Look Closer

Jane stops before entering the door for the task force. Their breath hangs in the cool air. “I know that that blood trail Ria showed me doesn’t lie, Andy. Somebody moved the pink phone after the murder. It had to be the offender. And if the offender was Lauren’s boyfriend, he would have to be the dumbest shit on the planet to not pick it up and take it with him.”

“And you’ve never met an offender who made a mistake.”

A couple of uniforms from Forest Park, one of whom Jane recognizes but can’t place the name, pass them on their way into the station. She steps back and nods to them.

“Yes, offenders make mistakes, but it’s not like the offender ignored it or was so freaked out that he missed it. That I could understand.” She steps forward, lowering her voice. “But he didn’t miss it. He focused on it. He paid careful attention to it. He gently, carefully nudged that phone under the table. It took deliberation, Andy. It took care. It took conscious thought. That whole time he—or she—is carefully pushing that phone under the table, it never occurred to him—or her—that hey, this phone is really incriminating, probably better I scoop it up and take it with me? Or smash it into thirty thousand pieces at least?”

“So it was a woman, the lover’s wife?” says Andy. “She kills two birds with one stone. She kills Lauren and frames her husband. All because a phone got moved not once, but twice?”

“Maybe it’s not a smoking gun, I grant you,” she says. “But something doesn’t fit.”

“A woman picked up Lauren and chucked her over the side, while she’s kicking and screaming.”

“Who said she was kicking and screaming? The blow to the head could have knocked her out. She’s unconscious, the offender gets the noose around Lauren’s neck and chucks her over the side. It might not be the easiest thing, but plenty of women could pull that off. Just—just do me a favor and keep an open mind.”

—

“Here you go, Jane.” Marta Glasgow, from Major Crimes forensics, pops up the image on her computer screen. “That’s it. That’s your boot.”

Jane leans over Marta’s shoulder, peering at the screen. “A . . . Peak Explorer.”

“Right. The brand is Paul Roy. They have a Peak collection, and this is the Explorer. See the treads?”

On the right side of the split screen is the bottom of the boot, a diagonal tread with a strip down the middle, a triangular shape of a mountain peak, filled by small treads of the same shape.

“A Paul Roy Peak Explorer.”

“Yup. Men’s size thirteen.”

“And you’re sure.”

“Yup. Matches the dental stone cast and the photographs from the impressions on the front door. Good thing for you it rained that afternoon. Just enough to moisten the mud behind the shrubs by the window.”

“Any idea how old these shoes are?” Jane asks.

Marta laughs. “I’m not a miracle worker, Jane. But I will say this much. The treads weren’t very worn. The shoes could’ve been new or not used very often.”

“Thanks, Marta.”

Jane dares to glance at Andy. “Don’t even say it.”

He leans into her. “A woman with a man’s size thirteen foot?”

—

“Do you have any idea how many calls I’ve gotten in just twenty-four hours? People are incredibly upset. Some are scared.” The Village president, Alex Galanis, hikes a knee up on a chair inside the chief’s office. “I’ve had more than one person say to me they moved here from Chicago to get away from this kind of violence.”

“I think they’re overreacting, Alex,” says Chief Carlyle. “My statement said the public was not in danger.”

“That statement wasn’t strong enough. Do we have a suspect or a person of interest at least?” Galanis sighs, plays with his tie. Alex Galanis is a downtown lawyer in his second term as village president. The word around town is he’s being groomed for a shot at the state senate in 2024. Jane knew his younger brother, Nikos, in high school.

“Sergeant Burke has been running this investigation around the clock,” says the chief. “She’s our best. Jane, why don’t you take that?”

Her instinct is to appreciate the chief letting her field the question, giving her the rope to do her job and take the credit. But credit can quickly turn to blame, and that rope to a noose.

“It seems clear to us that this was personal,” she says. “We have text messages from a prepaid burner phone. Love notes. She was having an affair. And the text messages indicate that she’d just broken things off. So that gives us a pretty clear motive. Finding the person on the other end of those phone calls is the challenge.”

Jane doesn’t think it’s quite that simple, but the summary is accurate enough.

“Well, that’s good, at least, the personal part.” Galanis throws up a hand. “We don’t have some roving serial killer or something. And you think this killer . . . might have killed himself?”

“Well, sir, his last text to her, after she was dead, sure seemed like a suicide note, yes.”

Galanis nods, not wanting to hope for someone’s death, but it would obviously eliminate any further violence in his town. “So how long will this take?”

“I wish I could say, sir.”

“Weeks? Months?”