Page 27 of Crime Lab Cold Case (Pacific Northwest Forensics #2)

Michael stretched out on the floor and scratched Peaches’s head. “You must have a story to tell.”

Molly poked her head out of the kitchen. “Do you want any more food? I’m putting it away.”

“No, I’m good.”

“I thought you might bring Natalie back here for dinner, since we didn’t get to feed her last night.” She put a hand on her hip.

“Have you turned into Mom? Mind your own business.” He lifted Peaches up and placed her on his stomach. “We need to fatten her up.”

“Sorry Ivy went to sleep so soon after dinner. She was playing with Peaches all day. Wouldn’t let her out of her sight.”

“That’s fine. She needs her sleep. I’ll spend time with her this weekend.” Michael’s phone rang, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw his friend, Deputy Cole Foster, pop up on his display. Did they want to check out the dog already?

“What’s up, Cole?”

“Just got a call on my radio. Thought you might wanna know. One of your lab employees was found dead in her home.”

“What? Who?” Michael nudged Peaches from his stomach and staggered to his feet.

“It’s Dr. Rachelle Butler. She works in the lab, right?”

“Rachelle? Cause of death? She’s been out sick, but I had no idea she was dangerously ill.”

“Can’t tell you much more than that. The FBI agent you have working for you found her body.”

Michael clamped the back of his neck. “In Rachelle’s home? She was in Rachelle’s home?”

“Dude, I don’t have anything more than that. Just happened. I’m on my way.”

“Address.” Michael grabbed a pair of running shoes. “Do you have Rachelle’s address?”

As soon as Cole recited the address to him, Michael ended the call and strode to the closet for his jacket. “Molly, I have to go out.”

Before she could answer, he slammed the door. How was Rachelle dead, and what was Natalie doing in the middle of it?

He drove faster than the speed limit to reach Rachelle’s place, the new development out by the lake. Rachelle was a doctor. She should’ve known if she needed medical attention. Hell, she hadn’t even looked that sick the day she came to tell him she was leaving early.

Emergency vehicles clogged the parking lot, so Michael pulled onto the street outside the town-house development. He didn’t need the address number to find Rachelle’s place. As he walked up to the building, he could see a deputy questioning a tearful Natalie off to the side.

Recognizing him, the deputy keeping the lookie-loos at bay allowed Michael to dip beneath the yellow tape.

CSIs were already on the scene, but his lab wouldn’t be getting the evidence.

Were they there out of courtesy for Rachelle, or did they believe her death was something other than natural or accidental?

As Deputy Ellis walked past, Michael grabbed his arm. “What happened in there? How did Rachelle die?”

Ellis shrugged. “We don’t know that yet. The only visible injury she sustained was a cut to her cheek, but that was from a broken bowl. Looks like she fell to the floor with the bowl in her hand or on the counter, it broke, and a piece cut her face.”

Michael pinched the bridge of his nose. “Did she die from the fall? Head injury?”

“Not that we can tell, unless there’s something internal. Uh—” Ellis glanced over his shoulder “—her skin was blueish, and she had a little vomit in her mouth.”

“Well, she didn’t do drugs. Maybe she took something for her illness. She’d called in sick, but she didn’t tell me what was wrong.”

Grabbing Michael’s shoulder, Ellis said, “We owe it to one of our own to figure out what happened.”

“Do you know what Agent Brunetti was doing here?”

“Ask her yourself.” Ellis jerked his head to the right at Natalie approaching them, still wearing her knee-high boots from this morning, her hands shoved into her pockets.

Ellis asked, “Are you doing okay?”

Natalie waved him off and grabbed Michael’s sleeve. “Did he tell you what happened?”

“Just that you found her on the floor. A piece of glass from a broken bowl cut her face but no other injuries.” He wanted to pull her into his arms, but it wasn’t the time or the place. “Do you want to tell me what you were doing at Rachelle’s place after hours?”

“Not here.” She strode back to the deputy who was questioning her earlier and had a brief discussion with him. Then she made her way back to him, stumbling when the coroner’s van pulled up.

When she reached his side, she prodded him in the back. “They’re done with me. Let’s talk in my car.”

He followed her to the rental and slid into the passenger seat. “What the hell is going on, Natalie?”

“I didn’t tell you before, but Rachelle wanted to show me around the DNA lab before Dr. Volosin returned.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. He’s a difficult guy to work with.” He rapped his knuckle against the window. “Can you drive out of this parking lot? I’m in the street.”

Natalie started the car and maneuvered around the emergency vehicles to get to the street in the front.

She pulled behind his car and cut the engine.

“Anyway, Rachelle got sick, and Volosin returned from his trip, which meant he’d be present during my tour of the lab.

So I called Rachelle at home today to ask her if she wanted to be present during my lab review.

She got all weird and told me she needed to see me, that she had something to tell me. ”

Michael rubbed his eyes, suddenly so tired. “Did she give you any hints?”

“None, but she definitely wanted to have this conversation away from the lab.”

A pain stabbed him at the base of his neck. “What are you suggesting? She didn’t feel safe at the lab? She thought something was going on there?”

“Whoa.” Natalie cut her hands through the air. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you what she said. You’re the one who doesn’t trust me.”

Michael toyed with the scrap of paper in his pocket. “How did she sound on the phone? Ill? Did she ever mention what illness she had?”

“She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. But she didn’t sound congested, and she didn’t seem worried about being contagious. Maybe she wasn’t sick. Maybe she didn’t want to be there when Dr. Volosin returned.”

“If she wasn’t sick, how did she die? Did her fall look serious to you? Could there have been something she hit her head on when she fell?”

Natalie sniffed and dabbed the tip of her nose. “I don’t know. I felt for a pulse, tried CPR. Her body felt cool but not cold, which would make sense, as I spoke to her on the phone several hours before I found her body. Michael, I think someone murdered Rachelle.”

Pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead, he said, “What could she possibly know about any of this? Did you talk to her about the jewelry we found and the other connections?”

“Of course not.” She shifted in her seat impatiently. “But she was about to tell me something about the lab. Something she didn’t want anyone else there to hear.”

Michael ground his back teeth together, sick of veiled accusations against him and the forensics lab he ran. He pulled the balled-up piece of paper from his pocket and bobbled it on his palm in front of Natalie.

“What’s this?” She pinched the paper between her fingers and plucked it from his hand.

“While you were looking for dirt on the lab, I was busy trying to find out who shot at you last night.”

“You got a match?” With trembling fingers, she picked open the crumpled piece of paper. “John Westfall, Shady View Rest Home in Everett? This is the shooter?”

“One fragment of the bullet was large enough to contain striations. My friend in Seattle was able to pick them up and run them through his database. Something finally went our way. He was able to match it to an old forty-five-caliber Beretta.”

“Used in the commission of a crime? How could it still be on the street?” Natalie flattened the wrinkled scrap of paper to her chest, as if they’d found the Holy Grail.

“Wouldn’t exactly call it the crime of the century. Some old guy was causing a nuisance, drunk and shooting at targets in the forest.”

“John Westfall.”

“Right. Deputies picked him up, checked his gun—the Beretta, registered to him—and let him off with a warning. They did put the bullets in the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, though.”

“NIBIN. Of course, I know it.” She blew out a breath that fluttered the edges of the paper. “And the bullets from last night matched the bullets from this Beretta.”

“Correct.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s take a trip to the Shady View Rest Home.”

* * *

Natalie sailed out of the hotel with cups of coffee in each hand and placed one on the hood of Michael’s car as she opened the passenger door. He’d closed the forensics lab today in honor of Rachelle’s death the day before. Nobody would’ve been able to get anything done, anyway.

“Thought you might want a coffee for the drive to Everett. Black?” She put the paper cup in the cupholder for him.

“Thanks. If you can dump one of those little creamers in there, that’d be great. If not, don’t worry about it.” He started the car. “It’s just a thirty-minute drive, on the outskirts of Everett.”

“I can manage the cream if you idle for a second while I pour it in.” She peeled back the foil on the creamer and tipped it into Michael’s coffee.

She swirled the liquid with a stir stick and placed the cup back in the holder.

“I didn’t tell you. The FBI ordered the rental-car company to do a more thorough examination of the brakes and send them the report. ”

“Are they concerned that someone may have tampered with the rental car belonging to one of their agents?”

“That’s why they’re ordering additional tests.” She sipped her own coffee. “Did the cops send someone to look at Peaches yet?”

“Nope. I’m getting the feeling that they think I’m some kind of jinx.”