NOW, ISN’T THAT ODD?
Holly was unsettled. Ethan Montclair had turned into a monosyllabic zombie the moment they’d arrested him. He’d been sitting in a holding cell for the better part of the evening, awaiting an arraignment in the morning. She stopped by to check on him a couple of times, and found him staring bleakly at the dirty floor.
She’d been given a thousand tasks in the wake of the arrest. Most involved typing up reports, which she thought might be the one thing about being a detective that bit donkey butts. Filling out forms about homicide was a very dry experience anyway, and she wanted to be sure she had them right.
She hadn’t gotten any sleep; her hands were shaky from downing cup after cup of coffee. Moreno told her the case was just beginning now. They all knew Montclair had murdered his wife. Now they had to prove it.
She’d asked to be at the autopsy, but Moreno had declined the request, wanting her to keep going on the paperwork instead, since there’d be too many witnesses already. She didn’t bristle at the injunction; there wasn’t much to be gleaned from a burned body, anyway. Plus, that smell...the reek of burned flesh still hadn’t left her sinuses. She didn’t know if she really wanted to stand around while the ME drove needles into the eyes to try to get a vitreous, which would probably be all they could salvage from that mess.
She checked her watch. Nearly eight. The autopsy must be finished by now. And as she thought it, the file in front of her flashed a red message indicator. A new file had been added from Forensic Medical, up in Nashville. She clicked on it, but it was empty.
Damn it.
She grabbed the phone and called the morgue. Got a receptionist, who forwarded her call to a voice mail. She left a message, hung up, scrubbed her hands through her hair, took another gulp of caffeine, and within moments, her phone lit up. It was the morgue.
“Graham.”
“Fox, from Forensic Medical. You rang?”
“Hello, Dr. Fox. I got word you’ve finished the post on Sutton Montclair? My file updated but it’s empty.”
“Right. It takes a while for the details to upload sometimes. We have a lot of photos.”
“Do you have a positive ID?”
“We haven’t gotten DNA or dentals back yet, but we’re still operating under the assumption that this is Sutton Montclair. The dentist is on a mission trip to Africa, and his office manager locked herself out of his computer using the wrong password. They’ll send the radiographs as soon as they catch up with him, probably tonight. He’s supposed to be out in some remote village this week, but he’s been calling in every few days.”
“Good grief. Can you tell me her cause of death?”
She could hear him tearing into the wrapper of something, taking a bite. After a moment, he said, “Sorry, didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast. So COD, in this case, it’s tricky. There’s really no way to tell exactly how she was killed. Burning a body is a very effective tool for hiding a murder cause. I can rule this a homicide—there’s no evidence of smoke or fire damage in her lungs, so she was dead when she was burned. There was also some whitish residue that we collected, chemically consistent with sodium bicarbonate.”
“So she was burned on-site, then the killer put out the flames with a fire extinguisher? That’s twisted. But it explains the hair not burning completely away.”
“Maybe he’s an environmentalist. Happy to burn the body, but didn’t want to burn down the forest.”
“Hardly. Whoever did this wanted to obscure the cause of death without drawing attention to the site.”
“You’re probably right.” He munched some more. “That’s really as far as I can go. We’ll probably never know exactly what killed her.”
“Okay. That official homicide ruling is what I needed. When you get the positive ID, can you let me know?”
“I will. Before you go, though, there was one really odd thing. The hair isn’t real.”
“Come again?”
“One of the evidence bags that came in had a reddish-blond wig in it. It’s real hair, but there’s a synthetic compound mixed into it.”
“Why would she be wearing a wig?”
“No idea. Ask her husband, he might know. She could have had some hair loss because of a medical condition, she could be vain and want luscious locks. Either way, the scalp itself is lightly burned, and there’s evidence of scraps of fabric clinging to the skull. We found some sticky residue on the top of her head. I ran it through the mass spectrometer, and it’s an adhesive commonly used to help the front of the wig adhere to the forehead. Other than that, there’s nothing of note on this autopsy.”
“Fascinating. That’s it?”
“That’s it. You’ll get my full written report within the week.”
“Thank you, Dr. Fox. Have a good day.”
She hung up, refreshed the computer screen. The report appeared. She read through it carefully, twice. Looked at the photos, enlarged several of the face and head. She couldn’t tell anything.
Occam’s razor. A preponderance of evidence said this was Sutton Montclair.
So why did Holly suddenly get the feeling there was something much bigger going on?
She gathered up her things and headed down to the holding cells. Gave the guard on duty a smile and a high five as she rushed by.
Montclair was sitting in the same position she’d seen when she last checked.
“Mr. Montclair?”
He didn’t move.
“Ethan.”
That seemed to rouse him, though he still didn’t look up.
“Are you asleep?”
His head came up, and she saw a rage in his eyes that made her take a step back and reach for her Taser, which of course she didn’t have on her belt since she was inside the station house. Then his eyes cleared and he smiled grimly.
“Come to mock the condemned again?”
“Not here to mock,” she said lightly. “I have a question. And it’s very important that you answer me truthfully. Important for me, and for you.”
“Ask my lawyer.”
“Listen to me. Since I’m now breaking the law by continuing to talk to you, humor me.”
He shrugged. “What?”
“Did your wife wear a hairpiece or a wig? Extensions, anything like that?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’re sure?”
“I sodding well am. She has the most gorgeous hair of any woman I’ve ever seen. Thick strawberry blond hair that is the envy of all her friends.”
“But if you two had been having problems, could there be any chance she—”
“No. There is no bloody chance in hell my wife suddenly shaved her head and started wearing a wig. Now, why are you asking me this ridiculous question? Hey, Graham—”
But Holly was already out of the holding cell, running full speed toward the elevators. Back on the second floor, she hurried to the conference room. Inside, the brass were in a meeting. Moreno, the chief, a couple of other detectives.
She knocked, and opened the door. Heads turned.
“He didn’t do it.”
Everyone froze, then Moreno said, “For heaven’s sake, Graham. Go home. Get some sleep. We’re in a meeting here.”