Free Deadly Production (Mapleton Mystery Book 4) by Terry Odell Page B

he snapped more pictures. Gordon waited until both men had entered the RV before he joined them.
    Now this was a crime scene.
    This wasn’t the sort of RV one called a home away from home. No sleeping arrangements. A single room, with a tiny kitchenette. Coffeemaker on the counter, empty. Small microwave. A minimal assortment of plates, bowls, and glasses in a cabinet. A black coffee mug with two big red Vs, the same as the logo Gordon had seen on Marianna’s business card. Flatware in a drawer. And a brownish stain on the floor.
    The main area was configured as an office, plain and simple. Desk and chair. A couple of small shelves attached to one wall probably once held the books and binders scattered on the floor. One easy chair with an end table beside it, although the end table was lying on its side. An open door, probably to a closet or storage area, but from his vantage point, the interior wasn’t visible.
    Her desk was clear, but the papers strewn all over the floor indicated that wasn’t its normal state. “No computer?” Gordon asked.
    “I’d assume she used a laptop, but I don’t see one,” Solomon said.
    “Add it to our list,” Gordon pointed to the kitchenette. “Can you identify that stain?”
    Xander stepped over, photographing as he moved. He stopped, took another picture, then crouched. “My guess is coffee.” Smarter than his television counterparts, though, he didn’t touch it. Or, heaven forbid, taste it. If whatever the stain was had anything to do with Marianna Spellman’s body lying on the floor, there was no way to be sure it wasn’t toxic enough to kill again. Instead, the tech carefully swabbed up samples and packaged them as evidence. “I’ll print the room, but if there are no prints on the pry bar, he—or she—probably wore gloves in here.”
    “With so few leads, it’s better to over collect than under collect, wouldn’t you say?” Gordon said.
    “Yeah, that's crime scene 101, but it’s going to be a hell of a job back at the lab. I suggest—strongly—that you do something very nice for Briana, our fingerprint analyst.”
    “Nice as in flowers? Chocolate? Daily Bread’s cinnamon rolls?” Gordon said.
    “All three would probably be a smart move.”
    The second tech appeared from behind the closet door, white teeth gleaming in a smile. He held up a cell phone. “In her coat pocket. An inside coat pocket, so easy to see how our burglar missed it.”
    At last. Something they could work with.
    “That’s hers,” Gordon said. “There can’t be two people around here with monogrammed red cell phone cases.”
    “Let me print it before we poke around.”
    Gordon tried not to fidget as the tech completed his task.
    “No usable prints.” The tech extended the phone to Gordon. “Given you’re looking for emergency contact information, and it belongs to the victim, there’s no expectation of privacy. You should be good to go. If you need more than what you see, our computer forensics team can dig it out.”
    “Does it have an in case of emergency contact number?” Solomon asked. “A lot of people use ICE as the name. And if they’re smart, they add a period in front so it’s at the top of the list.”
    “Let’s find out if it’s password protected first,” Gordon said. He pressed the start button and was relieved to find that, for whatever reason, the anal Marianna Spellman hadn’t locked her phone. Probably assumed she’d never leave it lying around. Or she got tired of entering her code all the time. Didn’t matter. Bottom line—they were in.
    He scrolled through her contacts, but there was nothing as obvious as “Mom” or “Dad” or another Spellman. The mayor had introduced her as “Miss” so Gordon assumed she was single. They could cross reference the numbers on her list via the phone company, though, and see who she’d been calling. According to her call log, she’d had seventeen exchanges with the same three people over the last two days.