Page 13 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth

Thirteen

Tristan

I t’s late when I get back to Little Sweetwater.

Later than I’d hoped, thanks to a four-car pile-up that closed the northbound lanes for nearly an hour and caused a slowdown for hours after that.

Despite the time and my fatigue, I drive straight to the crime lab.

The entire point of taking Emily to the cabin was to give myself the space and time to do what I need to do. I might as well do it.

I navigate the empty lot and park as close to the building as I can, directly under a light. Little Sweetwater is incredibly safe, the recent murder notwithstanding, and the county crime lab is an unlikely place to commit a crime. Even so, there’s no reason not to take precautions. Especially now.

I kill the engine and grab my messenger bag from the back seat.

Then I pop the locks and exit the car, slinging the bag across my chest in one smooth motion, as I hurry to the entrance.

During the short trip between the two pools of light, my pulse hammers and my throat goes dry.

I grip my keys between my knuckles as a makeshift weapon.

This must be how it feels to be Emily. Or Alex.

Or, I suppose, most women walking alone late at night—even those who haven’t had a personal brush with death.

Exposed. Vulnerable. Scared. I remind myself that I’m not a woman.

I don’t look like a soft target. I’m a tall, fit man in his prime.

The opposite of an easy mark. Of course, if I’m attacked it won’t be a crime of opportunity.

It’ll be a deliberate, targeted strike. So my reassurances ring hollow in my mind.

I jog the last several feet to the lobby door, my ID badge already in hand, and hold it up to the reader without breaking my stride. Once inside, I wait to hear the door’s lock reengage behind me before I exhale and roll my shoulders.

The reception desk is empty at this hour. The card reader recorded my entrance and will record my departure when I leave, but I stop at the open log book and sign in out of habit. Then I make my way down the dimly lit, empty corridor. My footsteps echo sharply in the silence.

Before I reach the lab room, I detour to my left and push open the metal door to the break room.

The motion-activated light clicks on, illuminating my path to the old off-white refrigerator and the vending machine next to it.

Reflexively, I check the coffee maker on the counter to my right.

As expected, the carafe is empty at this hour.

And I don’t want to wait for a pot to brew.

So, I pull open the refrigerator and scan its meager contents hoping to find the remnants of a staff lunch.

Sodas, stale sandwiches, sugary muffins.

But the janitorial crew must’ve cleaned out the fridge recently because there’s nothing inside except a bottle of mustard and an open carton of milk.

The vending machine beckons. I feed my credit card into the slot and hit the buttons to select a bottled water and a granola bar.

The items fall to the bottom with a thud, and I collect my sad midnight snack.

I devour the bar during my short walk down the hall to the lab, then twist the cap off the water and take a long gulp of the cold liquid.

I let myself into the large, eerily silent room, turn on the lights, and boot up the computer on my work station.

While the desktop comes to life, I roll my neck and do a handful of standing stretches to work the stiffness out of my back.

I flip through the stack of reports in my in-box.

Nothing urgent. So I turn back to the computer and open my email.

I scroll past administrative announcements, a message from HR, and a reminder that I need to meet with the assistant district attorney next week to do trial prep for a case coming up.

Then I see it. The file I requested from the cold case unit in Maricopa County came in while I was driving Emily to the cabin, and, miracle of miracles, it’s fully digitized.

I’m pumping my fist in triumph when the door bangs open.

I whirl around on the stool and pop to my feet. Graham Stone meets my surprised expression with a look I can’t quite interpret. Is it sadness? Regret? I study my boss’s downturned lips and furrowed brow. Disappointment, I decide.

“What are you doing here so late?” I ask, trying to hide my nervousness.

“I could ask you the same.”

“I wanted to make some headway on the stabbing.”

He nods, distracted, as he crosses the room to peer over my shoulder at the file on the screen. “Arizona?” He points to the letterhead on the screen.

I clear my throat. “I remembered a stabbing that happened when I was living out there. Very similar MO to ours. I wondered if it was ever solved or if they developed any suspects, so I reached out.”

Graham bobs his head like he’s impressed by my initiative, but there’s still something off about his demeanor.

He leans in for a closer look at the victim’s photo.

I remember this shot from the media coverage at the time of her murder.

It’s a candid shot, taken at the equine summer camp where she’d worked between high school and college.

Her head is tilted, resting against the side of the horse’s head.

Both the young woman and the animal grin broadly at the camera.

Graham takes in the image, focusing on the copper color of the woman’s hair. “Another redhead.”

He flicks his gaze to the photo pinned on the bulletin board behind my desk.

Giselle Ward, the latest victim. Our victim.

Giselle is the reddest of redheads. In the picture, Giselle is dressed in a ballet costume—a leotard and tutu, up on pointe with one leg extended behind her in a high, straight line.

Even pinned into a neat bun, it’s obvious that her hair is the color of a blazing fire.

The point of the picture is to remind the investigators that our victim was once a vibrant, lively woman and not the bloodied, battered husk shown in the crime scene photos. We don’t need the reminder. At least I don’t.

“Dana Rowland,” I say now.

“College student?”

“A freshman. She was killed during Spring Break in her dorm room. She stayed on campus to work out with the rest of the equestrian team.”

He groans the knowing groan of a bureaucrat. “That must’ve been a shit show. Panicked parents from around the country demanding answers; administrators in crisis management mode trying to control the messaging.”

I shrug. “I’m sure it was. I was sixteen at the time, so none of that registered.” Another glance at Dana’s photo. “Just the murder.”

“This happened in your town?”

“No, Tempe.” I shake my head. “It’s nearby, though. We lived in Scottsdale. The university in Tempe was less than thirty minutes away, and Dana was from Phoenix.” I pause. “You know anything about the Phoenix metro area?”

“Not really.”

“In addition to Phoenix proper, the metropolitan area encompasses the towns of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and Chandler, among others. They’re all in Maricopa County.”

“So, basically your hometown.”

I resist the urge to shift my weight. “You could say that, I guess.”

There’s a long pause while he eyes me. “You think we have a serial killer? Two redheads in their early twenties stabbed fourteen years apart?”

There’s zero chance I’m answering this question, so I gaze steadily back at him until he answers it himself.

“You know the saying. Two’s a coincidence.”

I finish the old saw, “Three’s a pattern.”

Of course, Graham doesn’t know there are three stabbing attacks on college-aged redheads if you count the attempt on Lexi Lincoln.

Four, if you count the murder of Cassie Baughman.

While Cassie was a blonde, not a redhead, she was sleeping in Emily’s bedroom the night she was butchered.

Four events spaced at seven-year intervals in Maine, Arizona, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

It’s a pattern all right. But I have no intention of connecting the dots for him.

And what he says next makes me damn glad I didn’t.

He frowns. “Worth looking into, though. Forward me the file.”

I pull back in surprise. “You’re going to follow up on it?” Graham hasn’t done field work since—well, I don’t know when. He was the supervisor in charge of the lab when I was hired. So, at least as long as I’ve been here.

He sighs heavily. It’s almost a moan. “Not me. But not you either. Sit down, Tristan.”

He gestures toward my stool, and I lower my butt to it reluctantly. Does he intend to loom over me while we have the unpleasant conversation that’s clearly coming? But he rolls over the stool from the next workstation and sits so close to me our knees almost touch.

“What’s going on?”

Whatever Graham has to say, I want to get it over with. Peel the bandage off and move on, that’s my mantra. Dr. Wilde thinks I could do with slightly more introspection and sitting with my feelings. I think he’s full of it.

Graham’s sick expression makes me think he’s not one for sitting with his feelings either. He confirms this hunch a second later when he says without preamble, “You’re suspended.”

I stare at him for a long moment while my tired brain tries to make sense of the short sentence. Failing to do so, I end up repeating, “I’m suspended?”

He gives a brisk nod of confirmation, then tries to ease the blow. “With pay, of course. It’s procedure whenever an analyst contaminates evidence. It’s out of my hands, Tristan.”

My head spins. “I contaminated evidence?”

He cocks his head and frowns. “Didn’t you get a message from Human Resources? You should have.”

“Oh. I guess I did. I saw the Rowland cold case file in my inbox and skipped down to that,” I explain. Now I’m frowning. “I can’t believe I contaminated evidence, Graham. You know how careful I am.”

“I do, which is why it’s so surprising that you’d screw up. Especially on such an important case.” Another big sigh. “But DNA doesn’t lie.”

“An important case? Are you saying it’s the Ward case?” My heart is pounding wildly. This can’t be happening.

“Afraid so. Remember that brown hair they found on her body?”

I nod, swallowing hard. “Sure. There was no root attached, so I couldn’t order nuclear DNA testing.”

“I saw that in your report. I sent it out for mitochondrial testing.”

“Why?” I give him a confused look. Mitochondrial DNA is used to identify bodies or missing persons, but it’s of limited utility in a murder investigation. It’s not unique to the individual the way nuclear DNA is.

His eyes narrow. He doesn’t like being second-guessed. “The killer left us a jack-all to go on. I figured if nothing else, we could use mitochondrial DNA to rule out her siblings.”

Right. Giselle Ward had two sisters and a brother. “So you used her DNA as the reference sample?”

“Correct. And there wasn’t a match to that sample.” He pauses. “But there was a match to your sample.”

My heart picks up the pace from pounding to galloping. “My sample?” I ask, buying time to think.

Every crime scene analyst provides both a nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA sample when they join the lab.

It’s a sound practice. It avoids screwups like the Phantom of Heilbronn, the prolific female serial killer who German police were unable to catch because she turned out not to exist. A woman working in a cotton swab factory had accidentally contaminated the Q-tips used to collect DNA evidence with her own.

There have also been cases of secondary transfer, where a person’s DNA appears on an item it’s been established they’ve never touched.

Forensic science is science, but it isn’t infallible.

So, the analysts provide reference samples, just in case there’s an anomaly.

Graham gives me a bracing clap on the shoulder. “Chin up. A two-week paid suspension while we investigate how the transfer happened isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

He’s right. It’s not. But being taken off this case, right now, is. Still, there’s no point in arguing. He must see the defeat in my face because he stands, yawns, and stretches.

“By rights I should stick around and escort you out …”

That is the procedure. But it’s almost one o’clock in the morning. And he’s about to be down one investigator on the biggest case in the lab. The coming days are going to be hectic, and he knows it.

“Go home and get some sleep. I’ll just respond to these emails then shut down my computer and leave. I’ll be right behind you,” I promise.

He pretends he’s considering it. Then he says, “Okay. Appreciate it. I also appreciate your handling the news so professionally. Two weeks will go by before you know it.”

I force a smile. “Right.”

He pauses with his hand on the door and looks back. “Forward me that cold case from Arizona.”

“Will do.”

He pushes the door open and heads out into the hallway.

I pull up the email from the Maricopa County Homicide Cold Case Unit and forward it twice: first to Graham Stone’s email, and then, in violation of department protocol, to my own personal email address.

I delete the second forward from my ‘Sent’ history for all the good it’ll do me, which is probably none.

I use my phone app to scan my notes on the Giselle Ward murder, then I shut down the computer, grab my bag, and turn out the lights.

As shaken as I am that my mitochondrial DNA came back on that hair, I’m relieved. A two-week suspension beats being named a person of interest in a murder. But my window of time is shrinking, and not having access to the lab and all its resources is going to make my plan harder to execute.