Lifeguard

“Yeah.” Ellie swallowed. Clearly Breen was right. She was probably wasting her time there.

“The tech on the scene pegged it between ?ve and seven o’clock last night. What time your robbery take place?”

“Eight-?fteen,” Ellie said.

“Eight-?fteen, huh?” Breen smiled and elbowed her, friendly, not condescending. “Can’t say I’m much of an art expert, Special Agent, but I’m thinking, this tie-in of yours might just be a bit of a reach. What about you?”

Chapter 21

SHE FELT A LITTLE BIT like a jerk. Angry at herself, embarrassed. The Palm Beach detective had actually tried to be helpful.

As Ellie climbed back in her car, her cheeks ?ushed and grew hot again. Art detail. Did it have to be so totally obvious that she was out of her element?

Next was the run-down house in Lake Worth, just off the Interstate, where four people in their twenties and early thirties had been killed, execution-style. This one was a totally different scene. Much worse. A quadruple homicide always got national attention. Press vans and police vehicles still blocked off a two-block radius around the house. It seemed that every cop and Crime Scene tech in south Florida was buzzing inside.

As soon as she stepped inside the yellow shingled house, Ellie had trouble breathing. This was really bad. The outlines of three of the victims were chalked out on the ?oor of the sparsely furnished bedroom and kitchen. Blotches of blood and stuff Ellie knew was even worse were still sprayed all over the ?oors and thinly painted walls. A wave of nausea rolled in her stomach. She swallowed. This is one hell of a long way from an MFA.

Across the room, she spotted Ralph Woodward from the local of?ce. Ellie went over, glad to ?nd a familiar face.

He seemed surprised to see her. “What’re you thinking, Special Agent,” he asked, rolling his eyes around the stark room, “slap a few pictures on the walls, a plant here and there, and you’d never know the place, right?”

Ellie was getting tired of hearing this crap. Ralph wasn’t such a bad guy really, but jeez.

“Thinking drugs, myself.” Ralph Woodward shrugged. “Who else kills like this?”

A review of their IDs pegged the victims from the Boston area. They all had sheets – petty crimes and B-class felonies. Break-ins, auto thefts. One of them had worked part-time at the bar at Bradley’s, a hangout near the Intracoastal in West Palm. Another parked cars at one of the local country clubs. Another, Ellie winced when she read the report, was female.

She spotted Palm Beach ’s head of detectives, Vern Lawson, coming into the house. He chatted for a second with a few of?cers, then caught her eye. “A bit out of your ?eld, Special Agent Shurtleff?”

He sidled up to Woodward as if they were old chums. “Got a minute, Ralphie?”

Ellie watched as the two men huddled near the kitchen. It occurred to her that maybe they were talking about her. Fuck ’em, if they are. This was her case. No one was bouncing her. Sixty million in stolen art, or whatever the hell it was, wasn’t exactly petty theft.

Ellie went up to a series of crime photos. If staring at Tess McAuliffe in the tub had made her stomach turn, this almost brought up breakfast. One victim had been dropped right at the front door, shot through the head. The guy with the red hair was shot at the kitchen table. Shotgun. Two were killed in the bedroom, the heavyset one through the back, maybe trying to ?ee; and the girl, huddled in the corner, probably begging for her life, a straight- on blast. Bullet and shotgun marks were numbered all over the walls.

Drugs? Ellie took a breath. Who else kills like this?

Feeling a little useless, she started to make her way to the door. They were right. This wasn’t her terrain. She also felt a need to get some air.

Then she saw something on the kitchen counter that made her stop.

Tools.

A hammer. A straight-edge ?le. A box cutter.

Not just tools. They wouldn’t have meant a thing to someone else, but to Ellie, they were standard utensils for a task she’d seen performed a hundred times. For opening a frame.

Jesus, Ellie started thinking.

She headed back to the crime photos again. Something clicked. Three male victims. Three male thieves at Stratton’s. She looked more closely at the photos. Something she was just seeing. If she hadn’t been at both crime scenes, she wouldn’t have noticed.

Each of the male victims had been wearing the same black laced shoes.

Ellie forced her mind back to the black-and-white security ?lm at Casa Del Oceano. Then she glanced around the room.

A dozen or so cops, guarding the scene. She looked more closely. Her heart started to race.

Police shoes.

Chapter 22

THE ROBBERS HAD BEEN dressed as cops, right? Score one for the ?ne-arts grad.

Ellie glanced around the crowded room. She saw Woodward over by the kitchen, still huddled with Lawson. She pushed her way through. “Ralph, I think I found something…”

Ralph Woodward had that easygoing southern way of brushing you off with a smile. “Ellie, just give me a second…” Ellie knew he didn’t take her seriously.

All right, if they wanted her to go it alone, she would.

Ellie dropped a badge on one of the local homicide detectives who was identi?ed as primary on the scene. “I was wondering if you guys found anything interesting? In the closets, or the car? Police uniforms, maybe a Maglite ?ashlight?”

“Crime lab took the car,” the detective said. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Of course, Ellie said to herself. They weren’t really looking. Or maybe the perps ditched them. But this feeling she had was building.

There were chalk outlines and ?ags identifying each victim. And evidence bags containing whatever they had on them.

Ellie started in the bedroom. Victim number three: Robert O’ Reilly. Shot in the back. She held up the evidence bag. Just a few dollars. A wallet. Nothing more. Next, the girl. Diane Lynch. The same wedding ring as Robert O’Reilly. She emptied out her purse. Just some keys, a receipt from Publix. Nothing much.

Shit.

Something urged her to go on, even though she had no idea what she was looking for. The male at the kitchen table. Michael Kelly. Blown back against the wall, but still sitting in his chair. She picked up the plastic evidence bag next to him. Car keys, money clip with about ?fty bucks.

There was also a tiny piece of paper, folded up. She moved it in the bag. Looked like numbers.

She stretched on a pair of latex gloves and took the piece of paper out of the bag. She let the scrap unfold.

A surge of validation rushed through her.

10-02-85.

More than just numbers. Dennis Stratton’s alarm code.

Chapter 23