empty, the contents now in one of the boxes below.
Pierce looked at the bed. It looked to have been carefully made, the spread tucked tightly under the mattress. But there were no pillows, which he thought was strange. He thought maybe it was one of the rules of the escort business. Robin had said the number one rule was no unprotected sex. Maybe number two was no pillows -too easy to smother you with.
He got down on the carpet and looked underneath the box spring. There was nothing but dust.
But then he saw a dark spot in the beige carpeting. Curious, he straightened up and pushed the bed against the far wall to uncover the spot. One of the wheels was jammed and he had a difficult time, the bed sliding and bumping on the carpet.
Whatever had spilled or dripped on the carpet was dry. It was a brownish black color and Pierce didn't want to touch it, because he thought it might be blood. He also understood now that it was the source of the odor underlying the smell of incense in the room. He got up and pushed the bed back over the spot.
'What the hell are you doing up there?' Wainwright called up.
Pierce didn't answer. He was consumed with the purpose at hand. He took hold of one corner of the bedspread and pulled it up, revealing the mattress below. No mattress cover or top sheet. No blanket.
He started pulling off the bedspread. He wanted to see the mattress. Sheets and blankets could easily be taken from an apartment and thrown away. Even pillows could be discarded. But a king-size mattress was another matter.
As he pulled the bedspread he questioned the instincts he was blindly following. He didn't understand how he knew what he seemingly knew. But as the bedspread slipped off the mattress, Pierce felt like his intestines had collapsed inside. The center of the mattress was black with something that had congealed and dried and was the color of death. It could only be blood.
'Jesus Christ!' Wainwright said.
He had come up the steps to see what the dragging sounds were all about. He was standing behind Pierce.
'Is that what I think it is?'
Pierce didn't answer. He didn't know what to say. Yesterday he plugged in a new phone.
Little more than twenty-four hours later it had led to this ghastly discovery.
'Wrong number,' he said.
'What?' Wainwright asked. 'What are you saying?'
'Never mind. Is there a phone here?'
'No, not that I know of.'
'You have a cell phone?'
'In the car.'
'Go get it.'
14
Pierce looked up when Detective Renner walked in. He tried to keep his anger in check, knowing that the cooler he played this, the faster he would get out and get home. Still, over two hours in an eight-by-eight room with nothing but a five-day-old sports page to read had left him with little patience. He had already given a statement twice. Once to the patrol cops who responded to Wainwright's call, and then to Renner and his partner when they had arrived on the scene. One of the patrol cops had then taken him to the Pacific Division station and locked him in the interview room.
Renner had a file in his hand. He sat down at the table across from Pierce and opened it.
Pierce could see some sort of police form with handwriting in all the boxes. Renner stared at the form for an inordinate amount of time and then cleared his throat. He looked like a cop who'd been around more crime scenes than most. Early fifties and still solid, he reminded Pierce of Clyde Vernon in his taciturn way.
'You're thirty-four years old?'
'Yes.'
'Your address is Twenty-eight hundred Ocean Way, apartment twelve oh one.'
'Yes.'
This time exasperation crept into his voice. Renner's eyes came up momentarily to his and then went back to the form.
'But that is not the address on your driver's license.'
'No, I just moved. Ocean is where I live now. Amalfi Drive is where I used to live. Look, it's after midnight. Did you really keep me sitting in here all this time so you could ask me these obvious questions? I already gave you my statement. What else do you want?'
Renner leaned back and looked sternly at Pierce.
'No, Mr. Pierce, I kept you here because we needed to conduct a thorough investigation of what appears to be a crime scene. I am sure you don't begrudge us that.'
'I don't begrudge that. I do begrudge being kept in here like a suspect. I tried that door. It was locked. I knocked and nobody came.'
'I'm sorry about that. There was no one in the detective bureau. It's the middle of the night. But the patrol officer should not have locked the door, because you are not under arrest. If you want to make a personnel complaint against him or me, I'll go get you the necessary forms to fill out.'
'I don't want to make a complaint, okay? No forms. Can we just get on with this so I can get out of here? Is it her blood?'
'What blood?'
'On the bed.'
'How do you know it is blood?'
'I'm assuming. What else could it be?'
'You tell me.'
'What? What is that supposed to mean?'
'It was a question.'
'Wait a minute, you just said I was not a suspect.'
'I said you are not under arrest.'
'So you're saying I am not under arrest but I am a suspect in this?'
'I am not saying anything, Mr. Pierce. I am simply asking questions, trying to figure out what happened in that apartment and what is happening now.'
Pierce pulled back his growing anger. He didn't say anything. Renner referred to his form and spoke without looking up.
'Now in the statement you gave earlier, you say that your new telephone number on Ocean Way belonged at one time to the woman whose apartment you went to this evening.'
'Exactly. That's why I was there. To find out if something happened to her.'
'Do you know this woman, Lilly Quinlan?'
'No, never met her before.'
'Never?'
'Never in my life.'
'Then why did you do this? Go to her apartment, go to the trouble. Why didn't you just change your number? Why did you care?'
'I'll tell you, for the last two hours I've been asking myself the same thing. I mean, you try to check on somebody and maybe do something good and what do you get? Locked in a room for two hours by the cops.'
Renner didn't say anything. He let Pierce rant.
'What does it matter why I cared or whether or not I had a reason to do what I did?
Shouldn't you care about what happened to her? Why are you asking me the questions?
Why isn't Billy Wentz sitting in this room instead of me? I told you about him.'
