No blow from behind; this time, the C.I. had probed under the hair immediately, found no swelling or bruising.
The killer had taken on a serious foe face-to-face, dispatched him easily.
Maybe darkness had been his ally.
Milo circled the body for the fourth time.
The crime scene techs had finished their initial work and were waiting for him before leaving. Deputy Chief Maria Thomas had taken her time calling him to the scene.
Out in front of the house, the coroner’s van was waiting to transport.
Nice, sunny day on the Westside. The yard where the man in the robe lay dead was ringed with high block walls laced with trumpet vine. In Missouri, where I’d grown up, no one bothered with fences and a kid could pretend he owned the world. Behind our rattrap house was a dense black forest that yielded an occasional dead animal and two human corpses. The first had been a hunter, shot accidentally by a buddy. The second had been a little girl, five years old, my age at the time. I supposed freedom could be the stuff of bad dreams but right now this boxy, confined space felt oppressive. Why was I thinking about that?
Because I had nothing constructive to offer.
Milo completed another circle before heading for Maria Thomas.
The D.C. had positioned herself midway up the blue house’s driveway, on the near side of two parked vehicles. Sheltered from the ugliness, she made love to her cell phone.
Blond-coiffed and trim with a preference for tailored suits, Maria had been a captain when I’d met her a couple of years ago. Well spoken, cautious, decorous, she was the ideal corporate cog. The only time I’d seen her in action, she’d screwed up big-time by usurping a detective’s role, leading to the death of a suspect in an interview room.
Somehow that disaster had earned her a promotion.
She kept Milo waiting as she talked, finally pointed to the house’s rear door but didn’t end the conversation.
Milo and I made our way through the bright, neatly kept house. The laundry room and the kitchen and the living room appeared untouched, no blood from the yard tracked in.
The kitchen smelled of cinnamon.
Everything neat and clean and normal.
The master bedroom was another story.
The woman lay on her back atop a queen-size bed. Her hair was short and wavy, a careful blend of several shades of subdued caramel. Her left hand was tethered to a brass headboard with a blue necktie. The tie’s label was visible. Gucci.
No towels or tarp had been spread underneath her naked body. A few ruby specks dotted pale blue sheets, but no arterial explosion or castoff or significant leakage.
Waiting until every organ system had shut down before doing his thing.
The exact same thing he’d done to Vita Berlin and Marlon Quigg.
This woman’s eyes were wide open, maybe positioned that way postmortem or perhaps they’d opened spasmodically and stayed that way.
Big and gray and artfully shadowed, the lashes enriched with mascara.
Disturbingly lifelike despite the impossible angle of her broken neck and putrid guts piled up in grotesque decoration.
On the carpet next to the bed was a filmy, pink negligee. The woman’s nails were silver nacre, her toes, claret.
Just beneath the baby toe of her left foot was a sheet of white paper.
?
Milo growled. “You’re getting boring, asshole.”
The uniform by the door said, “Pardon?”
Milo ignored him and took in the room.
I was already scanning the space for the second time, concentrating on the left-hand nightstand where a pair of frilly pink panties draped a lamp shade. Spread across the stand was a careless array: a tube of Love Jam apricot-flavored lubricant, a package of ribbed condoms, an unopened bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, a corkscrew, two wineglasses.
A similar lamp graced the other stand, minus the undergarment. The only object it housed besides the lamp was a silver-framed photo.
Good-looking couple. Tux and wedding dress, big smiles as they cut into a four-tiered cake festooned with yellow sugar roses.
No younger than they appeared now. Newlyweds?
A ceiling lamp glowed faint orange. A dimmer switch near the bed was set on low.
Romantic lighting.
The scene shot into my head, as surely as if I’d scripted it.
The two of them retire for bed, counting on a night of romance.
One or both of them hears something out back.
They ignore it because you can’t go check on every little leaf-rustle and imagined intrusion.
They hear it again.
Someone—something—out in the yard?
No big deal, at worst a raccoon or a possum or a skunk. Or just a stray cat or dog, that had happened before.
They hear it again.
A faint scratching. Rustling of foliage.
Again.
Too enduring to be ignored.
Is there really something out there, honey?
No prob, I’ll check.
Be careful.
I’m sure it’s nothing.
He throws on his robe, goes to check it out. Because that’s what husbands do.
She waits, thinking it’s nice to be married, have someone to squish bugs and play Protector.
Lying back, she relaxes, anticipating deliciousness.
He doesn’t return quickly the way he usually does.
The moments pile up. She begins to wonder.
Don’t be silly, maybe he really did encounter a critter and had to deal with it.
Hopefully not a raccoon, they carry rabies. And get mean when cornered.
But no sound of struggle, so maybe he’s just being careful.
The notion of her darling and a critter makes her smile. So ... primal. He’ll be careful, he always is, and it’ll turn out to be one of those funny stories they’ll tell their grandchildren.
But it is taking a long time ...
More time passes.
She calls his name.
Silence.
Then, the door closes. Good. Everything’s fine, maybe he’ll come in with one of his yummy surprises. Last time it was Godiva chocolate.
This time it could be another treat. Food or otherwise ...
She closes her eyes, arranges herself the way he likes. The comforting sound of male footsteps grows louder.
She loves that sound.
She coos his name.
Silence.
Or perhaps a vague masculine grunt.
Baby’s playing Caveman. Excellent, this is going to be one of those nights.
Something not to tell the grandchildren.
She smiles. Purrs.
Positions herself a little racier than usual, creating sublime invitation.
He’s in the room, now. She hears his breathing intensify.
“Baby,” she says.
Silence.
Fine, that game.
He’s right next to her, she senses him, feels his heat. But ...
Something different.
She opens her eyes.
Everything changes.
Papers in the desk of the home office next to the bedroom conformed to DMV info.
Barron and Glenda Parnell.
He’d lived just over two months past his thirty-sixth birthday. She’d made it thirteen months longer.
A picture I.D. badge from North Hollywood Day Hospital tagged her as G. A. Usfel-Parnell, M.D. Nuclear Medicine. In the picture, she was grave, still pretty, wearing big, rimless glasses. Milo found them in a nightstand drawer.
I wondered about the extent of Dr. Glenda Parnell’s visual impairment. What had she actually seen when she’d opened her eyes?
Had she ever really focused?
Trembled at the horror but composed herself sufficiently to bargain?
Fear about her husband’s fate would have shaken her, but perhaps she’d been able to put that aside, sufficiently adrenalized to concentrate on her own
survival.
Had the killer pretended to go along as he had her tie her own arm to the bedpost? Or had he relied, at the outset, on terror and intimidation?
Had she sensed it was futile the moment he’d breached the door? Complied out of self-preservation as well as love for Barron, hoping cooperation would spare both of them?
If so, she’d spoken a completely different language from the killer. To him, Barron was nothing more than an obstacle to overcome.
He’d pulled the prelim off perfectly, drawing the guy into his trap.
Now the fun part.
Once prints had been taken, Milo gloved up and gave the office desk a thorough search. Glenda Parnell’s malpractice insurance was paid up, as were her subscriptions to several medical journals. Mail addressed to Barron Parnell appended CFP to his name. A mailer from a brokerage house expanded that to Certified Financial Planner.
So did a letter from an attorney representing the Cameron Family Trust that specified malfeasance and “incautious” investing.
The date was nineteen months ago. Milo copied down the particulars.
Further excavation of the desk drawers indicated Parnell worked out of the home with no apparent clients other than himself and his wife. He’d done well, amassing just over a million dollars in a stock account, two hundred thousand more in a corporate bond account, just under ten thousand in a joint savings-checking account.
The two vehicles parked in the driveway were a three-year-old yellow Porsche Cayman registered to Barron and a gray Infiniti QX registered to Glenda. Both had been recently washed and appeared undisturbed.
Also unmolested was a pricey bank of computers in the office, some serious jewelry in a leather box barely concealed behind blankets in the linen closet, a case of sparkling Christofle silverware in the pantry, a home entertainment system in the living room that included a sixty-inch plasma TV.
We returned to the bedroom. In Barron’s sock drawer, Milo found a silver-framed glamour shot of Glenda. Fuzzy focus, the suggestion of nudity, cornucopia of cleavage, glistening teeth.
To Barry Boo from Sweet Gee. Love 4ever. Happy anniversary. XXXX
The inscribed date was forty-two days ago.
Maria Thomas stuck her head in the room. “Anything?”
Milo shook his head.
“Got a sec?”
“Yeah.” He might’ve been agreeing to do-it-yourself root canal.
The three of us powwowed in the Parnells’ spotless kitchen. Someone had put money into the décor: matte-black Euro cabinets trimmed in chrome, white marble counters that appeared unused, copper pots hanging from a cast-iron ceiling rack, everything else brushed steel.
Maria Thomas plinked a counter with a fingernail. “Marble’s good for rolling pastry dough, not cooking. No one did serious food, here.”
“Didn’t know you were into the culinary arts, Maria.”
“I’m not, my daughter is. That translates to she’s the one gets addicted to Top Chef, I’m the one pays tuition at some overpriced institute in New York. Now she wants to spend next summer in France, learning how to properly slice onions. This is a kid who survived the first four years of her life on hot dogs and chocolate milk.”
She fingered a crisp tweed lapel. Her hair was sprayed in place. Not helmet-stiff, a higher level of fixative that lent the illusion of softness. An expensive-looking phone dangled from her other hand. “Some mess, huh?”
Milo said, “It’s a step up.”
“From what?”
“Not from, for,” he said. “The offender. He took risks with the husband in order to get to the wife. Earned himself a two-fer, kicked up the thrill level. But you know that, already. Seeing as you’ve been here for a while.”
She stared at him. “Someone’s touchy.”
He turned his back on her. Interesting move; she outranked him significantly. He’d been there when she’d screwed up, had never exploited it. Maybe Maria figured that gave him a certain power. Maybe that would eventually work against him.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s clear the air right now so we can go about our respective businesses?”
“Thought we were in the same business.”
Thomas’s gray eyes turned to pond pebbles. “I’m here because the chief has been following this since the second one, Mister”—consulting her phone—“Quigg. The reason the chief was informed early is someone thought a serial pattern might be forming and that the details were sufficiently out of the ordinary for the chief to need to be apprised. Don’t ask who informed him, that’s irrelevant.”
“I couldn’t care less about any of that, Maria, all I want to do is clear four murders.”
“That’s what we all want. Think there’s a remote chance of your accomplishing it anytime in the near future?”
“You betcha, boss,” he said. “Everything will be gift-wrapped and presented for your approval by”—reading his Timex—“nine forty-three tonight. Give or take a nanosecond. Also on the schedule is the capture of Osama’s entire organization but in the meantime be sure to warn His Amazingness to treat any packages from Pakistan with caution.”
“Hey—”
“Is there a remote chance? What kind of question is that, Maria? You think this is writing traffic tickets?”
“Ah, the temper.” She winked. “The classic Irish temper and I can say that because half my family traces back to County Derry.”
“Whoopee for genealogy, Maria. Is there a point to this conversation?”
Thomas caressed marble, ran a finger under the counter rim. “Indulge yourself, Milo, keep venting. Get all the bad feeling out so we can both do our jobs like grown-ups.”
She turned to me, seeking confirmation of something.
I kept studying the double-wide refrigerator. No magnets, no memos or photos. Nothing like a blank panel of steel to keep one fascinated.
Maria Thomas turned back to Milo. “You bet it’s a reasonable question. When’s the last time you dealt with a serial remotely similar to this, Milo? A necktie of guts? Jesus, it’s beyond disgusting.”
He didn’t answer.
She said, “I can’t see any common thread among the victims other than they’re all white. Can you?”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet,” she repeated. To me: “You ever see anything like this? A sexual psychopath who throws such a wide net?”
Milo said, “It’s not necessarily sexual.”
“Then what?”
“Some kind of grudge. The first victim was engaged in a big-time lawsuit and I just found a financial complaint in Mr. Parnell’s desk.”
“I saw that,” she said. “You can’t seriously think a money thing led to that. And what about Mr. Quigg? He sue anyone or vice versa?”
“Nothing’s come up yet.”
“You should’ve checked his financials.”
“I have.”
“And you haven’t found anything. So the answer’s no, not ‘nothing’s come up.’ Meaning there’s no common thread. Meaning a money thing’s less than unlikely. You go along with his theory, Dr. Delaware? You don’t see this as a sexual psychopath?”
“Can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I don’t see the point of guessing.”
“So far I’ve heard nothing but guessing—all right, enough of this pleasantry. I’m expected to go back to the boss and report something. What do you suggest, Milo?”
Milo said, “Tell him each time the killer strikes he increases the possibility of a lead. In the meantime, I’ll be concentrating on the Parnells.”
“Each time,” she said. “Maybe by the time we get ten, eleven victims, we’ll be in great shape. Very reassuring.”
Milo grinned in that lupine way: teeth bared in anticipation of ripping flesh.
Maria Thomas said, “You always see humor when no one else does. When were you planning to go to the public?”
“His Perfectness thinks I should?”
“Word to the w
ise, Milo: You really need to stop with the obnoxious nicknames, one day it’ll get back to him.”
“He doesn’t like being perfect?”
“The public. When?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“No? That’s too bad because the chief thinks it might be useful.” She looked over her shoulder, in the direction of the bedroom. “Given the steadily rising corpse count. And something tells me he won’t find your lassitude reassuring.”
Milo walked away from her again. Her face tensed with anger but before she could speak, he circled back. “Okay, here’s something to tell him: If this was a confirmed sexually motivated psychopath, some rapist who escalated to murder, I’d have been talking to Public Affairs as soon as the second one surfaced, hoping an earlier, live victim would come forth. The same goes for a serial asshole targeting a specific victim population—hookers, convenience clerks, whatever. In that case there’d be a moral as well as a practical benefit: letting high-risk targets know so they can protect themselves. But what do we go public on, here, Maria? A bogeyman stalking and butchering random citizens? That risks setting off a panic with very little upside.”
“What’s your alternative?” she said. “A nice collection of murder books?”
“I haven’t even started working these two victims. Maybe I’ll learn something that will change everything. If you let me do the damn job.”
“I’m holding you back?”
“Wasting time explaining myself is holding me back.”
“Oh, so you’re different from anyone else?” Back to me: “What’s with the question mark on these two, Doctor?”
I said, “The same thing was left with the first two victims.”
She blinked. “Yes, of course. So what does it mean?”
“Could be a taunt,” I said.
Milo smiled. “Or our bad boy’s expressing his curiosity.”
“About what?” said Thomas. “The mysteries of the human body.”
“That’s grotesque. You know what I thought when I saw it? Some weird mystical symbolism, like the Zodiac used to send. You look into any witchcraft angles?”
“I’m open to anything, Maria.”
“Meaning you haven’t. And you’re opposed to going public. How many bodies will it take to get you flexible?”
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