gut feelings or hunches. He believed that the truth of a crime was found in evidence.
But this case was different.
For one thing, he didn’t believe that Shelly, no matter what her mental state, would call 9-1-1 while stark naked. If she’d had enough sense to make the call, then why not put on a robe at the very least? Was this a ploy for publicity? Did being nude ramp up the curiosity factor? Had she wanted to die sensationally?
Then where the hell was the suicide note?
Rubbing the back of his neck, he felt a craving for a smoke, but he’d given up cigarettes years before at Delilah’s urging. God, he missed them. Almost as much as he missed her.
Scowling, he turned his thoughts back to the case. He expected, when the tox report came in, to find a concoction of pills and booze in her bloodstream. Xanax, if she’d taken her own meds. A bottle of the sedative had been right there on her nightstand, not in the medicine chest with the rest of her prescriptions. Only three pills were left in the vial, and according to the label, the prescription had been filled only last Saturday.
It was obvious she’d OD’d.
So, why was he not buying the pat suicide theory? She could have kept the pills at her bedside, he supposed, and she might have been naked because of a recent shower. The shower stall and curtain had been wet.
But her hair and skin had been bone dry; her makeup only slightly smeared and faded. More like worn off rather than scrubbed away. The shower cap hanging on a hook near the stall had been damp, so maybe she’d stuffed her hair in it so well that not even the tiny hairs around her face had gotten wet… maybe.
And her cat wasn’t inside, but out. Would she really kill herself and leave her usually pampered cat on the patio? He didn’t think so, yet, of course, anything was possible. Maybe she thought it would be more humane than having kitty locked up with a rotting corpse.
Frowning, he tapped a pencil eraser on his desk as he pored over the crime scene photos. Shelly was sprawled on the bed, her right hand still holding her cell phone, as she’d used it to call 9-1-1 minutes before slipping into a drug-induced coma and dying.
Rotating the kinks from his neck, Jonas went over the past twelve hours in his mind. He had gotten the call around midnight and had driven to her apartment, where the responding officer had already started a crime scene log.
Hayes and Gail Harding, his junior partner, had waited for the crime scene guys from the scientific investigative division and the coroner’s office.
Eventually Shelly’s body had been sent to the morgue, the crime scene techs had come and gone, the next of kin had been notified, and a press release from the public information officer, already in sound bites for the morning news, had been issued. The tabloids had already been calling, as Ms. Bonaventure was much more fascinating in death than in life. Shelly’s agent had given a short statement, lauding Shelly’s talent, career, and good heart, then asking the public for privacy for the deceased’s family.
Everyone he’d interviewed who knew her claimed she’d been full of life, a fighter, never too depressed. In a town where uppers and downers were tossed down like M&M’s and rehab was a way of life, Shelly had seemed to stay relatively clean and out of trouble.
Hayes glanced down at the hard copies of the sworn statements they’d taken. According to the neighbor who lived above her, Shelly had been calling for her cat less than half an hour before the 9-1-1 call. He’d heard her front door open and close around eleven.
And within forty minutes she was dead.
The suicide theory just seemed too easy. Too pat.
And she’d died pretty quickly from the time she’d taken the pills, if she’d swallowed them all upon returning to her apartment. But maybe he was wrong; there were still phone records to check, friends and neighbors and old boyfriends to call. Leaning back in his desk chair, he eyed a five-by-seven of his daughter, Maren. Now in high school, she was blessed with her mother’s good looks and wide smile. Her skin was a soft mocha, her eyes dark and vibrant, and she’d confided that she wanted to be an actress, that she saw herself as a new Angela Bassett or Halle Berry or Jada Pinkett Smith.
And she was good, too.
But, man oh man, Hollywood? For his kid?
He turned his gaze from the picture of Maren’s smiling face to his computer monitor and the image of Shelly Bonaventure, her skin gray, her lips blue, death having claimed her. What, he wondered, had Hollywood had to do with her death?
Maybe nothing.
Maybe everything.
Hayes climbed to his feet and heard the soft, unfamiliar ruffle of the heating system, which was barely used. Even in winter the temperature in the police administration building, where the robbery-homicide division was housed, rarely needed a boost.
He heard the clip of Harding’s footsteps before he saw her rounding the corner. She was frowning, her plucked eyebrows pulled into a thoughtful scowl.
“You got something?”
“Not much,” she said. “Finally caught up with the bartender who was working the late shift at Lizards, the place Shelly was last seen. That would be Lizards as in Lounge Lizards, according to the cheap advertisement on the Internet.”
“And?”
“She was pretty drunk,” Harding told him. “The guy she was with kept buying her drinks to celebrate her birthday.”
“A friend?”
“Some dude. Maybe a pickup. The bartender wasn’t sure. He remembered the guy, though. Mid-to late thirties, good-looking, dark hair, medium length. Caucasian, but with dark skin. Couldn’t remember the eye color or any distinguishing characteristics, other than he seemed pretty interested in Shelly, and the bartender was surprised they didn’t leave together. A lot of flirting going on.”
“I don’t suppose this guy paid with a credit card.”
She smiled, showing off the hint of teeth that weren’t quite straight, as her incisors flared slightly. “We’re not gonna get that lucky.”
“Suppose not.”
“Besides, we think it’s a suicide, right?” Harding prodded.
“Yeah.” He said it without a lot of conviction. He figured he would check into the last few days of Shelly Bonaventure’s life and delve into all her relationships. He was also interested as to whom would benefit from her death. There was talk of her being up for a part in a new television series and a rumor of her nearly inking a deal for a tell-all book. First, though, he’d start with the last person to see her alive.
“So, you’re buying the accidental overdose?” Harding asked, eyes narrowing, and when he didn’t respond, she nodded, as if agreeing with herself and a foregone conclusion. “You’re still thinking homicide.”
“I don’t know what to think. Not yet,” he admitted. “I’m just not ruling anything out. Let’s go talk to the bartender, face-to-face. Maybe we can jog his memory about our mystery man.”
“You’re the boss,” she said, and there was just an edge of sarcasm to her voice.
“That’s right,” he teased her, grabbing his jacket off a hook near his desk. He slipped his Glock into its shoulder holster. “Just don’t forget it.”
“How could I when you remind me of it every day?”
“No reason to cop an attitude.”
“Huh,” she said. “Let’s go.”
His footsteps creaked on the old stairs as he slowly descended to the basement, located under the garage end of the house, which had been built before the turn of the century. The last century.
Cool and airtight, once used for stacked wood and a wood-burning furnace, now its purpose was primarily storage. Crates, old furniture, broken lamps, canning jars, and pictures from bygone eras collected dust.
No one ever ventured down here.
Except for him.
