“Photos, swabs. No prints. We’ll see about DNA, but I’d be shocked, as clean as it is,” Becky says. “He obviously cleaned the window, the entire window. I don’t know how it got broke. Looks like a big bird flew into it. Like a pelican or a buzzard.”
Scarpetta begins making notes, documenting areas of damaged glass and measuring them.
Lucy tapes the edges of the window frame and asks, “Which side do you think?”
“I’m thinking this was broken from the inside,” Scarpetta says. “Can we turn this? We need to spray the other side.”
She and Lucy carefully lift the window and turn it around, so it faces the other way. They lean it against the wall and take more photographs and make more notes while Becky stays out of the way and watches.
Scarpetta says to her, “I need a little help here. Can you stand over here?”
Becky stands next to her.
“Show me on the wall where the broken glass would be if the window were in situ. In a minute, I’ll look at where you removed it from, but for now, let’s get an idea.”
Becky touches the wall. “Course, I’m short,” she says.
“About the level of my head,” Scarpetta says, studying the broken glass. “This breakage is similar to what I see in car accidents. When the person isn’t belted and his head hits the windshield. This area isn’t punched out.” She points to the hole in the glass. “It simply received the brunt of the blow, and I’m betting there are some glass fragments on the floor. Inside the laundry room. Maybe on the windowsill, too.”
“I collected them. You thinking somebody hit their head on the glass?” Becky asks. “Wouldn’t you think there’d be blood?”
“Not necessarily.”
Lucy tapes brown butcher’s paper over one side of the window. She opens the front door and asks Scarpetta and Becky to step outside while she sprays.
“I met Lydia Webster once.” Becky keeps talking, and they’re on the porch. “When her little girl drowned and I had to come take photographs. I can’t tell you what that did to me, since I’ve got a little girl of my own. Still see Holly in her little purple swimsuit, just floating underwater upside down with her hair caught in the drain. We got Lydia’s driver’s license, by the way, have the info on an APB, but don’t get your fingers crossed on that one. She’s about your height. That would be about right if she ran into the glass and broke it. I don’t know if Tommy told you, but her wallet was right there in the kitchen. Doesn’t look like it was touched. I don’t think whoever we’re talking about here was motivated by robbery.”
Even outside, Scarpetta can smell the polyurethane. She looks out at large live oaks draped with Spanish moss, and a blue water tower peeking above pines. Two people on bicycles slowly ride past and stare.
“You can come back in.” Lucy is in the doorway, taking off her goggles and face mask.
The broken windowpane is covered in thick yellowish foam.
“So what do we want to do with it?” Becky asks, her eyes lingering on Lucy.
“I’d like to wrap it up and take it with us,” Scarpetta says.
“And check it for what?”
“The glue. Anything microscopic that’s adhering to it. The elemental or chemical composition of it. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re looking for until you find it.”
“Good luck fitting a window under a microscope,” Becky jokes.
“And I’ll also want the broken glass you collected,” Scarpetta says.
“The swabs?”
“Anything you want us to test at the labs. Can we take a look at the laundry room?” Scarpetta says.
It is next to the kitchen, and inside to the right of the door, brown paper has been taped over the empty space where the window was removed. Scarpetta is careful how she approaches what is believed to be the killer’s point of entry. She does what she always does — stands outside and looks in, scanning every inch. She asks if the laundry room has been photographed. It has, and it’s been checked for footprints, shoe prints, fingerprints. Against one wall are four expensive washers and dryers, and against the opposite wall, an empty dog crate. There are storage closets and a large table. In a corner, a wicker laundry basket is piled with dirty clothes.
“Was this door locked when you got here?” Scarpetta asks of the carved teak door that leads outside.
“No, and Mrs. Dooley says it was unlocked, which is why she was able to walk right in. What I’m thinking is he removed the pane of glass and reached his hand inside. You can see”—Becky walks over to the paper-covered space where the window used to be—“if you removed the glass here, it’s easy to reach the deadbolt inside. That’s why we tell people not to have keyless deadbolts near glass. Of course, if the burglar alarm was on…”
“Do we know it wasn’t?”
“It wasn’t when Mrs. Dooley walked in.”
“But we don’t know if it was on or off when he did?”
“I’ve thought about that. Seems if it was on, the glass breakers,” Becky starts to say, then thinks again. “Well, I don’t guess cutting the glass would set them off. They’re noise-sensitive.”
“Suggesting the alarm wasn’t on when the other pane of glass was broken. Suggesting he was inside the house at that point. Unless the glass was broken at an earlier time. And I doubt it.”
“Me, too,” Becky agrees. “Seems like you’d get that fixed to keep the rain and bugs out. Or at least pick up the broken glass. Especially since she kept the dog in there. I’m wondering if maybe she struggled with him. Tried to run for the door to get away. Night before last, she set off her alarm. Don’t know if you knew that. This was a fairly regular occurrence, because she’d get so drunk and forget the alarm was on and open the slider, which instantly set it off. Then she couldn’t remember her password when the service called her. So we’d get dispatched.”
“No record of her alarm going off since then?” Scarpetta says. “Have you had a chance to get the history from the alarm company? For example, when did it go off last? When was it armed and disarmed last?”
“The false alarm I mentioned is the last time it went off.”
Scarpetta says, “When the police responded, do they remember seeing her white Cadillac?”
Becky says no. The officers don’t remember the car being there. But it could have been in the garage. She adds, “It appears she set the alarm about the time it got dark on Monday, and then it was unset later on at nine or so, then reset it. Then unset it again at four-fourteen the next morning. Meaning yesterday.”
“And not reset after that?” Scarpetta says.
“It wasn’t. This is just my opinion, but when people are drinking and drugging, they don’t keep normal hours. Sleep during the day on and off. Get up at strange hours. So maybe she unset the alarm at four-fourteen to take the dog out, maybe to smoke, and the guy was watching her, maybe had been watching her for a while. Stalking her, I’m saying. For all we know, he may already have cut out the glass and was just waiting back here in the dark. There’s bamboo and bushes along this side of the house and no neighbors home, so even with the floodlights on, he could hide back here and no one was going to see him. It’s weird about the dog. Where is he?”
“I’ve got someone checking on that,” Scarpetta says.
“Maybe he can talk and solve the case.” Joking.
“We need to find him. You never know what might solve a case.”
“If he ran off, someone would have found him,” Becky says. “It’s not like you see basset hounds every day, and people notice loose dogs around here. The other thing is, if Mrs. Dooley was telling the truth, then he must have stayed with Mrs. Webster for a while, maybe kept her alive for hours. The alarm was unset at four-fourteen yesterday, and Mrs. Dooley found the blood and everything around lunchtime — about eight hours later, and he was probably still inside the house.”
Scarpetta examines the dirty clothes inside the laundry basket. On top is a T-shirt that is loosely folded, and with a gloved hand, she picks it up and lets it fall open. It’s damp and streaked with dirt. She gets up and looks inside the sink. The stainless steel is spotted from splashing water, and a small amount of water is pooled around the drain.
“I’m wondering if he used this to clean the window,” Scarpetta says. “It still feels damp, and it’s dirty, as if someone used it as a cleaning rag. I’d like to seal it in a paper bag, submit it to the labs.”
“To look for what?” Becky asks that question again.
“If he held this, we might get his DNA. Could be trace evidence. I guess we’d better decide which labs.”
“SLED’s fine and dandy but will take forever. If you can help us with your labs?”
“That’s why we’ve got them.” Scarpetta looks at the alarm keypad near the door that leads into the hallway.
