14 - J. T. Ellison [120]
Baldwin felt sick. “How could she do that? And how in the hell did she pass the psych profiles and get into the Bureau in the first place? She was always very enthusiastic about deviant behavior, but I never saw any signs that she could have gone this far over the edge.”
“I can’t tell you that, Baldwin. Believe me, we’re looking for the answers here. We’ve launched a major internal investigation. Oversight of the department has been in Stuart Evanson’s hands. I hate to say it, but he may have to go. He’s the one that brought her to her current position as deputy chief. As I recall, you pointed out that she wasn’t fit for that position when you transferred. You and I are fine. Evanson probably isn’t.”
“That will be a loss.” They shared a moment of sarcastic happiness. “As long as you’re insulated, that’s what’s important to me. Evanson’s a prick.”
The industrial-grade clock on Taylor’s wall clicked loudly, announcing it was nearly five o’clock. He rang off with Woods, promising to answer his phone if he called again.
Charlotte Douglas. He’d known the woman was poison.
Shaking his head, pushing away his own feelings of betrayal, he gathered his coat. It was time to seek Taylor out, run through the afternoon’s bombshells with her.
Forty-Five
The library was a bust. Taylor combed through the records, but didn’t find the face of the man she remembered from her parents’ party. Frustrated, she took a drive in the cold, hard winter air, trying to clear her head. Before she knew what she was doing, she found herself at the apartment buildings where Frank Richardson was killed.
Oh, who was she kidding? She knew exactly what she was doing. Paying penance to the dead. Would anyone feel that for Charlotte? Was there a soul who would watch for her, pray for her, remember her fondly?
She climbed the stairs to the apartment and saw the door was cracked. She drew her weapon and slipped to the wall, left shoulder flat against the doorjamb. She listened hard, then put the gun away. The cleaners were here.
A horrific job they had, too. Following behind crime and avarice, cleaning up the messes made when a life ends, a heart ceases to beat, by choice or by violence. They were the lost ones, the unnoticed and unknown, the creatures who stealthily eradicated the signs of death.
Taylor looked into the apartment. She recognized the cleaner, a stout lady name Stella, who smoked like a chimney. She claimed the constant cloud of cigarette smoke kept the stench of death from her nostrils. Taylor smelled it on her, the unmistakable scent of burnt tobacco, and was hit with a mouth-salivating craving for a smoke. Shaking her head to literally make it go away, she stepped into the room and greeted Stella.
“Hey, LT.” Stella sounded like a truck driver on a bender, but Taylor knew she was a sweet, God-fearing woman who sacrificed her own happiness to help families maintain some sense of closure after their loved one’s death. She stopped scrubbing.
“What are you doing out here? I thought this scene was cleared for me.”
“Oh, it is, Stella, don’t worry. I was just here to say, well, I guess I wanted to say goodbye.”
“Knew the vic, eh?” Stella leaned back from the blood pool she was removing from the apartment’s carpet. “I could use a smoke, anyway. Want to join me?”
“I wish. No, I think I’ll just stay here for a minute.”
“Suit yourself.” She stood, knees popping, and sauntered past Taylor, a sour look on her face. But she squeezed Taylor’s arm in passing, and Taylor knew it was a show of support.
Alone now, she took in the scene. Frank Richardson’s blood was black and shiny, several days old and forever interred into the grain of this room. All the scrubbing and cleaning, the replacement carpet and linoleum floors, the fresh paint, none of that would truly erase the imprint of the man’s soul, brutally taken from