Homewrecker Ch. 03

"Wilco, sir." Tanya replied as I handed her an envelope with a name in it. She looked at it and said "Him? Really?"

"Yep." I said to Tanya as I handed Cindy an envelope. "I need to let you know that I was slow, but I'm still not an Agency of the Weak-Minded. The name of Beverly's killer is in there."

Cindy opened her envelope and looked at the name inside, then showed it to Tanya. It was the same name as the one in Tanya's envelope.

"Wow." said Tanya. "I can see where you're going with this, but how did you know?"

"It occurred to me last night, as I thought about it." I said. "And I think Lainie will now give us the corroborating evidence. Let's bring her in." I suited the deed to the word by picking up the desk phone and calling Lainie in Intelligence. She appeared in my doorway an instant later.

"Have a seat, Lainie." I said. "Get some coffee if you want." Lainie politely declined the coffee, and sat down in the hot chair nearest the wall.

Lainie Everett was a mousey-looking, nerdy girl with brown hair that she kept very straight. She wore glasses whose frames were translucent and brightly colored, usually green or hot pink. She was the kind of girl that guys wouldn't admit to wanting to be with, but would never turn down a chance to fuck her brainy brains out. And she was brilliant behind those neon bright glasses...

"Go ahead." Tanya said to Lainie.

"I'm sorry, sir, for not finding this sooner." said Lainie. "I only found it after you suggested I try again and dig deeper."

"If I'm right, you don't need to apologize." I said. "Tell us what you found."

Lainie began: "About 12 months ago, Beverly DeAngelo did file a restraining order in a Court in the City, where she was living the majority of the time at the time. But there was an error, and the restraining order was issued against the wrong person and sent to that wrong person." She showed me the restraining order file on her tablet. I nodded and handed the tablet back, noting the name.

"I see why they made the mistake." I said. "So what happened?"

"About four months ago," Lainie said, "Beverly was living primarily in Southport, and she went to the Southport PD and filed a complaint. I missed it because I looked only for restraining orders. In the complaint, Beverly said the the guy she had a restraining order against was continuing to contact her. The SPD checked it out, and that's when the error was found. They told her they couldn't do anything, that she'd have to re-file the restraining order, and then they could take action for any future contact. So Beverly re-filed for a restraining order, this time in Southport, but there is no record of it... at all. It disappeared completely."

"So how did you find the record if it disappeared?" I asked.

"We had some good luck with that." said Lainie. "The SPD closed the case by putting a copy of the second restraining order in their file, along with the first erroneous one. Mostly a CYA move by them, of course."

Lainie: "When I saw the copy of the second order in the file, I went and looked for it. But it's not there, and not in their backups, either. The only copy that exists now is in the Southport PD file. Lt. Eugene Graham sent me a copy of that file, and said we should get a subpoena to get the original file."

"Yes, we should." I said. "Captain, let's make that happen immediately. And Lainie, there's nothing to apologize for. I don't expect you to find what is not there at all, and someone had the power to make this second order not exist at all---"

*BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!*

It was Tanya's Police iPhone. "It's Christina." she said, then answered it. "Hold on, I'm going to put you on speaker." she said. A second later, we heard the voice of Dr. Christina Cho, Chief Chemist of all the State Crime Labs.

"Hi Christina!" we all said simultaneously at Tanya's direction.

"Hi guys!" Christina said. "We got back some of the DNA results of the 'deep clean' evidence-gathering your guys did at the crime scene. There's not much, and there is DNA from at least six persons, as tends to be the case in hotel shower drains. We haven't matched anyone yet, but we can definitely exclude one of your suspects..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We assembled at County Airport. The TCPD's Bell 206 helicopter was ready to go. Deputy Chief Cindy Ross had delivered the warrants I'd requested, which was in the pocket of my trenchcoat along with my red crowbar and a DNA testing kit.

"All right," I said to Julia Rodriguez and Roark Coleman, who like me had their armored vests on. "I've contacted the locals, and we're going to fly over and make the arrest with them present, even though I can and likely will be logged in as the SBI Reserve Inspector."

"Don," Cindy asked, "who gets the blue crowbar for being right?"

"Teresa Croyle." I said. "But she won't take it, of course. She says she doesn't need one..."

To be continued.

Dear Readers, you have the clues. Which of you will get a (Nerf) blue crowbar for correctly solving the case and telling us who the killer of Beverly DeAngelo is... and why? Solution next chapter...