Let Justice Descend by Lisa Black

Author:Lisa Black
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2019-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Carol stood in the doorway, her gaze swiveling around the lab. The plastic bags, having been superglued the day before, were in the fume hood, drying after their dye stain bath. Some bundles had been placed on pieces of clean examination paper, their rubber bands removed and a sticky note with a number placed so that each grouping could be distinguished in the photos—which Maggie clicked at every stage of the dismantling. “Let’s have lunch. In Paris.”

“I wish.”

“I think you’re going a bit overboard on documentation, kiddo.”

Maggie looked around at the meticulous placement, the warm-from-frequent-use camera, her single-spaced bench notes now spreading into a second page. “There’s nearly a million dollars in this room. In cash.”

“Yeah,” Carol said. “That used to be a lot of money. But okay, I see why you’re dotting all the i’s and checking off the t’s. We still don’t know why the lady had all this stuffed into her closet?”

“No clue. Everybody wants it, but no one wants to explain how it got there.”

She had texted Jack before leaving the scene: Call me when you can.

He hadn’t responded. She had gone to the homicide unit upon returning to the building, but Jack and Riley were out. With every breath, her body screamed at her to go back, find him, track him down, and tell him Lori Russo is dead and what does he think about that? He may need to know. He may need some warning before and if Rick got in his face. And she wanted to see his reaction, didn’t she?

Why?

She didn’t really believe he did it. Could do it. Would have done it.

So she forced herself to work instead. Slowly, methodically, giving it her full attention . . . or at least as much attention as she could spare.

She realized Carol was speaking. “Payoffs. Bribes. Kickbacks. That’s how it got there. What else is she going to do with it? Put it in a bank and wait for the IRS to notice it doesn’t jibe with the 1040? Because don’t they have to release their tax records? Members of Congress?”

“Nope. Some do, but they don’t have to.”

“How many is ‘some’?”

“Like, eight percent. Come look at this.” She directed the other woman to the oculars of the stereomicroscope. Its lens hovered over a twenty-dollar bill. Money, up close, had a lot to look at between the pressed fibers of the paper and the complicated patterns of the ink. But she had found some light-colored dots that didn’t add to the artwork.

“What are those?”

“I have no idea. I thought it was just dust or some kind of lint, but when I prodded one it was so hard that it zinged off onto the counter somewhere and was lost.”

“Let’s not tell Denny that. Losing evidence tends to be frowned upon in this establishment. Do you think it’s significant?”

“I didn’t. Until I found it again in those bundles.” Maggie waved at three more dissected stack of bills on a different piece of examination paper. Then she pointed to three others already repackaged.

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