Act II:
Claire and Lindsay found Jill about a block away from the house, standing by Cindy’s little red – and clearly empty – car. Lindsay ducked down anyway, looking in through all the windows, and then straightening up to gaze around.
“What, do you not believe me?” Jill asked. “I told you, she’s not here.”
“She probably just got bored and went to walk around or something,” Claire suggested. If that was the case, she had to admit that she couldn’t really blame Cindy for not wanting to simply sit still and wait for the other three to come find her. Sometimes she felt bad for the poor girl, the only one of them without a “legitimate” reason for coming directly onto crime scenes, even if she was just as dedicated to solving the crimes as the rest of them.
Still, Cindy could have chosen better timing, instead of wandering off again so soon after the truce with Lindsay and Jill.
“Well we’ve only been in there for, what, a half hour?” Lindsay thought aloud. “Hopefully that damn girl hasn’t gone too far.”
Lindsay willed herself not to panic. She knew that Claire was probably right, but the fact remained that Cindy was MIA, and Lindsay always felt a hell of a lot more comfortable when she knew the exact location of the inquisitive reporter.
“Hey guys, what are we talking about?”
Jill jumped about a foot in the air as Cindy’s voice appeared suddenly behind her.
“Jesus, Cindy. What is up with you and the sneaking up on people?”
Clearly not anticipating the fire in Jill’s voice, Cindy took a step backwards. “Um, sorry?” she murmured, her eyebrows arching up towards her hairline.
Three pairs of eyes turned to focus intently on the petite redhead, her sudden appearance met with a combination of relief, amusement, and annoyance.
“Where the hell have you been?” Lindsay demanded. “I told you to just wait for us here!”
“Well, yeah, but...” Cindy paused, looking around warily at her friends. “Come on, Linz, how long have you known me? You didn’t actually expect me to, did you?” she scoffed.
Claire couldn’t hold back the snort of laughter at Cindy’s explanation. “She’s got a point, there, Lindsay. Since when has our Lois Lane ever sat still for very long, especially when there are so many other interesting things she could be doing instead?”
“And sorry I snapped at you,” Jill said, whose expression had softened once she got over how startled she’d been at Cindy’s unexpected arrival. “But you do seem to have a knack for walking ridiculously quietly.” She smirked. “Maybe we should give you a little bell to carry around with you all the time. That way we’d be able to keep track of you better.”
Cindy narrowed her eyes and did her best to scowl at that suggestion, but the look only made Jill’s grin widen.
Catching sight of Lindsay’s still-annoyed expression, Jill addressed her, “Oh lighten up, Linz. No harm done, and before you say anything, this is a completely different situation than the thing at the school. I don’t think we’re expecting to find any mortal danger around here right at the moment.”
Lindsay merely grunted in a way that could possibly be interpreted as agreement, but her eyes did relax noticeably.
Cindy’s gaze met Lindsay’s, clearly searching to see if they were okay. Now that she thought about it, maybe it had been stupid to leave when Lindsay had so clearly asked her not to. Still, she really hadn’t thought that Lindsay would expect her to stay in one place. She’d already done enough waiting around for one day, and she honestly didn’t think it was fair of Lindsay to try to keep her inactive.
Lindsay smiled at her, finally, and at the sight of it, Cindy released the breath that she hadn’t quite realized she’d been holding. They were going to be okay.
“Well, now that you’re back, where did you go off to, anyway?” Claire asked.
Feeling more relaxed now that she felt like Lindsay wasn’t too mad at her, Cindy remembered the thing that had her hurrying back to her car in the first place.
“Well,” she began, “I knew that I couldn’t go anywhere where you ‘important’ people were, but I managed to sneak around the back of the house. A door back there was open, so I went in and made my way upstairs.”
“Of course you did. I swear, you’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.” Lindsay shook her head ruefully, but the smile in her eyes showed that she wasn’t really upset. “Didn’t you tell me just today that there wouldn’t be any breaking or entering?”
“I told you that there hadn’t been breaking or entering, not that there wouldn’t be,” Cindy corrected lightly, though she did at least have the good grace to look a bit sheepish.
Lindsay smiled. Part of her wanted to fall back on her default mode and start yelling again, but she’d been making a serious effort not to overreact as much as usual. When it came to the newest member of their club, it seemed that Lindsay’s overprotective streak ran a mile wide, but she was coming to understand that trying to stifle Cindy too much was a danger all on its own.
“Well did your snooping at least provide anything interesting?” Jill inquired.
“Possibly,” Cindy replied. “It’s nothing to connect the murders, but it could be a place to start, at least. I ended up in some kind of office or something upstairs – and don’t worry, I didn’t actually touch anything – but I found a ‘To Do list’ that Martin had left for himself, dated a little over two weeks ago. Number one on the list is ‘Get rid of the issue with Mel.’ It was underlined three times and had the digits 4715 written out next to it.”
Nodding, Lindsay easily shifted from concerned friend to inspector on the job. “Great. Now if we’re lucky, that’ll be part of a phone number or some kind of address.”
“We can cross-reference that, both the name and the number, with Martin’s phone and email contacts, work colleagues, that kind of thing,” Jill supplied.
“See?” Cindy questioned cheekily. “Now if I had just sat here this whole time, you wouldn’t have a name to look for yet.”
“Yeah, yeah. Good job, Thomas,” Lindsay acknowledged grudgingly, rolling her eyes. Before she could stop herself, she reached out to pull Cindy to her, their shoulders bumping together in a brief, one-armed hug. The action surprised herself almost as much as it surprised Cindy.
“Just don’t do it again,” Lindsay added, knowing full well that the order would be promptly ignored.
****
“Okay,” Lindsay continued as they made their way back towards Martin’s house. “So ignoring Tom for now, we’ve got the scripture left at each scene, that random coin-”
“Wait, what random coin?” Cindy interrupted.
“A single dollar coin was left with the line from the Bible this time,” Jill explained.
“It was different than the others, though,” Lindsay added. “Dollar coins are thicker than quarters, and there’s usually writing around the edge of them, but it had been worn away or something on this one.”
“He had a ‘Godless’ coin? Cool!” Cindy exclaimed. “Those are really rare.”
“A what?” Jill asked, confused.
“When they first started making these new dollar coins, some of them were made incorrectly. They’re supposed to have inscriptions – including, notably, ‘In God We Trust’ – around the edge. But this batch of so-called ‘Godless’ coins were defective, and got through into circulation without the inscriptions.”
“So that goes with the theme of these victims being without God and needing to be ‘saved,’” Claire nodded, her disgusted expression showing what she thought of the killer’s apparent frame of mind.
****
Claire stood calmly in front of the autopsy table and closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath. As strange and morbid as it might seem, the morgue was still one of her most reliable places for finding some peace in the midst of her chaotic life. No one else really understood it, but there was something about the stillness that let Claire reach a degree of focus that was calming in its own way.
She could use some more focus in her life, lately.
Claire’s eyes remained closed, as she allowed her worries to gradually fall away, if only momentarily. Her relationship with Ed was better than it had been a mere five days earlier, but these kinds of things certainly didn’t fix themselves overnight. Here, though, she didn’t have to worry about Ed, or the Hallelujah Man’s rising body count. Lindsay and Jacobi had gone to question the victim’s ex-wife, so she didn’t even have to worry about dealing with the inspector’s tendency to hover during autopsies, either. Here, Claire’s only concerns were the body on her table and the story that he had to tell.
Opening her eyes, the medical examiner considered Travis Martin’s corpse, having already catalogued all the damage visible to the naked eye. But now it was time to dig a little deeper. Time to find out what Mr. Martin had to say.
Taking in a deep breath, Claire raised her scalpel and began to cut.
****
“What were you doing when you found your ex-husband, Ms. Davis?”
Inspectors Boxer and Jacobi stood on either side of the hospital bed where Charlotte Davis was being held for a few hours to make sure the symptoms of her concussion didn’t get any worse.
“The bastard stood me up! We were supposed to go out for dinner two nights ago, but he never showed. So I went to find him. Thought I’d bitch him out a little,” the blonde explained. “I tried to corner him after work, but then I found out he had called in some ‘vacation’ time, and hadn’t been around for the last week and a half. I figured that meant he’d found some new chick and couldn’t be bothered to drag his ass out of bed. I still had an extra key to his place, so I decided to stop by for an impromptu visit this morning.”
“You were supposed to go out to dinner?” Jacobi inquired. “You were divorced, right? Did you still go out very often?”
“No, this was going to be the first time in a while,” she replied. “I called him a few weeks ago. Said I missed him and all that bullshit. I didn’t really expect him to, but he invited me out to dinner. Our schedules didn’t match until just recently, though.”
Lindsay frowned in confusion. It didn’t sound like the woman had a very high opinion of her ex-husband, so the whole story wasn’t making much sense.
“Why did you call him in the first place?” she asked. “Our records show that you were the one to file for divorce.”
Charlotte shot Lindsay a sardonic look. “Honey, have you seen that man’s house? Monogamy wasn’t exactly Travis’ strong suit, sure, but let’s just say that I missed the benefits that came along with the title of ‘Mrs. Martin’ – monetary benefits, to be exact, but he sure knew what he was doing in bed, too.”
Lindsay grimaced slightly. Too much information.
“Right.” Lindsay decided to switch topics. “Well what do you know about the other people in his life – family, friends, anyone he didn’t get along with too well?”
“He was an only child, as far as I know. Parents live in California, I think, but somewhere south of here. Travis never really liked to talk about his family much.”
“But you must’ve met them at some point. At your wedding, at least,” Jacobi prompted.
“Well sure, I brought it up when we were doing the invitations and stuff, but it was up to Travis, really, and he didn’t want them to be there. So no, I’ve never met ‘em,” Charlotte elaborated.
Suddenly remembering Cindy’s earlier find, Lindsay asked abruptly, “Does the name ‘Mel’ mean anything to you?”
“Mel? No, I don’t know anyone named that. I haven’t exactly been up to date on his ever-changing social circle, though. There was one buddy of his he hung out with all the damn time, though. What was his name?” She paused, thinking to herself. “Tuck. Tuck something. They worked together. He should be able to tell you more than I can.”
A nod from Jacobi let Lindsay know that he had all he wanted for the time being. “Great. Well, thank you for your time, Ms. Davis. We’ll let you know if we have any more questions for you.”
As they made their way out of the hospital, Jacobi turned to Lindsay and asked, “So what do you think?”
“I think any rich bachelors in San Francisco need to watch out for that one,” Lindsay replied without hesitation, eliciting a chuckle from Jacobi. “Nah,” Lindsay continued, “she seems harmless enough. Martin’s death certainly doesn’t do her any good, so I doubt she means much for us.”
“Sounds like he didn’t get along too well with the parents, though,” Jacobi added. “That’ll make the next-of-kin visit a little more interesting.”
****
Jill didn’t bother looking up when she heard a sharp knocking at the door to her office.
“Come in,” she called out distractedly. Spread out on her desk were the records from Travis Martin’s phone, along with his extensive list of email contacts. So far she hadn’t found anything that could potentially relate to either the name ‘Mel’ or those digits that Cindy had found. She’d noticed that he hadn’t made any calls from his phone over the last twelve days, though, which was a bit strange.
Acting D.A. Denise Kwon cleared her throat impatiently, finally causing Jill to meet her gaze. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Have you gotten that deposition for the Ramirez trial like I told you to?”
Jill blinked, needing a moment to shift gears in her head and remember what Denise was talking about. Shit, she had meant to follow up on that earlier, but had gotten caught up in this latest case instead.
“Uh, no, not yet. I’m waiting for Carney, Ramirez’s attorney, to get back to me,” she lied. “Right now I’ve been working on the Martin case.”
“The Martin case? That just came in this morning,” Denise protested, her annoyance evident in her voice. “The detectives don’t even have a suspect yet, do they? What could you possibly be needed for at this stage of things?”
“I-” Jill began defensively.
“I need you to do your job, Jill,” Denise interrupted, “not the job of the SFPD. Whatever it is that you’re looking into, I’m sure your friends are fully capable of doing it for themselves.”
“That’s not the point,” Jill argued. She knew that she should probably just let it go and do whatever Denise told her to do, but she wasn’t in the mood to play the role of Denise’s favorite punching bag. “While the detectives on the Martin case are doing the initial interviews, I’m checking up on another lead, so we can move this thing forward at a faster pace. My job, Denise, is to put together the best case I possibly can, and that is exactly what I’m doing. No, we don’t have a suspect yet, but we’re talking about another potential serial killer out there! I’m not going to just sit around and ignore the case completely until we find a suspect. The more I know about what’s going on, the more involved I am with the entire process, the more likely we are to have a successful trial!”
Denise simply glared at her for a moment, but Jill refused to look away. Sure, maybe she could have gotten the deposition earlier, but Jill was not about to apologize for devoting extra time to an important case like this one.
It felt like they were still just running around in the dark with this thing. Lindsay had explained how Tom was making them officially ignore the Bible connection for now, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t all still thinking about the cases as connected; it was just the major question of why that continued to elude them. It was partly the fact that she didn’t fully know what they were dealing with that had her obsessing over details more than she normally might have.
“From what I hear,” Denise said coldly, “there’s no physical evidence connecting these murders. Unless some comes up, I’d suggest that you avoid throwing around the term ‘serial killer’ so carelessly. Right now, as far as I’m concerned, the Martin case should be way down on your to-do list. I’ll keep you on the case, but don’t make me regret it, Jill. After the last time you were lead counsel, I’m starting to doubt your judgment,” Denise continued, alluding to Jill’s previous case, which had ended in an acquittal.
“Oh, bullshit, the Waters trial was not my fault, and you know it!” Jill called after her boss’s retreating form.
“Get me that deposition, Jill!” Denise’s voice floated back through the open door to Jill’s office, as her heels could be heard clicking down the hallway.
Sighing, Jill picked up the phone and dialed the number for the defense attorney in Denise’s case.
****
Jacobi handed a cup of coffee to Aaron Tucker, and then leaned against Lindsay’s desk. Having tried unsuccessfully to contact Martin’s parents, Lindsay and Jacobi had next managed to track down “Tuck,” the friend and co-worker.
“So, Mr. Tucker,” Lindsay began. “We understand that you were well-acquainted with Travis Martin.”
The investment banker offered a charming smile, staring directly at Lindsay. “Please, call me Tuck, Inspector.” Lindsay smiled wanly in return. “But yeah, Travis and I were pretty good buddies. We worked the same shifts three days a week, and would hang out a bunch outside of work, watching football or going out to a bar to meet women.” He paused, shaking his head, as his smile faded. “It’s crazy, man, what happened to him.”
“What can you tell us about him?” Jacobi asked, frowning at the way that Tuck was eyeing his partner. “Anyone you can think of that he didn’t get along with?”
He shrugged. “Travis was a good guy. But he was a ‘different girl every other night’ kind of guy, and he was also a big fan of all the things he could buy with the ton of money he earned. I got the impression he didn’t grow up with that much money. So now he had more than he knew what to do with – I mean, the guy collected rare stamps and coins, not because he particularly liked them, but just because he could! And his success, I think, made it so that he had no respect for anyone who, in his eyes, didn’t work hard enough to make something of themselves. So, there are two types of people who didn’t like Travis – the one-night stands who wanted more, and the less-fortunate, who were jealous of him.”
“Anyone in particular, Mr. Tucker?” Lindsay asked, making a point of keeping things formal, instead of using the suggested nickname.
“There was this one chick. She first started coming to the bank almost a year ago, I think. Travis wasn’t there when she came the first time, but I was, and she made me take down her name and number and give it to Travis. Said it was really important that he call her.”
“Do you remember her name?” Lindsay interjected.
“No, sorry. Like I said, this was a while ago. Anyway, I gave him the note, but I guess he didn’t call her, because then she just kept showing up. She managed to miss his shifts a bunch of times in a row, and then when he was finally there, they went back to his office for, I dunno, maybe ten minutes? She left, all upset, and he wouldn’t talk about it. She kept coming by, though, but he refused to say anything to her. Maybe a month or so later, she just stopped. But then, about two months ago, she showed up again! She didn’t come by as often as before, but she did keep trying to see him somewhat regularly.”
“So did you ever find out what she wanted from him?” Lindsay frowned. Whatever it was, the woman had been quite persistent.
“No,” he replied, obviously disappointed. “I tried to get it out of him, but Travis absolutely refused to tell me anything.”
“How about describing her? Could you do that?” Jacobi inquired, taking out a pen and some paper.
“Sure. African-American, maybe late twenties or early thirties-ish, always wore her hair in a ponytail, pretty, but a little too skinny for my tastes.”
Lindsay rolled her eyes. “We don’t care whether or not you wanted to sleep with her, we just want to know what she looked like.”
The man simply grinned. “Right. Well, that’s about all I remember about her. Sorry.”
Jacobi nodded. “Well thank you for your time, Mr. Tucker. We’ll let you know if we have any more questions.”
Jacobi waited until the banker was out of sight before speaking. “Lovely. So now we’ve got a new mystery girl to find.”
“And don’t forget the rare coin collection,” Lindsay added. “Seems like we might want to find that too.”
****
Cindy was the first one to arrive down at the morgue after Claire called them all that evening, but was soon followed by Lindsay.
“Hey, any luck with the case yet?” Cindy asked the inspector, as they waited for Claire to get off the phone and Jill to arrive.
“Nothing so far, but we’ve got some potential stuff. We haven’t been able to get in contact with the parents yet, but they’re a potential angle to follow up on. Plus, some CSIs went back to Martin’s place; we missed a drawer with a false bottom that had this rare coin collection in it, and they were able to lift a bit of thread that got caught in the corner. Apparently, the man had not one, but three of those Godless coin things,” Lindsay explained. “What about you? Get yourself into any more trouble?” she drawled teasingly.
“Ha ha, Linz.” Cindy rolled her eyes. “No, I only seem to get into trouble when you’re around. With so little to go on, I haven’t really been able to do much, though. I tried doing a search of all the addresses that include 4715 in them and looking at the people who lived there, but that wasn’t really going anywhere. Then I started looking into the money thing; I mean most people, even the ones with rare coin collections, don’t exactly have thousands of dollar coins just lying around, so...”
Cindy paused, suddenly noticing that a strange expression had crossed Lindsay’s face as she eyed the redhead contemplatively, seemingly not even fully paying attention to what Cindy was saying.
Unsure what was going through the inspector’s head, Cindy asked, “Okay, why are you looking at me like that?”
The question seemed to break Lindsay from her brief daze, as her eyes focused back onto Cindy’s. “Huh? Oh, nothing. It’s just...” Lindsay paused, looking away in embarrassment. “You look nice,” she admitted, saying it quickly, as if the three words were connected into one.
Cindy laughed, though she remained slightly confused. “And you say that like A, that’s a bad thing, and B, I usually look like crap.”
“No,” Lindsay hurried to assure her. “You always look nice, your outfit is just...nice...er than usual.”
Lindsay could feel a slight blush creeping over her face. She wished she’d just kept her mouth shut. It was true, though – Cindy wore a simple, but quite flattering, white skirt that reached to just above her knees; the bit of smoky eyeliner was certainly something new; and the silky green shirt somehow seemed to bring out previously-unnoticed flecks of hazel in Cindy’s eyes, as well as show off a generous hint of cleavage.
Lindsay swallowed audibly, figuring that her suddenly increased heart rate and slight discomfort simply resulted from seeing her friend dressed in a way that seemed so intentionally sexualized. She was used to it with Jill, but definitely not Cindy.
“Um, thanks,” Cindy murmured, self-consciously tilting her head to scratch behind her ear.
Just then Jill interrupted the odd tension as she strode into the morgue. “Sorry I’m late. Denise is on another power-trip and keeps making me do all this random crap for her.”
Lindsay and Cindy both turned to Jill gratefully. “Hey,” Lindsay exclaimed, a bit too eagerly, causing Jill to shoot her a strange look.
“Hey,” she replied, drawing out the word slowly. Her eyes turned to Cindy, and a smirk lit up her face. “Well look at you!” she exclaimed. “Lois Lane’s got a hot date!” she added with a wink. Well this was sure to be interesting, she mused.
Lindsay’s face whipped back around to Cindy, whose face instantly flushed at Jill’s words.
“You’re going on a date?” Lindsay asked, unsure why she was so surprised by the mere idea. Of course that was why Cindy was all dressed up – to go on a date with one of her “people.”
“Um,” Cindy began, crossing her arms in front of her chest and looking back and forth between Lindsay and Jill. “Yeah. Just going out for dinner,” she shrugged.
“What’s going on?” Claire asked as she reentered the room after finishing her phone call with Ed. She looked around at her friends, taking in the uncomfortable looks on Cindy’s and Lindsay’s faces, and the amused sparkle in Jill’s.
“Cindy’s got a date tonight,” Jill explained.
“Ah,” Claire commented, sharing a look of understanding with Jill. “Well have fun!”
Cindy smiled in gratitude. She couldn’t figure out what the deal was with Lindsay, who’d been acting strange almost as soon as she’d arrived, but at least Claire and Jill were encouraging. It’d been a while since she’d last gone out on a date, so she was already nervous enough without such a big deal being made of it.
“So what kind of person are you going out with?” Lindsay inquired, her voice a bit harder than it’d been earlier.
Cindy turned to simply stare at her for a moment, her blush deepening. She knew what Lindsay meant, but the question irked her enough to make her reject a simple answer.
“What kind of person? Oh you know, just your normal kind of person – smart, nice, tall, good-looking, grew up in Denver.” She made a point of making no references to gender, causing Lindsay to frown. “Is that what you meant?” she asked innocently.
Lindsay rolled her eyes. “You know what I meant,” she accused.
There was a slightly tense moment of silence, and Claire wondered if she should try to defuse the situation or simply let them get this out of their system.
Before Claire could think of anything to say, though, Cindy sighed and gave in. “Her name’s Ellen. She’s a web designer,” she admitted simply.
Unable to stop herself, Lindsay practically snorted out a short laugh. “Her name’s Ellen?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Lindsay...” Jill warned, guessing where Lindsay was headed, but really hoping that her friend wouldn’t actually go there.
“What’s wrong with that?” Cindy prompted. “Do you have something against people named Ellen?”
“No, it’s a great name.” Lindsay smirked. “It’s just kind of funny. I mean, it’s just got to be like the gayest name out there, right?” she joked. “I mean, stereotypically.”
Claire and Jill could only gape at Lindsay in stunned silence, hardly able to believe that the inspector was actually sinking to such levels, joking in such bad taste. They both looked over to Cindy, anxiously waiting to see the reporter’s reaction.
Offering a weak smile, Cindy rolled her eyes. She really didn’t know what to make of Lindsay’s odd behavior. Should she be amused? Offended? “Right,” she replied warily, deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt for the time being. “Very funny, Linz.”
Later, Lindsay would acknowledge that this was the point where she probably should have just stopped talking. Instead, she went on, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, by the way, do you have a ‘type’?”
“A ‘type’?” Cindy repeated flatly.
“Yeah. You know, who do you like more: blonds, brunettes, or other redheads; blue eyes or green. That kind of thing,” Lindsay supplied, even as her heart beat uncomfortably in her chest. She wasn’t quite sure where the question had come from. She had idly wondered before, but certainly had never meant to actually bring it up.
“I dunno, Lindsay,” Cindy replied uncomfortably, almost squirming in place. She could feel the color slowly draining from her face. Lindsay’s tone remained light, but there was just something that seemed “off” about the whole conversation.
“It just seems like you’d need to have one,” Lindsay elaborated. “I mean, if you can’t even rely on gender to weed some people out, you must have some other way of narrowing down your potential dating pool!”
Jill grimaced. The line of questioning could have almost been purely innocent, an honest curiosity about how bisexuality “worked.” But there was no denying that there was more to it than that in this instance.
Cindy stared hard at the inspector, finally sick of Lindsay’s attitude. “It’s called personality, Lindsay. I try not to date jackasses.”
Cindy’s unexpected reply caused Jill to laugh out loud, before quickly covering her mouth when Claire whacked her on the arm.
Jill’s
laughter managed to break the tension, though, as Lindsay looked sheepishly
down at the floor before grinning sincerely as she looked back up at Cindy, an
apology held within her eyes, even if it wasn’t quite voiced aloud. “Yeah,
that works,” she drawled.
Cindy simply stared back at her.
“Well!” Claire clapped her hands together. “Now that we’ve got that all settled, why don’t we talk about our latest dead body?”
****
