The Messenger (2011 reformat) by Edward Lee Page A

definitely know that. But there
are a lot of things we still don't know. For instance, who was the last person
to have sex with her."
    More sarcasm.
"Well, I do know for fact that she was happily married, so-I don't
know-I'll gamble here and say that her husband was the last person to do
that."
    "So it's
inconceivable to you that Marlene Troy was seeing other men?"
    "Yes.
Very inconceivable."
    "According
to the county medical examiner, there were abundant traces of seminal fluid in
her vaginal vault."
    Jane pursed
her lips as if she'd just sucked a lemon. Seminal fluid. Vaginal vault.
"God, you really have a way with words, Chief Higgins."
    "Sorry.
What do you want me to say? But we know she had sex on the morning she murdered
her family and killed everyone at the main branch. With two men."
    Jane felt like
a door had just been slammed in her face. Two men? "Are you sure about
that?"
    "The
evidence doesn't lie," Steve remarked. "There was semen in her, two different
secreter types. Two different men. The Medical Examiner says he's sure she'd
been with both men within hours of her death. Marlene's husband was in the
Naval Reserves; since 1990 all military personnel have DNA profiles put in
their medical records. One of the seminal types matched her husband. All we
know about the second semen traces is that they're from a person with
A-negative blood."
    By now Jane
was feeling naive. Infidelity happened all the time, she knew, amongst the
people you'd least expect it from. "The post office does have medical
records of all employees, for their health plans. I guess you want to check and
see what Bobby Weaver's blood type is."
    "We have
to get a court order for that, and we're in the process of doing that now,
Steve explained. "But it's not Bobby Weaver we're interested in
checking."
    "Who,
then?"
    "A man
named Carlton Spence."
    Another door
in the face. A big door. "Now, that, Chief Higgins, is inconceivable. I've
known Carlton longer than I knew Marlene. He doesn't belong to any cult:
    "But
didn't he go through a severe tragedy recently?"
    "Not
recently. That was a long time ago. His wife and daughter were killed in a car
accident. He had an alcohol problem for a while but got over it."
    Steve nodded
again, not looking at her. "The information I have is a little
different."
    "What?"
Jane paused. "Well, yes-the daughter. She wasn't killed in the crash-"
    "No, she
was abducted from the accident scene, according to the FBI and Maryland state
police. The potential there, especially in this day and age, is pretty
horrific: child pornography, child prostitution. Children are abducted for
those pursuits all the time; that must take a tremendous toll on a parent,
right? It would for me, I'm sure. And Carlton Spence was a devout Catholic. A
tragedy like that? It must really challenge a person's faith. If there was ever
a reason to turn your back on God, that's got to be it."
    Jane reflected
on that. How could she not agree? He's right, but... "Not him, not
Carlton. He isn't capable of something like this. He just isn't. If you want my
opinion, you're wasting your time even considering it."
    "Really?
Maybe. Tell me this, what exactly is his job here?"
    Jane sat back.
This was going to be a long interview. "In the post office, we don't have
jobs, we call them crafts. Clerks, carriers, handlers, maintenance. Carlton
went through the ranks in all those crafts, and recently-when my west branch
opened-he was promoted to delivery supervisor. His pay grade is level fourteen.
You can think of him as part personnel manager and part operations manager. He
basically makes sure everyone else is on duty and getting their individual
tasks done. He maintains the route schedules, transfer deliveries, overtime
assignments, and a lot more. He's been a quality employee for as long as I've
known him."
    "Is he on
duty right now?"
    "Yes."
    "How
about calling him in here."
    Jane frowned.
She didn't have any worries that she might be wrong about this-she felt