J. Ellison - 14

Nashville, Tennessee Tuesday, December 16 8:00 p.m.

T aylor nestled Martin Kimball’s boxes in back of the 4Runner and closed the door with a slam. She’d gone through the files briefly after she and Fitz returned to the office, but quickly realized that a physical search through the evidence still in storage was necessary. The paperwork and the murder books had been moved into their conference room, but the actual material evidence had to be kept in the warehouse-checking out the individual pieces was too much of a hassle. Fitz had volunteered to go, and she’d accepted his offer. He promised to call and she decided to head home.

She turned the heat on and tried to ignore the strains of Christmas carols spilling out of her speakers. As soon as her hands warmed up, she turned off the radio, but “Silent Night” had wormed its way into her mind, and she repeated the words absently in a nonreligious mantra as she drove out of downtown.

“Silent night. Holy night. All is calm, all is bright.” Yeah, she wished.

The fact that they might be missing information gnawed at her. That information could be nothing or everything.

Knowing Baldwin would be hungry, she stopped at City Limits, a great New York-style deli close to home, and bought chicken Caesar salads and warm, freshly baked baguettes.

Once she got home, she opened a nice sangiovese, a simple inexpensive bottle they drank all the time, wondered briefly where Baldwin was, stashed the salads in the fridge and took the files and her wine to the living room. She opened the first box, set the lid on the floor and breathed in the scent she’d been nostalgic about earlier. Pipe smoke and dust. Why the aroma made her smile, she wasn’t quite sure.

She riffed through each file. Nothing new there. It was filled with the typical cold-case material-the murder book, which was really multiple binders, ten of them, one for each murder; folders of photos; copies of the evidence sheets. She went through those with care, searching for a mention of the signet ring. She found it, on murder number ten, Ellie Walpole. It was just as Kimball had said. In his neat handwriting, a detailed description of a gold signet ring.

She cross-referenced it with her file. The page was not there. It didn’t mean anything-something like that could go missing easily. One piece of paper among five thousand. It had happened before.

After an exceptionally close reading of the autopsy reports, she found references to the bald patches on the back of the women’s heads. It hadn’t been deemed very important.

Taylor knew it was probably Snow White’s souvenir. Many killers take a token with them-a license, panties, something symbolic to treasure, to remind them of their kills. To help them relive the actual crime.

There hadn’t been anything reported missing from Snow White’s victims. But a lock of hair from each kill would make a grand prize indeed.

Taylor stood, impatient, circling the couch with the wineglass in her hand, pacing, thinking. She glanced at her watch, wondering when Fitz would call. The evidence warehouse could be a time/space vortex if one wasn’t careful. Looking for something as small as a signet ring might be completely unfeasible. If the ring was actually gone, not simply misplaced, then they had a problem.

She looked out the front window, took a lap around the downstairs, poured another glass of wine, then sat back on the couch. She continued going through the files, matching hers to the originals. There were a few other pieces missing, but for the most part, it was all there. The one thing that was in Kimball’s files that wasn’t in the main files was his notes. Sheet after sheet filled with his neat hand, speculation, ideas, drawings and doodles. Every ounce of paper that he’d generated over the course of eight years was included. Taylor read through them. She admired his thoroughness but found nothing else of note. All the rest was consistent with the files she had.

The phone rang, and she jumped up to answer it.

Fitz grumbled in her ear. “I’m covered in dust. There’s no ring.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely positive. There’s no ring in any of these boxes. Trust me, I went through one hundred and forty-three of them.”

“That’s what I was worried about. The page that would show it isn’t in the official files, either. Damn it, Fitz, why?”

“Little girl, it may be something as simple as one of the evidence jockeys took a shine to it, and figured after all these years, why let such a pretty thing go to waste. It’s happened before, you know that.”

“Why do I get the feeling that isn’t the case? This ring has something that can lead us back to the killer, I can just feel it.”

She heard the garage door go up. “Hey, Baldwin’s home. Let’s talk about this in the morning, okay? Fitz, thank you for doing that. I appreciate you spending your evening in dust.”

“Yeah, you owe me a beer. Tell the fed I said hi.”

“See you.” She hung up the phone, went to meet Baldwin in the kitchen. He was shrugging out of his shoulder holster, balancing a Starbucks cup and his briefcase in one hand and a bundle of roses in the other. He jumped when she entered the room.

“Hey, turn your back. I’ve got something you aren’t supposed to see yet.”

“I already saw them. You got me flowers? Aren’t you the sweetest man alive?”

“Oh, trust me, I’m sweeter.” He handed her the roses, white and red, intertwined with brick-colored gerbera daisies. She took them with her left, used her right to help him unhook from the leather harness.

“Special occasion?”

“Do I need a special occasion to bring flowers to my almost wife?”

“No, of course not.” She dropped the holster on the counter and buried her nose in the flowers. “Mmm, they smell great. I better get them in some water. Where’d you find gerberas this time of year?”

“A man must protect his secrets.”

She rolled her eyes at him, eliciting a laugh. It was all so comfortable, it didn’t feel right. She got the flowers into water, set them thoughtfully on the kitchen table. Baldwin watched her; she felt his eyes on the back of her neck. Jesus, what was wrong with her?

“How was your day?”

“Other than the fact that we’re missing a piece of evidence from the Snow White case? The old cases, I should say.”

“What kind of evidence?” He opened the refrigerator. “Oh, good, you got dinner.”

“Like I’d let you starve.”

They bustled around the kitchen, getting their salads on plates, buttering bread, pouring wine, and Taylor told Baldwin about her afternoon. He listened with sympathy until she asked about his day. They sat on the floor in the living room, their plates on the coffee table, their backs propped with pillows, and talked while they ate.

When they were settled and Taylor was a few bites into her salad, Baldwin answered her question.

“Well, it was interesting, I’ll say that. Tomorrow might be a little crazy.”

She just raised an eyebrow. As if anything could be crazier in this case, in their lives.

“Charlotte Douglas is coming to town.”

“And she would be…?”

“FBI Special Agent Charlotte Douglas. She’s a profiler. Deputy chief of the unit.”

“Well, that’s not unexpected. Are you going to be able to run interference?”

“She’s coming to see you, actually. And bringing one of her forensics team. They have the DNA results.”

Taylor let her fork rest in the romaine, shaking her head at that statement.

“Why the hell haven’t they called and given us the information? Or faxed the report over, at the very least. What’s the big deal? It’s either Snow White or it’s someone else.”