did not want to touch anything out of fear of damaging any prints that had been left behind. But by standing on her tiptoes, she could see that this particular chip in the wood would have allowed someone from the outside to push down to disengage the window lock.
She went back inside through the back door and made her way into the master bedroom. There was no clear indication that anyone had entered through the window. But she also knew that a thorough dusting might tell a different story.
“What are you doing?”
She turned and saw Rhodes standing in the doorway to the bedroom. She had a skeptical look on her face as she studied Chloe.
“This window has been tampered with from the outside,” Chloe said. “We need to collect prints.”
“You got evidence gloves?” Rhodes asked.
“No,” Chloe said. She found this ironic; had she started her day as a member of the Evidence Response Team as she had originally planned, she’d have them on her. But after Johnson had switched her department yesterday, she hadn’t thought to bring any evidence-based equipment along.
“I’ve got some in my car,” she said. She then tossed Chloe a set of keys with a look of annoyance. “In the glove box. And please lock it when you’re done.”
Chloe muttered a subdued “Thanks” as she passed by Rhodes while leaving the room. She wondered why Rhodes would keep evidence gloves in her car. As she, Chloe, understood it, each agent would be supplied with the appropriate equipment and materials for any given case from the bureau. Had Rhodes been given the correct supplies? Had her late addition to the ViCAP program already come back to bite her in the ass?
She went outside and found a box of latex gloves in Rhodes’s glove compartment. There was also an evidence kit, which she took out as well. It was a small emergency kit but better than nothing. And while it showed that Rhodes was prepared, it also indicated that she wasn’t going to go out of her way to help Chloe. Why keep it a secret that she had gloves and an emergency evidence kit in the glove box unless she had planned on keeping them for herself?
Determined not to get too bogged down by such details, Chloe slapped the gloves on as she walked back into the house. As she passed by Rhodes again, Chloe handed her the evidence kit. “Thought we might need this, too.”
Rhodes gave her a biting look as Chloe headed back for the window. She checked the area that has been chipped and found that her hunch was correct. It would allow someone from the outside to apply just enough force to the lock to get it to pop open.
“Agent Fine?” Rhodes said.
“Yeah?”
“I know we don’t know one another, so I’m going to say this as polite as I can: Can you please watch what the hell you’re doing?”
Chloe turned back toward Rhodes and gave her a defiant look. “Excuse me?”
“Look at the carpet under your feet for God’s sake!”
Chloe looked down and her heart sank. There was a footprint there, just a partial one but clearly the top half of a footprint. It was made of what looked like dust and mud.
And she had stepped on it.
Shit…
She stepped back quickly. Rhodes took her place by the window, kneeling down to look at the print. “Hopefully you didn’t ruin it enough to make it unusable,” Rhodes spat.
Chloe bit back the retort that jumped up on her tongue. After all, Rhodes was right. She’d somehow overlooked something as glaringly obvious as a footprint. It’s because I’m just in my head too much, she thought. Maybe Johnson switching departments on me is affecting me more than I thought.
But she knew that was a lame excuse. After all, so far this crime scene had essentially been nothing more than evidence collecting—which was what she had been wanting to do all along in the first place.
Feeling embarrassed and enraged, Chloe walked out of the room to collect her breath and her thoughts.
“Jesus,” Rhodes said as she observed the print. “Fine…why don’t you see what you can find out there that might of some use? There are bullet holes in the kitchen wall I didn’t get a chance to look at while you were outside. I’ll wrap this up…if it’s even possible.”
Again, Chloe had to bite back quite a few vile comments. She was in the wrong here and that meant she had to overlook Rhodes being a bitch. So she kept quiet and headed back out into the central area of the apartment, hoping to find some way to redeem herself.
She went into the kitchen and saw the bullet holes Rhodes had mentioned. She saw the casings in each hole, several inches deep into the plaster. She was sure they’d be able to find out what kind of gun had been used based solely on that. So as far as Chloe was concerned, the bullet holes were a gimme—an easy clue that would give them just enough information to keep the case chugging along.
Maybe there’s something else, though, she thought.
She walked back toward the hallway and stopped where it connected with the living area. If the killer had indeed come in through the window in the master bedroom, this would likely be where the shooting had started. The lack of blood or chaos in the bedroom indicated that nothing violent had happened back there.
She looked to the couch and saw the spray of blood on the floor in front of it. Probably the first shot, she thought. She observed the layout of the place and could see it all in her head. The first shot had killed someone on the couch. That would have caused anyone else on the couch to jump up quickly, perhaps knocking over the coffee table. Maybe they tripped over it or tried jumping over it. Regardless, the blood and spilled soda on the other side of the overturned coffee table indicated that this person did not make it out.
Still, it made her wonder. She slowly walked into the living room, following the path she assumed the bullets had gone. The amount of dried gore on the back of the couch gave her enough evidence that the person sitting there had died right away. She could see no entry on the couch where the bullet had torn into it, meaning it had lodged somewhere in the victim’s head.
She could easily see two bullet holes in the kitchen wall, about three inches apart. She could see them from the couch. But if there were two stray shots there, maybe there were more elsewhere. If there were, it might give them a more precise chain of events throughout the scene.
She went to the coffee table and hunkered down. If someone had stumbled here before being shot, the killer would have aimed low. She looked around for any other stray shots and saw none. The killer had apparently hit his target.
However, she did see something else that she had not even been looking for. There was a small desk pushed against the wall to her right. It held a decorative bowl and a framed picture. Stuffed between the legs of the table was a tattered wicker basket with old mail and books. Between that basket and the back legs of the table was a cell phone.
She picked it up and saw that it was an iPhone. She pressed the power-up button and the screen lit up. The lock screen was a picture of Black Panther. She pressed the home button, expecting the passcode screen to pop up. When it didn’t, she was surprised. Instead, it opened without an issue.
Must have been the son’s phone, she thought. And maybe the parents rigged it so there was no passcode so they’d have access at all times.
It
