tiny screen lit up. She shook her head. “It’s called ‘To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before’ by some guy named Willie Nelson. Never heard of him. What do you think that means?”
What Cindra’s question really meant was that Detective Gilbert Morris was old. Ancient, really, and out of touch. How could she
“Beats me,” Gil said wearily. “You guys do your stuff. I’m going to go talk to some of the neighbors and see if any of them noticed something out of the ordinary.”
Once again grateful to leave the stink of the living room behind him, Gil had walked only as far as the front porch when Officer Dodd came through the crooked gate and started up the walkway.
“I’ve got the info you needed,” he said, handing Gil a Post-it note. “The stuff about Ted Frost-his phone number and address.”
At that point most cops would have reached for a notebook. Not Gil Morris. He took the Post-it note and stuck it to one of the cards in a leather wallet that carried not only his supply of extra three-by-five cards but a fountain pen too. Gil had inherited the pen, a Cross, from his father. The wallet had been a Father’s Day present from Linda and the kids before it all went bad. Fortunately for Gil, the wallet and pen had both been in his shirt pocket the day Linda’s father had shown up-unannounced as far as Gil was concerned-to move them out.
Gil liked starting his day by sitting at the kitchen counter-both the kitchen table and his rolltop desk had gone north in Linda’s U-haul-and going through the ritual of filling his gold pen with that day’s worth of ink. He liked taking careful notes on the blank cards. He felt that set him apart from the beat cops. Unlike Allen Dodd, Gil wouldn’t have been caught dead passing out Post-it notes.
“Thanks, Allen,” Gil said. “I’ll give him a call.”
But not right away. Gil had studied the street while he’d been standing smoking the cigar. Now he did so again, going inch by inch over the street that bordered Richard Lowensdale’s fenced yard. Brittle dry grass took root at the edge of the pavement, so there was no dirt that held the possibility of finding either tire tracks from a vehicle parked in front of the house or of footprints going to or from it. There was no way to tell if the killer had parked there, coming and going in plain view of the neighbors, or if the perpetrator had parked some distance away and arrived at the victim’s doorstep on foot.
Gil had directed Cindra and the rest of the CSI team to dust the gate and the doorbell as well as the front door assembly for prints, but he wasn’t especially hopeful. This was a killer who had gone to a good deal of trouble to make sure there were no identifiable footprints left behind. Gil had a feeling that he would have exercised just as much care about leaving behind any latent fingerprints.
The killer had clearly spent a considerable period of time inside Richard Lowensdale’s home. Either he had known his presence there was unlikely to be challenged, or he had an entirely believable reason for being there.
Gil didn’t have much in common with Monk, the neurotic detective in the TV series. For one thing, as far as Gil knew, he didn’t suffer from any obsessive compulsive disorders, but when it came to crime scenes, he trusted his instincts. This one struck him as exceptionally cold-blooded.
It was one thing for the Herrera brothers to get all drunked up together, shoot the shit out of one another, and, as a consequence, break their poor mother’s heart. Had either of them lived long enough to be put on trial, it seemed to Gil that the charges against them would have tended more to voluntary homicide than to murder.
Richard Lowensdale’s murder was on another scale entirely. What Fred Millhouse had referred to as blunt force trauma probably had been delivered for one purpose only-to disable the victim long enough for the killer to use the tape to bind him to the chair. Then, after disabling the guy, the killer had set the iPod ear buds in the guy’s ears and had queued up Willie Nelson to sing the same song over and over until the device finally ran out of juice. “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.”
You didn’t need to be a rocket scientist (which Gil Morris wasn’t) or an experienced homicide cop (which he actually was) to figure out that the killer was broadcasting a message with the choice of that particular piece of music, but what message was it? Was it from a rival or maybe a disgruntled lover?
The most chilling aspect of the whole scene had been the presence of that single out-of-place dining room chair in Richard Lowensdale’s living room. Gil knew as sure as he was born that the killer had sat on that chair, waiting and watching, while Richard Lowensdale struggled for air inside the taped plastic bag. It seemed likely that he or she had stayed there until Richard gave up trying for a last gasping breath.
In Richard Lowensdale’s case, killing him was the main point, maybe even the only point. And the killer had gone to great lengths to make sure that the victim was helpless, that he couldn’t fight back.
For the first time Gilbert Morris was forced to confront the idea that the killer might be female. Unless Richard turned out to be gay or a switch-hitter, it was likely he had been taken out by a woman, one with a very serious grudge.
Richard Lowensdale’s house was the last one on the street. Just above the house was a small paved turnaround. Beyond that stood a piece of property covered with second-growth forest. Determined to learn something, Gil set off down the hill. The neighbors would have noticed the police activity around the house and he expected they would be eager to speak to him. That’s how things usually worked in small towns. Most of the time witnesses were glad to come forward and help out.
Unfortunately most of the residents of Jan Road had been at work or at school on Friday afternoon. The only exception was Lowensdale’s next-door neighbor, a gray-haired retiree named Harry Fulbright, who had spent part of the day out in his yard trimming an overgrown laurel hedge.
“Sure,” he said. “I remember seeing the UPS driver go past here right around two thirty. Not the regular UPS guy,” he added. “Ted must have been sick that day, ’cause it was earlier in the day than he usually shows up. But it was definitely UPS. Woman in a brown uniform and a brown leather jacket.”
“A woman,” Gil repeated. “Walking or riding?”
“Walking. The turnaround at the top of this here street is too damned small for them big trucks. Ted never drives up there, and he probably warned his substitute not to try it either.”
“Can you tell me anything at all about her?”
“Not really. She was about average. Not fat, not skinny. Fairly long hair.”
“What color?”
“Reddish maybe?”
“Did you see anyone else around that day?”
“Actually, now that you mention it, I think there was a second delivery later on. So maybe they made two drops at Richard’s house that day.”
As far as Gil was concerned, this information was all a step in the right direction.
Excusing himself to Harry, Gil went back out to the street and dialed Ted Frost’s number.
“Allen Dodd told me what happened to Richard and that you might be calling,” Ted said as soon as Gil introduced himself. “I’m sorry to hear it. Richard was a nice enough guy and he ordered lots of stuff. I stopped off at his house almost every day, and he’s one that always gave out little presents when Christmas came around. Do you need me to come down to the station and give a statement?”
“I’ll probably need you to do that eventually,” Gil said. “Right now I’m just looking for a time line. What time was it when you dropped off that box from Zappos?”
“Right at the end of my shift. Around four thirty or so.”
“Is there another driver who might have dropped something off earlier?”
“Not with UPS. This is my territory. As for what time I delivered it? I have a computerized log. I have to enter where and when I drop off anything. I’m definitely sure of when I made Richard’s delivery.”
“Why did you leave the package on the porch? Was there anyone home?”
“There was somebody inside the house. I heard a vacuum cleaner running. It was noisy. She probably didn’t hear the bell.”
“She?” Gil asked eagerly. “A woman? Did you see her?”
“The blinds were closed. All I could see was the entryway. I just assumed that Richard had finally gotten around to hiring himself a cleaning lady. I guess it didn’t have to be a woman, though, huh? Anyway, I figured he’d
