“I’m not getting anywhere. You?” Trent looked over the partition between them.
“Nope.” Movement on her screen caught her attention and had her looking. A new email from CSI Stuart had filtered into her inbox. “I mightfall over…”
“What?”
“CSI Stuart emailed me, and I didn’t have to follow up.” Maybe that wasn’t a fair judgment to make, as she’d only worked with the woman one other time. But it had been painful. She and Keller had taken their time processing a child’s bedroom, and even after finding marks outside a window, Stuart had refused to conclude it indicated a break-in. Her argument was there were no scuffs or damage to the window itself. The way Amanda saw it, at some point one needs to use common sense and draw a conclusion.
“What is she saying?” Trent got up and joined her in her cubicle.
Amanda clicked on the message and read off the highlights. “There were no DNA tags on the brown hairs taken from the bottom of the vacuum, and the tarp was clean. No fingerprints, touch DNA, or footwear prints. The house, too, was clean. They searched the house for a chemical that matched the smell and came up empty.”
“So the killer arrived with the tarp, rope, and cleaner. That’s one premeditated murder right there.”
“Yep. CSI Keller also told me that she found the victim’s laptop on the back seat of her Lexus and accessed it. Nothing flagged in a search of her browsing history and emails as being relevant to her murder.” Amanda sat back, having reached the end of the updates. There was nothing said about the bullet fragments. As she was about to shoot back an email asking about that, a fresh one came in from Stuart with the subjectBallistics.“Here we go…” She skimmed the message and sat back, letting out a deep breath. “Spencer’s gun isn’t a match. We can release him.”
“That’s great news.”
“That it is.” Though in one way it was bittersweet. He’d suffered all he had as an innocent man. But what choice did she have? “Stuart said that the markings on thefragments suggest they came from a Glock. She can’t get more specific than that and provide a model because many of their guns leave the same rifling marks. There are also some other striations that lead her to believe a cheap silencer was used.”
“I’m telling ya, something is off here. Three taps and now we have a silencer… Even a cheap one.” He pierced her eyes with his.
She shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking, but let’s dig more into what we have.”
“We don’t have much. We haven’t turned up anyone who had a motive to kill Christine Lane. Meanwhile, her murder suggests premeditation.”
“We could speak to the people in her victims’ support group, see if any of them offer a unique perspective. She could have pushed her nose in somewhere it wasn’t appreciated. A perp felt threatened and came after her.”
“That’s one route that could involve a lot of time and get us nowhere. I say we start with reading reports from canvassing officers on Charmed Court. A neighbor they interviewed might have heard or seen something.”
“We can check the system, see what’s there.”
Officers needed to enter their notes at the end of each shift before heading out.
“I’ll call the uniformed sergeant on duty and get the officer names who went out.” Trent returned to his cubicle to make the call.
“I’ll get Spencer released.” She got on the phone with Malone to get that put into motion. When she hung up, a weight lifted off her only to be replaced by another one. How was she ever going to mend her relationship with Spencer? Was it even possible?
Trent spoke over the partition. “Wyatt, Brandt, and Jensen covered the neighborhood. You review Wyatt’s notes, and I’lltake Brandt’s. Whoever finishes first wins the prize of reading Jensen’s interviews.”
“You really know how to motivate a person,” she teased before digging in. The first four people Wyatt spoke to had nothing to offer. She started the last one. Her stomach was sinking, hope leaving her, until she got further in. “Trent. We might have an eyewitness.”
“Wow, really?”
“Get over here.” Once he stood beside her, she pointed at her monitor and summarized the report. “A neighbor, Paris Dobson, saw alate-nightjogger pass in front of Sharp’s house and then double back and run in place out front for a bit.”
“That’s all?” His dry tone sapped some of her enthusiasm.
“It might be enough. This was around nine thirty. Not what I’d call late night, but…”
“It fits the timeline. Christine died within the hour. But a jogger?”
“Let me keep reading…” She’d stopped when she reached the description of this person. “It was a woman dressed in spandex shorts and a baggy T-shirt, with a backpack.” Amanda scanned the entry and picked up a bit later. “Dobson never saw this woman around the neighborhood before. She didn’t remember seeing any strange vehicles in the area either. But a woman, Trent.” She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to stress that when Spencer was already absolved.
“It seems absurd that a jogger would wear a backpack on a run through residential neighborhoods. If she was seen hiking through a long trail or woods, then, yeah, I might see it.”
“So let’s say this mystery jogger is our killer. A baggy shirt could conceal a gun and holster, and the backpack could hold the tarp, rope, and cleaner. Then upon her exit, she’d have a bag to carry out any evidence like rags or whatever she used to clean up after herself.”
“But we can’t overlook that.”
