The woman was lying face down on the floor, her dress hiked up, legs spread. There was a mop handle sticking out from between her legs. Blood pooled around her head. Incongruously, the whole bathroom smelled like flowers.
An asked, 'What happened?'
The coroner supplied his theory. 'I'd say she was hit with this,' he said, holding up a clear plastic evidence bag. An saw a wall-mounted bathroom air sanitizer with blood and hair stuck to the crushed tip.
'Came from over there,' Bruce said, pointing to the empty mounting bracket bolted to the wall. 'Lavender scent.'
That explained the smell.
'The blow was fatal,' the coroner explained.
'Was she raped?'
He got down on his knees and craned his neck to look up between the legs. 'Unless he's got a penis the size of a mop handle, I'd say he couldn't perform,' the man noted. 'Typical with sexual offenders. They can't penetrate, so they punish the victim, and
An shook her head, trying to clear the image that had brought. 'Who found the body?'
'Security guard,' Bruce told her. 'He fell asleep in the booth.' Bruce pinched his thumb and forefinger together, brought them to his mouth and made a sucking sound. 'Guy likes his weed.' He shrugged; half the cops on the force did, too. 'Anyway, he woke up, saw that Jones' car was still here, went inside and found her like this.'
'Were any other cars in the lot?'
'He pulled the security tape for us,' Bruce said. 'The only other car that came in and out was a powder blue Cadillac.' He paused for effect. 'We ran the plates. The car's registered to Evelyn Reed.'
'Fuck,' An whispered. Martin had promised he would stay out of trouble.
'He seemed agitated that day when he came to work,' Daryl Matheson testified in front of the judge. 'I asked him about the blood on the bumper, and he got really defensive.'
'He was pounding on the briefcase,' Darla Gantry stated, after swearing on the Bible to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 'I asked him what he was doing and he told me to mind my own damn' business.'
'Well,' Norton Shaw began, clearly reluctant to be telling this to the jury. 'Martin was always complaining about Unique. I didn't pay much attention to it. He usually complained about a lot of people.'
'He scared me,' Gloria 'Madam Glitter' Koslowski admitted. 'I told him to leave. I didn't want to be alone with him.'
'Unique was always scared of Pasty. He stared at her all the time, looking at her breasts and things.' Renique, Unique's sister, was steely yet composed (she had trouble of her own – it seems the church where she worked had found some accounting irregularities).
Evelyn Reed sobbed, 'I didn't know what to do with him! He was just out of control!'
It must be said that the final nail in Martin Reed's coffin came from his own words. An had found a tape recorder in Unique's purse alongside various purloined office supplies. Cellphone records had shown she'd made several phone calls to the local television stations, offering to sell her story. And what a story it would have been.
On the tape, Unique's voice sounds hurried, almost excited. 'You been paying for sex? Seeing prostitutes? Martin, that's what Ted Bundy did!'
'Yes,' Martin replies, sounding cool, confident. 'I'm just like Ted Bundy.'
Even Max Jergens had looked convinced when An had played the tape in open court. 'No way,' he'd said when the judge had asked if he wanted to cross-examine the witness. 'Dude, did you hear what he said?'
Through it all, Martin sat passively by his lawyer. Or, at least, he seemed to be passive – how could you tell what was going on in Martin Reed's twisted, sick mind?
To her credit, An had tried to find even the slightest bit of evidence in Martin's favor. Each inquiry she made only seemed to dig him deeper into the hole: His fellow employees seemed to think he was a cross between Baby Huey and Charles Manson. Add to that the forensic evidence – Martin's sperm inside Unique, his saliva and sperm on the floor in the office and in his shoe – and there was not much An could do but sit back and wait for the judge's gavel to fall. And fall it did.
'Martin Harrison Reed Junior, I hereby sentence you to death by lethal injection.'
Death! It seemed a bit harsh, but then maybe An had developed a soft spot for Martin over the months of interviewing him. They had spent so many hours together, yet she still felt that she hardly knew him at all. He had even tried to learn Dutch (she hadn't the heart to tell him that her family was actually from Friesland – Dutch was hard enough; Frisian would have probably driven him to suicide). Really, if you didn't look at him or talk to him for very long, he was actually a rather nice guy.
Of course, people had started to notice at work that An was acting differently. Bruce had picked up on it first, noting that she had ironed a shirt or brushed her hair. Working with a bunch of detectives, you'd think one of them would have put together the fact that An only took care of her appearance on the days that she talked with Martin Reed. Then again, the thought of her actually falling for someone who was soon to be a convicted murderer (the case was a slam dunk) was fairly preposterous.
Had she fallen for him? Well – maybe. An tested the waters first, trying to see how it would feel. She sent herself flowers at work (boy, had that caused a stir) and took off early one Friday to get ready for a 'dinner date'. There was teasing and smiles and pats on the back. Part of her was a bit hurt that they seemed to have so easily forgotten Jill, but then Doug, her boss, had called her into his office one day and said, 'You know, I'm glad to see you moving on. Jill would've wanted you to be happy.'
An had felt tears well into her eyes.
'So,' Doug said, a teasing lilt to his voice, 'what's the lucky lady's name?'
'Mary,' she told him, stroking her neck the way that she imagined Jill used to. 'Her name is Mary.'
Martin's Lethal Injection, or Be Steel My Heart
Martin sat at a plastic table in the visitors' lounge, watching his mother get searched for contraband. She kept up a constant stream of chatter as hands patted her down and the wand waved over her body. Apparently, she said something funny, because all the guards laughed. Evelyn Reed was one of the most popular visitors at the prison. Nay, one of the most popular mothers in the country. She had been on every talk show and appeared above the fold on just about every newspaper printed. She was a celebrity of her own making, a star of stage and screen. Even the Ladies' Hospital Auxiliary had begged her to come back.
There was a hush in the nearly packed visitors' lounge as Evie made her way toward Martin. Some women raised their fists in the air to show their solidarity. Others stared in wonderment while still others took advantage of the distraction to pass drugs they had secreted in various cavities.
'Martin,' Evie called, waving her hand as if he couldn't see her. She certainly had a spring in her step these days. She'd started working out with a personal trainer after seeing herself on
'Hello, Mother.'
'Oh, why are you always so dire when I come to visit you?' she scoffed, taking a pad and a pen from her Prada bag. 'You're such a downer.'
'I'm on death row.'
'Please,' she grumbled, and he could have sworn she had started using an English accent. 'You should see what these shoes are doing to my bunions.' She held out her leg so he could see the four-inch heel on her Jimmy Choo. 'I wore them on
