The Podcast

Chapter 3

Tuesday Evening

"I got the security camera footage from the Pi Beta Phi house." Melanie hands Lucas a fresh cup of coffee. Her black hair is slicked back tight into her signature bun, her broad makeup-free face tan and surprisingly well-rested considering the past twenty-four hours. Lucas scratches at his five o'clock shadow, grunting out a response that translates to both 'thank you' and 'go on' as he takes the coffee cup in his hand.

"It's pretty grainy, but at about 7:10 PM, a black Chevy Tahoe pulls up beside Carolyn's car, only about a foot of space between the vehicles. It's hard to see exactly what's happening but after a few minutes of shuffling, the Tahoe backs away and there's a figure slumped over the steering wheel of the white Jetta that wasn't there before. AKA, Carolyn. The Tahoe's front passenger car door shields a lot of the activity from view."

"Plates?"

"No front plate and the back of the Tahoe is never in view of the camera."

"Lovely. The driver of the Tahoe, what does he look like?"

"Well, that's the thing," Melanie comes around the side of his desk, leaning her hip against the edge, a bit too close for Lucas' liking, "it's actually hard to tell if it's a man or a woman. It also looks like there may be another figure in the backseat of the Tahoe, but again it's really difficult to tell." Lucas opens his mouth to respond, but is cut off by his phone vibrating in his pocket. He glances down at the name on the screen and curses.

"Who is it?"

"My sister."

"Oh?" Melanie's voice tilts toward relief. Lucas stifles a cringe at what that might mean.

He hits ignore and stuffs his phone back into his pocket, steepling his hands on his desk. There had to be something they could uncover while waiting on results from the lab.

"I still think it could be a murder-suicide, just the opposite of what we'd originally suspected. It could've been Caroyln who bashed George's head in before taking a drug to kill herself."

"She's a girl. No way could she bash his head in like that."

"Hell, I could." Melanie huffs with pride, her strong body masculine and forceful. She has at least fifty pounds on Carolyn Vinson. Lucas sidesteps the comparison.

"That still doesn't account for how her dead body got inside her car."

"Maybe we're missing something. Maybe she enlisted a friend to help. Someone who was in on her plan."

"Even if her plan included brutally killing her boyfriend and then herself?"

"Potentially."

"That would require some serious motive."

"I'll gather a list of her friends to interview."

"Fuck, that'll be hell." Lucas' upper lip curls at the thought of interviewing a slew of twenty-something sorority girls, their high pitched voices like a dentist's drill near his ear.

"If you want, I can interview them myself fir–"

"Shit, sorry." Lucas pulls out his phone again and holds it up at Melanie, "my sister again."

"Maybe something's wrong?"

"Nothing wrong other than the fact that she's a constant pain in my ass. I gotta take this or she'll keep calling." Melanie nods once, lingering awkwardly for a moment before heading back toward her cubicle. Before Lucas answers his phone, he calls out after her without turning his head.

"Oh, did you put in an order for a rape kit?"

"Already placed!" Of course she did. Lucas offers a brief over the head wave before answering his cell.

"Mierda Lucas! You better be coming over for dinner tonight or I'm going to drag your ass here myself."

"Maria, relax." Lucas scrubs a hand down his face as Melanie's proposed theory ping-pongs problematically in his mind. "It's not even—" Lucas pulls the phone away from his ear to glance at the digital clock. "Oh, shit."

"Yeah, oh shit is right, hermano. It's almost six. You need to take a break from that soul-sucking job of yours and come eat a real dinner with your family."

Family was a generous word. Implied something bigger than they had. He knew the death of their parents had broken Maria, even more than when her dirtbag husband skipped town over nine years ago. And then there's Camila, the sixteen-year-old niece with Lucas' whiskey-brown eyes, naturally bronze skin, and long legs—growing up way too fast.

Grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair, he turns toward Melanie's desk to let her know he's leaving, but she's already gone. Perhaps she has a boyfriend, someone waiting for her. He doesn't think she's married, but then again he's never asked.

Lucas prefers the solitude of his own home, the 1400-square-foot bungalow he'd inherited from his parents and renovated by hand. A glass or two—or three—of spicy caramel liquid that burns on the way down and the seductive amber glow of a freshly lit cigarette. But Maria always rips him a new one when he skips out on weekly family dinners. Guilt-trips him with Camila, the only girl in his life he can't say 'no' to.

But what Lucas wants more than any of that is to know why a twenty-year-old girl would bash in her boyfriend's skull before somehow taking her own life and being placed inside her car. It can be easy to get distracted by the brutality, the nature of the killing. The fact that a life, or two, has been taken. But it's the motive that makes the crime. And right now the motive rocks hollow and unsteady, an offness that won't be fortified with lab results. Nothing about this case is open and shut.