"Um-hmm. What we have here is either a murder-suicide or a double murder. Haven"t figured that out yet. But I will."
He didn"t doubt it.
"I think the man was tied to that chair over there." She indicated an old metal and plastic dinette chair that had been shoved into a corner of the room. "Traces of blood on it, and you can see that it was dragged through the dust . . . footprints beside the tracks. Shoes. Our boy here"-she motioned toward the dead man staring sightlessly upward, his eyes glazed, his face bloated-"isn"t wearing any. And we can"t find a pair. They"re too big for the girl, so I"m thinkin" we"ve got a third party. A big man from the footprints around. We"ll just call him Size Twelve."
"The killer."
"Yeah, the male vic is a size nine and a half, maybe a ten. This whole scene appears staged to me, but not done well enough that we wouldn"t figure it out immediately. As I said, either the killer"s an idiot, or he wants us to know that he"s behind it; he"s just showing off." Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Montoya over the tops of her half-gla.s.ses. "There is gunshot residue on the female vic"s hands, and a little blood, but this whole place feels off."
"Who threw up?"
"Her, by the looks of her clothes."
"A wedding dress? She was a bride?"
"Don"t know. Don"t think so . . . over there in the pile? Running shorts and T-shirt. She changed. Or was changed. Premortem, the blood spatter is all over the wedding dress."
"Why would she change?"
"Beats me." Dark lines creased her forehead and she tapped her pencil to her lips as she thought. "But whoever our killer is, he wants us to notice that the guy is stripped bare, naked to the world, and the girl is on her way to her own wedding . . . or something like that. Go figure . . ."
Montoya didn"t like what she was suggesting. He stared at the man lying faceup, the woman"s body draped over his. Something about him . . .
"You recognize the male vic?" she asked, again pointing with her pencil at the dead man with the thinning brown hair.
"Should I?"
"Luke Gierman. Local celebrity of sorts. Shock jock."
"Gierman"s Groaners," Montoya said, remembering the controversial radio personality. He"d never met Gierman but had seen his photo in the newspapers a few times. Montoya said, remembering the controversial radio personality. He"d never met Gierman but had seen his photo in the newspapers a few times.
"ID was on him. Cash and credit cards undisturbed, or so it seems. He had two hundred and six dollars on him and a receipt from an ATM from First Congressional Bank on Decatur Street for two hundred dated the night before last at 6:36 P.M."
"He could have been abducted about that time." He decided to review the cameras at the bank.
"Maybe. As for her . . ." She pointed a finger at the dead woman lying atop Gierman. "Courtney LaBelle, according to the student identification card in her wallet. She wasn"t carrying a purse, just one of those slim card holders she"d stuffed into a small pocket of her running shorts. No credit card and only five bucks with her. But she did have a driver"s license that indicates she"s from the city, address is in the Garden District." She clucked her tongue sadly and shook her head. "Eighteen years old." The edge of Washington"s jaw hardened. "The ME took a preliminary look, thinks from the lividity, flaccid stage of rigor, and body temperature, the TOD was the night before last, probably between ten P.M. and three A.M. He can"t get any closer than that."
"Not long after Gierman"s ATM transaction."
"Yep."
"Did she know Gierman?" Montoya said, glancing at the corpse of the girl. Her skin was waxy, her face bloated, but he guessed she had been beautiful just a few days earlier.
"That"s what you need to find out. Gierman allegedly had a thing for younger girls and she would definitely qualify."
Montoya was already taking notes. Bonita Washington bugged the h.e.l.l out of him sometimes, but she was good at her job. d.a.m.ned good. Making it hard to argue with her, harder still to rib. "We got the weapon?"
"Yep. Bagged and tagged. Twenty-two pistol. Found in the female victim"s hand."
He took in the floor again. Feathers, dust, mud, and blood covered the old planks. "What"s with the feathers?"
"A pillow. Probably strapped to Gierman. Maybe to mute the sound, I don"t know, but it was left by the chair." She pointed and Montoya examined the flaccid bag of an old stained pillowcase. A hole was blown in its center, the faded fabric and feathers within singed and darkened with blood. "Shot at close range."
Montoya stared at the bodies, tried to imagine their places before death and how they ended up almost in a lover"s embrace.
"As I said, I"m guessing from the marks on Gierman"s legs and arms, that he was bound, maybe his ankles tied to the legs of the chair, that would match the bruising on his body. Though it"s missing now, I think there had been tape over his mouth. There are still traces of some adherent on his face."
Montoya looked closer, noticed the flecks of grayish matter sticking to Gierman"s whiskers and cheeks. A rectangular red mark was visible against his pale skin and even his lips were raw looking, as if the tape had stuck to them before being roughly ripped away.
"They aren"t married?"
"He"s single. Divorced, I think. And I don"t know about her, but she"s got a h.e.l.l of a sc.r.a.pe on her left ring finger. Looks like a ring was pulled off and took a lot of skin and flesh with it."
"Jesus," Montoya muttered, spying the girl"s bruised and raw finger.
"I guess the "I do"s" didn"t go easily," Washington muttered, a sick joke to lighten the scene.
Montoya had seen more than his share of bizarre killings since joining the force, but this was right up there with the best of them. He straightened. "Do you think this was some kind of mock wedding . . . that our killer was the preacher and the ring was forced on, then yanked off . . . did we find it?"
"No jewelry other than the necklace still on the vic." She pointed at the intricate gold chain with its small cross of what appeared to be diamonds.
"No shoes?" he asked, noting the dead woman"s bare feet.
"Just the running shoes for both of them. For what it"s worth, it looks like they were each either on their way to or from a workout. Both were originally dressed in shorts, T-shirts, running shoes, but he"-she jabbed her pencil at the dead man-"ends up stark naked and she"-Washington indicated the dead woman-"is wearing a wedding dress. No shoes, hose, no veil, and no ring . . . Bizarre as h.e.l.l if you ask me."
"Won"t argue that."
Washington held her notepad to her chest and tapped the eraser end of her pencil against her mouth as she stared down at Gierman. "You know, this guy p.i.s.sed off a lot of people. A lot. Church groups. Parent groups. He even had the FCC on his a.s.s. For all his popularity, he was hated as well." Her lips folded in on themselves. "To say he wasn"t PC would be a gross understatement."
"You didn"t like him."
"I"d be in that category, yes, but"-she turned her gaze to the girl-"who would hate him so much as to want him dead?"
"Courtney LaBelle?" Montoya offered.
"Nah. Don"t think so. Why would a college student bring him here, hold him hostage, it looks like, then off both him and herself?"
"s.e.x games?" Montoya asked, stating the obvious.
"He"s naked, but she isn"t. He was tied to the chair, I think, in the submissive position." Brown eyes looked at him again. "And the white bridal dress isn"t the usual dominatrix attire."
Montoya asked, "How would you know?"
"Hey, Montoya, there are a lot of things about me that you don"t know. Dog collars, whips, lace-up gloves are only part of "em." She flashed him a smile suggesting she was joking, then double-checked her drawing, her expression turning professional again. "I"m still banking on Mr. Size Twelve, but we"ll know more when we finish processing the scene."
"Good."
"So I suggest you find out everything you can about our victims."
That went without saying, but rather than pick a fight with her, he asked, "What about the rest of the house?"
"Looks undisturbed, but we"re checking every room, including the attic."
"The lock on the door?"
"Old and rusted. Broken. The fingerprint and tool guys are going over it."
"Anyone know who owns this place?"
She shot him another don"t-mess-with-me look over the tops of her half-gla.s.ses. "Someone does, but it"s not me. Another thing you"d better check out." She began drawing again and careful to disturb nothing, he took one last look at the victims in their macabre position dead center in the middle of the small room before checking his watch, logging out, and walking outside. Though the morning air was still thick and sticky, it felt crisp compared to the stagnant, foul atmosphere inside the cabin. Picking his way around an investigator making casts of tire tracks and footprints, he headed to the old red pickup.
A barrel-chested black man was seated on the driver"s side, his radio turned on, his thick fingers tapping against the steering wheel in an impatient rhythm.
"Ray Watson?" Montoya asked and flipped his ID in front of the open driver"s window. He cast a glance at the back of the truck. Beside the canoe was a fishing creel and a few poles, tackle box, oars, safety vest, and bucket of bait. Everything was strapped down as the tailgate of the truck was open to accommodate the length of the canoe.
"That"s me." Watson was around fifty. He had a flat face with dark skin, wide-set eyes, and teeth that, when he talked, showed off a bit of gold. A tattered Saints cap was pulled low over nappy salt-and-pepper hair. Wearing big overalls over a T-shirt, he seemed agitated and tired. On the seat next to him were a pair of hip waders, a flashlight, and a tin of chewing tobacco.
"Mr. Watson, can you tell me what you found? How it happened?"
"You saw for yourself," Watson said, his big eyes rounding. "I didn"t touch nothin". That place"-he pointed past the bug-splattered windshield toward the house-"is just like when I first opened the door. I came up here fishin" like always, but this time, somethin" looked different about the place. Just kinda . . . I dunno . . . not right. I checked, noticed the door open, and stepped inside. That"s when I saw them, the dead people." He shook his head. "I couldn"t believe it. I mean the guy"s naked as a jay bird and the woman"s dressed up as if she"s goin" to her own d.a.m.ned wedding." He glanced away from the cabin and straight into Montoya"s eyes. "I took one look, saw that they were dead, then I came back to my car and used the wife"s cell phone to dial 911."
"Do you know either of the victims?"
"No, sir," he said emphatically and shook his head.
"What time was that?"
"About an hour and a half earlier," he said, checking his watch. "Five A.M. So I can start fishing at dawn. I come early before breakfast. It was still dark when I pa.s.sed by the house, but I shined my flashlight on it, like I always do, and as I said, somethin" looked strange, gave me a weird feelin", you know? Can"t really explain it, but I come up here quite a bit and I could tell things weren"t right. Thought I"d better check it out."
"So that"s when you went in?"
"That"s right." Watson"s nose wrinkled as if remembering the rank odor. "Never seen nothin" like that before. No sir, nothing like that at all."
"You know who owns this place?"
"Not anymore. It used to belong to a guy named Bud Oxbow, a fella I used to fish with."
"Where"s...o...b..w now?"
"Retired from the Mobile post office and moved up north, somewhere around Chicago, I think, five or six years ago. He never lived here, just came out fishin" once in a while and hung out at Lottie"s Diner, that"s where we first got to talkin". Had a place in Mobile where he worked." Watson scratched his chin. "I think he told me he inherited this place from an uncle, but I can"t really say."
Montoya ran Watson through it one more time and Watson recounted his discovery without adding anything new. He agreed that he"d be available for further questioning and would call the station if he thought of anything else that might help.
Montoya released the witness, patting the fender twice as Watson flipped on the ignition and backed down the leaf-strewn drive. The sun was climbing higher in the sky, the surrounding woods already warm, but he saw dark clouds on the horizon. After a few more minutes of talking with several of the investigators, Montoya decided he"d found out all he could here. He slid into his car and started back to the city.
It was going to be a h.e.l.luva day. Two dead bodies and it wasn"t yet noon.
CHAPTER 4.
"Only half a mile more," Abby promised herself as she ran along the side of the road, her heart pounding, her calves beginning to protest, the bottoms of her shoes slapping the asphalt. Sweat ran into her eyes, and though the weather had changed quickly, sunlight chased away by burgeoning, purple clouds, she"d decided to chance the jog. It had been three weeks since the last time and her muscles weren"t used to the punishment. She set her jaw and kept at it.
While she"d lived in Seattle, she"d run at least three times a week, but in New Orleans with the humidity in the stratosphere, the heat oppressive, and the road on which she lived narrow enough that two cars could barely pa.s.s without one set of tires touching the shoulder, she"d found more than enough excuses to let her exercise routine slip.
No more.
Her birthday had been a milestone and propelled her into getting into a regimen again. Whether she lived here or with Alicia in the bay area, she wasn"t going to let her body slide out of shape. Too bad that right now her lungs burned and she"d developed a st.i.tch in her side. She pushed the pain out of her mind and kept jogging until she reached the Pomeroys" mailbox, the three-mile mark.
Slowing as she pa.s.sed the ma.s.sive gates, she barely cast a look through the expensive wrought-iron-and-brick barricade that shuttered Asa Pomeroy, a local multimillionaire, from the curious. Married to his fourth wife and secluded in an ante bellum home reminiscent of Tara in Gone with the Wind Gone with the Wind, he opened his estate to the public twice a year, once at Christmas, the other time on Fat Tuesday. Otherwise, even though she was a neighbor, she"d not been inside.
She and Vanessa Pomeroy didn"t run in the same social circles.
She heard a low growl and glanced at the fence. The Pomeroys" Rottweiler paced on the other side of the grillwork. He was a huge animal, with a head as broad as a bear"s. From the other side of the fence he barked madly, loud enough to raise the dead from here to the city.
Give me a break, Abby thought. Breathing hard, sweating so much that her hair was wet and damp tendrils escaped her ponytail to curl around her face, she walked briskly toward her own place around a curve about a quarter of a mile down the road. Her pink T-shirt was plastered to her body; even her shorts were damp with her perspiration. She tugged at the hem of the shirt and leaned over, dabbed at her face with the faded T"s hem, but as soon as she swiped away the droplets, more appeared. Abby thought. Breathing hard, sweating so much that her hair was wet and damp tendrils escaped her ponytail to curl around her face, she walked briskly toward her own place around a curve about a quarter of a mile down the road. Her pink T-shirt was plastered to her body; even her shorts were damp with her perspiration. She tugged at the hem of the shirt and leaned over, dabbed at her face with the faded T"s hem, but as soon as she swiped away the droplets, more appeared.
She gave up and, at her own driveway, she leaned against the FOR SALE BY OWNER sign, stretching her calves and the backs of her thighs. Despite the pain, she felt good; as if she"d actually done something positive for herself.
Maury"s call about Luke had put her on edge. What the h.e.l.l was her d.a.m.ned ex up to? "None of your business," she said aloud, her hands on the back of her hips as she curved her spine slowly forward, then back, feeling all her muscles stretch and relax.
She"d spent the morning doing more housecleaning, fielding calls about viewing the cottage, and had sneaked in the three-mile jog before she met with her first clients in the studio at one-thirty. After that, she had two more photography sessions and two more showings of the house. One couple had already seen it the night before and wanted a second look. The second potential buyer was a single man.
Good news.
She grabbed the newspaper from her box as Ansel, a mouse in his mouth, slunk around the corner. "Oh, geez, what have you got?" she asked, seeing that the little rodent was still alive and squirming, its beady eyes fixed in fright. "Oh, Ansel," Abby whispered, not wanting to deal with the field mouse alive or dead. "Let him go. Now! And don"t catch him again or bring him back to me without a head! Ansel!" The cat started to dart away as she heard the sound of a car"s engine. She turned just as a police cruiser pulled into the driveway. Her heart nose-dived. What was it her father used to say? The police only stop for two reasons, neither one good.
Either someone is dead.
Or you"re about to be arrested.
The spit dried in her mouth.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the mouse somehow wiggle free and scamper quickly through the underbrush, Ansel in hot pursuit. Abby barely noticed. She was focused on the police car and the man who was climbing out.
He was five-ten or -eleven with an athletic build, jet-black hair, and chiseled features that suggested a bit of Native American tossed into his Latino gene pool. A trimmed goatee surrounded his mouth, and in one ear, a gold ring winked in the sunlight.
"Abby Gierman?" he asked and slid off his shades to reveal dark, intense eyes guarded by thick black eyebrows. Though he wasn"t exactly Hollywood handsome, he was good looking and there was something about him that hinted at danger. He hooked the shades on the neckline of his open-collared shirt where a few dark chest hairs were visible.
"I"m Abby."
Though he was staring hard directly at her, squinting against the last of the sunlight, she figured he saw everything that was going on around him. His expression said it all: he was delivering bad news. Probably the worst.