“I put in the call to the Malibu sheriff’s.”
Decker nodded. “It’s their jurisdiction, even if it is our case.”
“The guys they sent over seem nice, but not too familiar with the rigors of homicide investigation. They probably don’t get a lot of opportunity out here.”
“I don’t know, Bert. Murder of the rich and famous isn’t an alien concept. When did you call it in?”
“About an hour ago.”
Decker wagged his finger. “But you called me almost two hours ago.”
“Well, you know…” Martinez’s smile was sheepish. “I wanted to look around and make my own notes first.” He flipped the cover off his notepad. “First, a little background. I checked with the assessor’s office: no record of the Baldwins’ owning anything around here. So I started going from realtor to realtor, figuring like you said that they rented. I struck oil. The Baldwins seemed to be creatures of habit, renting the same beach condo every summer. Except that this summer they rented for the entire year.”
“They were remodeling their house in Beverly Hills. I suppose they needed somewhere to live.” Decker raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised the rental agents were cooperative. Aren’t they supposed to be protective of their clients?”
“Not the ones I interviewed,” Martinez answered. “They love to name-drop. Besides, they had a personal interest in making things easy for me. It doesn’t look good to have bodies moldering in your rental units. From the initial glance, it points to suicide.”
“Because…”
“Single shot to the head. No defense marks—cuts or scratches on the arms or the palms of her hands. No ligature marks around her wrists. Superficially, nothing to indicate force or a struggle.”
“Any note?”
“I didn’t find anything. But if she did whack hubby and the kid, it’s easy to find a motive. Ernesto was bare-chested. She might have interrupted something.”
“It was a hot night,” Decker said.
“Now you’re making excuses.”
“You’re saying that she went up to the mountains at three in the morning…with guns and silencers…and happened to discover her husband and a young boy in a compromising position…and went crazy?” Decker frowned. “C’mon, Bert. That kind of damage done quickly and quietly points to a pro.”
“Then maybe Dee knew about the affair and hired out. Afterward, she felt extreme guilt and whacked herself.”
Decker wasn’t happy with that picture, either. “Webster questioned one of the kids…Riley Barns. He saw a couple of shadows lurking around the tent in the early hours.”
“That’s news to me.” Martinez shrugged. “Anyway, the rental agent’s name is Athena Eaton, and she informed me that this little ditty here—a two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath number—rents for ten grand a month. The last time she saw Dee Baldwin was when Dee and Mervin signed the contract three weeks ago. A full year at ten grand a month, including a first, last, and a one-month cleaning deposit. That’s one hundred and twenty Gs out the window. Their practice must be cleaning up.”
“It was cleaning up,” Decker said.
“Speaking of cleaning up, the owner is going to need every bit of the damage deposit. The bedroom carpet is white.”
“Lots of splatter?”
“Enough that it can’t be cleaned. Dee’s lying in a good-size pond of blood. Single shot through the mouth with a .32.”
“Through the mouth,” Decker said. “You said ‘to the head.’”
Martinez reddened. “I meant it came out in the back of the head.”
“You examined the body?”
The blush deepened. “Sort of.”
“Gunpowder residue?”
“Appears that way.”
Decker smoothed his mustache and said nothing.
Martinez said, “We’ll know more after Shot Squad and Forensics examine the angles, and the position of the body after she fell…. Uh-oh. Heads up, Loo. The sheriff’s main man is on his way. We gotta look friendly.”
Martinez introduced Decker to a man around forty years in age, with a deep tan, a good suit, and blow-dried hair. His face held lines, some of them deeper than others, and he had cop’s eyes despite the trappings of being Mr. Beachcomber.
“Detective Don Baum.” He shook Decker’s hand. “I want to thank Detective Martinez for calling in the local authorities right away. It shows cooperation, not to mention good manners. And that’s what we’re going to give you in return. Cooperation. It gets things done. And that’s what it’s all about—getting the job done.”
“You bet!” Decker answered. “Is the coroner here?”
“Yes, sir, Lieutenant. The coroner just came. Let’s have a look.”
They started walking toward the building—a series of white stucco townhouses covered with blue Spanish tiles.
Decker said, “Who found her?”
“I went in first,” Martinez said. “Unfortunately, Ms. Eaton—the real estate agent—followed me. From the look on her face, I think she sincerely wishes she hadn’t.”
“Where is she?” Decker asked.
“In one of the squad cars, catching her breath,” Baum said.
“The smell might have been the coup de grace,” Martinez said.
“Did she touch anything?” Decker asked.
Martinez had to think a moment. “Maybe the bed frame for support. Then I propped her up and escorted her out. I was gloved.”
“We’re dusting for prints,” Baum said. “It’s going to take some time.”
“What about the photographer?” Decker asked.
“She’s in the unit as we speak,” Baum said. “I’ll get you copies of everything. I’ve got six of my people canvassing the area for witnesses. I’ll forward you their reports.”
“Thank you,” Decker said. “And what about Dee Baldwin’s car?”
“It’s the Range Rover in the lot,” Baum said. “We’ll impound it and dust it for prints.”
A four-wheel drive, Decker thought. Maybe she did go up. Or someone went up using her car. He said, “I’d like the tires gone over, see what Forensics can pull from the treads. Then, I’ll need an imprint. I want to find out if she was up at the camp recently.”
“Consider it done.”
And if she had been up, what would that prove? A fat zero, but that didn’t matter. Now was the time to gather information. Behind them, a news van pulled into the parking complex, its tires bumping along the gravel road.
Decker said, “We’d better speed it up.”
Baum led them to the unit. “It’s this one.”
Planted against the front wall of the building was a compact flower garden abloom with showy multicolored impatiens and leafy, purple-flowered statice. A cop was stationed at the front door of the Baldwins’ unit, yellow crime scene tape stretched across the jambs. Baum peeled it back, and they walked into a petite entry hall with a powder room off to the left. Ten paces forward and two steps down put Decker into an open space: a living room/dining room combination, and a well-equipped kitchenette punched out of the side wall. The decor was mild and warm like sand, done up in ecru and white with slipcover muslin furniture resting upon soft, muted oatmeal carpeting. The coffee and end tables were free-form shapes of high-lacquered elm burl resting on stands of driftwood. The dining table was a slab of country oak. The walls were adorned with prints of terns, ducks, pelicans, game fish, blue whales, and dolphins. Large pieces of black coral as well as cowry and conch shells sat in bric-a-brac shelving units that sided a large fireplace. A wall of sliding glass doors led out to decks and provided an unobstructed full-range view of the Pacific—blue and infinite, a testament to the insignificance of man.
Another cop held guard at the foot of the stairway. He nodded to Baum as they ascended the steps.
The second story held two bedrooms, each with its own bath. The master bedroom had its own deck and its own cerulean view. The bed was a king and dressed with white lace pillows piled high over a whit
e down-filled comforter. Very serene except for the black powder all over the walls and bed frame, not to mention the dead body smashed up against the wall. It spoiled the Zen effect.
Decker stared at the corpse. Dee was semi-upright, the angle of her limbs obscured by a flowing pink peignoir. She resembled strawberry sauce falling over a sea of vanilla ice cream. Her head was tilted to the left, blood dripping from her nose and mouth. Beside him, a gray-haired, four-foot-ten, seventy-pound grandma was snapping pictures.
Grandma aimed and fired, Dee sitting perfectly still for the camera. “A perfect waste of good lingerie.” She looked up and saw Decker’s stoic face. “Haven’t you ever heard of black humor?”
“How’d you get into this business?” Decker asked.
“I’m seventy-seven,” she replied. “How many bar mitzvah pictures can I take in a single lifetime?” She removed the lens from her Nikon. “I’m done here. That should give you a little more breathing room.”
“Thank you,” Decker said.
“You’re welcome,” Grandma answered. “I know I’m cute. You don’t have to hold back the smile, sir.”
Decker smiled. She was cute, but murder wasn’t. Dee’s death had been the cop’s road to the void—suicide through the mouth, severing the brain stem—an instantaneous death. Unusual for an amateur, who usually chose the temple, but maybe Dee had seen enough detective movies to go that route. What was unusual was where they found her—on the floor beside the bed instead of on the bed. True, she could have fallen off the bed to the floor, but the splatter marks didn’t bear that out.
The coroner was several feet from the body, holding up a vial of blood to the light. He was young and moved with a jerky rhythm. Vanilla skin was stretched over broad cheekbones. He had a wide smile and big teeth and a dab of the Occident, rounding his Asian eyes. He had broad shoulders and a lean frame. His name was Chuck Liu.
“A little neat to be suicide.” With gloved hands, Liu wrote something down on a label, stuck it on the tube of plasma, then bagged it in plastic. “But I heard it through the grapevine that her husband was found in a compromising position with a teenager—a male teenager.”
Decker made a noncommittal gesture.
Liu said, “Was she the jealous type?”
“I don’t know anything about her except that she and her husband were in the same profession and worked out of the same office.”
“That’s always a recipe for disaster. What do you think?”
“I’ll reserve judgment until I know what’s going on. Should I ask for a time of death?”
“Eight to twelve hours. Rigor is moderate. The inferior portions of her thighs and calves are swollen and red—lividity combined with the upward percolation of the blood that she’s sitting in. That takes time.”
Decker nodded. Dee had died somewhere between five and nine in the morning. Certainly enough time for someone to come down from the mountain and take her out as well.
The coroner proceeded to bag Dee’s hands. “There’s gunpowder residue here.”
“She fired the gun,” Baum said.
“Not the gun,” Liu corrected. “A gun. If she had been deep asleep or drugged up, someone could have done it for her. Just popped it in her mouth and fired the trigger. We’ll know more once we’ve done the blood work-up.”
“Does it look like suicide to you?” Baum asked.
“Sure.”
“But it could be homicide,” Martinez said.
“Sure.”
Decker said, “Anything left of her mouth?”
“Some of the front portion of the maxilla is still intact.” Liu took out a dental mirror from his bag and slipped it between blue lips. A small beam of light that had been attached to the handle gave him some visibility inside the dark cavity. “Yeah, the incisors and canines are still there. It looks like the bullet caught the back edge of the bony palate, deflected upward and backward through the brain stem.”
“Any soft palate left?” Decker asked.
“Nothing.”
“Hard palate?” Decker asked.
“Yeah, a few tissue shreds behind the incisors…more, actually. It goes to the premolars. I can even see the start of her palatal torus, but everything’s pretty roasted back there.”
“Any cuts or lacerations on it?”
“Can’t tell.” Liu pulled the mirror out. “What are you thinking?”
“If she had been coerced, she might have struggled and the nose of the gun might have cut her palate and cheeks.”
“Her buccal mucosa is charred from the heat of the bullet.” He considered Decker’s thoughts. “I’ll look when I have her on the table and opened up.”
“Also, if you can say something about the amount of powder on her hands,” Decker said. “If someone did this to her—had his hand over Dee’s hand when the trigger was pulled—some of the powder must have wound up on the shooter’s hand as well.”
Liu said, “So maybe you should go out and look for someone with gunpowder residue.”
“So you’re saying it wasn’t suicide,” Baum said.
“I’m not saying anything,” Liu said. “I’m just saying if you have a suspect, test him for gunpowder residue.”
A great idea, except at the moment, there was no suspect. “Where’s the gun?”
“It’s been bagged,” Martinez said.
“The bullet?”
“Embedded into the wall,” Baum said. “Techs’ll get it.”
“I’m just about done, so you can get the meat wagon ready.” Liu looked at his bloodied gloves and shirt. “I’m not exactly dressed for prime time.” He snapped his gloves off and threw them in a “contaminated materials” bag. “I’d appreciate it if someone could distract the cameras so I can get out of here with minimum effort.”
Baum said, “We’ll handle the press.”
“I can tell you more once I’ve got her laid out on the slab. When do you want the autopsy done? Yesterday?”
“That would be nice,” Decker said.
“Typical,” Liu said. “I’ll do my best. It’s too late to hit the waves anyway.”
“You’re a surfer?” Martinez asked.
Liu’s look was wistful. “Nothing like drowning out the ugliness of the world in one magnificent seven-foot curl.”
Athena Eaton was fifty and anorexic, with jet-black hair and a face slathered with makeup. By the time Decker was ready to interview her, she had popped three pills, and her behavior alternated between woozy incoherent and hysterical incoherent. In the end, Decker had the cops take her home with a promise to come back and check in on her tomorrow. Since Baum had his people canvassing the area, there were no pressing reasons for Decker to stay on the scene.
Crammed with information overload, he needed a good hour of solitude to sort everything out. The amount of paperwork was staggering, and he wouldn’t finish it up until sunrise. But before he went any further, he had to put in an appearance at home. His stepson Sammy was coming back after a full year away in Israel, and if he didn’t show up, he’d live to regret it. Not to mention the fact that he actually missed his stepson terribly and wanted to see him.
And they talk about women balancing work and personal obligations.
When he pulled up into his driveway, he felt a stab of apprehension. Rina’s car was still gone. Even allowing for bad traffic, by Decker’s calculations, Sammy should have been home a couple of hours ago. Maybe she took the family out for dinner at one of the kosher restaurants in town. He certainly hoped that was the case.
When he opened the front door, he immediately heard noises—the distorted, high-pitched squeals that could only belong to toons getting smashed, squashed, electrocuted, or fried. He went into his daughter’s bedroom.
“Hi there.”
Hannah looked up. “Dadddeeee!”
“Hannah Rosieeeee!”
She jumped up, and he spun her in his arms. Then he kissed her cheek and set her down.
“I’m hungry,” she complained.
“Where’s Eema?”
“At the airport.” She sat back down in front of the TV. “Can you get me a snack?”
“Who’s taking care of you?”
“Yonkie.”
“Where’s Yonkie?”
The little girl shrugged. “Chocolate milk and chips?”
“Have you had dinner yet?”
“Not an Eema dinner. But Yonkie made me cheese and applesauce and a glass of milk. Does that count as a dinner?”
Decker wasn’t sure if the food qualified or not. “I suppose it’s okay.”
“So can I have chocolate milk and chips. Oh, and a plum, too?”
“I suppose.”
“Great! You want to watch TV with me?”
“Maybe a little later.”
“Okay. I’ll wait for my snack.”
“Uh…shouldn’t you be doing something else?”
The seven-year-old looked at him. “What?”
“Like shouldn’t you be reading or playing outside…something other than watching TV?”
She sighed with exasperation. “Eema already took me ice-skating, then I went to the liberry and took out two new books that I’m ’posed to read before I go to bed. Then I drew six pictures with my new berry-scented markers. Then Yonkie and I played Street Fighter II for an hour. Now I’m tired. But if you want me to be bored and turn off the TV, I’ll do it.”
Put it that way, TV watching seemed perfectly reasonable. “No, no,” Decker said. “It seems like you’ve had a busy day.”
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