A/N - I admittedly know nothing about forensics, so ahh...please don't think about this too hard. Heh.
"I still think we need to go to the police." The frustration in Cary's voice came through the phone as clearly as if he were standing in front of her. "We need to get them to look at Arthur Eames. He was embezzling from the company. Patterson found out and was going to toss him out of the company, and who knows what else. So he shot him. It makes perfect sense, Diane. The SA has got to drop the charges against Karen."
With no cell service inside the lab, Diane paced back and forth in front of the large overhead door to Kurt McVeigh's barn as she spoke to her young associate. "No," she said. "We don't have enough. Not yet. Maybe he was embezzling, maybe he wasn't, but we have absolutely nothing tying him to the murder. You need to be patient and let Kalinda do her job. If there's anything to find, she'll find it; you know that."
Cary's frustration was almost tangible. "I know, I know. It's just so frustrating. I know she's innocent. McVeigh's analysis proves it, right? Karen is nowhere near six feet tall."
Diane sighed. "About that…"
Cary swore under his breath. "What?"
"I'm at Mr. McVeigh's lab right now. He has reconsidered his earlier assertions. He now says the evidence doesn't add up as presented, and he thinks the body may have been moved post-mortem. We're driving out to the crime scene shortly so he can check on a few things.
"What? That's impossible. The only people to see the body before the police were Daisy and Karen."
"So you can see how this doesn't look good for our side." Diane stopped pacing and leaned against the trunk of her car on her elbows.
"You're not starting to doubt Karen's innocence, are you?" Cary asked her.
"I don't know what to think right now, but Cary, you know it doesn't matter whether she's guilty or not. Either way, we still do our jobs. Understand?"
There was an uncomfortable beat of silence before the young associate answered. "Yeah. I understand. It's just that it's going to kill Daisy if she finds out her mother killed her father."
"Daisy's feelings are not our concern." Diane cringed slightly at the unintended harshness in her tone, but the last thing they needed was for Cary to become distracted by interest in a pretty, young woman. "Our concern is doing the best we can for our client. And right now, for me, that means keeping our ballistics expert from deciding she's guilty and quitting. While I'm doing that, I want you to speak to John Patterson's assistant. See what she can tell us about this Arthur Eames business." A glance at her watch told her she probably wouldn't make it back to the office that night. "We'll meet with Kalinda tomorrow morning and compare notes. Okay?"
Cary agreed, with somewhat more reluctance than Diane would have liked, but there was nothing more she could do about that now. If Daisy became too much of an issue, she'd deal with it then.
Just as she disconnected, McVeigh came out of the barn with a bag full of equipment. "Ready?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, straightening up. "But I think I should make a quick stop at my home and change, if you don't mind waiting? It's on the way."
"No problem," he said. "I'll follow you in the truck." He gestured back at a huge pickup truck that didn't look as if it had ever been driven on a city street.
"Great," she said, strangling a grin as she considered her neighbours' reactions to her visitor's mode of transportation.
They stopped at Diane's townhouse for ten minutes so she could change into jeans - $200 J Brand jeans, yes, but jeans all the same- and her new hiking boots. Kurt refused her invitation to wait inside, but he was of of his truck, leaning again the front end when she returned outside.
"No point in taking two rigs," he said, his voice stopping her with her hand on her car door handle. "Hop in." He pointed to the passenger side of his huge truck which barely fit behind her car in her tiny city driveway.
She laughed, walked back to the truck and looked up at the door. "I don't know if I can."
"Something tells me you can do pretty much anything you set your mind to," Kurt said, coming to stand behind her and reaching past to open the door. The same masculine scent she remembered from the previous day when she wore his jacket drifted past, stirring up butterflies in her stomach. She glanced back to find him waiting patiently, hand on the door, his expression unreadable. She met his eyes, and raised one eyebrow, but aside from a sparkle she might have imagined, he didn't react.
That is, until she stepped up on the running board and found a hand offered in unneeded assistance. She took it.
Diane was beginning to suspect she could spend years with this man and still be continually surprised by him. The thirty minute drive to the crime scene passed in an instant, with Diane discovering that, once she hit upon the right topic of conversation, Kurt McVeigh could talk.
Literature, film, current events, and oh dear god, politics - all topics covered, and promptly disagreed upon. She could have predicted they would have little in common from the moment she first laid eyes on him, but she never would have guessed they would disagree on absolutely everything, nor that they would have such fun doing it. The man had real passion behind that stoic facade, she'd give him that, and delivered such wonderfully well-thought out arguments; it was a shame they were so horribly wrong. Of course, she thoroughly enjoyed telling him exactly why that was, but it seemed, if she wasn't mistaking the gleam in his eye, he didn't mind a bit.
It was just before dusk when they pulled into the Patterson's driveway. Diane had called ahead, and Karen had given her permission for them to do whatever they needed to do, but said she wouldn't be joining them as she was in bed with a migraine. They parked behind Karen's car and detoured around the house, though the backyard, and onto the woodland trail that would take them to the crime scene.
"A lot easier with proper footwear, isn't it, Ms. Lockhart?" Kurt teased as walked along the rough trail.
She rolled her eyes and brushed past him, easily scaling the hill she struggled with on their first outing. "Just try to keep up, McVeigh." She could hear his snort of laughter, but didn't turn around to share her answering grin.
It was just a quick five minute hike to the crime scene this time, and then Diane pulled her phone from her pocket and took a seat on a fallen log, while Kurt got to work with his equipment.
When she discovered a missed call from Kalinda, she touched the button to return it, and held the phone to her ear. "Any news?" she asked when the investigator answered. And news there was; Kalinda had discovered Arthur Eames was in dire financial straits; he had two mortgages out on his penthouse condo, and he owed a large sum of money to a well-known bookie. Earlier in the year, he had taken out a loan in the company's name that wasn't on the Patterson & Eames books, and, according to the records provided by Renee Abrams, he had been pocketing architecture fees for at least several months before John Patterson caught on.
"And now John is dead," Diane mused after hanging up. "It's almost too easy."
Kalinda had been unable to turn up any clear alibi. No one she talked to knew where Eames had gone after he left the office that night. She hadn't yet looked into whether he owned a gun, but she would get on that first thing in the morning. It was beginning to look like it was almost time to slip some of this information to the State's Attorney's Office. But, Diane decided, not until Kurt was able to provide some reassurance around the science.
"How's it going over there," she asked, standing and walking over to join him.
He shook his head, checking the output on an instrument of some sort, then looked over at her. "I can tell you what scenario would make sense to me, but you won't like it."
That didn't sound very promising. "Try me," she said.
"Okay. Well from what I can figure based on the topography of the area, the features of the wound, and several other technical factors that I can get into if you want…" He paused, then continued after a quick headshake from Diane. "The most likely scenario, was that Patterson was standing over here, facing toward the house." Kurt moved to stand on the trail they had just arrived on. "And whoever shot him, approached from that direction there." He pointed back the way they came. "Since I estimate they were about twenty feet away when they pulled the trigger, they had probably just crested your hill back there."
"The killer came from the house?" she asked, incredulously, hands on her hips.
Kurt shrugged. "Not necessary. He could have circled around from anywhere to end up on the trail behind the victim. But yes, the most likely scenario is that he, or she, entered the woods from the trailhead in the Patterson's backyard."
"But if he was standing here when he was shot…" Diane moved to stand beside Kurt. "...then he would have fallen back this way." She pointed to the ground behind her. "But he was over there, facing away from the house when the police arrived. Wouldn't there be some sign that he'd been moved? Blood, or tracks or something?"
He nodded. "My guess is the killer just picked up the bloody leaves, moved them too, and then trampled down more leaves to make the trail look undisturbed. There may still have been traces, but with all the rain, and people walking through here, if there were signs, they're gone now."
"But why...what would moving the body accomplish?"
Kurt shrugged. "You said your client was trying to suggest a poacher, an accidental shooting…"
"No...no. My client is innocent. She's very petite; there's no way she could have moved that body…" Diane started to protest, but when she looked up, Kurt wasn't looking at her. He was staring off into the trees.
"What the hell is that?" he asked, extending his arm to point.