beautiful hair and clothes, a perfectly etched face that is now drawn and beaten with sorrow, a slumped posture.
When she sees me, she says, “Paul,” and drags the guy with her. “This is Commander Briggs. Paul Riley.”
We shake hands. They brought the big brass in. The commander showing up after ten o‘clock to a murder scene? Well, it is the daughter of Carolyn Pendry.
Carolyn’s face melts in anguish. She touches my arm. “Thank you-thank you-”
“Carolyn, my God. Anything I can do. I’m so sorry to hear.”
She pulls me along, just as a woman appears in the doorway of the apartment that must be Evelyn’s. A tall woman, midforties, with a shield hanging from her neck.
“This is Detective Stoletti.”
“Paul Riley.”
“I know who you are.” She gestures inside.
Nice to meet you, too.
“Don’t touch anything,” she tells me.
I don’t answer but heed her advice. A tall, ruddy-faced guy, almost my height but with a little more size in the torso, introduces himself as Mike McDermott. Friendlier on the surface than Stoletti, but seemingly no more pleased to see me.
I consider reminding them it wasn’t my idea to come here. I was lying in bed with a beautiful, naked woman thirty minutes ago and was in no hurry to move.
He gives me the same lecture about tampering with evidence. Looking over McDermott’s shoulder, I can see that they’ve already combed it, anyway. The place is what I would expect, a tiny apartment with a kitchen you could barely turn around in, then a single living room with a single piece of furniture, an L-shaped couch. Patches of carpeting have been lifted from the living room, the main room in the apartment. The kitchen is taped off, with a long counter that’s been dusted.
I walk into the living room, which is undisturbed. The fun, I assume, will begin in the bedroom, the other half of the condo. I feel an adrenaline spike. This is what I used to do. Chasing bad guys. Solving puzzles.
As I get closer to the archway between the living room and bedroom, I feel my body slow, a defense mechanism. I look down and a noise escapes my throat. It doesn’t matter that I knew it was going to be Evelyn Pendry. I can’t stifle the shock upon seeing this happen to the person who hounded me yesterday with questions.
She is lying on the carpet, naked to her underwear, her arms and legs spread, her head rolled to the right. Her left temple wears an ugly, bloody gash, what looks like a deep wound. Her mouth is open. The color of her skin has already begun the death fade. She looks like she was in midsentence, as if something had just occurred to her, something important, or like she hadn’t completed what she’d set out to do.
The bright lights in the room seem garish under the circumstances, plunging this murdered woman into a spotlight at the point in time where she most deserves privacy. I want to cover her in a blanket and close her eyelids. I watch her vacant eyes, waiting for her to blink.
I walk within a few feet of her and bend over. The foul smell coming from the young girl’s body is urine and feces; her sympathetic nervous system had broken down as she’d fought the killer. Or fought the pain.
The wound to her head aside, Evelyn Pendry’s body has been ravaged with knife cuts. Some are superficial, others deeper. There is blood from each wound, which means they happened before her heart had stopped circulating blood.
She was tortured before he killed her, before he put one through her brain.
I look back at the detective and see that Carolyn isn’t in the room with us. I’m glad for that, though she’s obviously already seen this.
“He enjoyed himself first,” I say, taking another look, bending down. There is no blood that I can see splattered around. “He held her down right here and went to work on her.”
I look at the detectives, neither of whom seems impressed so far. I don’t know what they expect from me. I still am not entirely sure why I’m here.
“How’d he get in?” I ask.
Nobody answers at first. I don’t expect them to like me, but I don’t really care.
“How’d he get in?” I repeat.
McDermott shrugs. “No forced entry. Either he picked the lock or she let him in.”
“Was there sexual trauma?” My eyes avoid Carolyn, who is in the room with us now.
McDermott shakes his head no. “He just wanted to hurt this girl.”
I stand up and look at the detective. “You don’t think she let this guy in,” I say.
He doesn’t respond to that.
“The bathroom,” he says. “Tread lightly.”
I turn and walk carefully into the bathroom. The light is already on. I look first with my eyes down on the floor. Then I catch it in my peripheral vision. I look up at the mirror and see my reflection, with ghoulish words written on the glass in red lipstick:
I step back, almost losing balance. I look at the cops, who seem to be making something out of my reaction.
“That mean something to you?” Stoletti asks.
I let it happen, let it rip through me, grip my insides and twist them in knots.
“You okay?” McDermott asks me.
I walk past them and again look at Evelyn, squat down carefully to examine the wound to her head. A young one. Never got her age, but she had so much ahead of her. Smart and ambitious. I recall what I said to her the last time we talked, my dismissive brush-off. There’s always that regret if you left on a bad note, said something negative, like I did. But there is more than one reason now that I wish I had listened to her.
“Switchblade, right?” I look at them. “That’s what he used here?”
“Right,” McDermott says, as Stoletti asks, “How did you know that?”
“This wasn’t the first victim, though.”
Nobody answers, at least not verbally. Their expressions are enough. The detectives look at each other.
“She’s the second victim,” I say. “There was a first.
“Right.” McDermott nods. “What was the weapon there?”
“An ice pick,” I say.
His look tells me I’m right. “What the fuck,” he mumbles.
Carolyn parts the detectives. “Is this another song, Paul?”
I stand up and look back at the bathroom. My heart rattles against my chest.
“Same song,” I answer. “Second verse.”
People v. Terrance Demetrius Burgos
