Chapter 15
WAITING IN HIS CAR OUTSIDE the crime lab, Leroux flips through more pages of Melissa’s journal. Though he has already scoured the thing, finding nothing more to chase, it reminds him of how urgent this case is. Beth is still out there.
The journal feels heavier in his hands since the discovery of Melissa’s body, like the weight of her pain and suffering was poured out into the pages, and now he holds it all. He splits the pages about halfway through and begins reading a random entry.
Hey!
I swear this book club is saving my life.
It feels so good to talk with a group of girls about stuff that feels like it matters, you know?
I am so used to drifting and feeling meaningless, it’s nice to care about something …
anything. Tonight we talked about The Lovely Bones and man it just had us all in tears!
It’s so fucking deep, that book! I think we need a more lighthearted read next, but I still really liked this one!
If I met that Harvey jerk, I would never have followed him into some bunker!
I was yelling the whole time for Susie to just punch him in the face and run.
Oh well. I can’t wait to see what we will talk about next!
Love, love, love,
Melissa
He slaps the book closed, feeling like he has invaded her privacy.
He’s starting to understand her, to like her, even.
She was a young woman who found a place where she felt safe and valued for once in her life.
She loved to read and loved to talk about what she read even more.
She was looking for connections, and she had found them.
Then it was all ripped away from her because she followed Mr. Harvey into that bunker.
She found out that sometimes Mr. Harvey isn’t so easy to spot.
I should give this back to Sister Moreau.
He checks his watch, seeing it’s ten minutes past the time he said he would meet Ben. Leaning his head back onto the seat for a second, he puts the journal into the glove compartment and then goes inside.
Ben meets Leroux in the hallway of the crime lab.
He’s carrying a folder in one hand and a coffee in the other.
Something about Ben feels off today. His eyes dart nervously, and Leroux can detect a small tremble in his hands that sends the coffee sloshing briefly over the rim of the cup.
He looks exhausted, but Leroux thinks it might be part of a lab rat’s job to wear a permanent look of fatigue.
Leroux gestures to the cup. “I swear those blood results better not say our guy is a caffe mocha …” he says, a grin pulling at the corners of his lips.
Ben barely smiles back. His eyes dart from the coffee to the floor as he struggles to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
They walk together into a glass-enclosed conference room adjacent to the bustling hallway, perfect for anyone who wants to feel like a zoo animal on display.
As Ben closes the door behind them, it feels as if he’s sealed in a strange discomfort that makes Leroux’s head spin.
What kind of bullshit is he about to tell me? he thinks to himself, wishing he had a cigarette. It’s times like this when he doesn’t feel the least bit bad about it, either.
Wren sits at the table already, punctual as can be. She doesn’t have to be here, but it’s clear to Leroux that she’s been welcoming all distractions lately, and this crime scene is of particular interest to them both.
She knits her brows together, looking at Ben with concern.
It’s obvious that she can also feel the icy chill he’s brought into the conference room.
She flicks her gaze to Leroux and then back to Ben.
“We know you didn’t have a coffee in the lab.
John’s just being a jerk,” she says, leaning forward in her chair.
“Yes, of course,” Ben says, forcing a small, unconvincing chuckle from his lips.
“How did you even hear that?” Leroux asks Wren, genuinely impressed she could hear his ribbing of Ben over the hallway noise.
She shrugs. “You’re loud, and my ears are good. What’s with you, Ben?”
Ben looks flustered. He smiles uncomfortably, opening and closing the folder in his hands. “Sorry, I just …” He trails off.
“Spill it, Ben,” Leroux says, reading the stress in his voice.
Ben sighs, sliding the folder toward them and slouching down into a chair on the other side of the long table. “We got a local match for the second blood sample on Melissa Evans at the scene,” he says quietly. There’s no trace of excitement in his tone.
“That’s fucking great!” Leroux nearly yells, snatching the folder and flipping it open.
His eyes flick over the words, but it’s like parsing through an unfamiliar language.
He scans the papers for anything that might give him the answer he seeks, but then he catches Wren’s expression out of the corner of his eye.
He looks up and sees her watching Ben, who is staring at his own hands clasped together in front of him.
“Isn’t that normally cause for celebration?” she asks flatly, confusion etching her face. “Why aren’t you celebrating, Ben?”
Ben catches her gaze and then looks at Leroux.
“It’s a partial match for Jeremy Rose,” he answers.
The air feels like it’s been knocked out of the room.
Leroux now understands Ben’s strange demeanor.
His mind whirls as he tries to formulate a question or a response of any kind.
All he can think about is the quaking disappointment he feels deep in his soul.
They had the holy grail of evidence only to be made to look like fools.
“What the fuck do you mean it’s Jeremy Rose?” Leroux finally asks, feeling his breaths quicken. He looks down at the papers, again trying to decipher the incomprehensible text. This time his eyes know what to look for, and he finds it. Jeremy’s name is in several spots. It’s like a slap.
“I don’t understand,” Wren says, snatching the folder from Leroux and scanning it with her qualified eyes. “So it’s a partial match for Jeremy.” She places the folder down and takes a few deep breaths to calm herself. “Partial. Is the sample degraded?”
“Trust me, it’s not the answer I was hoping for or even considering.
I don’t understand it myself, but the DNA doesn’t lie,” Ben says.
He looks like a child in trouble with his parents, having to share the news of a failure or wrongdoing.
“The sample could have degraded. We’re still waiting for the national search results, which should be available within a day or so.
I guess there may be a possibility that something else will hit and explain this better,” he says, sounding unconvinced of his own theory.
“Or it will confuse us even more,” Wren says, frustration clear in her voice.
“He downed a duck,” Leroux says abruptly, suddenly realizing what is happening here.
They both look at him in confusion.
“John, are we supposed to know what that means?” Wren asks, chewing at her lip.
He shakes his head, suddenly feeling like the room is closing in on them. “He turned a guard,” he says, flatly.
Wren blinks a few times, trying to process the information. “Wait, am I missing something? What do you mean?”
“How else did his blood end up at a recent crime scene?” Leroux asks, looking from one of them to the other. “That prison mail is heavily regulated. A guard helped him get that out of the prison. It’s the only way.”
“But do you think this guard is the one who planted it too?” Wren asks. Her face shows evidence of the wheels turning in her mind. “Seems like a stretch …”
Ben takes a loud gulp of coffee. “Like a guard is the killer? Jesus.”
Leroux shakes his head. “I don’t know, but something’s going on here.”
“Remember the guard I noticed who seemed to be super tuned in to Jeremy during our last visit?” Wren asks.
“Oh yeah, the one who was alarmingly gentle with the serial killer in his custody?” Leroux scoffs, remembering how he’d been so focused on Jeremy’s mind games that Wren had needed to point out that the guard and Jeremy seemed to be silently communicating.
“His last name is McCormick. I heard someone call him Jimmy when we left.”
Why didn’t I follow up on that? he thinks, chastising himself for allowing Jeremy Rose to throw him so far out of the playing field.
Wren nods. “If there is a guard involved, it’s that one. I can’t imagine it’s easy to manipulate more than one.”
Leroux shakes his head. “Next to impossible. These guys are specifically trained on what to look out for and how prisoners will manipulate them to get them on their side, but there’s always a weak link.”
He looks past the conference room’s glass wall and off into the hallway.
Lab technicians and all manner of brilliant minds wander around, cracking the codes needed to catch the most dangerous criminals.
They hold answers in manila folders that are worth more than gold, and then they go home to warm up dinner and lay their heads down at night.
It’s a fascinating arm of the legal system.
Everyone at the table falls into silent thought, all clearly trying to figure out what happens next.
“I’m going to check up on something,” Ben says. “You two use this room for however long you need. I’ll be back in a few. I’ll contact you if anything hits at a national level.” He stands, nodding uncomfortably and walking to the door.
Ben knows when his job is done. He delivered the test results, then bailed when he found himself knee-deep in conspiracy mud.
Leroux sighs, rubbing his face and leaning back in his chair. “We have to get access to Jeremy’s mail. Whatever he has saved, we have to see it. We can’t rule out a guard planting the sample, but it’s more likely that the guard passed it off to someone on the outside,” he says quietly.
Wren nods, seemingly lost in thought. Then she suddenly looks up with a wild look in her eyes. “John. What if it’s Philip?”