Face of Murder

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Zoe could barely gather her wits to figure any of this out. What did it all mean? Not for a single second did she believe it, no matter what the evidence said. There had to be some kind of mistake—some kind of trick.

“I’ll go tell her the news, and give her a formal charge.” Shelley was already standing, making the move to go forward.

In movies and on TV, this was the moment where the protagonist bravely stepped forward. “No,” they would say, putting on a serious face. “I’ll do it.” Then they would stride forward and deliver the bad news to their loved one, or the bullet, depending on what kind of show it was.

But Zoe wasn’t particularly brave, and she knew she couldn’t bear to tell Dr. Applewhite that she was now under firm suspicion for the murders of three people. Worse, she couldn’t even trust herself not to leave the door open and encourage her mentor to make an exit. Even if Dr. Applewhite was too honorable to do such a thing, Zoe would make the offer. That was enough to get her into deep trouble.

So, she watched as Shelley entered the room on the other side of the black glass, and as Dr. Applewhite looked up in hope of being released. She heard Shelley deliver the news, and she watched the effect on her friend in real time: the confusion, the shock, and finally, the realization that she was not going home any time soon.

As if she knew that Zoe was watching, Dr. Applewhite turned to the one-way mirror and looked at what must have been her own reflection, her mouth opening and closing silently with questions of doubt and protests, and Zoe felt even more shame that she hadn’t been able to find it in herself to go in there.

“This is Ralph Henderson,” Shelley said, sliding a printed color photograph across the table to Dr. Applewhite. “Do you recognize him?”

“Well, yes,” Dr. Applewhite said, finally wrenching her attention away from the glass. “We’re colleagues. I’ve seen him at faculty events, and around campus. And—well—in the news, recently.”

Shelley slid another photograph towards her. “How about this man?”

“Cole Davidson.” Dr. Applewhite swallowed hard. “A grad student. I tutored him for a while.”

“And this one?”

“I co-authored a study with Dr. North last year,” Dr. Applewhite said, her face visibly pale. “Wait, Edwin is—is he dead? I—I hadn’t heard…”

“Dr. Francesca Applewhite, you are now under arrest for suspicion of murder.” Shelley was reciting the lines from long-learned rote, but Zoe saw that her hands were clenched into tight fists at her sides. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Dr. Applewhite breathed, seemingly incapable of more.

“Do you wish to call a lawyer, or have us call one for you?”

Zoe barely heard what they were saying. Her mind was racing, so fast that everything else around her was disappearing. She paid no attention to what her eyes saw or her ears heard, or her body felt. She was thinking about the case.

Thinking about how it could be that an innocent woman’s hair ended up at a crime scene, right next to a dead body.

It had to be wrong somehow, didn’t it? It had to be a red herring. There was no way that Dr. Applewhite had done anything. Zoe’s opinion on that had not changed. No matter what, she wouldn’t allow herself to doubt her.

And again, it circled around in her mind that this was all her fault. If she hadn’t taken the equation apart and put it back together—right in front of a local mathematician, one of few people who would actually recognize the shape she had made—then Dr. Applewhite would never even have been a person of interest. They wouldn’t have needed to take her DNA.

Maybe Zoe should have stood up to Shelley a little more, too. Made it clear to her that there was no way they were going to even slightly suspect Dr. Applewhite, insist on putting off the DNA swabs. Surely, she should have done something.

“You got a handle on this, Z?”

Zoe looked up to realize that Shelley was back in the observation area with her. On the other side of the glass, Dr. Applewhite was sitting alone in a locked room.

“It is not her,” she said, immediately.

Shelley sighed, her fingers searching for and twisting the small silver arrow she wore on a chain around her neck. “I know you’re sure, Z, but I don’t know her,” she said. “I have to go with the evidence. How would her hairs get into that room, if she’s not the killer?”

“I do not know, yet. But she has no motive. You have to see that.”

“No motive, but we have connections to each one of the victims. That means a motive might be lurking just beneath the surface. Don’t… don’t get mad at me, Zoe. I’m just trying to look at this objectively. In any other case, we’d be sure we had our perp.”

“No, we would not.” Zoe was hit by a sudden realization, a lightbulb moment of inspiration that was as dazzling as it was relief-granting. “I would have dismissed her as a suspect immediately. The numbers do not add up.”

“The equation?” A deep crease appeared across three inches of Shelley’s forehead. “But I thought—”

“Not the equation. The crime scenes.” Zoe stood, feeling adrenaline rush through her. She had figured it out. “My calculations at each of the scenes indicate a killer with a height of five foot nine. Dr. Applewhite is only five foot six. What is more, she weighs one hundred and twenty-nine pounds, while the killer must be over one hundred and thirty-five. There is also the consideration of the weights at Dr. North’s home. I do not believe that Dr. Applewhite would be able to lift them.”

As each fact hit home, Shelley’s expression became less and less sure, until she finally sank down into a chair next to Zoe. “All right, I believe you,” she said. “But there’s still a problem. We can’t just let her go.”

“Why not? I have just proven that she is not—”

“Yes, I know. And I do believe you. But how are we going to explain that to anyone else? You won’t let me tell anyone about your numbers thing, and that’s even before the issue of convincing people that it works every time. There’s evidence here. Cops don’t just ignore evidence. FBI agents can’t just let people go without questioning on a hunch. Even if I was fully behind letting her out—Z, we can’t. We’d have to explain it to SAIC Maitland. Probably in a court of law one day, too.”

Zoe thought this over, another idea forming in her head already. “All right,” she agreed, nodding slowly. “So, then we will question her.”

She smiled, and though Shelley met her with a baffled look, Zoe was starting to feel more confident by the second.

***

Zoe took a steadying breath and tried to ignore their surroundings. She still felt awful that Dr. Applewhite was having to sit in this bare, uncomfortable room for any longer than she already had. She still had not forgiven herself for putting her mentor there in the first place. But at least this way, she could try to make it all worthwhile.

“So, Dr. Applewhite,” she began, her eyes seeking out the red light that indicated the recorder was rolling, “you have indicated to us that you are happy to answer a few questions without a lawyer present.”

“I don’t need legal representation. I haven’t done anything wrong.” Dr. Applewhite, too, seemed to have gained some strength from knowing that Zoe would be the one to question her. She had raised her chin a couple of inches higher, and the valleys and hills around her forehead and eyes had cleared. There was only the faintest hint of a tremble in her hands as she raised one to touch her hair.

That, too, was something that Zoe had decided she was not going to forgive herself for.

“We should talk about your whereabouts during the past week. I have some specific dates and times.”

“I keep a set schedule,” Dr. Applewhite replied. “Home in the evenings, after a day of classes or patients or research groups. My receptionist has a record of everything.”

“Your husband was at home?”

A shadow passed over Dr. Applewhite’s face, her eyes searching for something on the tabletop for a brief second. “He’s often home late. Sometimes he stays at an apartment on the other side of the city. When he’s working so late there’s no sense in driving back.”

Silence rested between them for a moment. It wasn’t good. If Dr. Applewhite had had a strong alibi, Zoe could have released her almost immediately. That wasn’t going to happen.

“I didn’t do it,” Dr. Applewhite said suddenly, leaning forward over the table at an acute angle. “Any of it. I’m not that kind of person, Zoe. I’m not a killer. I couldn’t.” There was emotion in her voice, but she seemed calm. Clear and direct.

“I know,” Zoe said, her eyes flicking unbidden to that red light. She shouldn’t have said that. It could be brought up in court—the prosecution might allege that other suspects weren’t treated seriously, once they did bring the real killer to justice. Zoe sat up a little straighter, thinking that a change of subject might help. “Tell me about the equation.”

Dr. Applewhite nodded, taking the changed tack with focus. “It’s a theoretical equation I came up with a little while ago. I spend a lot of time working with colleagues in mathematics circles, not to mention certain—gifted individuals.” Her eyes conveyed what her tone did not; that Zoe was one such. “It helps me keep in shape, so to speak, to work on these kinds of projects in my spare time. Anyway, I published it, and I suppose it generated a bit of buzz in local circles. It wouldn’t be much known outside of this area, but at the college, we discussed it in depth.”

That caught Zoe’s attention. It narrowed their suspect pool significantly. The killer had to be a local. Not only to get access to the victims and know who they were, but to recognize the equation—if, indeed, it had not appeared by coincidence.

But the hairs, too—it was beginning to look more and more like an attempt to frame Dr. Applewhite. Which meant it had to be someone who knew her, and knew her now—not some random from her past who would never have heard of the equation.

“Do you have any enemies, Dr. Applewhite? Anyone who might hold a grudge against you?”

Dr. Applewhite blinked at the change in her line of questioning. “I don’t believe so. I don’t particularly do any kind of controversial work. I had a research subject pass away recently, unfortunately, after taking his own life. I haven’t felt any indication of blame from their family, however.”

“And in the world of math?”

Dr. Applewhite shook her head slowly, side to side, three times. “No. I’ve never… done anything. The equation was a bit of fun, really, nothing more. I wasn’t going after someone else’s project or stepping on any toes. Besides, it wasn’t exactly a success. I could never quite get it finished off.”

That sparked Zoe’s attention. “Your equation is not complete?”

“That’s why I published it in the first place.” Despite the circumstances, Dr. Applewhite managed a small and thin-lipped smile as she tucked a strand of bobbed dark hair behind her ears. “I am not a genius at these things. I have studied, but I am not as gifted as others. I thought that if I shared it, someone else might be able to make the necessary corrections and get it finished off.”

All of this was extremely interesting, and more so by the minute. Zoe looked off to the side of the room thoughtfully, turning it over in her mind. Dr. Applewhite writes an equation that she knows is flawed; it turns up on the dead bodies of men all connected to her, with evidence seemingly linked to the scene. More than that, it shows up in equations which are themselves seemingly flawed.

What did it all mean?

Zoe looked into her mentor’s eyes and threw caution to the wind. Tape be damned. She wasn’t going to let Dr. Applewhite sit here, afraid for her future and her freedom, without a word of reassurance. “I am going to do everything that I can to get you out of here,” she said, firmly and without hesitation. “You can bet on that. I will find the real killer.”

Zoe got up and headed for the door. The interview was over. She had work to do—and she was going to clear Dr. Applewhite’s name sooner rather than later. She wasn’t about to sit around wasting time.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Shelley watched their exchange with bated breath, twisting her pendant around in her fingers and anxiously listening as Zoe said things she shouldn’t have been saying on tape. It was only when she tasted cold metal in her mouth that she realized she had retreated to a habit she thought she had kicked back in high school—chewing her fingernails.

Shelley pulled her hand away from her mouth, and tutted at herself to see smears of pink lipstick on her skin. She would ask herself what she had been thinking, but the answer was clearly not very much.

Grabbing a tissue out of her pocket to wipe the marks away, Shelley caught sight of the time as her smartwatch lit up. It was getting late. Far too late, now, to really get things cleared up and dealt with before they had to stop for the night.

It looked like Dr. Applewhite wasn’t going to be going home to her own bed.

Shelley was just thinking about going in and interrupting when Zoe finished the interview, in that abrupt way of hers, and strode out of the room. Despite the show of confidence, Shelley wasn’t sure that Zoe was dealing with all of this well. It was hard to tell, given that Zoe almost always wore the same mask of dispassionate concentration, but Shelley knew how to read people. She was even, after spending more and more time working with her, starting to be able to read Zoe.

“Where are you going in a hurry?” Shelley asked, as Zoe burst into the observation room, grabbed her coat, and turned on her heel.

“There is more investigation to be done.” Zoe was already halfway out into the corridor. “I am going to reexamine all of the evidence.”

“All of it?” Shelley shot to her feet and followed after her, managing to grab her arm and hold her still for a moment.

“Yes. Why would I not be thorough?”

By the way Zoe was looking at her, Shelley had a feeling that she hadn’t looked at a clock in a while. “Zoe, it’s late. We need to leave this for the night and get Dr. Applewhite to a holding cell. In the morning, we can start fresh.”

“We cannot leave!” Zoe gaped, seemingly horrified. “She is stuck in there until we clear her name.”

“I know, Z. But we aren’t going to get her cleared tonight. Besides, there’s proper procedure to follow. You can’t just leave her in for questioning all night long and pop in and out whenever something occurs to you.”

Zoe was deflating, her sense of purpose beginning to drain away. This was what Shelley had been afraid of. Though someone else might not have seen it, she could. Guilt was eating away at Zoe—and fear. Fear that she wouldn’t be able to do anything to get Dr. Applewhite cleared. For someone like Zoe, those heavy emotions could end up being dangerous, particularly since she had no real support network to catch her.

Shelley had to do something about that—and she wasn’t about to let Zoe go home and wallow in it. Zoe could be intense at times. There was really no telling what she would do with that kind of emotion rolling around in her head, given that she didn’t seem to have developed appropriate outlets for negative feelings. They just swum around, bottled up inside her. Maybe she was seeing a therapist now, but she had only been seeing them for a short while, and that wasn’t enough yet to make a real difference.

“Why don’t you come back and have dinner with me and my family, after we’ve finished up here?” Shelley asked, on instinct. That would get Zoe under her watchful eye, and might even cheer her up a little. There wasn’t a lot that could stop a unicorn-obsessed toddler from putting a smile on someone’s face, in Shelley’s experience. She would call her husband from the car and let him know to put on a bigger meal. He never minded having company.

“Have dinner?” Zoe repeated. “While Dr. Applewhite sits in there, alone?”

Shelley tilted her head. It was funny how Zoe could be so disconnected at times. When she cared about someone, though, she cared about them deeply. To the bone. She had a loyalty that could not be questioned. It was one of the factors that made her endearing, even if other people didn’t often see it. “Dr. Applewhite will sit in there, alone, whether you eat with me or not. Look, just come back with me, okay? I don’t want you going home on your own tonight. You need some company.”

“I do not wish to intrude on your family time.”

The response was stiff, and most people might have taken it as rude. They might have thought that Zoe didn’t care for, or want to meet, Shelley’s family. But Shelley was seeing through that exterior, and she saw someone who was confused, tired, and carrying a heavy emotional burden. Someone who felt so guilty, she was starting to think she was bad for anyone to be around.

Shelley couldn’t let her think that.

“You won’t be intruding,” Shelley said, smiling to prove it. She was going to look after Zoe, whether she wanted it or not. She needed looking after. She needed protecting from all the bad that was out there in the world, so much of which she had had to deal with already. It wasn’t right for her to go home on her own. “I insist. Come on, Z, seriously. I’m not taking no for an answer. Get your things together. You can drive there behind me and go home after. I’ll take care of the booking process.”

Zoe sighed, and Shelley danced a victory dance inside her head. “Fine,” Zoe said, her voice heavy with both reluctance and defeat. “I will meet you in the parking lot.”

***

Zoe pulled up on the road outside a two-story home in a suburban neighborhood, noting the presence of sixteen miniature fence posts around a small front yard and the four windows, each fitted with white blinds. She also took in the two cars on the drive—no doubt necessary for Shelley and her husband to keep their respective careers, with Shelley’s schedule being so unpredictable.

Zoe noted all of this and continued to look, because for as long as she was making observations, she wasn’t getting out of the car. And the longer she could stay before getting out of the car, the longer it would be before small talk and socializing and the chaos of a household with a young child.

She sighed to herself and disengaged her seatbelt, knowing that she was being childish. She just didn’t much feel like talking and laughing with a stranger when all she could think about was Dr. Applewhite, spending the night in a cell.

Shelley was waiting for her on a neatly manicured path that cut through the grass of the front lawn, her back to her own house. Zoe joined her, doing up the middle button on her suit jacket, trying to mentally steel herself for what was about to come.

“Don’t look so worried,” Shelley said, elbowing her gently in the ribs as they paused at the front door. “I’m not married to a dragon, and we aren’t raising a werewolf. Just normal folks.”

Zoe wasn’t about to admit that normality was what she was afraid of, since it was so often completely alien to her. Nevertheless, she followed Shelley through the unlocked door, and entered a warm space that was instantly filled with the sounds of cooking emanating from the kitchen.

Zoe took a deep breath of the air, scenting herbs and vegetables against the rattling of pans and hum of an extractor fan above a steaming dish.

“I’m home,” Shelley shouted at the top of her voice, making Zoe flinch.

She turned to see her colleague taking off her shoes and putting them onto a rack of five other pairs, and reluctantly did the same. Other people’s customs at home—it was always strange to adapt to them. Zoe had two cats, and there seemed to be little point in sparing her carpets the touch of her shoes. They were already susceptible to loose fur, tracked mud, cat sick, and whatever small pieces of animal they had not quite finished eating after dragging them inside.

At least, when they could be bothered; Euler and Pythagoras were rather lazy in their middle age, seeming to prefer the tinned meats she brought them from the store.

“Mommy!”

A small whirlwind of pink rushed into the hall from another room and quickly collided with Shelley’s legs. The young girl—who, Zoe remembered, was named Amelia—was quick on her feet, despite the fact that she must have been only just comfortable with walking and running. She held her hands up in the air for balance, until she could grasp onto her mother’s calf for support.

“Hi, sweetie,” Shelley said, leaning down to lift her daughter into her arms. “This is Mommy’s friend, Zoe. Do you want to say hi?”

Amelia took one glance at Zoe and then hid, burying her head in her mother’s shoulder.

Zoe watched with a growing sense of horror. Of course, the child would sense that there was something wrong with her. Children were intuitive. At least, normal children were. They knew when there was something off about a person. They knew it without being able to explain why.

Maybe Zoe should just excuse herself, back out, and go home. Her own mother’s voice rang in her ears with that old familiar taunt: devil child.

“Don’t be silly, you’re not shy,” Shelley chided with a laugh, bouncing Amelia up and down on her hip. “Come on. Say hello to Zoe.”

Amelia turned back with a grin, her blonde hair brushing over her shoulders. “Hello!” she exclaimed, the word not quite fully formed, but distinguishable.

Zoe hesitated. What should she do? The girl looked happy enough, smiling and giggling. “… Hello, Amelia,” she managed.

“Daddy’s making dinner,” Amelia announced proudly.

“It smells good,” Zoe conceded.

Amelia, seemingly happy with the way the conversation had gone, laughed merrily and wiggled her feet. Shelley took this as a cue to put her down, and Amelia ran down the corridor toward the lights and sounds of the kitchen.

“You remembered,” Shelley said, beaming.

For a second Zoe had no idea what she was talking about, until it dawned on her. “Of course. It is easy enough to remember your daughter’s name.”

“Not everyone does.” Shelley squeezed Zoe’s shoulder briefly, then followed her daughter down to the room that was mostly hidden past the doorway. Zoe could see that it extended to the right, but that was all. “Come on. Come meet Harry.”

Harry was a new name, but Zoe assumed that it must refer to Shelley’s husband—that was, of course, if they did not have a pet of any kind. Who else could it be?

She trailed behind Shelley, noting the presence of three framed photographs on the wall that each showed some variation of the family members in black and white, and into the kitchen. It opened up as she had predicted, some twenty feet along the whole of the back of the house, with an open-plan dining room on the other side. There were six chairs around the table, despite there being only three people in the family unit.

At the stovetop, there was a man standing with his back to them. He was six feet tall, and his back and shoulders were broad. He turned as they came in, brandishing a spatula that was coated in some kind of white sauce.

“Hey!” He grinned, as Shelley stepped forward to plant a kiss on his mouth. “You must be the famous Zoe.”

Zoe watched their causal affection with growing jealousy. They were so comfortable, as if they barely even noticed the value of what they had. Zoe had never been close enough to anyone for those casual daily kisses that were as habitual as locking the door or brushing your hair. All of the relationships she had managed were short, and went nowhere. She had never so much as lived with another person since getting her first flat as a teen.

“Hello,” she said, automatically, nodding a greeting. “It is nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” Harry said, turning back to his cooking while he talked over one shoulder. “I just love having guests over. I get to be a little more creative in the kitchen, you know?”

“You like to cook?” The green-eyed monster already stirring in Zoe’s chest took another leap toward life. Not only was Shelley married with such a pretty child, but she had a husband who didn’t mind taking on his share of work around the house?

“Well, with Shelley’s hours, she wasn’t always home to take care of it, so I learned. I have to say it’s become a bit of a passion of mine. Me and Amelia take some time on the weekends to bake together, don’t we, munchkin?”

Amelia giggled and joined her parents by the stove. “We made cookies,” she said.

“That’s right! We should have some after dinner. Z, you’ll love them. We still have chocolate chip and oatmeal left,” Shelley said, reaching to get down some half-full jars from a cupboard above the sink.

“That would be nice,” Zoe said distantly, already feeling herself disengage from the conversation. She knew that she wasn’t supposed to, but she was seeing that there were four cookies left in one jar but only three in the other, and that the cupboard contained seven other items before the door was closed, and that the joint on the door was slightly off by two degrees causing it to hang crooked, and everything was closing in on her.

Zoe didn’t have this. She didn’t have anything even close to this. She had one person in the world—just one. Not a parent, or a lover, or a child, but just one person that she could rely on and trust and always be comfortable with. Dr. Applewhite. And now she was in a cell at the FBI headquarters, waiting to go through further questioning in the morning rather than going home to her husband.

Dr. Applewhite’s husband! How he must have been feeling! He would be so worried—and that was Dr. Applewhite’s real family, wasn’t it? Don was a lovely man, but he wasn’t as close to Zoe as his wife was. He wouldn’t see this from her side. He would be angry with Zoe. He would blame her, even if Dr. Applewhite didn’t.

He would be right, too.

And here Zoe was, coming to the home of a colleague who was kind enough to show care for her at a difficult time—and what was she doing? Comparing herself, over and over, relentlessly. Studying Shelley’s family and her home, judging her. Finding herself wanting. The flame of jealousy over Shelley’s perfect life was twinned with one of shame, and it was all getting too much.

“I think it’s about ready,” Harry said. “I’ll start dishing up. Amelia, honey, can you get some bowls out for me? You want to help Daddy serve dinner?”

Zoe wasn’t supposed to be here. She didn’t belong. She was intruding on this perfect picture, staining it just by being there. She wasn’t the kind of good person that Shelley and Harry and Amelia were. She should have seen that from the beginning, should have stayed away.

She couldn’t stay now.

“I have to go.” She rushed out, turning abruptly and striding down the corridor.

There were fifteen steps to the door, and in the interim after her announcement there was a sudden silence in the kitchen. Then she heard the clattering of plates behind her, murmured yet hasty words from Shelley and Harry, and footsteps.

“Z, wait,” Shelley called out, coming rapidly closer as Zoe grabbed her boots and started to put them back on. “Please, stay for dinner. It’s cooked now. Just sit and eat, and you can go home right after.”

“I cannot stay,” Zoe told her, chancing a look up at her partner’s face. She regretted it immediately. By the way a change came over Shelley’s expression, Zoe gathered that she was showing too much of her inner turmoil on the outside.

Emotions were tricky. She wasn’t good at faking the ones she did not feel, like everyone else was. But other people were good at hiding them, too, and Zoe had never been great at that. It was only when she had her ice-solid mask on, the lack of any kind of expression, that she had ever been able to fool anyone. It seemed that her mask must have slipped.

“Just take a breath, Z. Please. I know you’re having a hard time right now, but that’s what I’m here for. We’re partners, right?”

Zoe, her boots now firmly in place, could not look at her. “Not here. Here you are a wife, a mother. I should not be here. I have to go.”

She turned away from Shelley’s pleading arms, opened the door, and strode away, unlocking her car as she went. She started the car without looking back and drove home, somehow not at all comforted by the thought of the microwave meal waiting for her along with her cats.