saw several uniforms from the local house trying to placate the noisy and curious crowd of party guests who objected to being kept there against their will.
She was pleased to see her team immediately note and document the smear of blood and scuffing on the hardwood floor, two indicators that Lundigren had been killed there in the living room near the coffee table and then dragged onto the balcony. One of them scraped up some of the blood smear and bagged it for the lab. Yes, it was probably the victim’s blood, but assuming the obvious was how cases got lost.
After setting up floodlights to facilitate their camera work, they opened the French doors wide. Rain had changed to sleet mixed with snow and the room’s temperature quickly dropped.
“Rigor’s starting, so go ahead and get him on the gurney before he stiffens up,” the ME said.
As they shifted the body to zip it into a bag, Sigrid leaned forward and said, “What’s that in his hand?”
More clicks of the camera and Hentz opened the dead man’s callused fingers, tipped his find into a plastic evidence bag, then turned to hold it up so the others could see. A small object gleamed golden in the floodlights.
“That’s mine,” said Sigrid’s newly met cousin who had left Buntrock in the dining room to come stand next to Major Bryant. “Where’s the other one?”
She reached for the bag, but Hentz drew back. “Sorry, ma’am. I’ll have to give you a receipt for it.”
“Evidence, shug,” murmured Deborah’s husband, a ruggedly attractive man.
By the time the gurney was on its way through the suddenly subdued crowd out in the hall and down to the service elevator that was accessed by a door next to the front elevator, Deborah and Buntrock had each described to the detectives how they left the party with Sigrid, how crowded the hall was, how they had noticed the open door and then discovered the disappearance of a small heavy piece of bronze.
Sigrid had not looked too closely at the head wound, but upon reflection she realized that the piece could have made a handy weapon.
The three of them and Dwight Bryant were fingerprinted so that they could be eliminated from the prints found on the balcony doors, the inside knob of the door into the hall, and the kitchen counter where that little bronze had stood. Wiping the ink from his fingers, Bryant said, “Lundigren told us that his wife cleaned here this week, so you’ll probably see her prints here, too.”
One of the techs had found what looked like a clear thumbprint on the mirror of the medicine cabinet in the master bath, and she had lifted several from the flush handles and raised seats on both toilets as well as the faucets.
Sigrid heard Deborah say, “I was the last one out of our bathroom, and I did
“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” said the tech.
“What about that painted cat?” the judge said. “I’m about ninety percent sure it wasn’t here when we left tonight, so where did it come from?”
“Print the cat,” Sigrid said.
In the dining room, the room closest to the front door, Sam Hentz pulled out a digital camcorder and began to take brief statements from some of the party guests that the uniforms had sent in.
“Look, the line was five deep around the other bathrooms and you know how long women can take,” said a young man in a Hawaiian shirt, yellow clamdiggers, and purple sneakers. “I saw the door here wasn’t locked so I came in and took a quick leak. That’s all I did.”
“You didn’t check out the kitchen or bedrooms?” asked Hentz as a crime scene tech inked the young man’s fingertips and rolled them onto a card.
“Absolutely not.”
“Or notice a draft of cold air?”
The man shook his head.
“What time was this?”
“Around nine-thirty, I guess, give or take a few minutes.”
“See anybody else in here?”
“Guy with a blue Mohawk? He came in as I was leaving.”
The uniformed officer standing nearby nodded when Hentz shot him an inquiring look. By the time Hawaiian shirt had given his name, address, fingerprints, and held his ID up to the camera, the officer was back with a very tall and very thin man whose stiff blue Mohawk added a good four inches to his height. He was dressed like a beachcomber, and his unbuttoned vest hung on a bare torso so skinny they could count his ribs.
“He was right outside the door when I left with our camera,” Deborah said.
“Quite right,” said the man in an impeccable British accent. “Sorry, m’dear, but I was in urgent need of a loo and when I saw that you hadn’t latched the door and that another chap had gone inside uninvited, I’m afraid I took advantage of your unintended hospitality.”
“And it didn’t occur to you to latch the door when you left?” Deborah asked sharply.
“Actually, it did,” he said in an Oxbridge drawl. “And I did.”
“You left the door locked?” asked Hentz.
The blue Mohawk nodded in affirmation. “I think so. To be precise, I didn’t push any buttons or turn any knobs, but I did pull it shut and felt it click. I assumed it locked automatically.”
“Which bathroom did you use?”
“The one through there.” He gestured toward the master bedroom.
