Face of Murder

Zoe waited for a moment for the punchline or an explanation. When Shelley didn’t say anything else, she had to follow up with a prompt. “A match for what?”

“For Dr. Applewhite. The hairs are hers.”

There was no response in Zoe’s head. Only silence. She sat there looking at Shelley, the words ringing hollow in the room around them, nothing but utter disbelief bouncing back.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Zoe could barely gather her wits to figure any of this out. What did it all mean? Not for a single second did she believe it, no matter what the evidence said. There had to be some kind of mistake—some kind of trick.

“I’ll go tell her the news, and give her a formal charge.” Shelley was already standing, making the move to go forward.

In movies and on TV, this was the moment where the protagonist bravely stepped forward. “No,” they would say, putting on a serious face. “I’ll do it.” Then they would stride forward and deliver the bad news to their loved one, or the bullet, depending on what kind of show it was.

But Zoe wasn’t particularly brave, and she knew she couldn’t bear to tell Dr. Applewhite that she was now under firm suspicion for the murders of three people. Worse, she couldn’t even trust herself not to leave the door open and encourage her mentor to make an exit. Even if Dr. Applewhite was too honorable to do such a thing, Zoe would make the offer. That was enough to get her into deep trouble.

So, she watched as Shelley entered the room on the other side of the black glass, and as Dr. Applewhite looked up in hope of being released. She heard Shelley deliver the news, and she watched the effect on her friend in real time: the confusion, the shock, and finally, the realization that she was not going home any time soon.

As if she knew that Zoe was watching, Dr. Applewhite turned to the one-way mirror and looked at what must have been her own reflection, her mouth opening and closing silently with questions of doubt and protests, and Zoe felt even more shame that she hadn’t been able to find it in herself to go in there.

“This is Ralph Henderson,” Shelley said, sliding a printed color photograph across the table to Dr. Applewhite. “Do you recognize him?”

“Well, yes,” Dr. Applewhite said, finally wrenching her attention away from the glass. “We’re colleagues. I’ve seen him at faculty events, and around campus. And—well—in the news, recently.”

Shelley slid another photograph towards her. “How about this man?”

“Cole Davidson.” Dr. Applewhite swallowed hard. “A grad student. I tutored him for a while.”

“And this one?”

“I co-authored a study with Dr. North last year,” Dr. Applewhite said, her face visibly pale. “Wait, Edwin is—is he dead? I—I hadn’t heard…”

“Dr. Francesca Applewhite, you are now under arrest for suspicion of murder.” Shelley was reciting the lines from long-learned rote, but Zoe saw that her hands were clenched into tight fists at her sides. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Dr. Applewhite breathed, seemingly incapable of more.

“Do you wish to call a lawyer, or have us call one for you?”

Zoe barely heard what they were saying. Her mind was racing, so fast that everything else around her was disappearing. She paid no attention to what her eyes saw or her ears heard, or her body felt. She was thinking about the case.

Thinking about how it could be that an innocent woman’s hair ended up at a crime scene, right next to a dead body.

It had to be wrong somehow, didn’t it? It had to be a red herring. There was no way that Dr. Applewhite had done anything. Zoe’s opinion on that had not changed. No matter what, she wouldn’t allow herself to doubt her.

And again, it circled around in her mind that this was all her fault. If she hadn’t taken the equation apart and put it back together—right in front of a local mathematician, one of few people who would actually recognize the shape she had made—then Dr. Applewhite would never even have been a person of interest. They wouldn’t have needed to take her DNA.

Maybe Zoe should have stood up to Shelley a little more, too. Made it clear to her that there was no way they were going to even slightly suspect Dr. Applewhite, insist on putting off the DNA swabs. Surely, she should have done something.

“You got a handle on this, Z?”

Zoe looked up to realize that Shelley was back in the observation area with her. On the other side of the glass, Dr. Applewhite was sitting alone in a locked room.

“It is not her,” she said, immediately.