“Have the bathtub traps been checked yet?”
His eyes were warm as he answered her. Damn, she thought, does he always have to look at me like that?
“The one at the Kaufman house has been. The coroner’s people got a wad of hair and soap out of it. They were going to get some dinner, then do the Edwards apartment, although I’m not sure they’ll get anything there. The management had the place cleaned.”
“Sams’s place is a waste of time,” Hardesty said. “Her ex-husband moved into it two weeks ago. Their divorce settlement stipulated he would get half the equity if she sold it or remarried, and if something happened to her, it would revert to him.”
“Is that a motive?” Hawkins said.
“Maybe, but not much of one. The house isn’t worth all that much.”
From now on, Jen thought, we'll know to check the drains. She bit her lip as she realized she was taking it for granted that they would have other drains to check. She turned her attention back to the Edwards file.
One question that had arisen was why no one had heard anything. No one could have endured the beating that Carla had without screaming, at least in the beginning while she was still able. But it was evident that the killer had either had an unusual run of luck or had planned very carefully. The occupant of the other half of the duplex was a woman named Nellie Gugler, who was seventy-eight years of age and almost totally deaf. She had been home that night for all the good that it was, and of course, had heard nothing.
Jen thought about the set-up on Finley. Vicki Kaufmann’s small house sat on a fairly large lot, with the park on the side where her bedroom was located and a vacant lot between hers and the house on the other side. It was conceivable that her screams could have gone unnoticed, and after some point, she would have been unable to scream.
She was staring at the grisly photographs of Carla’s brutalized body when the phone on the wall buzzed. Lonnie swiveled in his chair and lifted the receiver from the hook.
“Stephens.” He listened for a few seconds. “Sure. Send him over.”
He hung up the phone.
“The mailman’s here. The one that called in the report. Seems he remembered something he thinks might be suspicious.”
CHAPTER 11
Katy Ashwood, a dispatcher and the daughter of the traffic sergeant, opened the door and ushered in the man she had escorted to the detective section. She directed an interested smile at Will, and for second that shamed her, Jen had the urge to scratch out the petite brunette’s hazel eyes. Will seemed unaware of the dispatcher’s interest, his attention focused on the mailman.
Jen guessed Carter Holiday to be around thirty. He was dressed in tan jeans and a brown Henley. His hair was a reddish brown and thinning, and his face was clean-shaven. He wore gold wire-rimmed glasses over cheerful brown eyes. Overweight by about twenty pounds, he carried it well on his tall frame. He had a soft look about him, but there was strength there, too. It was the look of a man who had once been in good physical shape but who had begun to let himself go.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.” He looked around the room apologetically.
“You’re not.” Lonnie stood and gestured toward the others. “This is Detective Dillon and Detective Williams. Across the table there are Will Anderson and Don Hawkins with the FBI. I believe you met Mike Hardesty earlier today.”
Holiday nodded and turned surprised eyes on Will and Don.
“I didn’t know the FBI was involved.”
“Just helping out.” Lonnie pushed a chair out from the table. “Would you like to sit down?”
“No, that’s okay,” Holiday said. “I don’t suppose I’ll be here that long.”
“The desk officer said you’d remembered something?”
“Well, yes. I’m not sure it’s important, but you said that I should report anything I thought of, no matter what, and let you decide.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I remembered that I saw a man sitting in a car in front of Ms. Kaufmann’s house a couple of weeks ago. The car caught my eye because it was a red Corvette.”
Jen and Will exchanged a glance, remembering that Larry Kaufmann had said he’d seen his ex-wife with a man in a red Corvette a month before.
“I thought it was kind of funny at the time. You know, not going up to the door and knocking or anything.”
“Maybe Ms. Kaufmann wasn’t home, and he was waiting for her,” Lonnie said.
“No, that’s just it,” Holiday continued. “She was home. I had a package for her so I knocked on the door and gave it to her. She looked upset when she saw the guy sitting out front.”
“What do you mean by ‘upset’ exactly?”
“Mad. Maybe a little scared, too, but mostly mad. In fact, she said a few unrepeatable words under her breath and slammed the door.”
He smiled sheepishly at Jen, and she smiled back. She was so used to foul-mouthed cops that the mailman’s hesitancy to repeat someone else’s vulgar language in front of her made him seem old-fashioned—and kind of sweet.
“Do you recall what the man looked like?” Lonnie said.
“He had brown hair and a short beard. I’d say he was in his late twenties or early thirties, although I couldn’t be sure since he was wearing sunglasses.”
“What did he do after Ms. Kaufmann saw him?”
“He started the car and laid rubber tearing out of there. It looked to me like he was as angry as she was.”
“Is that the only time you saw him around Ms. Kaufmann’s home?”
“Yes. I never saw him before, and I haven’t seen him since. It was probably nothing, just a fight with a boyfriend or something, but I thought I should let you know.”
“We appreciate it.” Lonnie stood and shook the man’s hand. “Like I said before, anything you remember, anything at all, we’d like to hear about
