At the Scene of the Crime (3 page)

Simmons speaks first. “No one.”

Byers: “We weren’t talking about the robbery. We were talking about—something else.”

And I’m the tooth fairy.

I’m going to let it go. For now. “The security camera. I need the tape.”

Simmons nods, regaining composure. “Of course. Come with me.”

We leave the vault and I follow her to the back of the library, through a door she opens with a key, into a small room. Six by six. Barely bigger than a broom closet. Nothing but a console in here and a computer monitor. Green blinking lights on the console board indicate tapes running. Simmons points to one of them.

“That’s the camera in the vault. The two next to it are focused on the main reading rooms. The others are cameras above the entrance outside, my office and the stairwell.”

“I’ll need them all.”

She reaches to eject the tapes.

I stop her, slipping gloves on my own hands. “Just show me.”

She does, pointing to the eject buttons below each tape well. I take each tape as it slides out of the machine, bag and tag, watch as she slips new tapes into the slots and reactivates the system.

“Are you the only one with access to this room?”

“Yes. No. My assistant has a key. She’s not very computer savvy so I’m the one who checks the tapes each morning to be sure the system is running. I change the tapes once a week. On Monday morning.”

Today is Tuesday. The robbery took place last night. Only twenty-four
hours to examine. Very efficient, considering most businesses change their tapes once a month. Or once a year, making the tapes worthless as constant rerecording deteriorates the images until they become unrecognizable.

“What do you do with the old tapes?”

“We keep them for a year. In a storage area below the administration building.”

“I’ll want our tech to dust for fingerprints in here.”

Simmons nods and I speak into my radio, asking Givens to join us. She does and I let her work her magic while Simmons and I return to the vault.

The forensic team is finishing up. They’ve dusted the surface of the table, the chairs, the area up around the security camera. The supervisor, Will Lahey, a tall, lean black man with hawkish eyes, is speaking to McDuff when I return.

“Nothing. Whoever broke in probably used the latex gloves so obligingly available on that table. Didn’t even have to bring his own.”

Simmons catches the undertone of sarcasm and bristles. “The books in this vault are priceless. Some are hundreds of years old. The gloves are used to protect the paper and ink from oils on the human hand that would destroy them over time. Without gloves, we’d have no access to the books at all. We couldn’t touch them.”

McDuff is listening, a thoughtful rather than abrasive expression on his face. For once.

“Who is allowed access to the books?” he asks.

Simmons ticks them off on her fingers as she replies. “Professors, some grad students, occasionally members of the public if they’re doing research and are vouched for by a staff member. Everyone signs in and either Byers or I remain with them while they are using the books. They are allowed one book at a time. They can work two hours at a time. They must make an appointment in advance.” She’s shaking her head. “With all our safeguards, I don’t understand how this could have happened.”

McDuff says, “Can I see the sign-in book?”

Simmons leads him over to her desk. Byers, who I’ve almost forgotten about, follows behind.

I turn to Lahey, consulting my notes. “Simmons said she’s the only one with the combination to this door. She and Byers each have keys to the cabinet, but without access to the combination, the keys aren’t worth much.”

Lahey smiles. “A real locked door mystery. Maybe the prints on the cabinet will give us a clue. I wouldn’t count on it, though.” He takes the bagged tapes out of my hand and holds them up. “I’ll get these back to the lab. Do you feel lucky?”

“Unfortunately, no.” McDuff was right. Anyone who has watched
Law & Order
would know how to disable or cover a security camera lens.

“Jenkins and Taylor will stay behind to finish up in the outer office,” Lahey says. “I’ll see you back at headquarters.”

McDuff comes back just as Lahey is leaving. He hands him the sign-in book, also in a plastic evidence bag. Simmons watches Lahey depart; a frown of concern pulls at the corners of her mouth.

“Ms. Simmons.”

She drags her eyes off the departing Lahey and refocuses on me. “Yes?”

“You are the only one with the combination to the vault, is that correct?”

A nod.

“You can’t be here every hour of every day. What happens when you’re on vacation? Or have a day off?”

“Access to the books is restricted by my schedule. If I’m not here, no one goes into the vault. Period.”

“But the combination must be kept somewhere. What if there was an emergency? A fire? Or something happened to you?”

“The vault is fireproof. If something happened to me, there is one other person with access to the combination. The president of the university. He keeps it in a safe in his office.”

Givens rejoins us, giving me a furtive shake of her head. Nothing in the security room either.

She heads off in the same direction as Lahey had moments before.

McDuff looks around the vault. “I think we’ve done all we can for now, Ms. Simmons,” he says. “The president of the university is waiting for us
downstairs. No one is to have access to the vault until we give the okay. We’ll have to secure the outer office, too. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

McDuff apologizing? He actually sounds sincere. Unbelievable. Could he be on to something?

Simmons looks as if she’s about to object. I follow McDuff ’s lead. “We can’t risk missing something that might lead us to the thieves. You want to get those books back, right?”

That’s something she can’t argue. McDuff motions to Simmons and starts for the door. He casts a backward glance at me and then to Byers, still standing beside the desk that held the sign-in book. Her posture is rigid, her expression drawn and frightened.

I let McDuff escort Simmons out of the room before I approach Byers.

“I’m sorry about all this,” I tell her. “It must be very upsetting. I don’t suppose there’s a place we could get coffee, is there? The forensic team needs to finish up in here and it would be easier if they didn’t have to work around us.”

She shrugs. “There’s a staff lounge down the hall.”

“Do you mind showing me?”

She casts an uneasy glance toward the open vault. “What about that?”

Interesting. Simmons didn’t make that inquiry. She just left with McDuff. “There are two policeman stationed right outside. I’ll ask them to come in and stand guard until we get back. Will that be all right?”

She reluctantly agrees, I bring the uniforms in, tell them not to let anyone except the forensic team in or out, and we head for the lounge.

It’s a typical faculty setup. Coffee bar, refrigerator, a few vending machines, utilitarian tables and chairs. Doors marked “women” and “men” against the back wall. There’s no one else in the room. We had moved everyone outside as soon as we began to process the scene. The coffee machine is making gurgling noises, though. It had been started before we arrived.

I gesture to the coffee machine but Byers shakes her head.

I motion to a chair and she sinks into it. I perch my butt on the corner of the table. “Have you worked here long?”

“Twelve years.”

She’s staring down at her hands. “She’s going to blame me for this,” she says quietly.

“Who? Simmons? Why would you say that?”

She doesn’t look up. “Because she wants to get rid of me. She’s wanted to since the day she arrived.”

“Which was?”

“Six months ago.”

I feign surprise. “She’s only been here six months? And she’s your supervisor?”

Her shoulders draw up. “She has the advanced degree. It’s the way academia works. I trained her. I know more about rare books than anyone else in the state. In the country, probably. But she has the advanced degree so she gets the title.”

I shake my head sympathetically. “It’s the same with police work. Some kid comes off the street with a college degree and he’s promoted to detective over street cops with ten years’ experience. It’s a bitch.”

“You’re pretty young to be a detective,” she says, eyeing me warily. “You one of those kids, too?”

I grimace. “You caught me. But I did my time on the street before I got my degree. And I work hard to prove myself. Have to with a partner like McDuff.”

I get a half-smile at that. “He’s a character. He doesn’t think we’ll get those books back, does he?”

“He’s been wrong before.” I let a few heartbeats of silence stretch between us. “What did Simmons mean about your coming back last night?”

She flinches. “It’s nothing.”

“I don’t think it’s nothing, Ms. Byers. And if you want to keep Simmons from accusing you of complicity in the theft, maybe even of being an accessory, you should tell me your story before Simmons tells hers to McDuff.”

Byers’s eyes widen. “Could that happen? Could I be charged with being an accessory?”

“Depends on what you did.”

Color floods her cheeks. “She told me I could have the night off even though it was my turn to close. She’s never done that before. I don’t know why I was suspicious, but I was.”

“Simmons said she saw you. What did you see?”

The color deepens. She hesitates, then, “This is too embarrassing.”

“For whom? You?”

At that question, her reticence evaporates. Words tumble out. “No. Not for me. For Simmons. I might have been wrong to sneak back but what she was doing was certainly worse. She was having sex.”

Byers spits out the word like it tastes bad. It’s such a visceral reaction, I have to keep from smiling. She doesn’t notice though, because she’s still caught up in her story.

“It was the most shameful thing I’ve ever seen. They were doing it on a chair. She was straddling the guy. That’s how she saw me. Of course, as soon as I realized what was happening, I got out of there.”

I’m visualizing the layout of the office. The vault. The outer office. The outside door opens directly into the office space. The vault door is in the back, out of sight. For Byers to approach unnoticed, Simmons must have been having sex—

“They were in the vault?”

Byers nods. “Awful, isn’t it?”

“Could you see who she was having sex with?”

She shakes her head. “No. They were on one of the chairs. She was facing the door. He had his back to me. She didn’t even stop when she saw me. Just gave me a look and I left.”

The chairs in the vault are metal but the seats and backs are cushioned. “Excuse me a minute,” I tell Byers. “I need to check in with headquarters.”

She nods and I step into the hall. I dial one of the CSIs still working the office. Don’t want to risk walking down there and having Byers follow. I keep my voice low.

“Jenkins? Check for DNA evidence in the vault. The chairs, specifically.
There might have been some extracurricular activity there last night. Thanks. Let me know what you find.”

Byers doesn’t look as if she’s moved a muscle since I left the room. Is she even breathing?

“Sorry for the interruption. Let’s get back to what you saw last night. Can you tell me anything at all about the man with Simmons?”

Byers draws a breath. “Not much. I only saw him from behind. He had short brown hair. He was wearing a red plaid flannel shirt. Jeans.” She frowns in distaste. “I know because I could see them bunched around his ankles. And he wore glasses.”

“Glasses?”

She looks pleased that I picked up on that. “They were on the table. Horn-rimmed frames. Tinted lenses.”

“Wow. That’s very observant of you. Anything else?”

She shakes her head. “No. I’m sorry.”

“Was there anything about him that you found familiar? Do you think you may have seen him before?”

She considers the question a minute before answering. “You know, there was something about him. I’m just not sure what. Can I think about that awhile?”

“Of course. While you do that, I’ll go back down to the office to check on the crime scene techs. See if they’ve come up with anything to help us.”

She nods.

“Would you like a cup of coffee or some water before I go?”

A smile. “Water would be nice. There are some bottles in the refrigerator.”

I fetch one for her. I leave her sipping from the bottle, her expression veiled and serious, anxious, I’m sure, to dredge up anything to identify Simmons’ lover.

I’m just at the door when she snaps her fingers. “Wait. The security camera. It would have caught them. Have you checked it?”

I shake my head. “The tape is at the lab. I’m sure as soon as a technician
examines it, he’ll let me know if it can help us.” I pause again. “But Simmons knows the vault has a camera. I doubt she’d let herself be caught on tape.”

A cloud darkens Byers’s eyes. “And she knows how to manipulate the tapes, too. I’ll bet she’s erased everything that happened last night.”

“If she has, we’ll know.”

This time when I start out the door, she doesn’t stop me.

Jenkins is working the vault when I come in. He’s using an LED lamp on the chair cushions. He slips off orange UV glasses and hands them to me.

“Bingo.”

I look through the lenses. Semen is naturally fluorescent and under the lamp, the sample glows. “And the other chair?”

Smith nods. On the table rests a plastic tube containing a pad stained orange-red. He takes a second from his kit, opens the cardboard cap, and moistens the pad with distilled water. He runs the pad over the chair seat and slips it back into the tube. He crushes a vial, squeezes, and this pad, too, turns color.