“I'm sure he had help,” I said.
Melissa joined in. “In what way?”
“Oh,” I said conversationally, “I'd think a rope, for example.” I forced a chuckle. “He wasn't flying.”
“Did you, you know, find a rope?” Her large eyes were very steady on mine.
“No, but we found ringbolts.” I shrugged. “It's just a matter of the mechanics of the thing.”
“I'm sure you'll find an explanation,” said Melissa.
Hanna suddenly apologized for being a bad hostess, and asked if anyone else wanted coffee. We all did. We spent the next half hour discussing suicide, death, and how friends should deal with it. To me, it seemed that Hanna was by far the most affected by Edie's death. While she was telling Hester just how she'd found the body, I started to think about the possibilities we had. Somehow, it seemed to me that it just damned well shouldn't be this hard to determine the cause and method of death. What had we missed?
Hester interjected a new item. “Did you know the whole third floor is sealed off?”
“No.”
“Yes. It's the owner's private apartment, and nobody can go there unless she's here. According to Toby, here.” She shrugged. “The doors to that floor are both locked, anyway. Keyed. New.”
“That's right,” said Melissa. “We just never go up there unless Jessica's here.”
Hester looked up toward the ceiling. “Must be a pretty damned big apartment.”
The whole third floor would be about four thousand square feet. I could only agree.
There's a rule of thumb in homicide investigations, whereby you either solve the murder in the first forty-eight hours, or the investigation will drag on for months before an arrest is made, if ever.
It was beginning to look like we'd be lucky to know whether or not this was even a suicide in forty-eight hours.
Then some people arrived who would irrevocably tip the scales.
EIGHT
Saturday, October 7, 2000
14:50
I could see, through the glazed entrance, three vehicles pulling up to the front of the house. One of our marked squads, being followed closely by a dark blue SUV that just had to belong to my favorite forensic pathologist, Dr. Steven Peters. Third in line was an older, silver-gray Plymouth Voyager. That one I didn't recognize.
Since it was officially my crime scene, I went to the door with Hester, while Borman stayed with the three residents in the parlor. Although they were far from suspects at this point, it was always a good idea to have somebody about to gauge reactions, and to prevent any lengthy conversations. Just in case.
Our squad had turned around, and the driver, Deputy Norm Jones, lowered his window and stuck out his head. “These guys live here.” He indicated the Voyager.
“Right!” I looked at Hester. “Must be our residents who work on the boat.”
“Good.”
“Thanks, Norm,” I said. He waved, and headed back down the lane. That was one thing about this location: It was nice and easy to seal the place off and keep anybody but the invited out.
I turned back toward the SUV, as Dr. Peters emerged. He shook hands with Hester and myself. “Two of my favorite officers,” he said, “who always manage to throw a challenge my way.”
“This one,” I said, “may take the cake.”
He glanced around. “Marvelous place here. I never knew it even existed.” Dr. Peters was from Iowa City, about a hundred miles south of us.
“Don't feel bad,” I said. “There are some people who live in this county who don't know of the place.” I saw the two occupants of the older car heading toward the house. “ 'Scuse me a sec, Doc,” I said.
I quickly introduced myself to the male and female who were headed up the steps into the house.
“Excuse me,” I said. They stopped at the foot of the steps. They were both rather pale complected, and wore their gaming boat uniforms: white frilled shirts, black slacks, black bow ties, black suspenders, black shoes. They were carrying their black jackets. They looked like a mime act. “I'm Deputy Houseman, and I have to talk with you for a few seconds, before you go in.”
The male was about six feet, slender, with black hair. He had a hole in his earlobe and one in his nostril. Took the jewelry off for work, apparently. The female was about five feet eight, and thin. Dark brown hair pulled back tightly, with ears pierced on the upper curve as well as the lobe. Her jewelry was in place. She, too, had large, dark eyes. Her high cheekbones both had some sort of tattoo, in an exceptionally delicate swirling pattern. I suspected they were temporaries, because they didn't look thick enough to be real.
“Do you have some identification?” the male asked. For some reason, lots of people seem to think that asking you to produce some form of ID is going to put you on the defensive.
I opened my badge case, and held it wide for them to see, as if the gun on my hip hadn't told them everything they'd wanted to know. “Sure, here. There's an ongoing investigation inside right now. I'm afraid there's one room that's been closed off for the time being.”
“Edie's, I assume,” he said.
“Yep.”
“Well, I wasn't going up there, anyway.”
“And,” I added, before they could move, “we're going to have some routine questions for you, as well.”
“About?” The female. Abrupt. It was time to break the ice.
“You're Holly Finn, aren't you? The one they call 'Huck'?”
That seemed to surprise her. Using nicknames will do that when people haven't told you what they are. It implies you know more about them than you really do.
“Holly's right,” she said. “But you might as well call me Huck. Everybody else does.”
“Sure,” I said. Then I looked at him. “Stemmer, isn't it? Kevin Stemmer?” Just as if I'd actually recognized him.
“Yes,” he said.
“You're both aware, I take it, of the, ah, event this morning?” I had to ask, because I certainly didn't want either of them just walking in, maybe thinking Edie was sick or something, and finding out that she was dead. Just to be sure.
“We know,” she said. “Terrible, but not unexpected. At least,” she added, “not by those of us who knew her best.”
Knew her best? Didn't go too far in explaining why they hadn't just rushed home, but I was willing to bet that she didn't have any idea that Toby and Hanna had been so talkative.
“A bad thing,” added Kevin. “But death comes to us all.”
Well, sure. But it was the second time I'd heard that kind of sentiment that day, and both times it seemed to be designed to minimize Edie's death, not to deal with it. Not so much of a philosophy, but more like a dodge, really. It irritated me just a bit.
“It's the ones death sneaks up on that I feel for,” I said. “I hate surprises, myself.”
Hester and Dr. Peters passed by, going on into the house. “Join us as soon as you can?” I saw that Hester had retrieved her laptop from her car. She and Dr. Peters were both carrying black cases as they entered the house.
“You bet.” I looked back at the two gaming boat employees. “If you two will just check in with Deputy Borman in the parlor… he'll need some information from you, just as soon as you're ready… ”
“I'd really like,” said Huck, “to use the bathroom, upstairs. If that's all right.” A little sarcasm crept in there. I really couldn't blame her. She did live here, after all.
“Oh, that's just fine,” I said, advancing past them up the steps, and holding open the door for them. “Just don't go into Edie's room until we're ffnished, okay?”
“Of course,” said Kevin. Sarcasm again. “Like I said, it's not the first place I'd normally go.”
