Cuts Like a Knife: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 1) (8 page)

Don just nodded calmly at the rebuke. No big deal. Maybe I could learn how to handle such things from him. It was just the type of comment that would’ve sent me stewing for the rest of the day.

My mind went to the ex-husband. Family always ranks as the first suspects. Especially an ex. If he was sleeping in, he was about to get a wake-up call from the LAPD.

“The perp took her cell phone, just like every other case, so there’s no phone log. No sign of forced entry in her third-floor door either,” said Blackshear. “And before you ask, no one we’ve talked to remembers hitting the entry buzzer to let a stranger in yesterday.”

That was the oldest trick in the book for burglars. Hit buzzers until someone answers. Tell them you’re UPS delivering a package or you’re dropping a cake off for your aunt on a different floor. People hit the entry button because they don’t want to be hassled. Of course, after a murder, who admits they were the one who opened the door for a serial killer to get in the building?

“Time of death?” I asked.

“Not official, of course,” Martinez chimed in. “But probably a six-hour window between 7:00 p.m. yesterday and 1:00 this morning. The techies got her temperature about ten this morning and it was down about fifteen degrees. Jerome was looking at dilation of her pupils and thinks time of death is closer to 1 a.m. Once the ME has her on the table, he’ll be able to see how long the bugs have been nibbling on her.”

“Didn’t take long for someone to note that a person living alone is dead,” Konkade said. “Is there a clue there? Who found her?”

“A neighbor on the second floor,” Blackshear answered. “They run together most Saturday mornings. She confirmed with Ms. Reed that they’d meet at eight in the morning. That was at 6:30 last night. We think she is the last person in this building to see or speak to her.”

“Except for the perp,” Don added. Everyone nodded.

“Yeah, except for him,” Martinez shrugged.
“Este tipo es un loco diablo.”

I don’t speak Spanish, but I had a pretty good idea that Martinez wasn’t being complimentary.

“Are we assuming that she died from the cutting wounds?” Don asked Blackshear.

Reynolds had just caught up with us and answered for Blackshear: “If the perp is who we think it is, then yes, he bled her to death. It’ll take a little time for your ME to confirm, however, because there will be a list of pharmaceuticals to factor and rule out, and his binding method does suggest possible asphyxia.”

“Yeah, what he just said,” Blackshear said with a nod of his head at Reynolds and a little shrug of his shoulders. “We’ve got more to give you,” he continued, “but let’s get everybody upstairs for their own look before the body really starts going bad. It’s been a nice cool March, but the perp turned up the thermostat all the way. That’s why Jerome’s being shy on his guess as to time of death.”

“It’s April,” I said.

No one commented. Am I invisible? I turned and was first in the elevator.

“Let’s do the stairs,” Blackshear said with a nod away from the elevator. “Unless you’ve got all day. That thing is slow and we can’t all fit in there.”

We trudged up after him, me with my face burning red. Don wouldn’t have given it a second thought.

As reported, Sandra’s place was neat and stylish. Except for the pale corpse tied to the corner posts on a blood-soaked bed. Reynolds had reported in the profile session that the killer didn’t have sex with his victims. Possibly some foreplay. But apparently he—or she—got jollies in inflicting pain and cutting up women, not having sex with them. He would drug them, secure them with duct tape, and spend a lot of slow, seemingly deliberate time with his knife; for most of that time they would be alive.

Cause of death: exsanguination.

Toxicology reports from the various cases could not definitively declare the extent to which the victims were conscious and aware of what was happening to them. On the majority of victims that followed the pattern we were looking at, there were signs of struggle on the wrists and above the ankles—the main areas where they were taped down. But this could simply be in keeping with someone who is drugged but not quite knocked out, and therefore putting up a last-minute fight. The abrasions were not so severe as to suggest the kind of frantic thrashing that someone in intense pain would exert. So there was no definite confirmation of torture. Back in the pre-crime scene meeting, Konkade had said that maybe our guy has a streak of mercy in him. Looking at Sandra Reed in the middle of her bed, I doubted he would say it again. Maybe our killer has some kind of code, but mercy wasn’t in it.

We all took our time searching for clues, moving room to room and lingering in the main bedroom, while the two techies waited patiently to bag the body and get it down to the morgue. I did a solo version of a line search, starting in one corner of each room, moving to the far corner, and then taking one step to the right each time so that I was sure to cover every square inch visually. Furniture made it an inexact survey method, but with four detectives and a horde of other cops in the apartment, it was good to have any sort of system in the midst of the orchestrated chaos.

I did a total canvas of the apartment—I would love to have a place this big and roomy—and then went back to the primary crime scene, doing my best to imagine what might have happened. I went back through every room, just trying to get a sense of the world of the victim and what might have drawn a killer to her—or her to him. I didn’t have to struggle too much with her draw. It was clear she was good-looking, successful, tidy, and had great taste in art and furniture.

I wondered if she had an interior designer help her decorate. The place was put together almost too well. But the indelible image burned into my mind during and after our crime scene review was the victim herself. Sandra. A real person with a real life, filled with joy and sorrow, dreams and disappointments. And she was gone.

We are a product of our upbringing and mine was very religious. There were signs of that scattered through the modest little Chicago row house I grew up in, from the picture of Jesus knocking on a door that hung by the thermostat in the hall leading to our three bedrooms, to the big, beat-up, black leather Bible that sat on Dad’s nightstand. Sandra had no such imagery anywhere. My mind started wandering toward thoughts of the afterlife, but I forced myself back on task.

Konkade left first. When we exited the building, we saw him talking with the uniforms that were first on the scene, probably reviewing protocol on how potential witnesses were separated and the evidence protected.

We reported to Zaworski on the front lawn and then Blackshear barked out orders to a group of ten uniformed officers. The two youngest were put on garbage pull. Seniority does have a few rewards. The rest were given a few instructions and assigned to help us start canvassing the immediate and adjoining blocks. When we met together three hours later, all of us had the same story. Nobody remembered seeing anything unusual the night before. We didn’t talk to anyone who actually knew Sandra Reed. Chicago is supposedly a city of neighborhoods, but this section of Washington Park wasn’t being very neighborly right now.

I went home, did my makeshift workout, and took a long shower. I read through my notes. If you cry, this would be a good time cry. But I don’t. If you yell and cuss and throw things, this would also be the time for that. I just yell and throw things. I did pray but I still didn’t feel very spiritual.

I tried to get back into the Child novel but my mind was still racing around the crime scene, so I put the book on my nightstand and turned off the light. I fell asleep with light jazz playing in the background to soothe my frazzled psyche. I had put on an old Larry Carlton CD,
On Solid Ground
, which I like a lot for the tunes, but also because it is guitar- rather than sax-driven. But sleep didn’t come even when Larry played “Josie.”

Just thoughts of Sandra. I don’t know what time I drifted off, but it wasn’t that far away from time to wake up. No wonder I was late to church.

Kaylen didn’t know that. I’m not mad at her. I love my sister, both of my sisters, fiercely. I just wish they understood me a little better.

12

“SO WHAT’S GOING on with Dell?” Kaylen asks.

I am chewing a large bite of grilled chicken, so I don’t answer right away. I’ve already devoured the twice-baked potatoes, fruit salad, broccoli and cheese, three Sister Schubert’s dinner rolls with plenty of butter, and a few bites of Kendra’s macaroni and cheese.

I think that macaroni and cheese is all the kid eats. And not just any brand. It has to be Kraft or the noodles don’t taste right, she claims. Her parents need to make Kendra eat green stuff—and not just lime jello. If I had to eat vegetables growing up, then Kendra should, too. If they’d make her eat more healthy foods, I’d eat healthier, especially when I sit next to her at Sunday dinner.

My news reporter sister, Klarissa, is carefully cutting another microscopic sliver of chicken, probably not big enough to choke a lab rat. She puts it silently in her mouth and chews slowly. She has to be just going through the motions; there’s not enough meat to require more than two to three bites before swallowing. Most of her food is still on her plate and there wasn’t much to start with. Kaylen should be grilling Klarissa about her producer pushing her to stay skinny for the camera, rather than bugging me about Dell.

Kaylen gets distracted by four-year-old James, who needs another glass of milk, so I’m off the hook for a second. I stick another bite of chicken in my mouth so I still have an excuse when she turns back to me. Why doesn’t she ask Klarissa about Warren? That’s a far more interesting question, as far as I’m concerned. Warren is Klarissa’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. He’s the sports guy at a rival television station. They met at a local media awards banquet. He’s about ten years older than Klarissa, but fit and handsome. Great teeth. I’m a firm believer that all good gifts come from God, but not
those
teeth. Is it possible to have teeth that are too good? Too straight? Too white?

Apparently he was a good enough college quarterback at Western Illinois that he got drafted by the Redskins. He has told me numerous times that he stayed in “the league”—which means the NFL, he explained, in case as a mere woman I find sports lingo confusing—for three years. He doesn’t mention the fact that he never took a single snap in a regulation game, but then I’m being snippy again. I remind myself that if you were good enough to get drafted in the NFL, then you were one heck of an athlete. He’s been a sportscaster for thirteen years now, since his playing days ended at the ripe old retirement age of twenty-five.

“Well?” Kaylen asks me again. She isn’t going to let this drop. “You were going to tell me about Dell?” Mom and Klarissa are focused on me now, too.

I chew extra slowly and finally answer her question after a fake cough and long drink of Diet Coke with a clever question of my own: “I was?”

“You were. At least I thought you were.” She’s trying not to get exasperated.

“What about him?”

“He was at church with someone else. I didn’t know you two had broken up.”

“I didn’t know we two were together.”

“Well, excuse me, but he’s been coming to Sunday dinner for the last few months.”

“Because my family invites him.”

“And, if I’m not mistaken,” Kaylen soldiers on, “you two were supposed to have a big day trip planned yesterday.”

“I guess I forgot,” I answer sarcastically. “Oh, and maybe a little murder case I’m officially working got in the way.”

“Was there a murder at the Amish village?” my mother asks in horror. “What happened?”

I laugh out loud and spit Diet Coke on my now-empty plate. Mom, you have got to get your hearing checked. The kids, Kendra and James, think that’s hilarious and screech in delight. Kaylen is not amused.

“Give it up,” she demands. “What happened?”

Given her no-nonsense tone, everyone at the table looks at me soberly.

“Where’s Mr. Dell?” James asks me earnestly. “I like him.” “That’s because he gives you a dollar for your piggy bank whenever he comes over,” I say.

“He does?” Kaylen asks, surprised. James’s head bobs up and down, but he doesn’t make eye contact with his mom due to an instinctual understanding that too much discussion could lead to the end of the gravy train he has set up.

I am hoping we are off on another subject, but now my brother-in-law, Jimmy, is curious. “Dell seems like a good guy. He’s obviously crazy about you. What happened?”

What happened? What happened? Let it go, people!

Do I sense an undercurrent of recrimination in his tone? It’s no secret that Dell has done all the work in our relationship. I’m just not crazy about him. I like him. But that’s it. I’ve never been dishonest with him or led him on. So why are people trying to make me feel guilty? Everyone is looking at me, including Mom, so I guess I’m trapped and have to say something. But it’s not like this has been a big deal to me. Bringing a revenge date to church was more than a bit of a surprise, but hey, maybe she likes learning about farm tools from another century.

“I wish I could give you guys the scoop,” I say. “But there’s no story. Everyone move along. Nothing to see here.”