Faye Kellerman - Decker 05 - False Prophet

by False Prophet

  She moaned again, water trickling down her face. As they carried her out, Decker saw her hand stretching outward, reaching out to him. And those moans. He felt as if he were abandoning her and hoped she wouldn't hold anything against him when he came to question her... if she'd even remember him. Assault victims were sometimes afflicted with amnesia, especially if the ordeal was particularly vicious.

  Decker stretched his long spine, then ran his thick hand through carrot-colored hair. Looking over his shoulder, he noticed the maid at the entrance to the room. She was still trembling, her hand on the doorpost for support. He told her to sit down in the kitchen and pour herself a cup of tea. He'd be with her in a minute.

  From his coat pocket, he pulled out an evidence bag and slipped the blindfold inside. With a grease pencil, he roughly outlined Lilah's position on the floor. Then he unhitched his hand-held radio and asked to be patched through to Detective Marge Dunn. While waiting for her to respond, he took out a pen and his rape checklist and began to make detailed notes.

  Tuckcd inside the rear corner of the bedroom's walk-in closet, the freestanding safe was open and empty. It was a waist-high, green-colored block, lined with three inches of high-grade solid steel, and contained an inner safe that was bare as well. As Benny the printman dusted the vault, Marge Dunn danced around shards of glass as she drew a layout of the bedroom and divided it into grids for evidence check.

  The place had been tossed; furniture had been knocked over. Old-looking pieces: the skinny, austere stuff without curves or embellishments. Could have been replicas, but were probably antiques. Lots of embroidered pillows and doodads, doilies in garish colors, were mixed in with the mess. Lilah had a four-poster bed, the rumpled spread made out of chenille. Like the spread Granny used to have, Marge thought, white and full of little pompons. She smiled remembering how she picked at them until the knots fell apart.

  A couple of baby uniforms named Bellingham and Potter were hanging around, not really getting in the way but not doing anything productive either. There were already a few blues outside securing the scene so the young 'uns weren't needed here. Marge called them over.

  Nice-looking babies—tall and trim with well-scrubbed faces, eyes that seemed eager to work. Their enthusiasm made Marge feel old. Depressing, since she'd just turned thirty.

  "Why don't you two canvass the area?" she suggested. "Sec if anybody or anyone heard anything?"

  Bellingham rubbed a spit-polished shoe against the floor. "Sergeant Decker told us to wait here. The nearest neighbor is the spa and he didn't want us questioning anyone without him. But if you want us to go, Detective, we'll go."

  Marge thought for a moment, fingering strands of blond hair. Pete was right. These kids weren't savvy enough to handle the Vulcanites.

  "I noticed a stable out back," Marge said. "Why don't you check that out? See if anyone's hanging around, if anything looks suspicious. Count how many horses the stable holds."

  "Sure thing, Detective," Potter said. "Should we report back to you or Sergeant Decker if we come up with anything?"

  "Either one," Marge said. "And don't spend too much time on it. Just look around, jot down some notes, and report back. Then get on with your patrols. You two together?"

  "Yes, ma'am... er, yes. Detective..." Bellingham blushed. "Sorry."

  Marge smiled, slapped him on the back. "Get your butts out there."

  After they left, she was glad to have some elbow room. The photographer had just finished, leaving Benny in the closet. The lab boys were checking the doors and windows in the front section of the house, and Pete and the maid were in the dining room.

  "Detective?" Benny called out.

  "Coming." Marge squeezed her large frame inside the closet. Not an easy trick with Benny occupying most of the space. The man was big and blocky, just this side of fat. Today he was dressed in a starched white shirt and razor-pressed pants; not a spot of dust dared sully his clothes. Definitely the neatest lab man she'd ever worked with. "What's up?"

  "We got some beauties." Benny's voice was basso profundo. "Unfortunately, they're repeats. See right here... this is a right index, it shows up twice. Here we got a partial palm and two right thumbs on the dial. A middle over here. On the inner dials we have the same palm and index. You can see how small they are. Female. I'll transfer them but I'm betting they belong to the lady of the house."

  "Anything else?"

  "Not so far."

  Marge shrugged off the lack of progress. Most perps just didn't leave calling cards, but almost all left evidence transfer. Even if she couldn't find anything else, there was the semen. Marge could smell it as she approached the bed. She'd bag the sheets after she sifted through the mess on top of them.

  She wandered into the master bathroom. Its walls were ceramic tiles of mint and hunter green in immaculate condition. The taps were old-style fixtures but the chrome was high-polished and scratch free. There was a beveled mirror on the back of the door. Open glass shelving served as the medicine cabinet. The racks held pottery crocks labeled in calligraphy—witch hazel, foxglove, mint, trefoil. No over-the-counter meds, not one prescription vial. The top shelf held a bowl of cinnamon-smelling pinecones and acorns. The bathroom window was clear glass, but obscured by a curtain of dangling crystal beads. They sent prismic rainbows onto the walls.

  Whoever messed up the bedroom hadn't bothered with the bathroom.

  Marge returned her attention to the bedroom. It was papered in something silky and cream-colored and dotted with a couple of dozen black-and-white photos of Lilah Brecht buddying up to celebrities. Or maybe it was the other way around. The stars looked thrilled to be in the snapshot. All the photos had been autographed.

  To Lilah and Valley Canyon: With my fondest love, Georgina DeRafiers.

  To Lilah Brecht: the only woman who has seen me without makeup. Keep that cellulite off my thighs. Love, Ann Milo.

  Georgina DeRafters and Ann Milo: old-timers who'd made strictly B movies. The As were probably hung on the spa's walls. How did that make the Bs feel? Did they even notice? They were bound to; all actresses are narcissistic. What did Lilah tell them after they'd paid her hundreds a day and didn't even see their pictures on the wall?

  I keep my closest and dearest friends at home? Marge shrugged. For every picture still on the wall, there were at least that many scattered about the room. The glass protecting the photographs had been deliberately smashed, as if someone had taken the pictures off the wall and smacked them with a hammer. One bull's-eye in the center of each picture, broken scams radiating

  outward. The room twinkled with glass reflecting the bright mid-morning light. The sunbeams coursed through two large windows—one on the eastern wall, one on the northern. Pete had found the bedroom windows locked: The lab men hadn't found any pry marks on their sashes.

  The nightstands flanking the bed had been pushed over, the table lamps crushed to dust. The impact of the lamps falling to the floor couldn't have pulverized the ceramic bases to that extent. The table-to-floor distance was just not that great. Someone had smashed the suckers.

  Someone had been pissed.

  The dresser had been cleared of its contents, drawers pulled out and emptied, clothes tossed about carelessly.

  Only Lilah's bedroom had been trashed.

  Maybe the perp was expecting to find something in the safe. When it wasn't there, he'd searched the entire bedroom.

  But then, why wasn't the rest of the house tossed?

  Maybe he found what he wanted.

  Then he raped her.

  Marge carefully fingered the broken glass on the bed with her gloved hand. She'd have Benny bag the pieces. Could be someone cut himself, leaving traces of blood. The lab man came out of the closet.

  "I'm done inside, Detective. You want to search it for evidence, go ahead. I'll start dusting the walls."

  "Find anything other than those female prints?"

  Benny shook his head.

  "Detective?"

 
Marge turned around. Officer Bellingham had returned, a very grave look on his face.

  "We finished our interview with the stable hand. I think you'd better check him out personally."

  "Stable hand?"

  "Yes, ma... Detective. He claims he lives there. There is a small hot plate inside one of the stables, some cooking utensils and work clothes. And there's a chemical toilet just outside the barn. He could be telling the truth. But I don't think the man has his full faculties."

  "He's retarded?"

  "Or very stupid, Detective. He answers in one-word sentences, won't look you in the eye. Very suspicious. Of course, he claims

  he didn't hear anything. And the stables are pretty far away from the house. But I think this man needs to be questioned. Officer Potter is with him now. Should we bring him here?"

  "No, I'll go out to the stables. You make sure no one unauthorized comes in the bedroom. This stable hand have a name?"

  "Carl Totes. He says he's worked for Miss Brecht for many years. Like I said, there's evidence that he does reside inside the stables but I think he could be a suspect."

  "I'll check it out."

  "By the way, Detective, there are six stalls and five horses inside the stable."

  Marge patted him on the back. "Good job, Officer."

  Bellingham tried to hold back a smile but didn't quite make it. The left corner of his mouth spasmed upward. Through crooked lips, he said, "Thank you. Detective."

  It took three cups of tea and a half hour for the maid to calm down. Her name was Mercedes Casagrande, a thirty-fivc-ycar-old native of Guatemala who'd worked for Lilah Brecht for seven years. She wasn't forthcoming with the answers, but guarded as she was, Decker sensed she wanted to help. She just didn't want to jeopardize her job or the privacy of her patrona.

  They sat at an oval dining-room table, the room furnished in early-twentieth-century pieces. The interior of the house had been done up in the style of Art Nouveau or Art Deco. Decker never could remember the difference between the two periods. As he made chitchat with the maid, she began to relax and answer his questions in halting English.

  Decker slipped out his notepad and asked, "How many days a week do you work here for Missy Lilah?"

  "I work all the days except Saturday and Sunday. I don' work on those days 'cause I go to church."

  "What are your hours?"

  "Seven to fife. But sometime I work diferente hours. If Missy Lilah need help in the night for the dinner. I work eleven to eight, mebbe nine o'clock. If someone take care of my kids."

  Decker said, "You never sleep in?"

  "No." Mercedes shook her head. "No duermo en la casa, no."

  Decker said, "So you weren't here yesterday?"

  "1 work yesterday, jes."

  "But it was Sunday."

  Mercedes looked confused. "I work only four hours. Missy Lilah call me and say house is a mess. So I come. That is not every week. Mebbe I work Sundays one time a month. But only if someone watch my kids."

  "And what time did you leave?"

  "I leave fife, fife-thurdy, mebbe. Everythin' is okay. Missy Lilah tell me she go out with her brother so I don' have to make dinner."

  Decker smoothed his mustache. "Missy Lilah was going out to dinner with her brother?"

  "jes."

  "Was she with her brother when you left?"

  "No, he don' come yet, but she say she go to dinner with him. She go to dinner with him mebbe one or two time a week."

  "What's her brother's name, Mercedes?"

  "El Doctor Freddy."

  "El Doctor Freddy?"

  "Jes."

  "Docs El Doctor Freddy have a last name—nom de familial"

  "Same as Missy Lilah."

  "Freddy Brecht?"

  "I thin' his name is Senor Frederick."

  "Frederick Brecht?"

  "I thin' so."

  "And he's a physician? Un doctor de la medicinal"

  "Si. He work at the spa. But he don* work there all the time."

  "He has another office?"

  "I thin' so."

  "Do you know where his other office is? Usted sabe donde esta su otra oficina?"

  Mercedes shook her head.

  Decker said, "You're doing great. Muy bien. You didn't see El Doctor Freddy come inside the house?"

  "No."

  "Does Doctor Freddy have a key to the house?"

  Mercedes scrunched up her forehead in concentration. "I thin'...jes."

  Decker wrote down: No forced entry and Dr. Freddy may have a key. "And Doctor Freddy wasn't there when you left to go home."

  "No, he don' come yet."

  "But Missy Lilah was home."

  "Jes, she come home around four from the spa, all wet. She do very much exercise. She very, very skinny, but es okay 'cause she don't throw up like muchas mujeres at the spa. She tell me all the women throw up to be skinny. I thin' that's no good."

  "I don't think that's good either."

  "But Missy Lilah no throw up to be skinny. But she do muchas exercises. Mucho tiempo coniendo. En la calle, en la montana, todo el tiempo, ella corrio."

  Decker wrote: Lilah obsessive runner. "Does she ever run at

  night?"

  "I don' know."

  If she did, it would put a new slant on the incident. After dinner with her brother, Lilah went out for a midnight run. Then someone familiar with her habits waited for her to return exhausted from her jog, and forced his way in. After she opened the safe, he attacked her, then tossed the room. That play-by-play would also be consistent with no forced entry.

  Decker excused himself a moment, stood and walked around the room, wincing as pain pierced his upper body. Even though the gunshot wounds were in the left arm and shoulder, he found that stretching his spine mitigated the throbbing in his extremities. He extracted a couple of extra-strength Tylenols from his shirt pocket and popped them into his mouth, swallowing without water, the movement as reflexive as breathing. Having worked his way off codeine, then Percodan, he'd been alternating with the over-the-counter analgesics—one day Tylenol, the next Advil. Almost eight months to the day, his recovery was good but still incomplete. The OTC tablets helped take the edge off, but he knew there'd come a time where he would have to learn to live without the medicine and with the pain.

  He stretched again, then sat and said, "Mercedes, when you came in this morning, did you notice anything different about the house before you went into Missy Lilah's bedroom?" "No, nothing." "Everything was in order."

  "Jes."

  "None of the furniture was moved or the vases put on a different

  table... anything like that?"

  "No. Jus the door to Missy Lilah's bedroom is open. She like it closed."

  "But nothing different in the living room, dining room?"

  She shook her head.

  "The front door was locked?"

  "Jes. I use my key to come in."

  "You have a key?"

  ••Jes."

  "Anyone else in your family know you have a key to her house?"

  Mercedes's face flushed with fear. "Ninguna persona! I keep it in especial place."

  "So you're positive that no one has the key to Missy Lilah's house."

  "Ninguna persona en mi familia. Jus' me."

  Decker told her he believed her, but kept the question open in his mind. "When you came in this morning, did you go straight to the bedroom? Or did you do something else first? Hang up your coat and purse, start the washing machine?"

  "I hang up my coat and look around. Everythin' is okay. En-tonces, I see the door open—"

  "The bedroom door?"

  "Jcs, the bedroom door. I go to close it, I see Missy Lilah—"

  Covering her face, she burst into sudden tears, sobbing for a full minute, Decker waiting until the Crying subsided. Mercedes reached inside her purse, found wrinkled tissue and wiped her eyes. "She be okay, Missy Lilah?"

  "I think so."

  "I pray to Dios—to Jesus—she be
okay. I go to church today to pray for Missy Lilah."

  "It's good to pray," Decker said.

  "Jes."

  "Makes you feel better?"

  Mercedes nodded. "Everyone need ayuda—help."

  Ain't that the truth. Decker patted her hand. "Mercedes, do you clean Missy Lilah's room every day?"