She nods for both my benefit and Todd’s. “I know it. Not too far from Temescal Gateway Park.”
That places Todd and our victim right near the crime scene. Could I be wrong about him?
Todd doesn’t pick up on the reference. If he’s seen today’s news he’d know a woman’s body was found in the park this morning, but so far the reports haven’t carried her name.
“Go on.” I give him a generic prompt rather than asking a question that would lead us down a specific path.
“She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. I comforted her, held her and told her I loved her. And then about ten minutes later she was all hot and heavy.” He looks down and stares into his coffee cup. “I knew she wasn’t herself and I did try to stop things a few times to make sure she was okay. But she was insistent. Voracious even. I’d never seen her like that.”
“Do you know where she’d been earlier in the night?”
“At some Goth club. Researching an acting piece for class.”
“Really?” I keep my voice casual, even though the link between the victim and the Goth culture is big news. It could place her right in After Dark with vampires.
He smiles. “She was all decked out in the gear. I didn’t even recognize her at first…but she was in her car, so I knew it must have been Sherry. I wondered if that was why she was so…you know. The outfit sure was sexy.”
“What else did she say?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Not much. We were busy.”
“Did she behave differently during sex? Besides being more assertive?”
“Not really—um, what do you mean?” His face reddens slightly.
I take us down the Goth and vampire path. “You know, anything kinky? Like a desire to drink blood?”
“No!” His coffee cup connects heavily with the table and he scrunches his face up. “It was just research. She wasn’t into that scene.”
“So,” Sloan says, “you had sex, then what?”
“She said she was tired and wanted to go home. I tried to find out what had upset her, but she said she was fine.”
“And do you think she was?” Todd and Sherry were together for a long time. Hopefully he knew his girlfriend well enough to know if she was hiding her true feelings.
“I’m not sure, to be honest. She seemed okay, but Sherry’s an exceptional actress.”
“So what time did she head off?”
“About one.”
We’ve filled in part of Sherry’s timeline for last night at least from midnight to 1:00 a.m.—assuming Todd is telling us the truth. And we’ve probably found the source of the semen from the postmortem rape kit.
“Did you use a condom, Todd?” I ask.
“No.” He looks down. “Stupid, I know. But neither of us had one and Sherry assured me the timing was safe…you know, in terms of her cycle.” He looks up again. “Hang on, what’s with the question about condoms?”
I take a deep breath. I give Sloan a quick glance and once I have a little nod from her I start. “I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news, Todd.”
His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
I lean toward him. “We found Sherry, but she’s dead. Murdered.”
“What?” He stands up, sending his chair flying backward. “No, you’ve got it wrong! She can’t be dead.”
I stand up, too, and rest my hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, but it is Sherry.”
He’s silent for a bit. “Do her parents know?”
“Yes. We informed them a couple of hours ago.”
He blows out a breath and runs his hand through his hair. “I can’t…I can’t believe it. I was with her like twelve hours ago.” He paces.
Sloan and I are both silent and the silence gives Todd enough time to get up to speed. He stops pacing abruptly.
“Oh my God…you think—” he swallows hard “—you think I had something to do with this? That’s why you didn’t tell me straight away.”
Sloan looks up. “So far you were the last person to see her.”
“But I didn’t kill her! I loved Sherry.”
Unfortunately in our line of work, love is often the reason people kill, not the reason they don’t. As a behavioral analyst my cases tend to be more complex—serial killers, serial rapists, cold cases—but Sloan would be lapping up the circumstantial and physical evidence. After all, if Sherry’s got Todd’s DNA in her and he admits to seeing her at 1:00 a.m., right near Temescal Gateway Park…
Sloan stands up. “We’d like to take a DNA sample for comparison. It’s just a swab inside your cheek.”
“Just because I had sex with her doesn’t mean I killed her.”
“Of course not, Mr. Fischer. And your cooperation with the DNA certainly indicates you’ve got nothing to hide.”
He nods slowly. “Okay.”
Sloan turns to me. “I’ve got a kit in the car. I’ll be back in a sec.” She walks out, quickly, perhaps worried Todd will change his mind.
“You’ll do the DNA now?”
“Yes, Todd. Like Detective Sloan said, it’s just a little swab from the inside of your cheek. It’s quick and painless.”
He nods. After a minute or so he says, “What time was Sherry killed?”
“We’re not sure yet.”
Sloan enters, paper and evidence bag in one hand and a small plastic vial in the other. She puts the paper on the table in front of Todd. “Have a read through that, Mr. Fischer, and then sign at the bottom.”
Sloan and I both take a seat. I purposely avert my gaze from Todd, and Sloan follows suit. Keep it nice and relaxed in case he suddenly gets jumpy. But our fears are unfounded—he quickly reads the form and signs it.
Sloan unscrews the vial. “Open wide please, Mr. Fischer.”
Todd does as instructed and Sloan uses the cotton-bud end to scrape the inside of his cheek, before slipping it back inside the container, sealing it and placing it in the evidence bag.
“That’s it.” She gives him a quick smile.
He looks at Sloan, then me. “Now what?”
“We’ll take this to the lab for comparison with the evidence we found on Sherry’s body and we’ll be in touch.”
“I still can’t believe she’s…dead.” He takes a deep breath and his body tenses with grief. “You will find whoever did this, won’t you?”
“We hope so, yes.” Sloan knows better than to make guarantees or to tell him that he’s still one of our prime suspects. Agreeing to give his DNA and admitting he saw Sherry last night don’t make him innocent.
“So, as far as you knew, she was heading home at 1:00 a.m.?” I confirm.
“Yes. That’s what she said, and she drove off in that direction.”
“And she never mentioned what she was upset about?”
“No.”
We thank Todd Fischer for his time, give him our cards and leave, picking our way over the piles of old papers and magazines that cover the floor between kitchen and front door.
“Sorry about the mess,” Todd says at