A Faint Cold Fear

  “Damn,” he repeated, this time with more passion. He knew that knife. It belonged to Lena.

  Frank looked mad as hell, and Jeffrey could not blame him.

  “This isn’t her,” Frank said.

  Jeffrey drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. They were sitting outside Lena’s dorm, trying to decide the best way to do this.

  “You saw the knife, Frank.”

  Frank shrugged. “Big deal.”

  “Chuck’s throat was sliced open.”

  Frank blew out air between his teeth. “Lena’s not a murderer.”

  “This could tie back to Tessa Linton.”

  “How? The kid was with us when it happened. She chased the fucker into the woods.”

  “And lost him.”

  “Matt didn’t think she was slowing down.”

  “She did when she twisted her ankle.”

  Frank shook his head. “The White kid—him I could see.”

  “She might have recognized him in the forest and tripped on purpose so he’d get away.”

  Frank kept shaking his head. “This is not the kind of thing I signed up for.”

  Jeffrey wanted to tell him that he was not crazy about it himself, but instead he said, “You saw the knife she’s been carrying on her ankle. Are you telling me it’s not like the one we found under the desk?”

  “It could be a different one.”

  Jeffrey reminded him of the forensic evidence that had brought them here. “Her fingerprints are on the knife, Frank. In blood. She was either there when he was cut and touched the knife, or she was holding it when it happened. There’s no other explanation.”

  Frank stared out at the building, not blinking. Jeffrey could tell he was trying to figure out how this could not be Lena. Jeffrey had had the same reaction less than half an hour ago when the computer had made a positive match on three of the prints. Even then Jeffrey had pulled the card and made the tech do the comparison point by point.

  Jeffrey looked up as a professor came out of the dorm. “She hasn’t left all morning?”

  Frank shook his head.

  “Give me a good explanation for her fingerprints being stamped on that knife in blood and we’ll drive away right now.”

  Frank’s mouth set in an angry line. He had been sitting in front of the dorm for a good hour, probably trying to think of anything that would exonerate Lena.

  “This ain’t right,” he said, but, without anything further, he opened the car door and got out.

  The faculty dorm was fairly deserted, most of the professors already at classes. Like most colleges, things slowed down toward the end of the week, and with the Easter holiday coming up, a lot of kids had already left for home. Jeffrey and Frank did not see anyone as they walked down the hallway toward Lena’s room. They stood outside the door, and Jeffrey could see that the knob was cockeyed from when they had kicked it in yesterday morning. If Jeffrey had managed to find something on Lena then, if his gut had let him believe she was culpable, Chuck Gaines might still be alive.

  Frank stood to the side of the door, his hand on his weapon, not drawing. Jeffrey knocked twice, calling, “Lena?”

  A few moments passed, and he strained to hear if anyone was in the room.

  He tried again, saying, “Lena?” before opening the door.

  “Shit,” Frank said, pulling his gun. Jeffrey did the same, his instincts kicking in before he saw that Lena was just pulling on her pants, not going for some kind of weapon.

  Jeffrey asked the question he knew Frank was thinking. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Lena cleared her throat, which had dark bruises around it. When she spoke, her voice was raspy. “I fell.”

  She was wearing only pants and a bra, the material white against her olive skin. She covered herself with her hands in a flash of modesty. There were round fingertip bruises on her upper arms, as if someone had grabbed her too hard. A mark on her shoulder looked like it was from a bite.

  “Chief,” Frank said. He had cuffed Ethan White and was holding him by the arm. The boy was dressed but for his socks and shoes. His face was black and blue, the lip split down the center.

  Jeffrey picked up a shirt off the floor, meaning to offer it to Lena so that she could cover herself. He stopped when he realized what he was holding was evidence. Dark blood stained the bottom.

  “Jesus,” he whispered, trying to get Lena to look at him. “What have you done?”

  13

  Sara pulled up outside the Heartsdale Medical Center, parking beside Jeffrey’s car in the parking lot. He hadn’t given her any information other than that he needed her at the hospital to take some physical evidence from two suspects. He wouldn’t say their names over the phone, but Sara had been privy to his thought processes long enough to know he meant Ethan White and Lena.

  As usual, the emergency room was empty. Sara glanced around, looking for the nurse on duty, but the woman must have been on a break. Down the hall she could see Jeffrey talking to an older man of average height and thick build. Beyond them Brad Stephens stood in front of a closed exam-room door, his hand resting on the butt of his gun.

  Sara could hear the man talking to Jeffrey as she got closer, his tone of voice shrill and demanding. “My wife has been through too much already.”

  “I know what she’s been through,” Jeffrey said. “I’m glad to see you’re concerned for her well-being.”

  “Of course I am,” the man snapped. “What are you trying to imply?”

  Jeffrey noticed Sara and motioned for her to come over. “This is Sara Linton,” he told the man. “She’ll do the physical exam.”

  “Dr. Brian Keller,” the man said, barely glancing at Sara. He held a woman’s purse at his side, which she guessed belonged to his wife.

  “Dr. Keller is Jill Rosen’s husband,” Jeffrey explained. “Lena asked me to call her.”

  Sara tried not to register her surprise.

  Jeffrey told Keller, “If you’ll excuse us,” and then led Sara back up the hall to a small exam room.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “I told Mama I’d be in Atlanta this afternoon.”

  He closed the door before saying, “Chuck’s throat was slit.”

  “Chuck Gaines?” she said, as if there were another Chuck it could be.

  “We’ve got Lena’s prints on the murder weapon.”

  Sara reeled for a moment, trying to understand what he was saying.

  He asked, “Did you remember the rape kit?”

  For a moment Sara didn’t know what he meant.

  “When we were talking about the DNA on the underwear. Did you remember the rape kit we did on Lena?”

  She tried to think of the best way to answer him but knew that this was too black-and-white to say anything but “Yes.”

  Jeffrey’s face was a study in anger. “Why didn’t you tell me, Sara?”

  “Because it’s not right,” she said. “It’s not right to use that against her.”

  “You tell that to Albert Gaines,” Jeffrey said. “You tell that to Chuck’s mama.”

  Sara kept her mouth closed, because she still could not accept that Lena was in any way connected to the crimes.

  “I want you to do White first,” Jeffrey said, his tone still sharp. “Blood, saliva, hair. Full-body comb. Just like an autopsy.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “Anything that ties him to the crime scene,” Jeffrey said. “We’ve already got Lena’s shoe prints in blood.” He shook his head. “Blood was everywhere.”

  Jeffrey opened the door and looked down the corridor. He did not leave, so Sara knew he had more to tell her.

  She asked, “What?”

  The anger in his tone went down a notch. “She’s messed up pretty bad.”

  “How bad?”

  Jeffrey looked down the hall again, then back to Sara. “I don’t know if there was a struggle or what. Maybe Chuck attacked her and she defended herself. Maybe White went nuts.”


  “Is that what she’s saying?”

  “She’s not saying anything. Neither of them is.” He paused. “Well, White’s saying they were together in her apartment all night, but people at the school say White left the lab after Lena did.” He indicated the hall. “Brian Keller was actually one of the last people to see her.”

  “Lena asked for his wife?”

  “Yeah,” Jeffrey said. “I’ve got Frank listening in the other room in case she says anything.”

  “Jeffrey—”

  “Don’t give me a lecture about doctors and patients, Sara. I’ve got too many dead people stacking up.”

  Sara knew that arguing the point would only waste time. “Is Lena all right?”

  “She can wait,” he told her, obviously meaning to cut off further questions.

  “Do you have a warrant for this?”

  “What are you, a lawyer now?” He didn’t let her answer. “Judge Bennett signed off on it this morning.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “What? You want to see it? You don’t trust me to tell you the truth anymore?”

  “I didn’t ask—”

  “No, here.” He took the warrant out of his pocket and slammed it down on the counter. “See how that goes, Sara? I tell you the truth about things. I try to help you do your job the right way so that more people don’t get hurt.”

  She stared at the document, seeing Billie Bennett’s tight signature across the line. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Jeffrey stepped back so she could leave, and Sara felt a sense of dread welling up into her like nothing she’d felt in a long while.

  Brian Keller was still standing in the hall, holding his wife’s purse. He stared blankly as Sara walked by, and he looked so harmless that she had to remind herself that he beat his wife.

  Brad tipped his hat to Sara before opening the door, saying, “Ma’am.”

  Ethan White stood in the middle of the room. He was dressed in a light green hospital gown, his muscular arms crossed over his chest. He’d been hit in the nose recently, and dried blood traced a thin line down to his mouth. A large red spot under his eye was slowly turning into a bruise. There were intricate tattoos of battle scenes on what she could see of both arms. His bare calves had geometric designs and flames climbing up the sides.

  He looked like an average kid with close-cropped hair and a body that revealed he spent too much free time in the gym. Muscles pulsed across his shoulders, straining the material of the hospital gown. He was a small person, a good six inches shorter than Sara, but there was something about him that filled the space around him. White seemed angry, like at any moment he would spring up and attack her. Sara was glad that Jeffrey had not left them alone in the room.

  “Ethan White,” Jeffrey said. “This is Dr. Linton. She’s going to take samples ordered by the court.”

  White’s jaw was clenched so tight his words came out with a slur. “I want to see the order.”

  Sara put on a pair of gloves as White read the warrant. Glass slides and a DNA-testing kit were on the counter, along with a black plastic comb and tubes for drawing blood. Jeffrey had probably arranged for the nurse to have all these things ready, but Sara was curious as to why he had not asked the woman to stay and help. She wondered what he did not want anyone else to see.

  Sara slipped on her glasses, thinking she would ask Jeffrey to send in a nurse.

  Before she could say anything, Jeffrey told White, “Take off the gown.”

  “That’s not—” Sara stopped midsentence. White dropped the gown to the floor. There was a large swastika tattooed on his belly. On his right upper chest, there was a faded likeness of Hitler. A row of SS soldiers on his left chest saluted the image on the other side.

  Sara could not bring herself to do anything but stare.

  White snarled, “You like what you see?”

  Jeffrey’s hand slammed into the boy’s face, pushing him into the wall. Sara jumped back until she was pressed against the counter. She saw Ethan’s nose move, fresh blood dripping down into his mouth.

  Jeffrey spoke in a low, angry tone that Sara hoped she would never hear again. “That’s my wife, you motherless fuck. You understand me?”

  White’s head was clamped between Jeffrey’s hand and the wall. He nodded once, but there was no fear in his eyes. He was like a caged animal who knew one day soon he would find a way out.

  “That’s better,” Jeffrey said, backing off.

  White looked at Sara. “You’re a witness, aren’t you, Doctor? Police brutality.”

  Jeffrey said, “She didn’t see anything,” and Sara cursed him for including her in this.

  “Didn’t she?” White asked.

  Jeffrey took a step toward him, saying, “Don’t give me a reason to hurt you.”

  White gave a surly, “Yes, sir.” He wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand, keeping his eyes locked on Sara. He was trying to intimidate her, and she hoped he could not see that it was working.

  Sara opened the oral-DNA kit. She walked over to White with the scraper in her hand, saying, “Open your mouth, please.”

  He did as he was told, opening wide so she could scrape for loose skin. She took several swabs, but her hands were shaking when she started to prepare the slides. Sara took a deep breath, trying to reconcile herself to the task ahead of her. Ethan White was just another patient. She was a doctor doing her job, nothing more, nothing less.

  She could feel his eyes boring into her back as she labeled the specimens. Hate filled the room like a noxious gas.

  She said, “I need your date of birth.”

  He paused a second, as if he was telling her of his own free will. “November twenty-first, 1980.”

  Sara recorded the information on the label along with his name, her name, the location, the date, and the time. Each piece of evidence would have to be cataloged this way, then either stored in a paper evidence bag or collected onto a slide.

  She picked up a sterile paper wafer with a pair of tweezers and held it in front of his mouth. “I need you to moisten this with your saliva.”

  “I’m not a secretor.”

  Sara kept the tweezers steady until he finally stuck out his tongue so she could place the paper in his mouth. After an appropriate amount of time, she removed the wafer and logged it into evidence.

  She followed procedure, asking, “Would you like some water?”

  “No.”

  She continued through the preliminaries, feeling his eyes watch every move she made. Even when she was standing at the counter with her back to him, Sara could feel Ethan’s eyes fixed on her like a tiger preparing to attack.

  Her throat closed when she realized she could no longer postpone actually touching him. His skin was warm under her gloves, the muscles tense and unrelenting. Sara had not drawn blood from a living patient in years, and she kept missing the vein.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized after the second try.

  “No big deal,” he said, his polite tone contrary to the hateful look in his eyes.

  Using a thirty-five-millimeter camera, Sara documented what looked like defensive wounds on his left forearm. Four superficial scratches were on his neck and head and there was a crescent-shaped indentation, probably from a fingernail, behind his left ear. The area around his genitals was bruised, the glans red and irritated. A short fingernail scratch went down his left buttock, a longer one up the small of his back. Sara had Jeffrey hold a scale close to the injuries while she photographed each of them with the macro lens.

  She said, “I need you to lie down on the table.”

  Ethan did as he was told, watching her closely.

  Sara went to the counter, turning away from him. She unfolded a small white sheet of paper and turned back around again, saying, “Lift up so I can put this underneath you.”

  Again he did as he was told, his eyes never leaving her face.

  Several foreign hairs raked out when she combed his pubic hair. The root strands were still attached
to the shafts, indicating that the hairs had been torn from the body. With a sharp pair of scissors, she cut out a matted area of hair on his inner thigh, dropping it into an envelope and labeling it with the appropriate information.

  She used a wet swab to obtain samples of dried fluids on his penis and scrotum, her jaw clenching so tight that her teeth ached. She scraped his fingernails and toenails, photographing a broken nail on his right index finger. By the time she was finished with the exam, the counter was filled with evidence. Everything was either cool-air-drying in the swab dryer or collected into paper evidence bags, which Sara had sealed and labeled with a now steady hand.

  “That’s it,” she said, taking off her gloves and dropping them on the counter. She left the room as quickly as she could without running. Brad and Keller were still in the hallway, but she passed by them both without saying a word.

  Sara went back to the empty exam room, fear and anger surging through every inch of her body. She leaned down to the sink, turning on the faucet full blast so she could splash cold water in her face. Bile stuck in her throat, and she gulped water, willing herself not to be sick. She could still feel Ethan’s eyes following her, searing into her flesh like a branding iron. She could smell the soap he used, and, when she closed her eyes, Sara could see the slight erection he had gotten when she swabbed his penis and combed his pubic hair.

  The faucet was still running, and Sara turned off the water. She was drying her hands with a paper towel when she suddenly realized that she was standing in the same room she had used to perform Lena’s rape kit last year. This was the table Lena had lain on. This was the same counter she had filled with Lena’s evidence, much as she had just done with Ethan White’s.

  Sara wrapped her arms around her waist, staring at the room, trying not to let the memories swallow her.

  After several minutes Jeffrey knocked on the door and let himself in. He had taken off his coat, and she could see his gun in its holster.

  “You could have warned me,” she said, her voice catching. “You could have told me.”

  “I know.”

  “Is this how you pay me back?” she said, aware that she was going to start either crying or yelling.