“Nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?”
“I believe a young woman is dead inside her apartment,” Luke said quietly into the receiver.
*
Two hours later Andi still stood outside Trini’s unit. She hadn’t gone inside as the police first and then a crime tech crew arrived and began going over Trini’s small abode.
Trini’s dead. The words failed to compute inside Andi’s brain, even though she’d understood that truth as soon as she’d looked at her friend. She knew it was real yet still felt like she might wake up from a horrible dream.
A uniformed officer had asked her questions, which she’d heard herself answer, but it was as if she were having an out-of-body experience. Then an overweight detective arrived. Luke handled most of what they wanted, answering as best he could, but there were a few queries for Andi personally, like where she found the key, why she felt it was necessary to enter her friend’s place, what was the nature of her relationship with the deceased.
No one was saying how she died, or even if a crime had been committed, but Andi had heard someone mention anaphylactic shock. That stirred her enough to tell them that Trini was deathly allergic to shellfish.
“But she’s always really, really careful,” Andi had managed to choke out.
She’d initially clung to Luke like a burr, only releasing him when one of the crime tech team recognized him. She was a woman in her fifties with short, dark hair and a thin smile. “Denton,” she said.
“Hi, Marjorie.” Luke’s response was warm.
“When’re you coming back to the force?” she asked.
“Don’t think it’s gonna happen,” Luke said, to which she shook her head, as if he’d made a poor choice.
Toward the end of the two hours Andi had dared a peek inside the apartment and was relieved to see that Trini’s body had been zipped into a body bag. There was fingerprint dust everywhere, and some kind of foil wrapper had been tweezered into a clear plastic bag that Marjorie was showing to Luke. In another plastic bag was a man’s wallet.
“What is that?” she asked Luke.
“The wrapper for some kind of energy bar,” Luke said. “The foil’s a perfect medium for fingerprints, but there aren’t any on it at all.”
“Trini’s would be on it if she’d unwrapped it.”
“Exactly. Maybe it was wiped clean, but then why would it be left at all?”
“What do you think it means?”
He shook his head.
Marjorie had consulted with one of the other techs, who was working on a laptop. “Denton,” she called, waving him over. Andi followed, keeping her eyes averted from the black bag that held her friend.
“This particular energy bar is made with cricket flour. See the cricket on the label? If we had more of the wrapper, we would see the warning.”
“What warning?” Luke asked.
“Crickets are in the same family as shellfish.”
Luke looked from the computer screen to Andi, who was still processing. “Oh my God,” she said, tears springing to her eyes. “You’re saying it was a mistake? She ate something basically with shellfish in it?”
“The warning’s pretty large,” Marjorie said, turning the computer screen for Andi to see it. On the back of the foil-wrapped bar, the one currently on the screen, was a large black circle with a slash through it over the words cricket flour. Below it was a warning that crickets were in the shellfish family.
The heavyset detective who’d asked Andi all the questions was in a conversation with one of the other techs about the wallet. He looked up and noticed Marjorie exchanging information with them and a frown creased his face. Seeing him start their way, Luke recognized trouble. “Thanks, Marjorie,” he said, pulling Andi to one side.
“You need to wait outside,” the detective told him, his uncompromising gaze encompassing Andi as well. He then shot a warning look at Marjorie, who ignored him.
Luke shepherded Andi back onto the deck outside the apartment. He checked to make sure they were out of earshot, then said, “If she was as careful as you say, it’s a little surprising she didn’t see it. It’s pretty obvious.”
“She would have seen it, wouldn’t she? She would have seen it.”
“Don’t know how she wouldn’t have noticed it,” Luke admitted. “I wonder whose wallet they have.” He glanced back toward the detective, who was standing just inside, gazing their way. “That detective . . . Thompkins. He’s with the Laurelton PD, but I don’t know him.”
“How could Trini miss it?” Andi asked. “I don’t understand.”
“She would have seen it. Unless . . .”
“What?”
“Unless she was handed the bar, unwrapped.”