Free Revenge of Innocents by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

13—2:05 P . M .
    C arolyn strode into the homicide bay at the Ventura Police Department. She said a few words to a detective named Gabriel Martinez, and then made her way to Hank Sawyer’s office. He was on the phone. He covered the receiver with his hand. “Mary’s in the conference room. I’ll meet you there as soon as I’m free.”
    Carolyn found Mary Stevens with her head down, seated at the end of the long table, partially hidden behind stacks of papers and books.
    When the detective looked up and saw her, she gathered up a bunch of photographs. “They’re crime scene,” she said, her brows furrowed. “You might not want to look at them.”
    “In case you haven’t heard, I’ve been assigned to your task force,” Carolyn told her. “If I’m going to be involved in the case, I need to see everything.”
    “Good,” Mary said, handing her the pictures. Behind her was a large bulletin board. “I was about to put them up. I guess you might as well desensitize yourself to them. We’ve got them on a CD, but we’ll have to make you a copy.” Her eyes went to the notebook Carolyn was carrying. “I can give you mine and you can load them onto your hard drive if you’ve got enough memory.” She stopped speaking abruptly. “I don’t know where my head is today. Of course you don’t want them on your computer.”
    Mary glanced at a clean-cut young man sitting a few chairs to her left. “Oh, this is Keith Edwards. He’s going to do a lot of the grunt work for us. Keith, Carolyn is a supervisor at the probation department. She was a close friend of the victim.”
    Edwards appeared to be in his mid to late twenties. He had sandy blond hair and greenish eyes, and was dressed in a starched white shirt, a striped tie, and a pair of tan slacks. He had the air of a new guy trying to make an impression. He circled to the other side of the table and pumped Carolyn’s hand.
    “Pleased to meet you,” he said with a southern drawl. “I’m sorry about your friend. This must be hard for you.”
    “Keith is on loan from patrol,” Mary explained. “He relocated here six months ago from Atlanta. Gary Conrad is also on the team, but he’s out beating the bushes for leads. Gabriel Martinez will pitch in whenever he can.”
    Gary was a seasoned detective. Carolyn didn’t know him that well, but she’d heard Hank and Mary talk about him. Gabriel was a good man as well.
    “You can set up anywhere you want.” Mary moved a stack of thick books aside. “These are mug shots. We’ve got the motel clerk coming in later today to see if he recognizes anyone.”
    “Did the lab have time to process the letter I got at the morgue?”
    “I’m glad you brought it up,” Mary told her. “We need to get the four morgue attendants to come in and look at mug shots.” She shuffled through her paperwork, and then punched numbers into her cell phone. While she was waiting for the call to go through, she said, “Just so you know, I take care of things whenever I think about them. That’s how I make certain I cover all the bases. My weakness is that I’m not good at delegating. If I do it myself, I know it’s done. Hank mentioned it on my last performance review, so I’m trying to improve.” She turned to her right. “Keith, call the lab and see if they’ve had time to process the envelope and letter yet.”
    Carolyn took a seat at the opposite end of the table, not wanting to be disturbed while she went through the crime scene photos. After she set them down on the table, she placed her hands in her lap and leaned forward. The first picture showed Veronica on her back in a bathtub, fully clothed. A large splatter of blood was visible on the back wall, the streaks heading downward. She must have been sitting partially upright when the killer shot her. Carolyn assumed the bullet had propelled her head backward, and then her lifeless body had slid down. Because of the tub’s curved sides, her neck was twisted at an awkward