Face of Murder

Ultimately, it didn’t matter what either of them believed. The wheels were in motion now, and procedure dictated that they follow every possible lead. If they were found not to have followed this through later, they could both lose their jobs—and it could even jeopardize the case once they brought the real killer to trial. Defense lawyers loved nothing more than loose ends.

Zoe didn’t need to call Dr. Applewhite to know where she would be: in her office, as she was every day at this time. Likely meeting with someone from her case study group. She was a busy woman, and this interruption to her working hours would no doubt cause her no end of hassle. Zoe felt guilty even to be bringing this to her door. With every minute that passed, she was thinking up another reason why this was quite possibly the worst thing that she had ever done.

“How can I help you?” the bespectacled receptionist in the cool white room that served as Dr. Applewhite’s foyer asked them, if not with suspicion, then certainly with curiosity. She must have known that no one was due to come in at that moment.

“We need to speak with Dr. Applewhite,” Zoe said, feeling bile rise in her throat as she said the words.

“She’s occupied at the moment,” the receptionist said, glancing up to check the clock. “She’ll be out in about twenty-five minutes, I should think.”

Shelley took out her badge and laid it on the desk for a moment, keeping her fingertips in contact. “It’s rather urgent,” she said.

The receptionist’s mouth formed a shocked “oh” of nude lipstick, and she was reaching for an internal phone when Zoe stopped her.

“We will wait,” she said, gesturing to the nearby chairs for Shelley’s benefit. The last thing that she wanted to do was to embarrass Dr. Applewhite by bursting in on something scheduled. Especially given that this was nothing at all to do with her, and only Zoe’s own mistake. Dr. Applewhite could not be anything but innocent. There was not even the shadow of a doubt in Zoe’s mind that this was all about to be cleared up, albeit painfully and awkwardly. It was that part that she was dreading.

The minutes ticked by interminably. Even for Zoe, who normally had an impeccable inner clock, it seemed to drag on for hours. Then there were only ten minutes to go, and she began to really sweat about what was to come. As soon as that happened, time altered itself again: ten minutes flashed by so fast that Zoe had to double-check her watch when Dr. Applewhite’s door opened.

“Great work. I’ll see you next week,” Dr. Applewhite was saying, ushering a young man out into the waiting room. He ambled past them with a curious look, even glancing back over his shoulder as he heard Dr. Applewhite greeting her former charge.

“Zoe! What brings you here? More news on the case already?”

Zoe could barely look her in the eye as she got up from her seat, nodding her head. “There has been an update. We have a new body, with a new equation.”

“Do you have a copy for me to look at?” Dr. Applewhite asked. Her head was swinging from Zoe to Shelley, no doubt confused by their unhappy expressions. It was like a pendulum in a clock, ticking onward almost at an even rate of seconds. Tick. Tick. Tick.

“It would be better if we could talk to you in a more private setting,” Shelley said tactfully.

“We can use my office.” Dr. Applewhite gestured back toward the open door, and even took a few steps back before Shelley interrupted her.

“No. We’d be better off in our office, so to speak. We need to ask you to provide a voluntary DNA sample.”

Dr. Applewhite paused, looking over at Zoe. Zoe looked up and met her eyes, and instantly wished that she hadn’t.

“What is this about?” Dr. Applewhite asked, her tone less sure now.

“We need to eliminate you from the case,” Shelley said, simply.

Dr. Applewhite was still looking to Zoe, as if waiting for confirmation. All she could do was give a single, sharp nod, the shame weighing heavy on the back of her neck.

“All right,” Dr. Applewhite conceded, uncertainty flooding her voice. She glanced over to her open-mouthed receptionist and nodded to her, receiving a nod in return as the other woman began shuffling through an appointment book.

Zoe allowed Dr. Applewhite to walk out of the office first, Shelley behind, with Zoe trailing last. This was the last thing that she wanted. She just hoped that it would be over quickly, so that she could apologize and make it right.

***

Zoe watched uncomfortably as Dr. Applewhite held her mouth open for a swab, through the glass window of a door in the lab area of the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

“I do not like this,” she muttered, just loud enough for Shelley to hear her.

“I know you don’t,” Shelley said, holding back what Zoe imagined was the internal you’ve made that pretty clear. “Let’s just hope that it clears her and we can move on to some other angle.”

Zoe gritted her teeth, keeping her mouth shut. Shelley was right. That was all they could do, now; wait for the results and hope.

“All done.” The lab tech, a woman in her mid-fifties called Anjali, poked her head through the door.

“Great. How long will it take?” Shelley asked.

Anjali twisted her mouth. “I’ve already fast-tracked one sample for you today, Shelley. We do have other cases on the roster, you know.”

“I know, but this is a local case,” Shelley said. “Your boy goes to the college, doesn’t he? Jaipinder? All the attacks so far have been on campus. The quicker we get this case wrapped up, the better.”

Anjali rolled her eyes at the obvious emotional blackmail, but nodded all the same. “I will get it through as quick as I can. No promises, though.”

“Thank you, Anjali.” Shelley smiled, offering her colleague a one-second shoulder squeeze as Dr. Applewhite joined them in the corridor.

With Anjali retreating back toward her office, Zoe turned to her mentor and gave her a nod of solidarity. “That is all we need for now. You can go home.”

“Wh—no, it isn’t,” Shelley interrupted, seemingly lost for words for a moment. “We still have a lot of questions. About the equations, for example. And we can’t just let a suspect go home without due diligence.”

Dr. Applewhite’s eyebrows shot up an inch at the use of the word “suspect.”

“That will not be necessary,” Zoe said, turning to face Shelley head-on. “I am vouching for her. She will not flee the country or go on a murder spree. We can call and let her know when the results have cleared her.”

“Zoe,” Shelley said, then caught herself and lowered her tone. She pulled Zoe’s sleeve to angle them both away from Applewhite, facing down the corridor where they could discuss more discreetly. “That’s against protocol. I know you have history, but that doesn’t matter. We do this by the book. If you get caught giving preferential treatment, we’ll be off the case at the very least.”

“She did not do anything wrong,” Zoe insisted. There was a stubborn streak in her a mile long, and Shelley had yet to come up against that. She was in for a surprise if she wanted to test it.

It was Zoe and Dr. Applewhite against the world now, and she wasn’t going to let her down. Not when Dr. Applewhite had been the only person who always had her back. She was going to fight on her behalf, and she couldn’t stand hearing the accusation and the suspicion.

“Even if she didn’t,” Shelley said, pausing with an emphasis that seemed to suggest that she was not convinced, “we still need to keep her here. Tick the boxes. This is the way we work cases, Z, and you know that. We don’t get to break the procedure just because we know someone personally.”

Zoe opened her mouth to reply, but she never had a chance.

“If I may interrupt,” Dr. Applewhite said, her tone mild. “I don’t mind staying until this is sorted out. Really, it’s no problem. I’ve already cancelled my appointments for the rest of the day, so I have nothing to rush back to.”

“But,” Zoe began, about to protest on her behalf.

“It’s really fine,” Dr. Applewhite said, firmly and with a meaningful glance her way. “I mean it. I have nothing to hide, so what’s the harm?”

Zoe’s shoulders slumped, and she couldn’t quite bear to face Shelley as she nodded assent.

The three of them marched silently back through the corridors of the J. Edgar Hoover building, out of the labs and back toward the holding rooms, to a place where they could leave Dr. Applewhite for a few hours. They took the turns and chose the right floor in the lift without discussion. Zoe did not feel up to interrogating Dr. Applewhite about the equations, and she couldn’t imagine that Shelley wanted to at that moment either.

Instead she counted their steps, listening to the rhythm and cadence of a pair of heels and two pairs of flats. The harder, heavier thud of her own boots, the slightly faster patter of Shelley’s dress shoes, her stride shorter than that of the other two women. The pattern that echoed against the walls as they fell more or less into step with one another, as humans who walk together are wont to do.

Zoe stayed out in the hall when Shelley showed Dr. Applewhite into the questioning room where she would wait for them, and asked her about wanting a drink, and made sure that she was seated comfortably. She stared straight ahead down toward the next bend, and hated herself for flinching when Shelley closed the door and locked it.

“I know you aren’t happy with me right now,” Shelley sighed. “But it’s only for a few hours. Like you said, she’s innocent. Once we have this done, we can move on to other things. Maybe someone’s targeting Dr. Applewhite by pointing to her equations. Who knows? Maybe they were there as a clue, and we just saved her life by keeping her in a secure building while the killer waits outside her apartment.”