Shred of Evidence

The clock ticked, and Elsa’s stomach churned. They’d kept her in that dimly lit, 10-by-10 room for eighty-seven minutes, and no one had told her why. The room’s only door opened, and the same hatchet-faced young man who had initially ushered her into this same room entered.

He was wearing the same black polyester slacks, white short-sleeved shirt, and black clip-on tie sported by the Homeland Security employees who had kept Elsa from boarding her flight. His “uniform” differed from theirs in that it was free of insignia—no patches, no badges, no web-belt, no cuffs.

He stood there looking at her for a few moments. Elsa was too frightened to speak. Her stomach jumped again, so loud in her ears that she was sure he could hear it.

When he finally broke the silence, the young man said, “My name is Murchison, Miss Soames.”

Elsa did her best to swallow the bile she could taste in her mouth, and said, “Why am I here, Mr. Murchison? I’ve missed my flight.”

Ignoring her question, he pulled a black ball-point from his shirt pocket, and began to look around the room. “Forgot my clipboard,” he said. “Be right back.”

After he left, Elsa sat staring at her reflection in what she was positive was a two-way mirror. While she looked at herself, question after question flashed through her head. She wondered who was watching from the other side, whether Murchison’s forgotten clipboard was some sort of ploy, why she was there, why she’d been detained, would she be able to get another flight to New York in time for her connection to London?

She glanced at the clock again—another five minutes gone. She tried to calm herself, felt her stomach lurch yet again, and bit her lip, afraid that she was going to cry.

She was trying to control her breathing when Murchison returned, clipboard in hand. “I have a condition, Mr. Murchison,” she blurted out.

“A condition for what?”

Elsa pursed her lips and frowned for a moment. “When I’m uncertain or anxious, my stomach gets rather nervous.”

“I see. Well, I’m afraid that the longer you take to compose yourself, the longer you’ll be here.”

Elsa closed her eyes and nodded her head mutely.

“Anyway, I just have a couple of routine questions. Let me know when you’re ready to continue. Can I get anything? TUMS? Some other sort of antacid?”

Elsa swallowed, choking back the nausea, feeling the sweat starting on her forehead, and said, “No, I think I’m alright, now. Can we please get this over with? I’ve a connection to make in New York.”

“Yes,” Murchison sat in the chair across from her and began to fill out a form on his clipboard. “As to that, can you tell us why you’re changing planes in New York?”

“That’s where most trans-Atlantic flights originate, isn’t it?” Elsa tried a smile. “You would need to ask my travel agent, though.”

Murchison didn’t look up, didn’t stop writing. “Why the eight hour layover in New York, though?”

“I wanted to go to the Met.” She looked at the clock again. “Little chance of that, though, with you holding me off my flight.”

“Uh-huh,” Murchison said, still writing. “And what brought you to El Paso in the first place, Miss Soames?”

“I came for a conference.”

“Your ticket says you flew in on Wednesday. Where did you stay?”

“The Airport Hilton. That’s where the conference was.”

“Which conference was that?”

“Left Coast Crime.”

He looked up. “A crime conference?”

She nodded. “Crime writers and fans.”

“You’re a crime writer?”

“I’m a fan.”

He thought about that for a moment, then wrote a line on his form. “Why is it called ‘Left Coast Crime,’ Miss Soames?”

“Why am I being detained?”

“Please answer the question.”

“I demand to see the British consul.”

“Why is it called ‘Left Coast Crime,’ Miss Soames?”

Elsa’s stomach twisted some more, and she grimaced. “Did you even hear what I said?”

“I did. There’s no British consulate in El Paso. We’ll have to send for someone from the closest one,” he paused for obvious effect. “In Houston.”

“Oh.” More waiting. She didn’t like the sound of that. Neither did her stomach. “Just tell me why I’m here.”

“In a minute. I’ve got to fill in the blanks here first. Now,” he picked up his pen again, “Why is it called ‘Left Coast Crime,’ Miss Soames?”

“Because there are no other regional mystery conventions on the West Coast, I suppose. I don’t know for sure.”

“The West Coast?”

Elsa felt a sudden wave of nausea, did her best to push through it, and continued, just wanting this over, wanting to get out of this oven of a room and onto a plane. She knew that if she seemed too ill, the airline wouldn’t let her board, so she willed herself to speak evenly, fighting the anxiety she felt. “Every region of this country has its own mystery convention. The Midwest has ‘Murder in the Midlands,’ New England has ‘Crimebake,’ and Florida has ‘Sleuthfest.’ The West Coast has ‘Left Coast Crime.’”

“Miss Soames, we’re in El Paso. Texas. Texas is big, and it’s part of both the South and the Southwest, but this is hardly the West Coast.”

Elsa blinked. “Is this why I’m being held against my will?”

“Oh, you’re not being held, Miss Soames, we just need some questions answered.”

“Fine, fine, go on. But I don’t know why they had the West Coast’s regional mystery conference in Texas. I think it had something to do with El Paso being the only city that did the bidding this year. Next year it’s going to be in Birmingham.”

“Alabama?”

“No, England.”

“How can they call it ‘Left Coast Crime,’ then?”

“You Americans and your geography,” Elsa gave a nervous laugh. “Birmingham is on the left coast of Great Britain, you know.”

“Hmmm… I suppose I can get in touch with the conference people at the Hilton and verify this,” Murchison wrote some more.

“I’m free to go, then?”

Murchison shook his head. “There are a couple of other things we need to deal with first, Miss Soames.” He stood.

“Such as?” Elsa called to his retreating back as he again left the room.

He returned less than a minute later, carrying a wrapped parcel that Elsa recognized as part of her luggage. When she saw the fingerprint powder marks covering her package, she got a sinking feeling in her already twisting stomach.

“Recognize this?”

“I believe so.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t say for sure, but it looks like the clock I picked up this morning and wrapped up for the flight home. You’d have to pull the paper off for me to be sure, though.”

Murchison began writing again. “Where did you get it?”

“One of your second-hand shops.”

He pulled the wrapping off with a flourish, revealing the Hawaiian hula dancer figurine that had so charmed Elsa that morning. “It’s certainly unique,” he said, reaching out to flick a fingertip at the dancer’s head and then watching both head and torso wiggle in response. “Looks like a dashboard ornament. Do you recall the name of the place where you purchased the clock, Miss Soames?”

“No.”

“Do you have your receipt for payment?”

“I believe it was in my purse, but since you took that away when you took my passport, I can’t very well be sure. What’s all this about, then?”

“Do you recall what section of the city you purchased this item in?”

“Yes, it was in Juarez.”

“That’s in Mexico.”

Elsa felt the blood drain from her face. “I suppose so. I took a taxi.”

“What were you doing down in Mexico this morning, Miss Soames?”

A cold sweat started to form on Elsa’s forehead. “Sh-shopping, obviously.”

“Why would a British subject, on her last day in this country, suddenly take a side-trip to Mexico right before leaving for her flight?”

“I was curious, Mr. Murchison, that’s all,” Elsa ran the back of her forearm across her brow, mopping up the sweat there with the sleeve of her blouse. “You bloody well ought to know what that’s like.”

A series of sharp raps came from the mirror on the wall behind Murchison. He looked over his shoulder in what must have been surprise. Elsa thought that for a moment he looked very young, and very unsure of himself, like an understudy who has been pressed into a part he’s not ready to play, only to have someone flub their lines and throw him completely off his rhythm. “Excuse me,” he said, and vanished through the door again.

Elsa’s stomach began to act up again, and she hugged herself tightly, rocking to and fro, biting her lower lip and looking at the clock on the wall. Exactly four minutes and thirty-eight seconds after his exit, Murchison returned, carrying Elsa’s purse.

“The reason we detained you, Miss Soames,” he said as he sat opposite her once more, “is that we found traces of a suspicious substance on a couple of your possessions.” Whatever he had been doing while he was gone, Murchison had regained most of his composure.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, her words barely a whisper.

“Glycerine,” he said. “I’m talking about glycerine.”

“As in nitroglycerine?”

“No. Just glycerine. Obviously you’ve made the connection, though. It’s used to make bombs.”

“Bloody hell,” Elsa said. “In my luggage?”

“Partly. On the wrapping you used for this clock, for starters. Did you wrap it?”

“Yes,” she said.

“We thought as much, because your fingerprints are the only ones we could find on the paper. We figured that you’d wrapped it yourself.”

“But I haven’t any glycerine. I wouldn’t even know what it looks like!” Elsa exclaimed. “I got the wrapping paper from the hotel. Perhaps they got some glycerine on it there!”

“We wondered about that, too.” Murchison acted as if he had anticipated her statement. Back on script. Bang on cue, he said, “So imagine our consternation when we also found a large smear of the stuff on the inside of your purse.” He pushed her purse toward her as he said it. She recoiled from it as it were a snake. No longer able to hold back the tears, she began to sob.

“I-dunno-I-dunno-I-dunno-I-dunno!” Elsa buried her face in her hands.

“What were you doing in Juarez?”

“Shopping!”

“How do you explain the glycerine we’ve found on the wrapping for this clock? In your purse?”

Elsa ran the pad of her right thumb over her mouth. “I can’t!”

It went that way for a good five minutes, with Murchison eventually subsiding into silence, making notes on the forms on his clipboard. Elsa took deep breaths and gulped down the bile she kept tasting, her stomach reminding her over and over again of the poor choice she’d made earlier that morning. Just as her tears had subsided and she was able to breathe regularly, she gave forth a loud belch that stunned Murchison and caused her to subside into nervous laughter.

“Miss Soames,” Murchison said, and then again, “Miss Soames.”

Elsa worked her way down to a giggle, wiped her eyes, and said, “Okay, I give up, where’s the good cop?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You forget, I’m a fan of mysteries. This is now an interrogation, where is your partner? You’re obviously the bad cop. So where is the good cop, then?”

“Oh,” Murchison said. “He’s out doing something, somewhere…” the deviation from the script had thrown him again. Clearly the fellow was new to this. Shuffling the papers on his clipboard, he cleared his throat, and said, “You come to the U.S. a lot. Would you care to talk about that?”

Elsa checked the clock again. It was now over two hours since she’d been detained, and her window for catching her connection in New York was narrowing. Then there was the other thing for her to do between flights, that call she needed to make, the trip to the Met. “What about it?”

“Your passport shows that you were Arizona last month.”

“Yes.”

“You gave the reason for your visit as ‘personal.’”

“Yes, a friend got married, and I was in the wedding.”

“I see.”

“I have snaps of it in my purse, in fact, if you’ll let me look.”

“The desert ones? We saw them. Nothing quite like a pink taffeta bridesmaid’s dress to set off the moment against all those high desert colors, is there?”

“It was fuchsia, actually.”

Murchison nodded his head, started to say something, swallowed, and then said, “That was in Tuscon.”

“Yes.”

“Close to the Mexican border.”

Elsa nodded.

“Just like El Paso.”

“Yes, well, I was in Toronto last October, and that’s close to the U.S. border, so what? I’ll be in Chicago in September, as well.”

“More weddings?”

“No, more mystery conventions. Bouchercons, actually.”

“What?” Murchison flicked hi eyebrows, scratched the side of his head, and said, “Nevermind. This is all travel for personal reasons? Nothing to do with work?”

“Yes.”

“Just what do you do for a living, Miss Soames?”

“I work for an actuarial firm.”

“You’re an actuary?”

“No. I crunch numbers for them.”

“What is an actuary?”

“Similar to what you Yanks call an ‘accountant.’ I just do the numbers, I don’t do the actual accounting. No working with the books.”

“So getting back to your travel habits, you’ve been to this country multiple times in the past year, have plans for more travel here during the coming year, and have been to Mexico multiple times as well—”

“Mr. Murchison, this is getting terribly repetitive. I haven’t been to Mexico multiple times. I’ve been there once, this morning,” Elsa said carefully, trying to remain both calm and patient.

“Enough, Miss Soames,” Murchison stood and began to pace. “Fact,” he held up his index finger, “You travel frequently to and from this country. Fact,” another finger, “You have traveled over and around our borders with both of our neighbors while in this country. Fact,” a third finger, “You work a regular job in the U.K., but seem able to travel at will, exclusively for pleasure, and only to this hemisphere, if the stamps on your passport are any indicator. Fact,” a fourth finger, “A random sweep of your belongings showed several positive results for glycerine, which is a key additive for many kinds of explosives, and these belongings were being put aboard a commercial aircraft,” he returned to the table and leaned forward, slamming both hands down on it as he did so, “which was headed for New York!”

Elsa flinched backward, felt her stomach churn, bit her lower lip. “Mr. Murchison, please!”

“Tell me why you were in Mexico!”

“I did!”

“Tell me!”

“I-I—”

“September 11^th changed everything lady!” Murchison exploded. “Where did you get the glycerine? How did you use it? How will you use it!?”

At that moment the door to the room swung open. The man who walked through was bald, overweight, and middle-aged. “That’s enough, Phil,” he said.

Murchison leaned further forward and hung his head momentarily between his extended arms. “Miss Soames,” he said. “My partner, the ‘good cop.’”

“May I see you outside for a moment, please, Phil?” the older man said.

Elsa sat and shivered, hugging herself again, lower lip quivering, tears streaming down her face, the clock all but forgotten.

* * *

“Lip gloss,” the good cop said.

Elsa clutched her purse to her body as they hurried through the airport. The good cop struggled under the burden of her luggage (including the re-packed Hawaiian clock). She had ten minutes to make Flight 435 to New York.

“You must be joking,” Elsa said.

“No, no, it happened all the time right after 9-11,” he said. “Murchison’s new—”

“I gathered that,” Elsa said.

“Yes, anyway, he’s new, and he must have missed the memo that came out last week, and not for the first time, that several brands of lip gloss currently on the market contain trace amounts of glycerine.”

Elsa thought as she marched down the long hall toward her gate, “And mine must have spilt in my purse.”

“And if you touched your mouth at all, or used your teeth to hold that paper while you wrapped your clock, then it would get all over that wrapping paper as well,” the good cop wheezed, barely keeping up with her.

“Yes, well, I appreciate your help getting through the security check-point, and I understand about the added precautions, and all that,” Elsa said briskly as they approached her gate. She reached over, took both of her bags from him, smiled, and hustled in the direction of the jetway.

“Miss Soames!” he called.

Elsa turned and gave him a forced smile. “I really must hurry. They won’t hold this plane, you know.”

“I think you’ll be needing this,” the good cop said, brandishing her passport as he caught up with her again.

She gasped, smiled her thanks, and managed to work the passport back into her purse. Three minutes later she’d boarded, gotten her luggage stowed, and was just settling into her seat, when her stomach lurched again.

“Bloody Hell,” Elsa murmured as she almost doubled over.

“Are you alright, ma’am?”

Elsa glanced up at the professionally concerned, solicitous flight attendant standing in the aisle. “Yes, I’m fine. Something I ate this morning didn’t agree with me.”

The flight attendant put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side, smiling like a mother does when indulging a child. “Don’t tell me you sampled some of the local cuisine. Tex-Mex can be rough on the tourists.”

“Worse,” Elsa smiled thinly. “I was in Juarez.”

“Oh dear, shall I get you some Pepto Bismol?”

“No, it’ll pass. I’m certain I’ll be fine once we reach New York.”

“Well, you let me know if you change your mind, now, y’hear?” the woman said, and bustled off down the narrow aisle.

Elsa forced another smile as another cramp from her stomach seized her. Four hours to New York, and just enough time to make the call and meet Luis. It had been easier when they’d done this the first time, flying out of Tucson. No cramps then, no stomach problems at all, just that full feeling. This had been too close, besides. No adrenaline, this time, just fear and discomfort, and almost getting tripped up over lip gloss, of all things! She was finished after this one. After all, there was no point in laying over in New York if one had to forego a trip to the Met.