Chapter 19
NINETEEN
“I want out in front of this as soon as we can announce.”
I heard the words, but couldn’t form a response.
I spent the last twelve hours on autopilot.
I told Lock as much of the truth as I could.
The new developments in the TRACE case had drained me.
Were it any other week, Lock wouldn’t have let that answer satisfy him.
But he was distracted for his own reasons.
The fundraiser took up almost all of his headspace.
It had caused Lock and me to become ships passing in the night.
I was losing my mind. The painting on Palicki’s wall was a coincidence.
Yes. The Duvayre was rare. But it wasn’t obscure.
Its discovery after a century made news in the art world at the time.
Even if I’d told Roy its significance to me…
to Lock… he would have laughed me out of his office. It proved nothing.
Only… why would someone like Daniel Palicki just happen to admire the same piece of rare artwork enough to hang it on his bedroom wall?
When I fired up my browser and tried to find a replica to purchase online, there was nothing.
Certainly, someone could have sold one in a bricks-and-mortar store somewhere.
But Palicki was a drug dealer with no formal education beyond the ninth grade, we learned.
It didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate art, but that particular painting?
Only the most discerning collectors would know its significance.
No! I would not give in to these catastrophic thoughts.
We were so close to delivering a rock-solid case on Palicki and hopefully the others.
It was the whole reason I agreed to serve on the task force.
This was nothing but self-sabotage. Just when I was about to accomplish something big, I turned it into something that could crash my world down.
“Mina! Are you listening?” Mark Gilchrist caught me as I was coming out of Judge Clarke’s courtroom. Her docket had run an hour behind. Dennison wanted me in the room when Corrine Egan came back in. I had a series of unanswered texts from him. I had no hope of getting upstairs in time.
Mark stepped onto the elevator with me. I waited for the doors to close and punched the third floor.
“That’s not up to me,” I said, forcing myself out of my own head. “I wasn’t the lead investigator, Mark. It’s not my place to take credit for Daniel Palicki’s arrest.”
“This is big, Mina,” he said. “I’m not going to let all these other agencies take the credit. You’re on that task force, but you work for me.”
“It won’t be our case to prosecute. None of Palicki’s crimes took place in Benton County as far as we know.”
“So figure out how to get a change of venue once charges are filed.”
“You can’t. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. It’s gonna be up to Palicki’s lawyer to pursue that kind of relief. We have no standing.”
Times like this, it boggled my mind how little Gilchrist knew about court procedure.
Prior to his election as Benton County’s prosecutor, he’d worked in private practice specializing in corporate law.
He was a pure politician. He had no litigation experience, but he had powerful backers. He counted on Lock to be one of them.
The elevator doors opened. “It’s not a good look if you walk into this meeting with me.”
Gilchrist huffed but didn’t argue. He punched the down button and got back on the elevator.
The door to the conference room was closed. I heard muffled voices behind it. As I approached, Special Agent Heller walked out. He had a black plastic bag under his arm and wore blue latex gloves.
“They’re just finishing up in there,” he said. “Ms. Egan’s been asking about you.”
“What did she bring in?” I asked, eyeing the evidence bag. Roy had said she had some kind of new physical evidence to bring in relating to the mysterious Matt Woodson. It would pan out like Roy hoped. It just had to. Maybe then I could finally put my spinning mind at ease.
“Roy will fill you in. I gotta get this to the crime lab and head out to Richland. I’ve got a new case rolling in.”
Heller hurried past me. The conference room door opened again and Belinda came out. She had a pot of coffee in her hand.
“Is he mad I’m late?” I asked.
Belinda shook her head. “I told him where you were.” She lifted the empty coffee pot. “I can make some more.”
“No, thanks though. And they know better than to have you running around serving coffee.”
“I don’t mind, hun,” she said. “It wasn’t for them anyway. It was for your witness. Though she was jittery enough when she came in. Poor thing. I don’t think she’s handling all of this very well.”
“Still,” I said. “Roy’s perfectly capable of getting that girl anything she needs.”
Belinda smiled. I went past her and opened the door. It was only Roy and Corrine Egan in the room. If anyone other than Agent Heller had sat in, they were gone now.
“I’m so sorry I’m running late,” I said. “I couldn’t get out of court any sooner.”
“It’s okay,” Roy said. “We’re just finishing up. Corrine’s been very helpful.”
Corrine looked gaunt and pale. Belinda was right; her hands shook as she reached for her coffee mug and downed the last of it.
“How are you today?” I asked Corrine as I sat.
“Just happy to put this behind me. I haven’t been sleeping all that well since… all of this.”
“I can’t even imagine how hard this has been. But if there’s anything you need. Anything I can do to make you more comfortable, you just let me know.”
“We went over Corrine’s statement again,” Roy said.
“I’m so sorry,” she offered. “I wish I remembered more. I wish I could tell you that man you arrested looked like Matt Woodson. I guess he does. I just… I can’t be sure.”
“If you don’t know, then you don’t know,” I said, trying to hide my own disappointment and frustration.
“Which means Matt is still out there somewhere. Do you think he’s seen any of this on the news? About Palicki, I mean?”
It was an odd question. One I had no answer for.
“It’s possible,” I said. “Do you have any reason to think Woodson and Palicki were associated?”
“We’ve gone over that,” Roy said. “I’ll fill you in. Corrine was getting ready to leave.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right. You don’t have to repeat yourself on my account.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way. But I just want to get out of here. I’d prefer it if I didn’t have to come back. I want things to go back to normal.”
“Let me get someone to walk you back to your car,” Roy said, rising.
“That’s not necessary,” Corrine said, but her tone was unconvincing. She seemed scared as a jackrabbit.
But Roy was already on the move. He called down the hallway. A moment later, Belinda reappeared. Roy whispered something to her.
“Of course.” Belinda smiled. “I’ll walk with you, honey. That parking structure is a maze. It’s easy to get lost if you don’t pay attention to which stairwell you come in from.”
“Thank you,” Corrine said. She shook Roy’s hand. Then she came around the table and stopped in front of me.
“And thank you too. You’ve all been so nice. You’ve treated me with respect. I wish I could say that was true when I first reported all of this. No one believed me. And I know I should have brought those items forward sooner.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Roy said. Belinda collected her and ushered her out of the room. Roy shut the door and gestured for me to have a seat at the table.
“What did she say?”
“Same story as before. She did say the ribbon pulled from Palicki’s house looked just like the one Woodson gave her, for what that’s worth. She’s never wavered in the details. And everything she says sounds like Palicki’s MO.”
“But she can’t identify him. Or won’t. Have you considered that?” It had been on my mind too. Was Corrine just scared? Had she lied during the lineup?
“Yeah. I get a vibe from her on that. She is just stone-cold terrified of this guy. I think she’s afraid of him finding out who she is.”
“But she’s been adamant that Palicki isn’t the man she dated all those years ago.”
“Well, pretty soon we’re gonna be able to find that out definitively. She brought in some clothing.”
“What do you mean?”
Roy rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Yeah. I’m not even sure what to make of it. It’s kind of a Monica Lewinsky thing, if you know what I mean?”
I did a double take. “What?”
“Underwear,” he said. “Corrine brought in a pair of underwear she swears she had on the last night she spent with Woodson. She says he… that she thinks they have his DNA on them.”
The Lewinsky reference made sense. “Oh,” I said. Then, “OH!”
“Yeah.”
“There can’t possibly be. Can there? She’s talking about a night that happened five years ago. She kept a pair of underwear? What? Like a souvenir?”
“They’re some of the clothes she says he gave her to wear,” he said. “Remember she said he gave her a blue nightie.”
“Sure.”
“Well, she says when she got dressed and demanded he take her home, she didn’t have a chance to change back into the underwear she had on at the start of the date. She was still wearing the ones from during their… uh… encounter.”
I held a hand up in a stopping gesture. “I get it. No need to draw a picture, Roy.”
“It’s a long shot. But if there’s even a chance she’s blanking on the ID because of trauma…”
“Which is likely,” I said. “I’m no psychologist, but we both saw how she reacted during that lineup. Something scared her.” Was I just trying to rationalize it for myself now?
“She admitted that today. Said maybe she got it wrong. I offered to let her have another look. She wouldn’t do it. She said we should just test the clothing.”
“Roy,” I said. “I want to be really careful how I ask this question. And I want you to be even more careful in how you answer it. But… you said she admitted she might have made a mistake in the lineup. Is that right?” I felt like I was two people.
The suspicious wife and the hard-nosed prosecutor.
I steeled myself against the suspicious wife.
“That was the gist, yeah.”
“Did you record the conversation?”
He frowned. “No.”
“I have to put a defense attorney hat on. Don’t take it personally. But is there any chance you might have suggested to her that she made a mistake?”
“What? No, I don’t think so. And I wasn’t the only one in the room. Heller was here. You can ask him.”
“I’ll have to. And it’s the first thing you’ll be asked on the stand if Corrine’s case gets tied to the rest of Palicki’s victims. As it is, I’d never put her on the stand even if that underwear has Palicki’s DNA on it. Her identification would be tainted.”
“But the DNA wouldn’t be.”
I wasn’t so sure. “Maybe not. But I just don’t want this case coming down to a five-year-old pair of dirty underwear. If it gets to that point, we’re sunk.”
“It’s not gonna come to that. Corrine’s story and whatever that clothing shows… it’ll just be gravy. The real jackpot is what we found at Palicki’s house. Let’s not forget that.”
“You’re right,” I said, as if there were any chance I could forget. “But keep me in the loop on those lab tests either way. I want to be able to wrap this case in a bow before we hand it over to Washtenaw County or federal jurisdiction.”
Roy and I stood up together. He held the door for me. I walked through it and we headed to the elevators.
“That’s gotta be driving Gilchrist crazy. He was hoping that whatever we found would stay in Benton County.”
“Oh, he’s made that quite clear.”
“Don’t you want that too? I’d think you’d be salivating to try Palicki. To be honest, I’d feel a lot better if you were.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’m not looking to poach this from anyone.
” Even as I said it, I had that little voice in my head that contradicted my words.
I would love to try Palicki for murder. I’d like to be the one to nail that psychopath to the wall.
Then I could finally slay my own worst enemy. My own intrusive thoughts.
The elevator stopped on the first floor. Roy got out. “You coming?”
“I’m gonna head home,” I said. “It’s almost five.”
Roy looked at his watch, surprised. “Well, see you tomorrow then.”
“It’s Friday,” I said. “You really need to get out of this building more, Roy.”
He winked at me as the elevator doors closed.
My phone rang. It was Lock. I felt like a liar.
A fraud. I’d spent the whole day speculating whether my husband was connected to a mass murderer.
Because of a painting. Because of a piece of fabric.
Because I had projected my insecurities onto a crime victim. How could I pretend anymore?
I answered. “Hey. I’m just leaving the office. Are you working late tonight?” Did I want him to?
“Not too late. I should be wrapped up here in about twenty minutes. I’ll be right behind you. Do you want to cook or go out?”
Something lightened inside me. This was normal. This was me and Lock. My husband. The man I loved. And we were deciding what to do for dinner. Maybe avoiding him had been the problem. He grounded me.
The elevator doors opened again and I stepped out. The more time I spent away from him, the easier it was for me to give in to my destructive, self-sabotaging thought patterns. When I was with him, the world made sense.
“How about a compromise? We order in. I’m not in the mood to cook. And I’m definitely not in the mood to leave the house once I kick my shoes off,” I said.
“Sounds perfect. Any preferences?”
I pulled my key fob out and hit the button to unlock my doors. Italian? Chinese? Maybe a good old-fashioned pizza? I walked around to the driver’s side and froze.
“Oh my God!” I shouted.
“Mina? What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
I let the phone drop to the ground. I could still hear Lock shouting questions.
It took me a second to process what I was seeing.
This was my car. My parking spot. But my car was covered in red.
Blood? I felt bile rise in my throat. The blood was everywhere.
All over the windshield. All over the hood.
Dripping down the side windows. And a single word was scrawled across the rear window.
COMPLICIT