the oleander bush close by the drawing-room window.
The door to the hallway was ajar just a few inches. She got up and moved closer to it, trying to hone her hearing to the sounds beyond; fearful now of actually opening it. If somebody was there, the first thing she should be doing is shutting it sharply, locking it, and lunging for the phone to dial 911.
Something there, but very soft, not… she back-stepped sharply, her heart in her throat, as the door started swinging wider open. Although by only a few inches — their grey Persian cat scurrying quickly through.
She reached down and scooped it up. ‘Majestic! It’s only you.’ She hugged it close, feeling her heart still racing against its soft fur. She looked along the corridor to the rec-room with its basket; obviously the door hadn’t been left sufficiently open, as it usually was, and it’d had to scratch and paw the door wider open. ‘But stop sneaking around so will you, you gave me…’
The phone rang in the library. Adelay’s business line; she’d better get it. He’d told her before going out that he was expecting an important call, and had specifically requested that she pass on his number at the function rather than let it go to answer-phone. No point in upsetting him even more. Majestic was abruptly dropped again as she went across the hallway to answer it.
Everything had gone smoothly. Breaking in the side-window and wire-crossing the alarm had taken no more than a few minutes, but then had come the trickiest part: edging three doors down the corridor without being heard.
He glided silently, feet floating an inch above the floor, each step hardly connecting before lifting and gliding again. He was sure he’d made no sound — but then the hackles suddenly rose on his neck as he passed the last but one door and saw the cat staring back at him from the near darkness. Hackles also raised, back hunched, as if it wasn’t sure whether to lunge forward or shrink back.
He swiftly reached out and closed the door, all but the last inch; the sound of it touching home would carry.
He glided silently on, breath held, gently opened the library door and, again, left it open only an inch as he headed towards the leather seat at its far end, sat down and waited.
Four or five minutes until the call came through, he checked from his watch. They’d left more than enough leeway.
But it felt like a lifetime waiting in the silence of the big house, his own heartbeat almost in time with a ticking-clock in the hallway and, beyond that, the muted sound of pages turning. And when after a few minutes there were some stronger, closer sounds — it made him sit up sharply. Rustling,
Movement now too from across the hallway, her getting up to investigate. He slid the silenced.38 from his jacket. He might not even have to wait for the phone call.
A suspended moment, then the sound of the cat scampering across the hallway and her voice riding a sharp intake of breath.
‘
The phone ringing only a few feet to his side sounded obscenely loud. He took his own intake of breath in anticipation and pointed his gun towards the door.
Lieutenant Coyne of NOPD’s 6th District didn’t arrive on the scene until 2.44 a.m., over two hours after the first squad car arrived.
There were a few reasons for that. First, there’d been a reported ‘major’ incident on Magazine Street. Started as a simple fender-bender, but the Saturday night specials had quickly come out and first radio reports were that ‘World War Three’ had erupted. Two shop windows were smashed, a passer-by hit in the leg from the stray bullets, and, amazingly, one of the combatants took four bullets and still survived. Second, he didn’t like to arrive on crime scenes too early, felt that it took a while for all the confusion and emotions to settle down and anything clear start to emerge. But in this case there was a third reason: when it came to big-shot or celebrity incidents, Coyne had often found the participants high-handed and difficult; and as shots went, they hardly came any bigger than Adelay Roche.
Hopefully Roche would have vented his worst — whether blubbering or barking that they should be out there chasing his wife’s murderer rather than tramping his best shag-pile — on his assistant, DS Dave Friele, who he’d sent there within minutes of the radio alert coming through, while he stayed to finish things up on Magazine Street.
‘Tell me,’ was all he said to Friele as he slipped under the yellow tape across the front doorway.
‘Homicide. Two.38 calibre wounds, one to the stomach, the other to the head — close range. Victim: Jessica Anne Roche, age thirty-two, married, no children.’ Friele glanced at his notepad only once. ‘Her husband, Adelay Roche, was first to discover her.’
‘At what time?’
‘Twelve twenty-six. Or, at least, that’s the time logged for his 911 call.’
‘And what estimated time for the shooting?’
‘Two hours beforehand, maybe more. Medics found no trace of warmth from her body, and rigor had already set in. Though obviously we’ll know more from the full autopsy.’
‘Obviously. But for now, it doesn’t look like Mr Roche simply shot his wife, then waited half an hour before calling 911?’
‘No, doesn’t look like it.’
‘And where
‘At a business dinner function.’
‘Okay. First thing to check: time he arrived at the dinner, time he left…’ They’d been edging down the hallway as Friele gave the details, and as the main drawing-room came into view with Adelay Roche at its far end, Coyne turned back to Friele. ‘How’s he been?’ he asked, lowering his voice. ‘Been ranting why aren’t you out there on his wife’s killer’s trail rather than asking him stupid questions? Telling you that you’re useless?’
‘No. He’s been pretty subdued as it happens. Still in shock, I suppose.’
Coyne looked thoughtfully at Roche. It wasn’t a cold night, but he had a blanket draped over his shoulders while a uniformed officer spoke to him, getting fill-in details: neighbours’ names, numbers he could be reached on, other relatives of his wife that would need to be informed. ‘…And would you like us to do that for you, sir?’ Roche looked frail and shaken, answered stiltedly.
Coyne smiled tightly as he turned back to Friele. ‘Obviously that’ll come when he gets to know you better. What else?’
‘Sign of break-in at the side of the house — a window-pane removed and alarm wired through — which appears to support the MO of an intruder who was subsequently disturbed by Jessica Roche. Although the actual shooting took place in the library.’
By the pause, Coyne knew that it was meant to be significant. ‘Any reason for that?’
‘The safe’s there. It looks like maybe he was casing it when he was disturbed.’
‘But hadn’t started to break it?’
‘No.’ Friele’s gaze shifted to the open doorway two doors down on the opposite side, the muted sounds of somebody making dictaphone notes drifting through.
‘Okay. Let’s take a look at her.’ Coyne had specifically asked that the body not be moved until he arrived.
Despite the many corpses Coyne had viewed through the years, it never got easier. One side of Jessica Roche’s face, closest to where the bullet had exited, had half collapsed, her teeth and gums on that side exposed all the more and stained reddy-brown in a rictus grimace. The blood pools by her stomach and head had already congealed to a sticky brown film, the latter carrying faintly glistening fragments of skull and white brain matter. The smell of body waste was strong and pervasive, one disadvantage of the two-hour wait, and hit high in his synapses like an ammonia burst, making him dizzy for a second. He pulled the cover back over the body and straightened up.
He looked towards the forensics officer speaking into a palm-held recorder, now examining dusted patches on the desk; the safe and window-frame had already been done.
‘Any joy on prints?’
