Face of Murder

The minutes ticked by interminably. Even for Zoe, who normally had an impeccable inner clock, it seemed to drag on for hours. Then there were only ten minutes to go, and she began to really sweat about what was to come. As soon as that happened, time altered itself again: ten minutes flashed by so fast that Zoe had to double-check her watch when Dr. Applewhite’s door opened.

“Great work. I’ll see you next week,” Dr. Applewhite was saying, ushering a young man out into the waiting room. He ambled past them with a curious look, even glancing back over his shoulder as he heard Dr. Applewhite greeting her former charge.

“Zoe! What brings you here? More news on the case already?”

Zoe could barely look her in the eye as she got up from her seat, nodding her head. “There has been an update. We have a new body, with a new equation.”

“Do you have a copy for me to look at?” Dr. Applewhite asked. Her head was swinging from Zoe to Shelley, no doubt confused by their unhappy expressions. It was like a pendulum in a clock, ticking onward almost at an even rate of seconds. Tick. Tick. Tick.

“It would be better if we could talk to you in a more private setting,” Shelley said tactfully.

“We can use my office.” Dr. Applewhite gestured back toward the open door, and even took a few steps back before Shelley interrupted her.

“No. We’d be better off in our office, so to speak. We need to ask you to provide a voluntary DNA sample.”

Dr. Applewhite paused, looking over at Zoe. Zoe looked up and met her eyes, and instantly wished that she hadn’t.

“What is this about?” Dr. Applewhite asked, her tone less sure now.

“We need to eliminate you from the case,” Shelley said, simply.

Dr. Applewhite was still looking to Zoe, as if waiting for confirmation. All she could do was give a single, sharp nod, the shame weighing heavy on the back of her neck.

“All right,” Dr. Applewhite conceded, uncertainty flooding her voice. She glanced over to her open-mouthed receptionist and nodded to her, receiving a nod in return as the other woman began shuffling through an appointment book.

Zoe allowed Dr. Applewhite to walk out of the office first, Shelley behind, with Zoe trailing last. This was the last thing that she wanted. She just hoped that it would be over quickly, so that she could apologize and make it right.

***

Zoe watched uncomfortably as Dr. Applewhite held her mouth open for a swab, through the glass window of a door in the lab area of the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

“I do not like this,” she muttered, just loud enough for Shelley to hear her.

“I know you don’t,” Shelley said, holding back what Zoe imagined was the internal you’ve made that pretty clear. “Let’s just hope that it clears her and we can move on to some other angle.”

Zoe gritted her teeth, keeping her mouth shut. Shelley was right. That was all they could do, now; wait for the results and hope.

“All done.” The lab tech, a woman in her mid-fifties called Anjali, poked her head through the door.

“Great. How long will it take?” Shelley asked.

Anjali twisted her mouth. “I’ve already fast-tracked one sample for you today, Shelley. We do have other cases on the roster, you know.”

“I know, but this is a local case,” Shelley said. “Your boy goes to the college, doesn’t he? Jaipinder? All the attacks so far have been on campus. The quicker we get this case wrapped up, the better.”

Anjali rolled her eyes at the obvious emotional blackmail, but nodded all the same. “I will get it through as quick as I can. No promises, though.”

“Thank you, Anjali.” Shelley smiled, offering her colleague a one-second shoulder squeeze as Dr. Applewhite joined them in the corridor.

With Anjali retreating back toward her office, Zoe turned to her mentor and gave her a nod of solidarity. “That is all we need for now. You can go home.”

“Wh—no, it isn’t,” Shelley interrupted, seemingly lost for words for a moment. “We still have a lot of questions. About the equations, for example. And we can’t just let a suspect go home without due diligence.”

Dr. Applewhite’s eyebrows shot up an inch at the use of the word “suspect.”

“That will not be necessary,” Zoe said, turning to face Shelley head-on. “I am vouching for her. She will not flee the country or go on a murder spree. We can call and let her know when the results have cleared her.”

“Zoe,” Shelley said, then caught herself and lowered her tone. She pulled Zoe’s sleeve to angle them both away from Applewhite, facing down the corridor where they could discuss more discreetly. “That’s against protocol. I know you have history, but that doesn’t matter. We do this by the book. If you get caught giving preferential treatment, we’ll be off the case at the very least.”

“She did not do anything wrong,” Zoe insisted. There was a stubborn streak in her a mile long, and Shelley had yet to come up against that. She was in for a surprise if she wanted to test it.