The Case of the Lipstick Killer

"A few weeks passed by, and he showed up at my apartment wanting to know more about my project. I told him I couldn't tell him any more than I already had. He said he understood. Then he asked me if I was adamant enough in my ethical stand to turn down a million dollars.

"I laughed because I thought he was joking. He said he was joking. What he meant to say was, would I turn down five million dollars.

"Wait. What? Again, I thought he was joking around. He told me that we were both working for American companies, and there wouldn't be any harm if one or both of them came out with comparable laser weapons.

"Well, being the naïve person I am, I didn't see the bigger picture. We would be committing industrial espionage. But, still, five million dollars?

"I said, 'Fine. If you're serious, bring me $5 million worth of cut diamonds, and I will consider your offer.'

"After a few more laughs, Li left, and I went to work the next day as if nothing had happened. Nor did I think anything would happen.

"Two days later, I got a call from Li asking me to join him for lunch at a great lunch spot in Palo Alto. I figured, what the hell.

"So I met him at this trendy little lunch spot, and he walks up to the table I was sitting at and plopped a briefcase on the table in front of me. He says, 'There you are. $5 million in diamonds, just as you requested.'"

I just had to jump in at this point. My brain lost its focus after "$5 million in diamonds."

"Sorry for the interruption, Mr. Seto. You say he gave you a briefcase containing

$5 million worth of diamonds?"

"That's what I'm saying, Ms. Fontaine. When I opened up the briefcase, I didn't believe my eyes. I had never seen $5 million of anything before that time. I was a dealer in precious stones in an earlier life, including diamonds, so I knew how to verify their authenticity.

"That was the start of it. Li had me from that moment forward. I was merely his puppet. I started funneling him plans and updates and progress notes for the laser we were building. It was easy. I didn't think anyone could get hurt. We both worked for huge companies. If one comes up with some innovation in weaponry, the other one comes up with something comparable shortly after. Like I say, who's gonna get hurt?" "I'm assuming you eventually found out?" I asked.

"You see, that's the problem. I'm still not sure. I mean, Li was paying me tons of money, so I thought everything was cool. Like, go and retire in the Caribbean for life kind of thing. I have a fiancé, and she's pregnant. It's like, how many different things can I have going on at the same damn time, right?

"Well, I delayed giving Li the final component of my design. He became unhinged and started threatening me. I told him I would give him the final component to my laser after we had built and tested it first."

"I take it that didn't work for him. So what happened next?" I asked.

"Next thing I know, my fiancé is missing, and Li is telling me he'll release her once I turn over the plans for the final phase of my laser weapon. Well, shit, what am I supposed to do?

"That's when the answer came to me."

"The answer? What answer?"

"You."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. I can afford to pay you whatever it takes to find my fiancé and get her back to me. She's six months pregnant, for God's sake. She's in danger, and it's all because of Li. That asshole."

"Well, I'll need whatever contact information you have for this Judas friend of yours, and we'll see if we can find him and get to the bottom of this so we can get your pregnant fiancé out of harm's way."

"Okay. Here's everything you'll need to find Li," said Bing as he wrote down all the information on the yellow pad sitting on the desk in front of me.

"Thank you, Mr. Seto. We'll start on this today. Please call me if you think of anything else that we need to help your case, and I'll keep you up to date on our progress. Please see Nora at the front desk on your way out, and she'll get a retainer from you to get the ball rolling."

"Thank you, Ms. Fontaine. I'm counting on you."

Mr. Seto left my office and headed back to work in Palo Alto, and I'm still thinking, laser weapons? I've come a long way from being a glorified bookkeeper for the Chicago mob.

OAKLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT

HOMICIDE DIVISION

February 11, 9:45 a.m.

"Hi. My name is Lani Kahue. I'm here to see Detective Wheeler. She's expecting me," said Lani to the sergeant sitting behind the counter inside the entrance door from 6th

Street.

"Good morning. I'll let Detective Wheeler know you are here."

"Thank you."

"Hello," said Detective Wheeler as she walked towards Lani. "How are you today? You doing okay?"

"Yeah, I think so. I'm still a little nervous when I walk out to my car, though," replied Lani.

"I'm sure you are. That will happen for a while, but it will eventually go away."

"Thank God. So I'm supposed to look at a lineup and see if the woman who assaulted me is there? Is that how it works?"

"Well, we don't do it quite like that. You're talking about what is usually seen on TV or in the movies. We do what is called a photo lineup. We'll go to an interview room in my office, and I'll show you six photos of different women, and you'll look at them and tell me and my partner, Detective D'Agosta, whether you recognize your attacker in one of the photos. That doesn't sound too difficult, does it?"

"Not at all. I thought I was going to be looking through a mirror with the cold bitch that held a knife to my throat, leering back at me."

"I think you'll find this method much easier on your nerves, Lani."

"Thank you so much. I was starting to get a little shaky thinking about doing it the other way."

Ten minutes later, Lani was seated at a table in one of the police interview rooms not far from Wheeler's desk. There was nothing glamorous about either the interview room or the drab room where the detectives' desks were situated. Lani looked around at the office. Pretty depressing.

After a few minutes, Detectives Wheeler and D'Agosta walked into the interview room and sat down across from Lani.

"I want to thank you for coming in this morning, Lani," said D'Agosta as he opened up the folder that he brought in with him and pulled out a stack of black and white photos.

"Here you go," he said as he spread six photographs across the table in front of Lani. "Take all the time you need, and then let us know if your attacker is in any of the photos."

Lani scanned the photos and didn't recognize any of them, but she did as she was requested and slowly examined each photograph, moving from left to right.

"Well, Lani, do you recognize anyone in any of these photos?" asked Wheeler.

"I'm sorry. I can't tell you for sure. This woman here has the same color blonde hair, but it's shorter than the woman who attacked me," she said, pointing to the third photograph from the left. "You can tell she's evil by looking at her eyes. They're cold and lifeless. I wish I could say for sure."

"Thank you, Lani. That is, in fact, Jackie's ex-girlfriend, Gwen Stein. What will happen now is, we'll continue our investigation. We might be able to come up with something else that we can make stick and get an arrest warrant."

"What if it was her, and she comes after me again?" asked Lani.

"Unfortunately, that is a possibility," said Wheeler. "But that's how our criminal justice system works. We can't arrest Gwen because we think she did it. We need to have credible evidence or a reliable eyewitness. But we'll keep trying."

"Okay. Thank you, Detective. I'll call you if she tries to contact me again."

"Detective D'Agosta and I will be here. Bye, Lani. Thank you for coming in. We appreciate it."

FRESNO POLICE DEPARTMENT

February 11, 2:30 p.m.

After a boring three-hour drive from Oakland to Fresno, including a food stop and restroom break at the In-N-Out Burger restaurant about halfway through the trip, Max pulled into the Fresno Police Department parking lot, parked her car, and walked into the main entrance to the building.

"May I help you?" asked the police officer sitting at the desk inside the entry door.

"Hello, officer. I have kind of a strange request. I'm a private investigator from Oakland, and we're working on a homicide case possibly involving someone who used to live in your fair city. As far as I know, you never arrested her, or even suspected her, in any homicides here, but I wonder if I might be able to speak to one of your homicide detectives and ask him or her some questions."

"Well, since you asked so politely, let me see if I can find someone for you to talk to," said the sergeant with a warm smile.

Max returned his smile with one of her own.

I think that poor man is smitten with me. Oh, the power of a sweet smile and a fine ass.

Ten minutes later, homicide Detective Mel Dobson walked out to the lobby and greeted Max.

"Hi, Max. I'm Detective Mel Dobson. How can I help you?" he asked.

"Thanks for seeing me at the last minute like this, Detective. I'm a private investigator from Oakland," Max said as she pulled out her license and credentials for the detective to see. We're looking into a person of interest in one of our cases, and, as it turns out, she lived here in Fresno before she came to Oakland about three years ago."

"So what are you looking for exactly, Max?"

"Well, we think Gwen may have killed another woman's husband out of revenge for the other woman breaking up with her. Gwen lived in Fresno for about seven years before relocating to Oakland. So I'd be interested in any unsolved murders you might have going back eleven years, just to see if there might be some kind of commonality or connection."

"You're in luck. I've been on homicide for the last 15 years," said Dobson. "Fortunately, we're able to solve about 90 percent of our homicides, so that doesn't leave a lot to go through. But I can set you up with a desk and get you the unsolved files, and you can knock yourself out."

"That would be excellent. I appreciate that. It was a boring drive from Oakland to here, so hopefully, this will make the drive worth it."

"Here, take this desk over here, and give me about ten minutes to locate the files you want," said Detective Dobson as he left the room.

In the meantime, Max sat at the desk and looked around at the station. Once you've seen the inside of one police station, you've pretty much seen them all. And why do they always paint their rooms that godawful light green color?

"Here you go, Max. I've got twelve files for the time in question. I hope you can find something helpful."

"Thanks, Detective."

Max spent the next hour pouring over the case files for the twelve unsolved homicides in the Fresno area going back fourteen years.

Too much more of this, and my brain is going to turn to mush.

"Wait. Wait. What's this? Oh, my. Gwen, I think you in a lot of trouble, girl," said Max out loud.

"Detective Dobson, I think I've found something. You had a homicide nine years ago. The victim's name is Caroline Jaeger. She was 34 and was found lying on her bed with a butcher knife stabbed into her heart. There was some evidence indicating it might have been her girlfriend, but you chalked that up to a phony staged crime scene."

"Yes, I remember that one like it was yesterday. Someone went to a lot of trouble trying to make it look like it was her girlfriend, but there were too many inconsistencies, so I ruled the girlfriend out.

"Funny thing, though. The girlfriend said that the deceased had trouble with a previous girlfriend who wouldn't accept being dumped by the victim. The girlfriend didn't know the name of the ex-girlfriend, though. Too bad. I would have liked to talk to the ex. I think she got away clean. You think it might be your person of interest?" he asked.

"Our case has a lot of similarities to your case. We think the unsub staged our crime scene also. Do you have any physical evidence that might have any DNA traces on it?" asked Max with a little hope in her voice.

"We found a bloodstain on the sheet that wasn't from the victim. We were never able to match it to anybody, though. I think the crime lab will still have the sample. We cut out the piece of the sheet and turned it over to the lab for processing. I'll see if they still have it. There's one more thing that we found odd at the time. The victim had lipstick smudged on her cheek that looks like someone kissed her. It could have been her killer. We're not sure.

"Tell me you took a sample of the lipstick smudge and still have it, Detective," said Max.

"I think we did. We were never able to match it to anyone. I'll look for that also.

I'll be back shortly."

Oh, God, I hope they still have the blood and lipstick samples. That could be the smoking gun, and we can get Gwen on multiple murders and have her put away permanently.

It was a painfully long 15 minutes that Detective Dobson was gone, looking for the blood and lipstick samples.

"You're in luck," he said jubilantly as he returned to the room where Max was still sitting at the table with all the files of death and homicide strewn about in front of her.

"Here they are, just how we found them nine years ago. What do you want to do with this? You know I can't just give it to you, right? It's the chain of custody thing."

"I can't tell you how much I appreciate this, Detective. These might be our smoking gun and the stay out of jail card for our client," said Max appreciatively.

"Is there any way I can sweet talk you into bringing these samples to the Oakland Police Department and turn them over to their lab so that we maintain the proper chain of custody, and then they can compare the lipstick to our sample and the blood to our person of interest once we obtain a DNA sample from her?"

"Well, since this might turn out to be a multiple-murder case, I think I can talk my boss into letting me get this up to Oakland tomorrow. Does that work for you, ma'am?"

"First of all, please call me Max. Ma'am is what the prostitutes call the madam in the brothels in New Awlins. And, yes, that works for me. You are so sweet to offer to do that.

"I noticed one more thing while I was waiting for you to get back from the lab. A neighbor said she noticed a blonde woman walking away from the victim's house around the time of the murder. Whatever became of that?" asked Max.

"We checked into that, but we were never able to find a blonde woman with any connection to the victim or the crime scene. We had to let that one go."

"Interesting," replied Max. "Well, I'd better get my butt back to Oakland to bring my boss up to speed. You take care now, Detective. Bye-bye."

Ten minutes later and Max was on the freeway heading back to Oakland, hoping she had just found the evidence that could prove that Nikki Fontaine's client was innocent.

NIKKI FONTAINE INVESTIGATIONS

GRAND AVENUE, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

February 12, 9:25 a.m.

"Hi, y'all," said Max as she breezed into the office. "Hi, Nora. Did you miss me?"

"You know I did. I've been counting the minutes, darlin'," replied Nora.

Okay. What the hell are they doing? I don't pay you people to mingle. At least not in the office. I'm gonna have to keep an eye on those two. This is my damn office. If someone is gonna be flirting around here, it's damn well gonna be me. I'm feeling the need to drop a pen on the floor right about now.

"Hey, Max. Did you find out anything in Fresno, or was all that driving just a waste of time?" I asked.

"We struck pay dirt, baby. At least, I think we did. They had an unsolved homicide nine years ago that was very similar to what happened to Jackie. This time an ex-girlfriend stabbed the girl who broke up with her, and she rigged a phony crime scene that the detective on the case saw right through. He ignored it, but they never solved it. But--and I say, but they kept a piece of the sheet the victim was lying on because it had an unsub's blood on it. And on top of that, the Fresno victim found a lipstick kiss smudge on her cheek; and as luck would have it, they still had the lipstick sample."

"Oh, my God, Max. I forgot to tell you. Jackie's girlfriend Lani was assaulted by a woman with a knife and told to stay away from Jackie. Lani only got a look at her attacker from the rear as she was leaving. The only thing she could tell is that her attacker had blonde hair. They brought her in for a photo lineup, including a photo of Gwen that Jackie gave them, but Lani couldn't positively identify Gwen out of the lineup."

"That's too bad," replied Max. "The detective from Fresno is personally hand delivering the piece of sheet with the bloodstain on it, as well as the lipstick sample, to the Oakland PD lab tomorrow so they can process and compare them to the evidence from Brad's murder and the bartender's murder. Hopefully, they can legally get a DNA sample from Gwen to compare it with the Fresno sample. But I think that lipstick is the key to this whole thing. If we can tie this specific lipstick to someone, I think we'll know who our killer is."

"Well, unfortunately, the only way they can get a DNA sample from Gwen is if she volunteers to do so. Unless they have enough evidence to arrest her for a crime, they can't force her to provide them with her DNA. But maybe she's just cocky enough to volunteer a sample. I'll see if the detectives want to give it a shot," I said. "Would you like to go for a ride with me to the OPD and see what the detectives think about that?"

"Hell, yeah. I've been dying to go for a ride in your little sportscar," replied Max.

OAKLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT

HOMICIDE DIVISION

February 12, 10:30 a.m.

"Damn. This Tesla Roadster is the coolest car I've ever ridden in. It definitely is feature. It takes off like a rocket. You'd better watch yourself. You'll get arrested or killed driving this thing if you're not careful," said Max as they pulled into the parking lot for visitors to the OPD.

"What do you mean by feature?" I asked.

"You know, the real deal. A real ball buster."

"Oh. Okay. I try to keep my foot out of it, but it's just so much fun. I just can't help it sometimes, especially when I'm getting onto the freeway. I smoked a Porsche Turbo the other day. I don't think he was pleased."

"Hello. We need to see Detectives D'Agosta and Wheeler," I said as Max and I walked up to the desk sergeant inside the station's front entrance.

"May I have your names, please?"

"Sure. I'm Nikki Fontaine, and this lovely specimen of a woman is Max Dupree. We're here about the Jackie Morrison case."

"Let me give Detective D'Agosta a call and see if he's available."

Today's my lucky day, said the sergeant to himself. Damn. I've got a twofer. One babe is smoking hot, and the other one is smoking hot. My day is looking up.

"Thank you," said Max.

Within three minutes, Detective Wheeler came walking out to greet them.

"I'm Detective Wheeler. I don't believe we've met before."

"Oh, you're right. I'm Nikki Fontaine, and this is Max Dupree. We're private investigators that Jackie Morrison hired to look into her case and see if we can do anything to help.

"I played a hunch," I said, "and I had Max take a trip down to Fresno to look into any unsolved homicides during the time that Gwen Stein was living there. It just happens that there was an unsolved murder about nine years with strikingly similar circumstances to Jackie's case.

"A young woman who had broken up with another woman and had a new girlfriend was stabbed through her heart while she was in her bed. The detective figured out it was a staged crime scene and didn't give it much credence. But the dead girlfriend's new girlfriend had never seen the ex-girlfriend or any photos of her, so the case went stale, and they never made any arrests."