by J. A. Jance
The killer had clearly spent a considerable period of time inside Richard Lowensdale’s home. Either he had known his presence there was unlikely to be challenged, or he had an entirely believable reason for being there.
Gil didn’t have much in common with Monk, the neurotic detective in the TV series. For one thing, as far as Gil knew, he didn’t suffer from any obsessive compulsive disorders, but when it came to crime scenes, he trusted his instincts. This one struck him as exceptionally cold-blooded.
It was one thing for the Herrera brothers to get all drunked up together, shoot the shit out of one another, and, as a consequence, break their poor mother’s heart. Had either of them lived long enough to be put on trial, it seemed to Gil that the charges against them would have tended more to voluntary homicide than to murder.
Richard Lowensdale’s murder was on another scale entirely. What Fred Millhouse had referred to as blunt force trauma probably had been delivered for one purpose only-to disable the victim long enough for the killer to use the tape to bind him to the chair. Then, after disabling the guy, the killer had set the iPod ear buds in the guy’s ears and had queued up Willie Nelson to sing the same song over and over until the device finally ran out of juice. “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.”
You didn’t need to be a rocket scientist (which Gil Morris wasn’t) or an experienced homicide cop (which he actually was) to figure out that the killer was broadcasting a message with the choice of that particular piece of music, but what message was it? Was it from a rival or maybe a disgruntled lover?
The most chilling aspect of the whole scene had been the presence of that single out-of-place dining room chair in Richard Lowensdale’s living room. Gil knew as sure as he was born that the killer had sat on that chair, waiting and watching, while Richard Lowensdale struggled for air inside the taped plastic bag. It seemed likely that he or she had stayed there until Richard gave up trying for a last gasping breath.
Murder as a spectator sport, Gil thought once more. The idea of someone doing that seemed astonishingly heartless. The house had been thoroughly searched for something, but nothing had been taken-at least not as far as Gil could tell. The model airplanes had been smashed to pieces, but the wallet and car keys were there. The electronic equipment was there.
In Richard Lowensdale’s case, killing him was the main point, maybe even the only point. And the killer had gone to great lengths to make sure that the victim was helpless, that he couldn’t fight back.
For the first time Gilbert Morris was forced to confront the idea that the killer might be female. Unless Richard turned out to be gay or a switch-hitter, it was likely he had been taken out by a woman, one with a very serious grudge.
Richard Lowensdale’s house was the last one on the street. Just above the house was a small paved turnaround. Beyond that stood a piece of property covered with second-growth forest. Determined to learn something, Gil set off down the hill. The neighbors would have noticed the police activity around the house and he expected they would be eager to speak to him. That’s how things usually worked in small towns. Most of the time witnesses were glad to come forward and help out.
Unfortunately most of the residents of Jan Road had been at work or at school on Friday afternoon. The only exception was Lowensdale’s next-door neighbor, a gray-haired retiree named Harry Fulbright, who had spent part of the day out in his yard trimming an overgrown laurel hedge.
“Sure,” he said. “I remember seeing the UPS driver go past here right around two thirty. Not the regular UPS guy,” he added. “Ted must have been sick that day, ’cause it was earlier in the day than he usually shows up. But it was definitely UPS. Woman in a brown uniform and a brown leather jacket.”
“A woman,” Gil repeated. “Walking or riding?”
“Walking. The turnaround at the top of this here street is too damned small for them big trucks. Ted never drives up there, and he probably warned his substitute not to try it either.”
“Can you tell me anything at all about her?”
“Not really. She was about average. Not fat, not skinny. Fairly long hair.”
“What color?”
“Reddish maybe?”
“Did you see anyone else around that day?”
“Actually, now that you mention it, I think there was a second delivery later on. So maybe they made two drops at Richard’s house that day.”
As far as Gil was concerned, this information was all a step in the right direction.
Excusing himself to Harry, Gil went back out to the street and dialed Ted Frost’s number.
“Allen Dodd told me what happened to Richard and that you might be calling,” Ted said as soon as Gil introduced himself. “I’m sorry to hear it. Richard was a nice enough guy and he ordered lots of stuff. I stopped off at his house almost every day, and he’s one that always gave out little presents when Christmas came around. Do you need me to come down to the station and give a statement?”
“I’ll probably need you to do that eventually,” Gil said. “Right now I’m just looking for a time line. What time was it when you dropped off that box from Zappos?”
“Right at the end of my shift. Around four thirty or so.”
“Is there another driver who might have dropped something off earlier?”
“Not with UPS. This is my territory. As for what time I delivered it? I have a computerized log. I have to enter where and when I drop off anything. I’m definitely sure of when I made Richard’s delivery.”
“Why did you leave the package on the porch? Was there anyone home?”
“There was somebody inside the house. I heard a vacuum cleaner running. It was noisy. She probably didn’t hear the bell.”
“She?” Gil asked eagerly. “A woman? Did you see her?”
“The blinds were closed. All I could see was the entryway. I just assumed that Richard had finally gotten around to hiring himself a cleaning lady. I guess it didn’t have to be a woman, though, huh? Anyway, I figured he’d got some kind of help. He sure needed it. He wasn’t the best housekeeper in the world.”
That, Gil thought, is an outrageous understatement!
“Thanks, Mr. Frost,” he said aloud. “You’ve been most helpful.”
Gil closed his phone, marched back into the house. He stopped by the entryway closet and opened the door. Inside was the old Kirby vacuum cleaner. He left the door open and walked into the living room. By then the body had been zipped into a body bag. Once the body was gone, Gil stopped to chat with the CSI techs who were busily collecting and cataloging computer equipment.
“Found several fingerprints for you,” Cindra said. “Including a real clear one on the tape on the victim’s mouth. Could be the victim’s, could be the killer’s. We’ll run them through AFIS as soon as we can.”
“Good,” Gil said. “The sooner the better. While you’re at it, be sure to pick up the vacuum cleaner in the entryway closet. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find something useful inside the bag, like a missing finger, for instance. Oh, and dust it for fingerprints as well.”
28
Salton City, California
Lola Cunningham had been a good cook, an excellent cook, actually, and she had been thrilled to pass those skills along to her adopted daughter. And in an effort to make Mina feel at home, Lola had tracked down a traditional Croatian recipe for punjene paprike, stuffed green peppers, and made it her own.
There was a lot about her adopted family and being in the Cunningham house that was repugnant for Mina, but she had loved being in the kitchen with Mama Lola, as her mother liked to be called. They would stand in the kitchen together, side by side, talking and laughing as they diced and sliced, chopped and cooked. Had Lola not died of an undiagnosed heart attack the year Mina turned sixteen, everything might have been different. Mina might have been different, but Lola’s unexpected death had changed everything.
Today though, once Mark finished burying the ashes from the Weber grill, he’d probably return to the c
ouch. Morosely silent, he’d sit there, drinking and watching some inconsequential golf tournament while Mina bustled around the kitchen. She prepared the stuffed peppers the same way Mama Lola had done-well, almost the same way-making two separate batches, one for Mark and one for Mina.
Working in the kitchen always made Mina happy. She hummed a little tune as she ground up the necessary ingredients-the beef and the pork and the onions-that would go into the green peppers she had brought home with her from San Diego for this very purpose. Finding decent green peppers or decent anything else in the godforsaken little grocery store in Salton City was pretty much impossible. She estimated that the extra doses of seasonings she added to the mix should be enough to conceal a few other things.
As she hacked the tops off peppers, Mina found herself thinking fondly of Richard. He had surprised her and proved to be far more of a man than she ever would have expected. She was sorry not to have the money back, but even so, Richard had won a measure of respect from his killer that he probably would have appreciated if he had lived long enough to know about it.
As for Mark? He was useless, spineless, and boring. His money had been a major part of his appeal. Now that the money was gone, so was the attraction. She enjoyed the prospect of torturing him with the idea that she expected him to take care of Brenda single-handedly and that she wanted him to do it tonight. It would be immensely entertaining to see him sitting there stone-faced while he struggled to come to terms with the very idea. She didn’t doubt that he’d need to fill himself with some kind of liquid courage-gin most likely, gin on the rocks with a twist of lime.
Just to keep him off balance, she would pretend that everything was fine and that she believed that he’d do what she wanted. Wasn’t that why she was hustling around in this grim little kitchen fixing him a sumptuous dinner?
Whenever Mina noticed that Mark’s drink needed refilling, she would pick up his glass without being asked. And later, along with the brimming glasses, she would hand him one of his little blue pills. After all, Mark was an older man with a drinking problem and a much younger wife. In the shorthand of their marriage, the proffered drink was a peace offering. The little blue pill would be a bribe.
San Diego, California
Brenda awakened in the dark. She was stiff, hungry, and agonizingly thirsty. While she had been asleep, she had evidently shifted positions. The weight of her body had been resting on her imprisoned hands. As circulation returned to her hands and fingers, so did a storm of needles and pins.
“I’m going to die,” she said aloud. Her voice was an unnatural croak. “I’m going to die here and alone and in the dark.”
She would have wept then, but she didn’t want to risk losing whatever moisture might be in her tears.
Her aching shoulder reminded her of her uncle Joe. She hadn’t thought about her father’s brother in years. Uncle Joe had come home after five years of being a POW of the Vietcong. His teeth were gone-broken out-and his broken limbs never healed properly. He had ended up in a wheelchair, but he had never complained. Brenda had asked him about his experiences once when she’d been putting together a Veteran’s Day piece for the news.
“Yes, it was hard,” he said, “but all I had to do each day was choose to live.”
Returning to the States, he had refused to accept the idea that his life was over. He had gone back to school and married his high school sweetheart. He had gone on to become a teacher and a winning football coach who had taken his team to championship games year after year. He had also been the kindest and most amazingly positive man Brenda had ever met. Could she be like him?
Lying there alone, Brenda couldn’t help thinking about how far she had fallen short in that regard, and she had no one to blame but herself. Losing her job and her marriage and being betrayed by Richard Lowensdale were nothing when compared to what Uncle Joe and his fellow wartime captives had endured. Unlike Uncle Joe, Brenda had capitulated. And now, when she was finally sober and getting back on her feet, this happened.
But what is this? she wondered.
Did it have something to do with Richard or with the book she was writing about him? The days before waking up in this place seemed shrouded in fog. Maybe one of the women she had interviewed had gone back to Richard and told him about Too Good to Be True, the book Brenda was writing. But this wasn’t Richard’s house. It couldn’t be. This cold, hard floor was too clean.
Thinking about the unfinished book brought Brenda back to her mother. Even if she didn’t let on to her sister, Brenda knew that she should have told her mother about the sale. It had been easier to keep quiet. She had kept everything about the book-her research materials, the signed contract for Too Good to Be True, and her laptop under lock and key in what had once been her mother’s hope chest. She had carried the key with her, in her purse, because she had worried that someone-one of her mother’s caregivers or even her sister-might go prying. But now her purse was gone and the key was gone. The only way anyone would be able to gain access to the chest would be to break the lock.
Brenda understood the huge debt she owed to her mother-financially and emotionally-and she fully intended to pay it all back. But not just yet. Brenda had known instinctively that with her still very fragile hold on sobriety, living on her own might well have been too much.
And so for whatever reason-whatever excuse-Brenda had kept a lid on news about the sale. Now, though, since she was probably going to sit in this chair until she died, that didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
After all, Brenda had disappointed her mother more times than she could count. If Camilla didn’t know about the book, she wouldn’t have any unreasonable expectations. It was a blessing for Brenda to know that her mother wouldn’t be disappointed.
Again.
In the darkness, Brenda drifted into something that wasn’t exactly sleeping or waking. She was a girl again, maybe ten or eleven. It was a Sunday afternoon. She and her older sister were out in the driveway of her parents’ house on P Street, shooting hoops at the basket that hung over the garage door.
Aunt Amy and Uncle Joe had come for dinner. As they were getting ready to go home, Uncle Joe had challenged Brenda’s father to a two-on-two scrimmage, Uncle Joe in his wheelchair and Brenda against Dad and Valerie.
As Brenda fell back asleep-or into something that resembled sleep-she and Uncle Joe were winning.
29
Laguna Beach, California
By the time Ali fought her way through Sunday afternoon traffic from LAX to Laguna Beach, she’d had almost two hours to give further consideration to her conversation with B. She wasn’t over it enough to call him back, but she’d come to realize that he might have had a point. Being found to be in possession of illegally hacked material probably wouldn’t have been a good idea for someone who was a newly appointed officer in Sheriff Gordon Maxwell’s Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. And it probably would have been a black mark against High Noon’s reputation as a high-profile Internet security entity.
But still. .
Ali’s appreciated having a working GPS in her rental car. As she followed the turn-by-turn directions through very upscale neighborhoods, then onto Cliff Drive, and finally onto Lower Cliff Drive, Ali had to laugh at herself. When Velma Trimble had first appeared in the lobby of Ali’s hotel years earlier, she had come in a cab and had sported a patriotic walker. The tennis balls on the legs of her walker were red, white, and blue, and a tiny American flag had been affixed to the handlebar.
Since she had arrived by cab, Ali had assumed she didn’t have a car and was probably too old to drive. Looking up at Velma’s multistoried, controlled-access condo with designated guest parking and spectacular ocean views, Ali could tell right off that Velma T. was anything but impoverished. Even in a down market, a condo that was within walking distance of the beach meant money-plenty of money.
Ali arrived at the gate a few minutes before three, the appointed hour. Once she punched the apartment number and the open cod
e into a keypad, the gate swung open. Off to her left was a path that led to what looked like a covered picnic shelter on the curve of a steep bluff above the cliffs that gave the street its name. In front of her was a lobby complete with a uniformed doorman who called upstairs to announce that “Ms. Reynolds has arrived.”
No, Velma T. might be dying, but she sure as hell wasn’t poor.
Once on the penthouse level on the sixth floor, Ali found there were only two doors-600 and 602. Those two apartments, each with a panoramic ocean view, evidently accounted for the total number of penthouse units. Ali rang the bell on the one marked 602. The ringing bell set off an answering bark from what sounded like at least three canine residents-two large ones and at least one small noisy one.
“Quiet, everyone,” Maddy Watkins ordered sternly. “Get on your rug.”
Silence descended at once. Through the closed door Ali could hear the scrabbling of several sets of doggy paws on parquet floors as the dogs hurried to obey. Moments later, Maddy opened the door.
“Why, hello there,” she said. “If you aren’t a sight for sore eyes.” Then, turning back toward the room, she said, “Velma, you’re not going to believe it. Ali Reynolds has arrived in the flesh.”
Maddy took Ali’s arm and led her into what had once been a gracious living room but was now a hospice ward. There was a hospital bed with a rolling hydraulic lifter to aid in getting in and out of bed. There was a hospital-style IV tree and an assortment of other equipment including an oxygen concentrator and a PCA for pain relief. Next to the bed was Velma’s walker with its signature patriotic decor.
The whole west-facing wall was nothing but windows that overlooked a panorama of limitless blue water, and the hospital bed had been placed in a position so that when Velma was in the bed, she could gaze out at that million-dollar view. One of the sliders had been left slightly open, allowing an ocean-scented breeze to blow into the room. Velma sat in a wheelchair that had been parked directly in front of the window. A red, white, and blue afghan covered her legs and helped fend off the draft. She looked gaunt-little more than skin on bones-and the skin that was visible was an alarming shade of yellow that Ali knew indicated the beginnings of kidney and liver failure.