by Blake Pierce
The third room they came to was more of the same, only the closet was much larger; it was a thin walk-in closet complete with clothes racks and a shelf for shoes. It was equally as empty as the other rooms, but there was another door sitting in the far wall. It was thinner than the others, located all the way in the corner of the spacious closet.
“Storage space?” Kate asked, walking toward the door.
“Yeah, I think so. It’s a mostly unfinished attic space from the looks of it. I checked it yesterday.”
Kate opened the door and was met with a blast of humid air. The space was indeed unfinished. There were exposed beams and insulation, broken only by the large air conditioning unit that had been installed in the space. The previous owners had laid down a few sheets of plywood to walk safely across the area, but that was about it. Near the back, the shape of the slanted roof narrowed the space. The builders had supported this with several boards, making sort of a faux wall. It was the only break in the perfectly square area.
Kate stepped out onto the plywood. As she walked across it, she thought it was a shame the space had gone to waste. If finished, it could have made a great office or playroom for a family with kids. Just as she started to envision where to install a set of stairs to cut away through the floor back to the main level, she came to the lazy unfinished wall near the back where the roof slanted down. She peered behind the would-be wall and cocked her head, puzzled.
“Did you look back here yesterday?” she asked.
DeMarco came walking across the plywood floor, curious and concerned. She looked, saw the same thing Kate was seeing, and uttered: “What the hell?”
There was a quilt lying on the plywood floor. An empty Dasani water bottle sat beside it, empty.
“Kate, I won’t even lie to you. I didn’t even think to look back there.”
“No reason to,” Kate said. “Not for anyone tasked with trying to figure this out all on their own. Chalk this one up to my overly analytical mind.”
“Still. I should have looked.”
“Could be a squatter,” Kate pointed out, not wanting to give DeMarco time to be too hard on herself. “They tend to come and go, especially in properties that have been sitting stagnant for a while.”
“Doubtful. The police were here all day yesterday, well into the night.”
“Could be a squatter that kept eyes on the place, waiting for the police to leave. And if that’s the case, the squatter could be the killer. Certainly would be one hell of a coincidence if this is here right now if it wasn’t yesterday, considering someone was killed here less than two days ago.”
“Someone would have to have been watching this house very closely, that’s for sure.”
Kate and DeMarco looked down to the meager sleeping area, their minds already kicking into gear. Kate couldn’t help but think that if this quilt and bottle did indeed belong to the killer, she’d be heading back to Richmond before the day was over.
CHAPTER THREE
Small-town charm had never affected Kate, and Estes was no different. Sure, it was quaint and might be a nice place to spend a few weeks during the summer, but she could not imagine living in a place like this. She almost felt bad for the little town—its livelihood built around this beautiful but lesser-known lake, likely overshadowed by the beaches less than an hour and a half away. It was like the town had an identity crisis and wasn’t even aware of it.
While DeMarco spoke to the local sheriff on the phone, Kate watched the town roll by, listening to one side of the conversation.
“We need at least one unit over at the house on Hammermill Street,” DeMarco was saying. “If the killer was brave enough to sleep there and leave his quilt, there’s a very good chance he might show back up. And even if it’s not the killer, they might have seen or heard something.”
Kate took the moment to appreciate the cadence with which DeMarco approached her job. Kate had given DeMarco bits of responsibility here and there during their time together as partners, but she had never gotten to see her in a leadership position. It seemed natural to her, the sudden lead in a case not shaking her a bit. She was working the case as if she’d led hundreds of them prior to this.
Kate listened in to the rest of the conversation as DeMarco made more suggestions and asked smart questions. After a while, DeMarco gave a curt little nod and a quick “Thank you” before hanging up.
“What’s the police force like around here?” Kate asked.
“Pleasant enough. The sheriff is a fifty-something woman who loves the town and has a very motherly demeanor. The few officers under her that I’ve met seem to like her quite a bit.”
“Have any of the other real estate agents spoken to the police?”
“Yeah, a few. The guy you and I are headed to see was the only one Sheriff Armstrong had any doubts about. She didn’t let him know that, though. She wanted me to check in on him today.”
“She say why she doubted his story?”
“She said when they got the call yesterday morning about Bateman going missing, some of the other agents said he seemed a little too eager to go check. I ran his record, too. He has a domestic abuse charge from a few years back somewhere in upstate New York.”
“It would stand to reason that someone with working knowledge of current houses for sale would fit the bill for our killer,” Kate said. “Someone who knows where agents will be, and when they’d be alone.”
They drove several blocks down Estes’s main stretch before DeMarco took a left and headed down a small row of gift shops, eateries, and so on. Right at the end of the block was a place called Lakeside Realty. They parked in a parking lot bordered with crossties and sand. Kate had to admit, the way the town was set up did make her yearn for the lake. She’d much rather have the beach, but she supposed that was a feeling most people in Estes felt from time to time.
They stepped inside the building and found a big lobby with an open-floor plan sitting beyond it separated by a bar-type counter that crossed the entire floor, broken by a cute little half-sized swinging door in the center. A woman sitting at a desk in the lobby greeted them kindly, doing her best to pretend she had not been gnawing on the donut that sat beside her before they had come in.
“Good morning, ladies,” the woman said. “Can I help you?”
“We need to speak with Brett Towers, please,” DeMarco said.
“Go on to the back then,” the woman said. “He’s the only one here this early.”
They did as instructed, Kate making sure to stay behind DeMarco, not wanting to bully her way into the lead. Sure enough, as the woman up front had indicated, there was only one agent in the back. There were five desks taking up the large open area, and only one was occupied. A man—presumably Brett—was sitting behind his desk, sipping coffee and moving the mouse at his workstation around. He saw the agents approaching and quickly set his coffee mug down.
“Agent DeMarco, right?” Brett asked.
“Yes, that’s right,” she said. “I spoke with you on the phone briefly yesterday. This is my partner, Agent Wise.”
Everyone shook hands as Brett Towers invited them to sit down across from his desk. “So please, let me know what I can do to help. Tamara and I were very close; we’d been with this agency for six years, right from the moment it started. It was just the two of us for a few months.”
“So you were the first active agents working for Lakeside Realty?” DeMarco asked.
“That’s right. Now, honestly, Tamara did try her hand at a competitor of ours, but that didn’t last very long.”
“Any idea why she jumped ship?” Kate asked.
“It was Crest Realty. They offered her more money but after a few months she came back. Said the atmosphere over there was too tense. She said it was more about the money than trying to find a right match for the clients.”
“Did she have anything bad to say about anyone in particular?”
“No. And even if she did feel that way, she wouldn’t have said anything. Tamara was an
incredibly kind woman.”
“Mr. Towers,” Kate said, “did it come as a surprise to you to find that Tamara Bateman had been murdered? That is, can you think of any issues she might have had in the days or weeks leading up to her murder?”
“None at all. The police asked me the exact same question.”
Kate could tell that Towers was not doing well. He was trying hard to hide
some emotion, doing his very best to carry on. She hated to take such a tactic, but she figured if she could get him to drop the façade, it would be easier to get a read on him. She was also hoping that in a town the size of Estes, finding a killer would be a little easier if she was able to have people answer questions based on emotion. She knew it was a slightly sloppy tactic, but it worked more often than not.
“So I take it you and Ms. Bateman were close?” Kate asked.
“Yes, we were.”
She heard a tremor in his voice, indicating that he was trying very hard not to break down and cry.
“Why on earth are you here at work this morning, then?” DeMarco asked. “You discovered the body, correct?”
“I did,” he said. And then the tears came. His face tightened as he tried to keep a cork in. “But we’re a small company, coming out of a successful summer in a lakeside community. With her gone, there’s a ton of things I need to get wrapped up or it’s going to fall through the cracks.”
“Mr. Towers,” DeMarco said, “I’m no therapist, but you saw her body before anyone else. That can be traumatic. It’s okay to take some time…”
“I plan on it. I’m skipping out of here at ten or so and taking the rest of the day. That’s why I’m here so early. I hate to put business first, but with her no longer being here, there are lots of loose ends that need tying up as soon as possible.”
“Are you capable of answering a few hard questions?” DeMarco asked.
“Absolutely. The cops told me this was the second agent that had been killed in six days. If I can help find who’s doing this, yes…ask me anything.”
“What can you tell us about the home she was selling?” Kate asked. “Was it a well-known property? Is there any sort of history to it?”
“None that I’m aware of. Just a standard house.”
“Did you know the previous residents?” DeMarco asked.
“Not personally, no. That property was Tamara’s and solely hers. But even she probably wouldn’t have met them because it was sold to a guy who buys and sells houses for a living. I can’t remember his name.”
“How long has the house been on the market?” Kate asked.
“It went on the market as soon as the new owner finished fixing it up—so about two weeks, I’d think. It’s a gorgeous house—which is a shame.”
“A shame?” DeMarco asked. “Why’s that?”
“Because we have to disclose all information. Even if someone in Estes happens to not have heard about the brutal murder that occurred there, we’d have to tell them. It makes the house a lot harder to sell. And we’re currently in a market that sees a lot of these bigger houses just sit and collect dust for months.”
“Mr. Towers, do you know if Tamara was seeing anyone romantically? She wasn’t married, right?”
“Right. And I don’t think she was dating anyone. She tended to be sort of private about that. But I’ll just say that if she was seeing someone, I didn’t know about it.”
Kate felt terrible for the man. He was doing everything he could to stay in control of himself, even as tears continued to roll down his face. Besides, she doubted they would get much useful information out of him anyway. She thought they could maybe use Tamara’s records and clientele list from the last year or so, but that was a request they could leave with the woman at the front desk on their way out. As for Brett Towers, he’d already been through enough.
But Kate did not want to say anything. She wanted DeMarco to bring the discussion to its end, as this was her case and she had already spoken with him.
Apparently, she was on the same level as Kate. DeMarco got to her feet, and Kate followed suit.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Towers,” DeMarco said. “We may need to speak with you again, but for now, I think that’s all.”
He nodded, and Kate could see the relief on his face. When they left, she did leave a request with the woman at the front, asking if she could email them all records pertaining to showings, sales, and the complete list of clients Tamara Bateman had seen over the course of the last year.
When they stepped back outside, Kate found herself instantly headed for the driver’s side. She corrected herself at the last minute and veered to the right, to the passenger’s side.
DeMarco chuckled as she opened the driver’s side door. “It’s okay, Wise. You can drive and you can ask questions when we speak to people. I promise you…you won’t be stepping on my toes. We’re partners, and this is no longer the Kristen DeMarco show. And like I said before, I’m glad to have you.”
“That’s good to hear,” Kate said as she got into the car.
It was the truth; out of all of the current people in her life, DeMarco seemed the easiest to please. And as such, it made her enjoy the work that much more. She’d felt similar feelings about partners in the past and it had strained her marriage and her relationship with Melissa. She always kept that in the back of her head, making sure she didn’t step across that line again. She knew she had already come close a few times since returning to duty, but she felt she was doing a better job of managing it now.
“Want to go check the crime scene of the first victim?” DeMarco asked.
“It’s like you’re in my head.”
DeMarco gave a playful shudder. “Sometimes I wonder if that would be a wonderful place to be or a scary one.”
“Depends on the day.”
Kate had meant it as a joke but was a little alarmed that there was also a huge grain of truth to it. The past six weeks, with no work and only the pleasures of a plain life to distract her, had been rife with good days and bad—days when she was happy to be free of work and days when she missed it fiercely.
And now that she was working again, it felt too comfortable…and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
CHAPTER FOUR
The house the first agent had been killed in was a bit larger than the one on Hammermill Street. It was located on a private lot just six miles away from the house Tamara Bateman had been killed in. The closest neighbor was about three hundred yards away, the homes separated by a thin copse of trees and wild weeds that looked like the beachgrass that often grew on sand dunes. This house also resembled a beach house, though also with certain elements of a farmhouse style.
As Kate and DeMarco climbed the stairs to the massive wraparound porch, DeMarco handed Kate a folder she had taken from the back seat of the car. “You’re going to want to see the photos to really get the full effect of this one. But…wait a second. Trust me.”
DeMarco unlocked the front door (she’d apparently been given the key to this house as well) and led Kate inside. The front door opened onto a very large foyer—so large that a small loveseat sat against the right wall and an ornate rug the size of Kate’s bedroom filled most of the floor. The rug was white and teal, allowing the dark red bloodstains to show up drastically.
Kate looked up and saw a huge open ceiling. In front of them, she could see the hallway to the second floor, blocked off by a beautiful interplay of a rail and decorative iron slats. A stairway led up to the second floor from the end of the foyer on the right. As she looked up those stairs, Kate noticed the beautiful chandelier hanging over the foyer. It looked to be made of some sort of steel, decorated in intricate twists to look almost like knots—like driftwood, almost. It was the perfect blend of beach house and farmhouse. Along the base where it was installed into the ceiling, it looked to be slightly loose and askew.
“The chandelier,” DeMarco said. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
“It’s gorgeous.”
“Okay, now look inside the folder.”
Kate did, skipping past the notes and police reports to get to the crime scene photos in the back. The first one showed the chandelier, only it looked much less beautiful. In fact, it looked like something out of a horror movie.
There was a body hanging from it. A rope was tied to the neck of the woman, but it looked like what was holding her up was the fact that her arms were caught on several of the chandelier’s branches. In the picture, Kate could not see the end of the rope that was tied elsewhere. It looked to be going behind the chandelier, perhaps wrapped around the links that connected it to the ceiling.
The woman’s face was a mess of blood and in the awkward pose as she hung from the chandelier, it appeared she was looking down directly toward the rug she was bleeding on. She was a small woman, her light weight not nearly enough to pull the huge chandelier from the ceiling.
“Jesus,” Kate gasped. “How would someone even get her up there?”
“Well, the agent you’re looking at is Bea Faraday. She’s twenty-eight years old and weighs about one twenty. The cops seem to believe the killer hauled her up the stairs to the second floor and tossed her over the rail, attempting to hang her in the same way he eventually hung Tamara, but the chandelier got in the way.”
“You buy it?” Kate asked.
“I do. There’s blood on that upstairs rail to support it. I think that might be where he tied the rope at first, but then when he realized she was hanging from the fucking chandelier, he cut the rope and let the sight speak for itself. Looks like he attacked with her some blunt weapon first, then took the time to take her up the stairs and toss her over.”
They walked to the top of the stairs and Kate found the spot where Faraday had apparently been tossed over. The chandelier was only about six feet away from the rail, the lights hanging just slightly below. She had no problem imagining a strong man being able to launch a small woman that far.
“How was she found?” Kate asked.