Chapter 4

Scarlett’s POV, at the police station.

Sigh what a night of processing evidence…it was a lot, but nothing I couldn’t handle. So far what we had was Victoria’s outfit that she wore at dinner, her sassy outfit that she wore after dinner, the law books that were thrown around, and some client cases that had been on the desk that I guess must’ve been fallen over in the scuffle. Clothes were sent to our forensic scientist Sadie and she could tell us if there was anything on the clothes Victoria was wearing. She has hair dyed blonde with brunette roots, usually wears them in pigtails, blares her music to help her think, it is a unique way, but she gets it done so I guess I can’t complain if it works for her.

“Hey hey, Sadie whatcha got for me?” I finally get to her lab and she always greets me with a smile, and I always appreciate that about her. Most scientists are always stuffy like they’re a stick in the mud in my opinion.

“Hey Scarlet, so I tested the clothes and unfortunately nothing on the dinner dress except for Victoria’s skin particles, but there was a good amount of her blood on the sassy clothes. So, whatever happened to her, she hit her head hard enough to make it the kill shot. Also according to your crime scene pictures, I took a closer look at them on my big screen and it did not look like there was forced entry so either went into the study before she was killed, she knew her killer, or had a key.”

“Why would there be a key to his office?”

“I don’t know that isn’t my job, but my guess, if he did have a key, would be to protect his client information, which makes sense to me. Anyway, wrong rabbit hole to go down. So, the sparkly dinner dress is fine all-natural. The sassy outfit is where they had the wrong kind of fun. Based on this amount of blood she died in this outfit, and that’s your creepy buzzkill for the day.”

“Yeah, that is a creepy buzzkill, thanks Sadie I'll check with Dalton to see what he’s got.” I left the lab with goosebumps on my arms, then I decided to go down to autopsy to see if it was complete.

“Hey what’s up doc?”

“Ha-ha very funny…anyway I suppose you’re here for Mrs. Blackman.”

“Yeah, I am so how did she die?”

“Unfortunately for her she had some brain damage show up on her x-rays, seems to lineup with her falling on her backside and she hit something really hard. It takes powerful forces to crack the human skull and threaten its precious cargo meaning the brain. But death can come instantly when strong forces threaten the main nerve thoroughfare called the brain stem. The occipital lobe, the cerebellum, and the brain stem to the spinal cord all have damage from the fall. So, my professional guess would be she hit the desk just right to make her death instant. Also, besides the head wound, I noticed a lack of defensive wounds which also tells me that she knew her killer.”

“Alright, thanks doc.”

“Anytime.” I leave autopsy quickly to fill in Jax on what I got.

“Well that helps, but that doesn’t help with who killed her. All the prints that we do have are ones that are likely to be there, hers and her husband’s which of course are going to be there cause it’s her dress and he lives with her…well he did. Does he even know about her?”

“I haven’t gotten in contact with him yet. Telling the family is the worst part of the job…”

“Yeah, I know but someone has to do it. Let us go back to the law office or the house to see if we can find him.” We hop in the police car and found him at the office, confused and tired.

“Mr. Blackman sorry to meet under these conditions. I’m detective Jax Moore this is my partner, Detective Hollow. I’m sorry to tell you that your wife was killed last night…” Vincent looked shocked and maybe had a tear shed.

“I’m sorry for your loss…” I felt so bad for him, but the way they looked together at the restaurant didn’t seem like it was a loving marriage.

“How did she die?”

“From the looks of it a bad fall and she hit the back of her head on something hard and it was just in the right spot that it was instant.”

“Well…at least she wasn’t suffering…I was away for a case out of state. We went out to dinner for our anniversary, went home and she wanted to have a sassy way to end our anniversary night, but my court date for this particular client is coming up so I needed to get my stuff together and see him right away. I packed some things, and she was trying to get my attention, blew her off, and next thing I know she is throwing some of my law books at me, and insulting me! I told her I had to go, and she got mad, after that, I left to go to the airport. I didn’t know she was dead until I saw the crime scene tape in front of my house and had to leave the property, nobody told me anything until you guys showed up.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that.” I felt so bad for him…not being able to go home and you lose your wife in the span of 24hrs…

“What was your case on?”

"Unless you have a court order with you, that is a client-lawyer privilege. What I can tell you is what I already told you. I went out of state for a client and that's all I'm allowed to say legally. I have the plane tickets still with me in my jacket pocket and you can check the airport security if you'd like." Ugh...knew we should've gotten that court order, but we didn't have probable cause...that would've been good information to find out, but guess we'll have to come back again for that case file, see if it had to do with her death.

“Well, I guess we'll have more work for us, and for now we’ll let you deal with your own work and we’ll find out what happened to your wife. For now, we will keep your wife’s case open until we find the killer. We'll keep in touch.”

“Thank you, detectives, for your time…” We leave his office and let him grieve, and I get an idea.

“Maybe we should check phone records see if there was anything else fishy. Maybe she could’ve had an affair or something. I noticed when they were at the restaurant that they didn’t seem like a happy couple celebrating their anniversary so that has me suspicious.”

“Alright, I take your word for it. If you want to go down that rabbit hole and see where it goes be my guest.”

“Fine, I will. There’s gotta be something we must work with. It can’t be as easy as accidental death, right?”

“Sometimes they are that easy, and we let the family grieve in peace.”

“No I feel like there’s something more to this, and maybe I’m overthinking it, maybe it is as simple as an accidental death, but I just have a feeling in my gut that this is more.” Jax looks at me like I have a third eye and lets me do my work.

“Alright, if you want to go down this rabbit hole then see where it goes, I’ll follow your lead.” We check phone records and besides one suspicious unknown number that I’ll check out later with Vincent, there doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. She called Vincent, her friends, and her family. Hmm…definitely will have to check out this mysterious number that she didn’t want to save on her phone with Vincent see if he’ll know anything about that.