Chapter 13
Kelsi
Friday afternoon, Kelsi walked up to the small black-and-white one-story police station a street over from the two-block-long “downtown.” The facade had peeling paint in some places, caused by age and sun, but it was aesthetic in that way only small towns can pull off.
She pushed open the front door and approached the young officer sitting at the reception desk.
He appeared barely out of high school, and his bright-orange hair was unruly at best. He looked up as she strolled closer, and the red flush on his face from a sunburn flared a deeper shade when he saw her.
He scrambled to attention quickly, the desk chair being thrust backward on the slick linoleum floors.
The officer stood straight, puffing his chest out a bit.
“How can I help you, ma’am?”
“Hi, I’m Kelsi Cameron, with the commonwealth’s attorney for the county. I was hoping to get access to the evidence locker to take a look at what’s in there for one of my cases.”
The young man nodded vigorously. “Of course, Miss Cameron. Let me grab my superior; he can get you sorted out.”
She glanced surreptitiously at the nametag pinned to the chest of his dark-blue uniform. “Thank you, Officer Simmons.”
He flushed impossibly darker and stumbled off to get his supervisor, moving like a boy who had sprouted overnight and still wasn’t used to his lanky limbs. Kelsi chuckled softly to herself as he disappeared into an office at the rear of the station.
The office itself was walled off by drywall until approximately waist high, with glass windows taking up the rest of the space between the drywall and the ceiling.
All the windows had blinds, and only one panel of blinds was cracked enough for her to see the silhouettes of two men, one of which being Officer Simmons.
He turned to head back toward her and the other man rose from his seat behind a desk.
He trailed Officer Simmons out of the office, and his height immediately struck Kelsi.
She had thought Officer Simmons was tall and lanky, but this other officer was even taller than he was, and Kelsi was able to see his eyes over the top of Officer Simmons’s carrot-colored mop.
Officer Simmons grabbed his rolling chair from where it had escaped to and dragged it back to the front desk, taking his seat again and giving Kelsi a small smile. “Miss, this is Deputy Sheridan. He can help you with looking over the evidence.”
“Thank you,” she said to him, causing his cheeks to pinken once more. With a smile across her face, she turned to the deputy. “You.”
He was taller than she’d guessed he would be at the burger place, probably close to six foot five, but his muscles appeared lean rather than bulky.
His blond hair was carefully gelled back, but in a tasteful way.
It looked like it would still be soft to push her hands through.
His eyes were honey colored, two brilliant ambers looking down on her thanks to his height advantage.
His gaze was a slow perusal across her body, appreciation evident in his gaze.
“Me.” He lightly mocked her and thrust a hand between them, one side of his full mouth quirked. “Nice to officially meet you, Miss . . .” he trailed off, tilting his head to the side slightly and waiting for her to introduce herself. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name last week.”
She stared dumbly at him for a second before placing her much smaller hand in his. “Kelsi Cameron. I started at the commonwealth’s attorney’s office this week.”
His hand was warm and firm as he shook hers, his golden eyes never breaking contact. “Pleasure to meet you, Kelsi. I’m Deputy Mike Sheridan.”
She could feel her cheeks warming as he held her hand a beat too long to be casual. She pulled from his grasp, clearing her throat. “Nice to meet you, Deputy Sheridan. And I guess I should thank you for the margaritas.”
“Please, just Sheridan.” He shrugged. “It’s what everyone calls me. And it was my pleasure.”
“Right. Officer Simmons said you could help me access the evidence for my case? It’s the McGuinness one. I’m sorry for not calling ahead to check if it was okay; I guess I got a little ahead of myself diving in.”
“Of course.” His smile was easy as he stepped back and waved an arm out, gesturing for Kelsi to precede him and head toward the back of the station.
“No worries about calling. I’m happy to help, and, well”—he glanced dramatically around the empty station—“doesn’t look like there are any emergencies pulling me away. ”
She laughed politely at his joke, and together they walked through a maze of desks, most cluttered with papers or half-empty cups.
Opposite the office Sheridan had come from, there was a hallway that had been obscured by a large filing cabinet.
Sheridan directed her down it and pulled a key out of his pocket when they got to the first door.
Turning the key in the lock, he pushed it open and ushered Kelsi into what resembled a large closet.
She peered around the space, absorbing the few boxes in the room layered on the wall-mounted wire shelving. Her shock must have shown on her face, because Sheridan’s face turned sheepish.
“Yeah, it’s not much. We don’t really get too much crime out here.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Yet somehow evidence has gone missing? My boss told me that some of the cataloged memory cards for the McGuinness prosecution disappeared.”
His shoulders tensed infinitesimally before his easy demeanor returned. “Yeah, that was damn unfortunate. We combed over the entire station and couldn’t find them.”
She pushed a little harder. “So, I saw the lock is a simple key. Do all the officers have access to the keys?”
He shook his head. “No, only the on-duty deputies carry keys, and the sheriff always has a copy on him. If the officers need access to the evidence locker, they have to come ask one of us.”
“No cameras in here or anything?”
“No, none in here. There’s only one inside the station that’s not in the interrogation room and cell, and it’s in the pen facing the front door. No angles on this hallway, and especially not on the door.”
“And you saw no signs of forced entry on the lock? When you investigated the disappearance of the evidence?”
He moved to the shelf and ran a finger along the case names on the boxes facing them before sliding one off the shelf and holding it at his chest. “No, nothing. Can’t say we investigated it too extensively, though.
It was a small flash drive that went missing—we figured it was dropped somewhere and thrown out by accident.
Here, take this and follow me. You can look it over in my office.
” He pressed the box into her hands before walking out of the room, holding the door for her to follow him and locking it behind her.
Kelsi headed back out to the open space with the officers’ desks and mulled over how Banksy so clearly believed the evidence had been tampered with, but Sheridan wrote it off as an accident. Was Banksy being cynical? Or was Sheridan being naive?
Sheridan came up behind her where she’d stopped to wait for him and placed a firm hand on her lower back, gently directing her toward his office. “There’s more available desk space here for you to use.”
In his office, she set the box down on the desk and eagerly removed the lid.
She peered inside and began pulling out the meager contents.
First, she grabbed the sheet of paper that rested on top of the evidence bags.
It was a sign-in sheet, logging when and who had reviewed this box.
No date was written that corresponded with the dates the evidence had disappeared.
Not surprising, though, considering that this essentially runs on the honor system.
Barely holding in a sigh, she continued to pull the evidence bags from the box. Sheridan nudged one of the chairs near her in her direction, but she waved him off. He went around the desk and sat in his chair, attention going to his computer while she pored over the items she had laid out.
It was . . . disappointing. She’d known going in that there was little physical evidence, but, looking at it now, it was even less than she’d expected.
There was a small bag with a watch the victim was wearing when his body was recovered.
Kelsi discarded it, as well as the larger bag with the polo shirt and board shorts he was wearing that night as well.
None of those would help her now. The sea water had destroyed all trace evidence, anyway.
She looked for anything else, but that was it.
The only other pieces of evidence collected were the pictures the cops had taken where the body was recovered and of a scrape along the portside hull of the McGuinnesses’ speedboat.
Unfortunately, those were all on the memory stick that disappeared.
Frustrated, Kelsi threw the evidence back into the box and slammed the lid down.
Sheridan glanced at her, brows furrowed. “Not what you were hoping for?”
“Not at all.” She shook her head and sat in the chair he had offered earlier. “I have never prosecuted a first-degree murder case before with so little physical evidence.” She rubbed her temples, feeling a headache forming behind her eyes.
“You think you can still prove it?” He studied her seriously, as if trying to puzzle the answer out of her face.
She decided to be honest. “I don’t know.
” She chewed her bottom lip, staring at an American flag sticking out of the pencil holder on the desk.
“It’s a tough case, that’s for sure. Without physical evidence, our case relies entirely on circumstantial evidence, and what limited eyewitness testimony we can put on.
Most cases are dependent on circumstantial evidence, so that’s not what worries me.
It’s proving the intention of McGuinness that’s going to be difficult. ”