AT Dusk by John W. Mefford

Author:John W. Mefford [Mefford, John W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: crime thriller female, female sleuth, mystery thriller fbi, thriller and mysteries best sellers, mystery thriller series, women sleuths thriller series, Women Sleuths, thriller books psychological suspense series, Psychological Thrillers
Publisher: Sugar Hill Press
Published: 2016-09-01T22:00:00+00:00

16

Miss Lucille stood just off her back porch wrapped in a blanket, as red, white, and blue lights flashed across her angst-ridden face. It was obvious she wasn’t enjoying any aspect of the late-night search of her garage apartment, the home of her tenant, Vince Tripuka.

I paused for a second to let a woman wearing a CSI jacket walk past me. She was carrying a black plastic chest that undoubtedly was filled with all sorts of tools to collect evidence: bindle paper, electrostatic dust lifter, glass vials, acetate sheet protectors, a flashlight for oblique lighting, all sizes of tweezers, and evidence bags. She probably had a hundred other tools back in her van.

Gravel crunched under my shoes as I made my way over to Miss Lucille. I nodded, but she hardly paid me much attention, her gaze on the people coming in and out of the garage apartment. We’d already spoken a bit earlier, when I woke her in the middle of the night to let her know we were going to be conducting a search. She proceeded to shed a few tears, then gave us the spare keys to the apartment.

Between cops, CSI personnel, and SMEs (subject matter experts) from the FBI whom I’d brought in to support the Somerville team, there were about fifteen people on site. So far, not a single person had complained about the crazy hours—it was now almost five a.m. As a point of emphasis, once all the teams were on site, Terri had gathered everyone together and given them a pep talk, her message succinct: the suspect, Vince Tripuka, would likely walk if the team didn’t find and process evidence connecting him to either of the two murders, Emma or Gloria Lopez from ten years earlier. But, she reminded them, if anyone had the notion of planting evidence, she would personally testify at their trial to ensure a conviction.

While I inwardly questioned her timing and even her approach, that woman had a pair on her that would rival anyone from the football team for which she used to cheer. The CSI team had been moving nonstop for a good three hours.

“Do you think he did it?”

I glanced to my left to see Miss Lucille still staring at the movement in and around the apartment. The entire area around the garage looked like the setting for a breaking-news media scene with all the spotlights the Sommerville officers had set up. The floodlight attached to the garage was still not working—Miss Lucille had mentioned that light being out when she’d let her dog back in the house, the night of Emma’s death. “That’s why we’re here, to gather evidence that allows us to make that conclusion.”

“I understand. But do you, Special Agent Alex Troutt, think he killed that poor girl?”

I paused, considering my response. “I don’t know. I’ve learned over the years that guessing and hoping doesn’t do us any good at all. We use every legal means possible to gather facts, then sift through everything to determine what is truly evidence, not an opinion or even an assumption.

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