Her Frozen Cry (Detective Amanda Steele)

ELEVEN

Amanda snapped her seat belt into place, and Trent drove them back to Central. They were armed with a folder of hate mail addressed to Eve Kelley—some were printed emails, and others were snail mail. Eve’s assistant had clipped the ones from the last week together, and it was about an eighth of an inch thick. So much for Eve’s claim of receiving a threat a week…

“Here’s what struck me from talking with Eve Kelley,” she began. “One, I don’t think she’s behind Alicia’s death, at least right now. But what if one of the people who made an offer to buy New Belle found out the auction was essentially rigged? Could there be motive in that?”

“There could be. Also the threats Eve received may be coincidental, like ones sent to Alicia. Eve did say she received threats on a regular basis. It was nothing new.”

“Yeah, and the same goes for Alicia. She had a folder on the server dedicated to them.” The admission deflated her. The hate mail could be entirely irrelevant.

“We need to figure out how blind the offers were.”

“Has Tony sent the names of the other bidders?”

“Not yet.” She hated that Tony hadn’t provided the information already. She didn’t want to have to poke at him, but he should have done it by now. Her phone rang, and caller ID prepared her for CSI Blair. Amanda answered on speaker. “Detective Steele. With Detective Stenson.”

“We have some findings you’ll want to know about.” Brisk, to the point. Why should Amanda expect anything else?

“Hit us.” Amanda’s heart was racing. Did they find something in the sleeping aid?

“We lifted prints from a wineglass in the cabinet that don’t belong to Alicia Gordon.”

Amanda deflated. Not exactly the news she was waiting on. “Ms. Zimmerman rented out the cabin. The prints could belong to anyone.”

“They could, except the same prints were also lifted from the glass on the table next to Alicia Gordon and an empty wine bottle in the recycling bin.”

“So Alicia had company, and whomever that was had a drink with her,” Trent summarized. “So much for no company.”

“Was the wine drugged?” Amanda asked.

“Not from what we’ve found.”

“Strange that they’d presumably wash their glass, though not very well, and put it back in the cupboard,” Trent said. “And who was this person? One of the bidders there to sweet talk Alicia into accepting their offer? Or was she having an affair?”

“Nothing to confirm either, just that she had a mystery visitor.” Amanda’s stomach soured. Had Alicia been looking to cut Tony out of the will, and he found out and went to talk with her outside of the house? Again, it was all hypothetical. “What about the sleeping aid? Did you check to see if it was contaminated?”

“I was getting there. And the answer is yes. The liquid sleeping aid found at the cabin contained pentobarbital.”

Who had known Alicia took the medicine and could get close enough to tamper with the bottle? “Was there much missing from it?”

“It’s down about half.”

They’d have to find out how much she normally took each night to know how long she had been getting dosed.

Blair went on. “Rideout might be better able to answer any other questions you have about the drug, but I do know that pentobarbital is primarily metabolized by the liver and kidneys, and the effects are made worse when paired with alcohol. Not to mention the pentobarbital is addictive in and of itself. She could have taken more than the recommended dose on the Sleep Tight label.”

There was no way of knowing how long she’d been taking the drugged sleeping aid or who had added it to the bottle. Amanda’s head spun. But surely, her former friend wasn’t a killer. “Where would a person get pentobarbital?”

“It’s sometimes prescribed. Other than that, off the streets or through access to a medical or veterinary clinic.”

More options than desired…There could be one way of narrowing things down. “Were you able to get any prints off the Sleep Tight bottle?”

“None other than the victim’s.”

“Whoever messed with the liquid wore gloves to cover their tracks,” Trent said.

“Like any half-intelligent killer would.” To CSI Blair, Amanda said, “Thanks for all this.”

“Oh, there’s more. CSI Donnelly and I found shoeprints outside one of the cabin windows.”

Hairs rose on Amanda’s arms. “Someone was watching her from outside?”

“They were facing the right direction to look through the window into the living room. Can’t know with certainty when the prints were left but with the rain and the mud… probably Tuesday night.”

“Can you tell the brand of shoe or…?” Amanda was being optimistic, but she was aware of databases that catalogued sole impressions. She also knew that shoeprints were almost as unique as fingerprints, specific to the owner and history of the footwear. Wear patterns varied—the distribution of weight—and terrain can affect the sole with nicks and the like.

“Not yet, but that’s in the works. Though I can tell you they’d be a man’s size eleven. A diamond pattern on the sole. Possibly a running shoe. We also found tire tracks in the cabin’s driveway that don’t coincide with vehicles we know were there.”

“Did those shoeprints also lead to whatever vehicle left the tire marks?” she asked.

“No, they led to the road and disappeared.”

“So whoever left them had parked on the road and walked in,” she suggested.

“Seems so.”

That doesn’t sound at all suspicious.“Excellent work. Let us know the minute you have more.”

“Will do.”

“Thank—”

Blair was gone. “Goodbye to you too,” Amanda mumbled.