Page 21 of Justice for Francesca

“Nothing much. A couple of things out of place. Both could be nothing but might be something. They mentioned that there was an extra strong odor of bleach. Considering they did no deep cleaning the night before, it’s suspect.”

“Odd. If the murderer used bleach to clean up evidence, why not clean up all of the blood, then? There was certainly stillenough around the body. Why leave any if he bothered to clean up somewhere?”

Francesca leveled Cruz with a look. “Maybe blood wasn’t what he was worried about.”

He blinked at her. His lip curled up in disgust. “You think he was cleaning uphisDNA?”

Francesca shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time some guy beat off to a dead body. Or even during torturing someone.” She reached for a folder of photos from the scene and flipped through them. Finding the one she wanted, she pushed it toward him on the desk. “I noticed there was an odd void in the blood at her feet. If the CSI didn’t think to, we should test the floor in that spot.”

“Huh.” Cruz chewed on his lip. “Calder will run a rape kit as a matter of form, and he’s pretty thorough checking everywhere for DNA, but I’ll make sure to run that idea past him so that he’sextrathorough. What else did they mention?”

“Strong citrus odor. It’s used to cover the remaining bleach smell before patrons arrive. They said it was extra strong. I checked, and it’s orange-scented.”

“Someone who didn’t have time for the system to run its normal course, so dumped in extra.”

“Likely. I mean, our killer only had maybe two and a half hours, really, to get in, do what they wanted, and get out.”

“Not a lot of time,” Cruz continued.

“No. Another clue that this should be someone very familiar with the club.”

“Doesn’t narrow it down to only employees, though, but more likely.” He drummed his fingers on the chair arms. “What about past employees? Someone with a grudge, maybe?”

Francesca made a note in her notebook. “I’ll add cross-referencing the employee list to my tasks. I’ll look at pastemployees since the club opened and members who are here more often than others—see if anything shakes loose.”

“Anything else?”

“Zelinski mentioned that he’s not sure, but when he went into the master control booth this morning, the door was unlocked, and he was pretty certain he locked it when he left. He also said his chair was pulled out from his station, and again, pretty sure he would have shoved it under the desk.”

“Zelinski is Triumph, right? Lot of fuckin’ names to keep straight,” he complained.

Feeling guilty that she was contributing to the problem, she decided to compromise. “Yes. Sorry.” She stiffened her spine at the concession she was about to make. “I’ll use the club names in conversation since that’s how they’ll refer to each other and keep the legal names for the reports.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.”

“As to prints inside the booth, I’m guessing he touched everything in there without thinking. Although, his prints would be all over everything in there since he’s the head of technology here. By the way, you were correct. He admitted to watching through the cameras when you were processing the crime scene.”

Cruz sighed. “Why can’t people resist the urge to snoop?”

Francesca let a grin slip. “Isn’t that an odd question from someone who chose a profession where he’s required to snoop?”

“I stand accused,” he said with a chuckle.

She grimaced. “Murphy was also in the booth for a bit. However, everyone’s singing his praises like he’s the second coming of the club.”

Cruz studied her for a moment. “You really don’t like your brother, do you?”

Sighing, she put her pencil down and leaned back in the chair. “It’s not Michael, so much. My older brothers? They’d do what was done to the victim in a heartbeat.”

“Lucky they’re in New York City, then, isn’t it? Doesn’t make sense why you’d have such a hard-on for your younger brother though.”

She ignored the statement. “What about this Cosmos guy? He runs security for all of the clubs.”

With a raised eyebrow, showing he knew she was trying to deflect, Cruz let her ignoring of his comment pass. “Has a locked-tight alibi. He was with a client at the Chicago Cubs’ game the day before. Last night, he was at The Lucky Rabbit, the cosplay club in Chicago that the guys own. We’ve got video of him entering the club, including the young lady he escorted there, and then to a local hotel. He got the call just after seven a.m. We checked the duration of the call and the number and pinged the tower, so everything matches up there. He headed back to the city within an hour.” Then he hit her with an issue she didn’t want to talk about. “Tripoli?”

“Father figure to the employee family. Claims he was at The Library until after two a.m., then at his residence on the top floor until he left to come here. It should be easy to verify that.”

“Mmm.”

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