she’s watching us.

  Simmons’s voice is tipping quickly to hysteria. “Do you mean what we did is on the tape?” She looks past me to Byers. “She did that, didn’t she? She must have stayed behind and switched out the tape before I got to it. That’s what she meant by something showing up on the Internet. She copied it.” She stops. Suspicion flashes in her eyes. “What else? What else did she do to the tape?”

  “We’re not sure she did anything, Ms. Simmons. But I will tell you that there was a ten-minute blackout on the tape and when taping resumed, the books were missing from the case.”

  Simmons jaw tightens. “She’s setting me up.”

  “I thought you said she wasn’t very computer savvy.”

  “That’s what she’s always told me.” Another flash of sudden awareness narrows her eyes. “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “Up to you. Of course, if you deal with us, tell us where the books are, you stand a much better chance of making a deal down the road.”

  Her jaw tightens. “I want a lawyer.”

  I shrug and gesture to a telephone on a nearby desk. “Your call.”

  McDuff has entered the lobby and we step off to the side. “Simmons has lawyered up.”

  He peers down at me. “You don’t look convinced she did it.”

  Once again, I feel Byers’s eyes on me. When I turn around, she’s watching with the same detached expression. I don’t acknowledge her, but focus again on McDuff.

  “What was up with Nichols? He acted more put out than concerned over the loss of such valuable university property.”

  McDuff shrugs. “The university is just recovering from a football sex scandal involving the entire offensive line and a call girl operation. It seriously impacted alumni funding. He’s afraid the bad publicity this is going to generate will exacerbate things.”

  Money. It always comes down to money.

  McDuff is looking over my shoulder. “Here comes the search team. Looks like they’ve found something.”