Taylor wandered through the house one last time, assimilating the scene. A fine black film covered all available surfaces. The house had been dusted for prints and many exemplars had been taken, including the magnificent palm print on the CD player. She’d love to get lucky, to get the prints into the system and get a match tomorrow. The victim had been printed as well, and her exemplars would be inputted into the statewide iAFIS database to look for a match. The integrated automatic fingerprint identification system was strong and quick, and could give them an answer within minutes if a match was located.
Taylor walked to the glass coffee table. Nothing unusual-coasters, an oversize art book on Spain and a catalogue raisonne of Picasso’s life work. She used the tip of her pen to spin the book around toward her. Baldwin had mentioned that postcards had been left at the Macellaio crime scenes, postcards of the painting the killer was imitating. Well, this monograph of Picasso’s work wasn’t a postcard, but it might be a good substitute. She bagged the book, just in case.
Despite the confusion when she first arrived, Taylor was comfortable that the scene had been managed, that they hadn’t missed anything. She stopped in front of the now-ruined column, which looked like a freshly sawed mangrove root. She turned in a circle, then went to the door, closed it behind her, and sealed the scene.
Taylor walked out onto the porch. Simari had just left, Max sleeping peacefully in the back of the cruiser. Just Renn had packed it in, too, as had the rest of the crime-scene techs. All that was left was the occupied car of the patrol officer who would assure the scene wouldn’t be disturbed overnight by kids or vandals, and a Channel Four press van. Taylor was annoyed at their presence. Couldn’t they edit their package back at their little castle on Knob Hill? As if they’d heard her thoughts, the engine revved and the van slid away into the night.
And Baldwin, of course, sleeping peacefully in the front seat of the unmarked. Poor guy, he was tired enough to crash in her car. She needed to get him home.
It was a pleasant night. Morning. Whatever you called those dim predawn hours, the deepest part of the night. The woods were alive, crickets and cicadas competing for air time, the blackness of the night almost sultry. A calm had settled over Love Circle. The chaos had been replaced by nature’s serenity.
Taylor took a deep breath, felt some tranquility slink into her shoulders. It was the evidence they hadn’t found that disturbed her. A knife through the heart should be a bloody mess. Taylor had talked briefly to Sam, who promised to handle the autopsy personally in the morning. Taylor wanted to witness, and wanted McKenzie to accompany her. He’d paled when she told him, but nodded stoically and promised to be there. This would be their first postmortem together, and Taylor wasn’t sure what to expect from him.
Either way, it was time to go home. She stifled a yawn, waved to the patrol, and got into the car. Baldwin woke, smiled sleepily at her.
“Sorry it took so long,” she whispered, then leaned over and kissed him. He kissed her back, hungry, and it took all of her control not to throw her arms around him and slide into the backseat. She disengaged herself, laughing. It had been too long.
“Let’s go home.”
“I think that sounds wonderful.” When he reached over and took her hand, she was struck by the full circle she’d come tonight. First love to true love on Love Hill. Not a bad life’s work.
She drove down the hill one-handed, listening to the dispatch crackle-“10-83, shots fired, repeat, 10-83, 490 Second Avenue, Club Twilight. Officers please respond.”
Shots fired on Second Avenue had practically become a daily standard. Let someone else worry about that. The B-shift homicide team was responsible for these overnight calls. She just needed to make it home. She was tired, no doubt, but her mind was whirling. The same word kept winding through like the loop of the Dvorak piece.
Another. Another. Another.
Five
T he house looked barren when she pulled into the driveway. She’d neglected to leave the front lights on-of course, she’d expected to be home hours ago. Baldwin had fallen asleep again on the drive; she hated to wake him, but didn’t have any choice. She shook him lightly and he opened his eyes with a yawn.
“Sorry, babe. We’re going to have to go in through the front, I don’t have the garage door opener. I left it in my truck. I hate bringing the unmarked home.”
“Okay. Yeah,” he murmured.
They got themselves inside the house. She’d forgotten to turn the alarm on again, and Baldwin gave her a chastising look after he armed it.
It was past 3:00 a.m. Though Baldwin could sleep in, Taylor would have to be up in a few hours to start a fresh day. Her newly demoted status meant she had much less freedom in setting her own hours, the biggest chafe of all. She was expected to be in the office at 8:00 a.m. and work through to 3:00 p.m., but so far, she’d never had an actual 8:00-3:00 day.
Setting hours for a homicide detective was a moot point. You catch a murder at 2:45 p.m., you’re on until you’ve cleared the scene and the paperwork is done. As a lieutenant, she had the luxury of letting other people do the work and report their findings to her. That part of her career was temporarily on hold.
Baldwin wavered against her shoulder; he was asleep on his feet. She brushed a kiss against his lips and sent him up to bed.
Elm. How in the world had Mortimer managed to make lieutenant? He was going to be a difficult man to deal with, she could see that as plain as day. Cranky, nasty, like an ill-tempered yappy little dog. Insubordination. Yes, she probably should have bit back that last comment, but really, how big an idiot could you be? The officers on the metro police force received endless training. Hell, even the most amateur forensic enthusiast with a working knowledge of crime television and fiction would know not to make such freshman mistakes.
She dropped her weapon and badge on the counter, pulled her ponytail holder out, letting her hair cascade down her back. She opened the wine fridge, took out a bottle of Masciarelli Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. She poured a glass, put the bottle on the counter, grabbed a handful of grapes from the fruit bowl, nibbled a few and chased them with a healthy gulp of wine. The message light was flashing on the answering machine, four new messages. She hit play, then stood in front of it, left arm draped against the wall, her forehead on her forearm, the wineglass by her side, listening.
A political pollster. Delete.
A reminder that she had a dentist appointment next week. She left that one, just in case she forgot.
Baldwin, his deep voice filling the room. Just letting her know he was in early, that he loved her, and planned to ravish her as soon as they got home. Fat chance of that.
She replayed it twice, a smile on her lips. She took a sip of wine and waited for the next one.
There was silence, then static. A chill moved up her spine, she stood straighter. Then a high-pitched voice, almost childlike. “Not. Me.”
The click that followed made her jump. Her heart began to race.
She set her wine down on the counter. The caller ID showed the last number who’d called as Unknown Name, Unknown Number. She hit star sixty-nine for an automatic redial, but a quick beeping told her that it wasn’t going to work without the correct area code.
Damn. She played it back three times, each time feeling a fresh wave of chills whip through her body. Part of her wanted to blow it off, assume that it was just a wrong number. But her instincts were on fire. She’d never heard the voice before, but she knew exactly who that was, and what the message meant.
He called himself the Pretender. He’d been a disciple of a serial killer in Nashville known as Snow White. Snow White had been dealt with, but the Pretender had slipped through the net. Every once in a while, he reached out to her. As recently as last month he’d made his presence known in Nashville, taking care of a pesky threat to her security. In a decidedly gruesome fashion, at that. He’d left what Baldwin termed a “love note” anchored to the dead man’s chest.
What a chance to take, calling her at home. The Pretender wasn’t careless, that much she knew. There had been a trap on their line for the past couple of months, but it would take more than a three-second call to trace.
