Dimonte nodded. “That’s right. Downing’s fingerprints were by the door frame.”
“But not inside?”
“Yeah, inside. Inside the door frame.”
“But nowhere else?”
“What the hell’s the difference? The fingerprints prove he was at the scene. What more do you need? Anyway, here’s how it must have happened.” He stuck a new toothpick in his mouth. New toothpick for a new theory. “Downing kills her. He comes back to his house to pack or something. He’s in a rush so he leaves a little mess in the basement. Then he runs away. A few days later he comes back and cleans it up.”
Myron shook his head. “Why come down to the basement in the first place?”
“The laundry room,” Dimonte answered. “He was coming down here to wash his clothes.”
“The laundry room is upstairs off the kitchen,” Myron said.
Dimonte shrugged. “So maybe he was getting a suitcase.”
“They’re in the bedroom closet. This is just a kids’ playroom, Rolly. Why did he come down here?”
That stopped Dimonte for a moment. It stopped Myron too. None of this made much sense. Had Liz Gorman been killed here and dragged to her apartment in Manhattan? That didn’t seem to make much sense based on the physical evidence. Could she have been injured down here?
Whoa, hold the phone.
Maybe the attack started here. Maybe there had been a scuffle in the basement. In the course of subduing or knocking her out, blood was spilled. But then what? Did the killer stick her in a car and drive to Manhattan? And then—what?—on a fairly active street, the killer parked a car, dragged her injured body up the stairs, entered her apartment, killed her?
Did that make any sense?
From the first level a voice cried down, “Detective! We found something! Quick!”
Dimonte wet his lips. “Turn on the video,” he told Krinsky. Videotaping all the relevant moments. Just like Myron had told him. “Stay here, Bolitar. I don’t want to have to explain your ugly mug being on the film.”
Myron followed but at a discreet distance. Krinsky and Dimonte headed up the stairs into the kitchen. They turned left. The laundry room. Vinyl yellow wallpaper with white chicks blanketed all four walls. Emily’s taste? Probably not. Knowing Emily she’d probably never even seen the inside of a laundry room.
“Over here,” someone said. Myron stayed back. He could see that the dryer had been pushed away from the wall. Dimonte bent down and looked behind it. Krinsky arched over to make sure the whole thing was being filmed. Dimonte stood back up. He was trying like hell to look grim—a smile wouldn’t look good on film—but he was having a rough time of it. He snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and lifted the item into view.
The baseball bat was covered with blood.
Chapter 22
When Myron got back to the office, Esperanza was at the reception desk.
“Where’s Big Cyndi?” Myron asked.
“Having lunch.”
The image of Fred Flintstone’s car tipping over from the weight of his Bronto-ribs flashed in front of Myron’s eyes.
“Win filled me in on what’s been going on,” Esperanza said. She wore an aqua-blue blouse open at the throat. A gold heart on a slender chain dangled proudly against the dark skin of her sternum. Her always-mussed hair was slightly entangled in big hoop earrings. She pushed the hair back with one finger. “So what happened at the house?”
He explained about the cleaned-up blood and the baseball bat. Esperanza usually liked to do other things while she listened. She wasn’t right now. She stared square into his eyes. When she looked at you like that, there was such intensity it was sometimes hard to look back.
“I’m not sure I understand,” she said. “You and Win found blood in the basement two days ago.”
“Right.”
“Since then, someone cleaned up that blood—but they left behind the murder weapon?”
“So it appears.”
Esperanza considered this for a moment. “Could it have been a maid?”
“The police already checked on that. She hasn’t been there in three weeks.”
“Do you have a thought?”
He nodded. “Someone is trying to frame Greg. It’s the only logical explanation.”
She arched a skeptical eyebrow. “By planting and then cleaning up blood?”
“No, let’s start from the beginning.” He grabbed the chair and sat in front of her. He had been going over it in his mind the whole ride back, and he wanted to talk it out. In the corner on his left, the fax machine sounded its digitally primordial screech. Myron waited for the sound to subside. “Okay,” he said, “first I’m going to assume that the killer knew Greg was with Liz Gorman that night—maybe he followed them, maybe he was waiting for them near her apartment. Whatever, he knows they were together.”
Esperanza nodded, stood. She walked over to the fax machine to check the incoming transmission.
“After Greg leaves, the killer murders Liz Gorman. Knowing that Downing would make a good fall guy, he takes some blood from the murder scene and plants it at Greg’s house. That will raise suspicion. To put the icing on the cake, the killer also takes the murder weapon and plants it behind the dryer.”
“But you just said the blood was cleaned up,” she interjected.
“Right. Here’s where it gets a little tricky. Suppose, for example, I wanted to protect Greg Downing. I go into his house and find the blood. Now remember, I want to protect Greg from a murder rap. So what would I do?”
She squinted at the fax coming through. “Clean up the blood.”
“Exactly.”
“Wow, thanks. Do I get a gold star? Get on with it already.”
“Just bear with me, okay? I would see the blood and clean it up. But—and here’s the important part—the first time I was in that house I
“Hold on,” she said. “You’re saying someone cleaned up the blood to protect Greg from a murder rap but didn’t know about the bat?”
“Right.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Esperanza shook her head. She moved back to her desk and hit some keys on her computer keyboard. “It doesn’t add up.”
“Why not?”
“Suppose I’m madly in love with Greg Downing,” she said, moving back to the fax machine. “I’m in his house. For some reason I can’t fathom, I’m in his kids’ playroom. Doesn’t matter where I am. Imagine I’m in my own apartment. Or I’m visiting your house. I could be anywhere.”
“Okay.”
“I see blood on the floor or on the walls or wherever.” She stopped, looked at him. “What conclusion would you logically expect me to draw?”
Myron shook his head. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
Esperanza thought a moment. “Suppose you left here right now,” she began, “and went back to the bitch’s loft.”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Whatever. Suppose when you walked in, you found blood on her walls. What would be your first reaction?”
Myron nodded slowly. Now he saw what she was getting at. “I’d be worried about Jessica.”
“And your second reaction? After you found out she was okay?”
