Here is chapter six.
Disclaimer: The idea is mine. That's about it.
Nick was back in Doc's office. The man was stumbling around the room, looking at labels on bottles and the putting them back before he found the right ones.
"This is the hair that I found on Miss Chapman's body," he said as he handed the other man small bottles containing the hair. "You can send the rest back up to DNA."
Putting a bottle up to his face, Nick commented, "It looks like it is red hair…. Maybe I can match this to the hair that fell off Bethany." Earlier, Nick had gotten a call from Sofia Curtis. He stopped what he was doing and had gone to the interrogation room. Sofia had been standing outside of the door, guarding it intently. She had told him that strands of Bethany's hair had fallen to the ground during their talk. Sofia also told him about Regina's allergies. Therefore, Nick bagged the hairs and went back up to the lab ant see Doc.
Doc raised an eyebrow at the statement. "Is that a very good idea?"
"Only if it matches," said Nick said as he marched off into Greg Sanders' lab.
"I have had a good amount of work lately," Greg mused when he saw Nick enter. "I think that I deserve something for all of this."
"How about that satisfaction of catching a killer," replied Nick. "Just run the hair on the body to Bethany's hair."
Greg rolled his eyes. "These things take time, you know. You have to be patient. It could take some time, and it could be better well spent."
"You're kicking me out of your lab," Nick huffed. "Fine, I'll go see what else I can find out while you compare the hairs. Call me when you know something."
Nick made his way back over to the coroner's room. It seemed that all he had done today was walk back and forth from the interrogation room to the every corner of the lab. Today, he thought, is going to be a long day.
"Did the toxicology for Regina Chapman come back yet?" Nick asked when Doc saw him again.
Doc fumbled over to the man. "Why, in fact it did. There were no drugs in her system, which is an amazing thing considering that she was a beautiful twenty-six-year-old woman in Las Vegas. According to her medical history, she was not on any prescriptions and the tox backs that up."
"What about her stomach contents?" Nick asked. Sofia had specified that he looked into that, and he remembered how he thought that Regina was at her kitchen table when she died. After this, he was going to trace evidence to see if the wood pieces on the body matched the ones from her chair.
Doc flipped through the pages of the report. "There was a mixture of things, I believe that it was a smoothie, but it had the strangest things in it: strawberries, bananas, and flakes if an assortment of fish and crustaceans. Maybe it is some knew health food fad, though it does not seem very interesting to me."
"No," said Nick. "It is murder."
***
Warrick was seated at the interrogation table, with Sofia standing behind him. She had been a big help in this case, but now it was Warrick's turn. Regina's maid was sitting across from him, her eyes wide.
Lo Johnson-Gare was a small girl, barely older than twenty. Her strawberry blonde hair was chopped short, but her bangs were overgrown and had fallen in front of her eyes; it was as if she hid behind them. She nervously glanced at her watch.
"You are Regina Chapman's maid," Warrick said.
"Of course I am," Lo replied. "I cannot believe what happened to her. It's horrible."
Warrick nodded. "That it is. Can you tell me anything about your job and how Regina treated you? Did you see her the day she died?"
The woman grabbed her paisley printed dress in her hands. "Oh, Regina treated me fine. The house, on the other hand… Well, it was usually a mess when I came on Mondays and Fridays to clean. I think that she had many parties. Her house is so white, too, that it is crazy, trying to keep it clean. It was a tough job, but it paid well…. And, no I did not see her the day she died."
"Do you know anything about Regina and Bethany LeClaire's friendship or her relationship with Leo Harwood?"
Lo thought for a moment before talking again. "Leo was a nice guy, from what I saw, and Bethany seemed to be over more than he was. However, I only worked there two days a week, but I was there long enough to see her friends…. There was nothing wrong from what I knew."
Warrick had an important question. "Did you know about Regina's allergy to seafood?"
"Yes." Lo nodded vigorously to accentuate her point. "Ms. Chapman made it very clear that there was to be no seafood brought into the house. She made it really clear."
She glanced at her watch again. "I really have to go. My next job starts in fifteen minutes."
"Your next job?"
Lo sighed. "Yeah. I work two other jobs besides being a house cleaner. My dad got laid off a few months ago and now we need all of the money that we can get."
Warrick motioned toward the door. "Yes, go on then."
"Thank you," the woman said before she rushed out.
***
Hodges was humming to himself when Nick walked in. "Well, hello!" he said.
"You're in a good mood," Nick commented.
"Between you and me, today is wonderful," said Hodges. "What can I do for you?"
Nick spread his arms out, as if that described what he meant. "I came to see if the traces on the wood chips from the Regina Chapman case are in."
Hodges grew somber now that they were talking about their work. "Yes, yes, they did…. The pieces of wood that came from the corpse are a match to the ones pulled from the chair in the deceased's home."
"So she was in that chair not long before she died," Nick muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. "Is there any way to prove from these chips that she died in that chair?" Nick still believed that Regina had died there. Now that there was seafood found in her stomach, he believed it even more. Regina, he thought, was poisoned by her allergies. Doc had said that it was possible that her throat closed up due to the reaction. That was how she died of asphyxiation.
"No," said Hodges. "I do not think that there is. If there was blood in this case than it would be a different story…"
As he walked away, Nick called, "Thanks," over his shoulder. Now was the time to tell what he had found to Warrick. They would exchange the information that they pieced together.
Hopefully, they could derive a conclusion and come out with a killer.
To be continued…
I will flat out say that Regina's case has nothing to do with the Chimera killer. This is just a side case, but I think that it is important on its own. :}
Next chapter will have huge things with the Chimera Killer, though. Do not fret, there is much more to come.
I am not psychic and I cannot read your thoughts. So, tell me in a review!
R&R