head.
I closed my eyes as Mercer pressed me against his chest. “The lady’s too tall to be Barr.”
“Who is she?” I asked.
“Don’t know yet. Mike’s talking to Billy Schultz.”
No matter how many crime scenes, autopsies, or morgue visits came up in the course of my work, the individual horror of each circumstance never lost its impact. Peterson liked to tell his men it was time to hang up the job the moment that happened.
I looked again, taking deep breaths to calm myself. There would be a wait for the medical examiner on call, and for CSU to process the apartment and photograph the body. All necessary, but it seemed so cruel to leave her in that position, as a deadly exhibit for the trail of investigators who would be summoned to ferret out clues.
“When do you figure she died, Mercer?”
“It’s not what you’re thinking, Alex. It didn’t happen on your watch. There’s rigor, and she’s been cooling down. Maybe late morning.”
It didn’t help to know the body had been there while we had been sitting outside, across the street, for close to five hours.
“Do you remember seeing anyone leave the building?”
“Not a soul,” Mercer said. “You okay, Alex? Let’s go. C’mon, now-you can’t help the lady.”
I wondered who the woman was and what connected her to Tina Barr. She looked seven or eight years older than I-in her mid-forties, perhaps-and almost as tall as my five foot ten. She was dressed in a well-tailored black wool suit, an expensive one, if I was not mistaken. While one shoe was still in place, the other appeared to have come off as the blow to the back of the head knocked her to the floor.
“I’m coming,” I said softly, putting my hands in my pants pocket so that Mike and Mercer, always trying to protect me from the atrocities of our chosen jobs, couldn’t see them shaking.
Mike and the lieutenant were huddled in the small backyard behind Barr’s apartment, talking with Billy Schultz. He was explaining to Peterson what he must have told Mike minutes ago.
“No, it’s not usual for me, if that’s where you’re going. I’m not a peeper,” Schultz said, sort of bobbing in place while he responded to questions. “I poured myself a drink when I got home, came to sit here for a while-won’t be many more nights so mild I can do that.”
There was a wooden staircase leading down from his first-floor apartment, and two folding beach chairs with a table between them. There was an empty tumbler and an iPod resting beside it.
“Ms. Barr’s rear door was open?” Peterson asked.
“Not wide open. It was ajar, which was strange, considering there were no lights on in the kitchen. After what happened here the other night, I didn’t want to take any chances.”
I was standing behind Mike as he asked the questions. “Tell the lieutenant exactly what you did.”
Schultz took a handkerchief out and blew his nose. “Sorry. I’ve never seen anything like this before. I-uh-I called out Tina’s name. Two, maybe three times. When she didn’t answer, I pushed the door in a bit more and said her name again. There was no answer, so I turned on the light-and, well, that’s when I saw the body.”
“Then?”
“I took a few steps in. I was-um-you guys do this every day, but I was pretty overwhelmed.”
“Is that blood on your pant leg?” Peterson asked.
“I guess it is. I kneeled down. I wanted to be sure there was nothing I could do for her before I got on the phone.”
I had seen that expression on the lieutenant’s face before.
“Did you touch her?”
“Yeah. I tried to find a pulse.”
“Make sure you swab him, Mike,” Peterson said. “Get his clothes, too.”
Schultz’s eyes opened wide.
“It’s routine, Billy,” Mike said. “We need your DNA for elimination purposes. You put yourself in the crime scene. It was the right thing to do, but we just got to account for it, in case you left any trace of yourself there.”
“Do you know who she is, Mike?” I asked.
“If you don’t mind, try being the silent partner tonight, Coop. You’re here by the grace of God and your good friend Mercer Wallace.” He was probably rolling his eyes, too. “How long were you in the kitchen, Billy?”
“Less than three minutes,” he said, taking his razorthin cell phone out of his pocket. “I couldn’t stay in there. I came back out and called 911. I mean right away.”
Peterson lit another cigarette and inhaled, pocketing his lighter, then bent down to examine a large garden ornament that had toppled over on its side, resting next to Barr’s back door. Light from within the kitchen reflected on the decorative brass object and its thick wrought-iron base.
That must have been the murder weapon. There was a dark stain covering a dented portion of the brass design, clumped with hair and probably brain tissue, too.
“But you knew who she was,” Mike said.
“Minerva Hunt.”
“You’ve met her before?”
“I’ve seen her in the building occasionally. She’s Tina’s landlady, if I’m not mistaken. Her name was on the buzzer before Tina moved in. I mean, I’ve never been introduced to her.”
“Did you touch the handbag, Billy?”
“No way.”
“How about the tote?”
Schultz hesitated a second too long before answering. “Maybe.”
“Whaddaya mean, ‘maybe’?” Peterson asked.
“Well, I saw the initials on it. M.H. I just turned it around-it was upside down-to make sure I was reading them right.”
“You tell the 911 operator-?”
“That I thought it was Minerva Hunt? Yes, I did.”
I took a few steps backward to the door and glanced toward the body. The shoulder strap of the python-skin bag still hung on the woman’s shoulder, but the contents had been strewn on the floor. Next to her was a large vinyl tote, the maker’s logo-now drenched in blood-garishly stamped all over it. The gold monogrammed initials of its owner-M.H.-were hard to miss.
“Just a minute, Billy,” Mike said, brushing past me to walk into the kitchen. His cell phone was ringing, and he answered it out of the presence of his witness. “Hello?”
The caller spoke to him and he held up a finger to me. “DCPI.”
The deputy commissioner of public information had gotten word of a murder on Manhattan ’s Upper East Side. Mike would have to keep that office up to speed on every development, no matter how minor, because newshounds would be on the scene in minutes.
“Only a tentative so far. We haven’t even started to look for next of kin,” Mike said. “No driver’s license. Nothing confirmed. Peterson’s got a couple of guys back at the office trying to run it down.”
I heard the front door of the apartment slam shut and footsteps-it sounded like a woman in spike heels- coming down the hallway. I was hoping to see Tina Barr, thinking she might shed some light on this.
“Give me a break, Guido, we just got here. We’re waiting for the ME now,” Mike said. “The broad was DOA, yeah. Don’t go with it yet, but it could be Hunt. Minerva Hunt, okay?”
The Chandleresque brunette-tall, lean, and tough looking-struck a pose in the doorway of the kitchen, dressed also in a well-tailored and probably expensive black suit. She looked through me as though I were invisible, tossed back her hair, and smiled at Mike.
“Now what kind of detective work is that?” she asked him. “Do I look dead to you?”
