Flashback (Kendra Michaels #11)

Perry shook his head. “Look, I don’t need your permission to take these right this moment.”

“Maybe not, but you would need to get a warrant. It would be easier for all of us if you let Zack take a few minutes to finish his work. Then he’ll repack each of those boxes exactly as he found them and send you on your way. That seems like a far more efficient use of your time.”

Perry thought for a moment, the pause filled by the sound of Olivia’s scanner whirring and drawing in pages from the feed tray. He finally smiled at Kendra. “My colleagues told me you were a pain in the ass.”

“A compliment, Detective?”

“They didn’t mean it that way.”

“How would you mean it?”

”I don’t know you well enough yet.” He shrugged. “Okay, finish up here. I want to be out of here with those files in ten minutes.”

Kendra glanced at Zack, who gave her a quick nod.

“Fine. We’ll be ready.”

As promised, Zack finished the scans in ten minutes, and Perry and the two uniformed officers carried off the file boxes.

“Come on,” Kendra said. “You’re not taking the big ugly dolly?”

“It’s all yours.” Perry hefted his box as he walked toward the door. “Thank you, Dr. Michaels.”

And Detective Perry was gone.

Zack plopped down in one of the office chairs positioned around Olivia’s large U-shaped desk. “Wow. I didn’t expect this when I signed up to intern for a website.”

Olivia pulled a USB memory stick from her desktop console. “Well, you can always go back to combing my mailing list for possible duplicates.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining.” Zack’s square jaw and toothy smile gave him the appearance of an all-American quarterback. “I just didn’t think I’d be helping out on a murder case.” He looked at Kendra. “By the way, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Zack Duffer.”

“Kendra Michaels. Nice to meet you, Zack. I appreciate your help. You’re a student at USC?”

“Yep. I graduate in May. I’m finished with my classes, but I need the internship to complete my degree requirements. Ms. Moore was nice enough to pick me.”

“Nice had nothing to do with it,” Olivia said. “I got your transcript. You could’ve had your pick of hundreds of internship programs.”

Zack shrugged. “Maybe.”

“See?” Olivia said. “He’s not even going to try to deny it.”

“I’m right where I want to be,” Zack said. He turned toward Kendra. “I wanted to ask you… Have you actually looked at those files yourself yet?”

“Not really. I haven’t had a chance.”

“Olivia told me that they were put together by two women whose mother was murdered.”

“That’s right. They compiled these over a period of several years.”

“There’s some pretty graphic crime scene photos. Not so much of their mother’s crime scene, but of other Bayside Strangler victims. Those women must have somehow gotten them from the police.”

“It’s not that hard if you know which palms to grease. And these are obviously two very resourceful women.”

Olivia extended the flash drive toward Kendra. “Well, you can now carry all their work around with you. Do you really think there’s something in here that got that retired detective killed?”

“I don’t know, but it’s strange that my place got tossed just hours later. I’m just glad whoever it was didn’t realize you had taken them.”

“You and me both. Now get out of here. Unless you’d like to join Zack in observing my Zoom meetings with advertisers?”