Chapter Five
Ten long minutes later, she drove out of the White House gates and headed for the southeastern quadrant of the city with two agents trailing her in a black SUV.
The detail was a small price to pay to keep from adding to Nick’s already considerable stress level.
He’d told her he couldn’t and wouldn’t be president unless she agreed to a minimal detail when she was on the job.
Vernon and Jimmy were the agents who trailed her during the regular workday.
She had no idea who was in the car behind her now and didn’t need to know.
They had their job to do, and she had hers.
With traffic light that time of day, she arrived at the crime scene fifteen minutes after she left the White House and thirty minutes after receiving the phone call from Dispatch.
That was thirty minutes too long, but sadly, her victim wasn’t going anywhere until she arrived.
After double-parking a block away, she approached the yellow crime scene tape and flashed her badge to the Patrol officer who’d been put in charge of keeping people away from the Honda minivan that housed their victim.
He raised the tape to allow Sam to duck underneath it.
“Thank you. What’ve we got?”
“I’m Officer Smyth, and this is my partner, Officer Linton.” Smyth, who was tall, Black and muscular, was the older of the two. Linton was a dark-haired woman with brown eyes and a curvy body.
“An honor to meet you, ma’am,” Linton said while Smyth tried not to roll his eyes.
“Give me the gist,” Sam said.
“From what the neighbors tell us,” Linton said, “the Honda Odyssey van was parked here several days ago, and it’s received some parking tickets.
Earlier today, one of the neighbors noticed a smell coming from the vehicle, and when she looked inside, she saw a foot sticking out from under a blanket. ”
Sam wanted to gag at the thought of what a dead body enclosed inside a car for several days would smell like. “I assume the car is locked?”
“It is,” Smyth said. “We took the liberty of calling a locksmith. He’ll be here any minute.”
“Good thinking,” Sam said, appreciative of anyone who saved her time on the job.
She peered in the window, saw the same foot the neighbors had seen and wondered why the cops who’d ticketed the car—repeatedly—hadn’t bothered to look inside.
At the front of the car, she retrieved the tickets and tucked them into her coat pocket for further investigation later. “Did you call in the plate?”
“We did,” Linton said. “It’s registered to a Robert Tappen of M Street Northeast in Brentwood.”
“Has it been reported stolen or missing?”
“We’ve had no reports involving this vehicle,” Smyth said.
“Appreciate the good work,” Sam said. “You were very thorough. I’d like to speak to the neighbor who called it in.”
“Right this way, Lieutenant.” Linton led Sam to a woman sitting on stairs. “This is Marcie Crossman. She lives here and had noticed the van parked here for a few days before she decided to look inside. Mrs. Crossman, this is Lieutenant Holland.”
“The first lady,” Marcie said with a small smile. “I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but…” She gestured to the car. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I saw the foot.”
“How long has the van been parked there?” Sam asked, making a note of the woman’s name in the notebook she carried with her.
“A couple of days. I can’t say for sure when it first showed up.”
“That helps. Is there anything else you can tell me about it?”
“Only that it started to smell today, which is when I looked inside.”
“Do you know anyone by the name of Tappen?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Will you please write down your name and number for me, just in case I have follow-up questions?”
Marcie took the pad from Sam, wrote down the information and handed it back to her.
“Thank you for your help and for calling it in.”
“I hope you figure out who’s in there and what happened to them.”
“Oh, we will. Don’t worry.”
When Sam walked around the van, she found Detective Dani Carlucci peering inside the window.
Tall, blonde and curvy, Dani had recently scared the crap out of Sam by going unresponsive.
When they’d gone to check on her, they’d found her seriously ill from food poisoning.
Sam hadn’t seen her since she’d come back to work. “Hey,” she said. “How you feeling?”
“Better. Not one hundred percent yet, but good enough to come back to work.”
“Salmonella is the worst, from what I’ve heard.”
“I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, except Detective Ramsey.”
Sam laughed at the mention of their nemesis. “We wish all forms of dysentery on him.”
“Indeed. What’ve we got?”
Sam brought her up to speed on what she’d learned so far, waving to the Crime Scene Unit commander, Lieutenant Haggerty, as he arrived, going through the details again with him.
“Lieutenant,” Smyth said, “the locksmith is here.”
“Thank you, Officer Smyth. Let’s get the onlookers moved out of here before we open the doors.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The locksmith recognized Sam but didn’t make a big deal out of it, which earned him points with her. He went right to work and had them inside the van five minutes later. When the doors opened, the foul odor came rushing out, making Sam and the others gag.
“Gnarly,” the locksmith said, summing it up with one well-chosen word.
Inside the van, the bound, gagged body of a blonde female had been placed on the floor of the second row of seats and covered with a blanket. If not for the smell, she might never have been noticed.
Carlucci took photos with her phone while Sam leaned in for a closer look at the victim.
With the duct tape on the woman’s face, Sam couldn’t see much.
However, she noted the woman’s purse, computer bag and suitcase were all still in the car, which more or less ruled out any sort of robbery motive.
The only thing that she didn’t see were the car keys.
After donning latex gloves, she found the woman’s wallet in her purse and found her license.
Holding it up under the car’s dome light, she noted the woman’s smiling face. Her name was Pamela Tappen.
“Let’s bag up her possessions and get them to the lab for processing.” After they’d done that and sent the items to the lab via a Patrol officer, Sam said, “Let’s wait for the ME, and then we can head to the Tappens’s house to see what we can find out about Pamela.”
“I’m with you, LT,” Carlucci said.
The Tappen family lived in a three-story townhome that was connected to a dozen others. The facade was white with black shutters, and the stairs had been sanded for ice.
“What I want to know,” Dani said, “is how she got so stinky when it’s so cold. Wouldn’t the cold act almost like a fridge?”
“Bodily fluids,” Sam said bluntly.
“Ugh, so she was alive in there for a while?”
“It’s a theory.”
Sam rang the doorbell and noted it was a regular, average doorbell and not the ridiculous symphony orchestra she’d encountered at the Thorn mausoleum.
A fiftysomething man came to the door wearing an apron that said Kiss the Chef.
He had a towel thrown over his shoulder, and the aromas of garlic and basil he brought with him made Sam’s mouth water.
The man did a double take when he saw who was on his front porch.
“Mr. Tappen, I’m Lieutenant Holland, and this is Detective Carlucci. We wondered if we could speak to you for a moment.”
“Of course, but what’s this about?” he asked as he stepped aside to admit them into the nicely kept home.
“Do you own a white Honda Odyssey minivan?” Sam asked.
“I do. That’s my wife’s car.”
“What’s your wife’s name?”
“Pam.” All at once, he seemed to realize that police being at his door could mean only one thing. “Is something wrong with her?”
Sam gestured to a sofa in a nearby living room. “Could we sit for a second?”
“Um, sure.” He led the way and sat on the love seat while Sam and Dani sat together on the sofa.
“When was the last time you spoke to your wife?”
“Friday. She was traveling for work this past weekend, and she’s so busy that it’s not unusual that we don’t hear from her while she’s gone. She’s due home tonight.”
Sam couldn’t for the life of her imagine not speaking to Nick for four days. She’d go mad. “What does she do for work?”
“She owns a business that provides conference services to a wide array of clients, everything from registration support to publications, signage, etc. She does it all, and when she’s on-site at a show, she puts in sixteen-hour days.”
“So you don’t text with her or anything during the shows?”
“Hardly ever. Now that our kids are older, she doesn’t check in like she did when they were little. Wh-what is this about?”
“Mr. Tappen, I’m sorry to have to tell you that your van was found in Southeast with the body of a blonde female inside it. Your wife’s purse and other belongings were in the car. We’re working under the assumption that the body is that of your wife.”
His face seemed to go completely lax with shock. “Oh my God.”
“The medical examiner would like you to come in to identify her, if possible.”
“You… My Pam is dead?” he asked, his eyes filling as his hands began to tremble.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh God,” he whispered, dropping his head into his hands. “How can this be happening?”
“Are you home alone?”
“Yes, my sons are at football practice, and my daughter is away at college in Massachusetts.”
“Were you here when Pam left for her work trip on Friday?”
“No, I went from work to Delaware for a tournament for my sons’ AAU football team. Pam was so bummed to miss it.”
“Are you able to come with us to identify the body?”
“I, ah, yeah. I just need to, uh, deal with the stove.”