CHAPTER 16 - Rita

CHAPTER 16RitaI’M DOG-TIRED THIS MORNING AFTER A FIVE A.M. WAKE-UP CALL. I SHUFFLE into the station, my eyes bleary, my hair in a lopsided, messy bun. But it could’ve been worse; a couple of uniform cops spent the even earlier morning hours at the Bradley place after Mrs. Bradley placed a two a.m. 911 call. She claims to have seen a man wearing dark clothing come out of her husband’s home office and run toward the street. The forensics team went back out, but so far, they’ve found nothing.Looks like our killer didn’t find what he was looking for the night of the murder, perhaps scared away by Mrs. Murray’s barking dog and porch light.Mrs. Bradley sits in the little room we use when talking to distraught family members. It’s a little more comfortable than the interrogation rooms. We hope it is anyway. She sits at the little table, clutching a paper cup of tea that Chase made her in the Keurig that sits on a small counter. He laid sugar packets and a variety of little creamer cups in front of her as well. So far, she’s barely sipped her tea, holding it instead like a kid with a security blanket.Chase pulls up the surveillance video we got yesterday from her neighbor. He clicks the keys on his laptop, and the tape rolls.“Please take a good look, Mrs. Bradley. Is this the man you saw last night?” I ask.Her tired eyes shift to the screen, and she follows the video man’s trek down the sidewalk.“Mrs. Bradley?”“It could be him.” She shivers and grips her cup with both hands.“What seems the same?” I ask.“Um, he seemed tall like this man.”“What about his clothes?”The man in the video is wearing a long coat, dark gray or black over what could be jeans. His feet are encased in boots. The hat on his head is knitted and pulled low.“They look the same, I think.” Her eyes meet mine, as though she’s looking for approval.“Are you sure?”“The hat is the same kind. But I think he was wearing a shorter jacket maybe. Not a long coat like the man in the video.”“What about his face? What could you make out?”She shakes her head. “I really couldn’t see it. It happened so fast, and the light was behind him.”“But it could be the same man?”She nods. “Yes.” She looks over at Chase, her voice tremulous. “Why would he come back?”“We don’t know, Mrs. Bradley.” Chase’s gaze is on the table, as though it’s his fault.“Was he carrying anything?” I prod.“Not that I could tell,” she says, her eyes back on the video of the man. “I don’t think the man I saw had a backpack.”“Okay.” I lean forward in my chair. “We’ve got our lab guys trying to enhance the video, so we might have more to ask you about it later.”We stand, and I collect my notes. Chase opens the door. “Do you need a ride home, Mrs. Bradley?” he asks.“No, I’m okay. I drove myself. My sister is at my house. I’ve got a guy there installing a security system.”“That’s a good idea,” Chase says.“Will you have outside cameras?” I ask.“Yes. My sister ordered it.” She almost smiles. “Cameras inside and out, all the bells and whistles.”Chase says he’ll walk her to her car, and I head back to my office. I’ve got my notes spread out on my desk, the video pulled up on my laptop, when Lauren walks in.“We found something, Rita.” She holds up an evidence bag with an envelope inside. She drops into the chair opposite me and lays the bag flat. “The guys found it wedged in the back of one of the filing cabinet drawers.”I grab my reading glasses from my jacket pocket and lean close to the bag. Lauren lets go an excited breath, pulls on a latex glove, and reaches inside. She lays the envelope on top of the bag.It’s a power company envelope, like the ones your bill comes in. “Okay.” I glance up at her.She pulls a folded white tissue out of the envelope, unwraps something shiny, and drapes a delicate necklace over her palm like an anxious jeweler. She runs her thumb over the round disk of a pendant. There’s a chip of topaz set in the middle, with SCORPIO inscribed beneath it.“Interesting,” is all I manage. “Doesn’t look awfully expensive.”“It’s not,” Lauren gushes.I lean back in my chair. “You think the perp was coming back for that?”“He was coming back for something.”“But a fairly worthless pendant?”“The necklace might have some meaning for him.” Lauren licks her lips. “I think we ought to at least look into it. Why take the trouble to stash it in a locked filing cabinet? And here’s the best part,” she says, and flips the pendant over. “Initials.”I sit up. Push my reading glasses up the bridge of my nose, but, shit, I still can’t see them.“A.R.,” Lauren says.“It could’ve been in that drawer forever.”Lauren taps her finger against the envelope. There’s a postmark. The bill was mailed two weeks ago.“Huh.” That changes things. Dr. Bradley hid the necklace recently. “Okay, I see your point. It’s worth looking into.”“I think so.” Lauren folds the necklace back into the tissue, replaces it in the envelope and bag, and jumps up. “I’m going to start digging.”