“How many confessions do you have so far?” I asked. Most cases like this usually generated a rash of idiots who want to confess, I suppose in the hopes of getting their fifteen minutes of fame.
“Seventeen.”
“So things should be cleared up in no time.”
“Right.” Barrello lit his cigarette and took a drag, then handed back my file.
I took it, returning Barrello’s at the same time. “Now, don’t take this wrong,” I said. “I’m not saying we’re doing any better, but you guys don’t have squat, do you?”
Scowling, Barrello shook his head. “No witnesses, no informants, nothing. The woman’s ex-husband came up clean, and so did every other suspect we interviewed-family, friends, anybody with a key. For a while we thought it might be someone living in the complex. When that didn’t pan out, we interviewed everybody on the visitor list for the past six weeks. Zip. We’re workin’ our way further back now. You wouldn’t believe how many people go through those gates.”
“Anything in the family’s letters, bills, private correspondence?”
“Nothing. But there’s gotta be a connection. The guy knew how to get in and where to turn off the power. Plus, he managed to find his way around the house in the dark. He had been here before. I’m sure of it.”
“I get that feeling, too.”
Just then a silver-gray Mercedes pulled to the curb, parking behind my car. “Lawyers,” noted with disgust Barrello as a razor-thin man in an expensive-looking suit stepped out. “Always late, ’less they’re sendin’ a bill.”
“There you are,” the man called. “Sorry I’m tardy. Traffic was horrendous on the way in.”
Barrello rose to his feet. “So I’ve heard. You bring the key?”
“Of course,” the man answered, pulling a small manila envelope from his pocket. “Unfortunately, I can’t stay,” he added. “The envelope is self-addressed. Please use it to return the key to my office when you’re done. By the way, I had the electricity and water turned back on for the painters and carpet people. They’re scheduled to come in next week, after which the house will be placed on the market. I hope you’re finished with whatever you have to do by then.”
Barrello took the envelope. “If we’re not, we’ll let you know.”
“Fine.” The lawyer climbed back into his Mercedes without saying good-bye.
“Shyster scumbag,” Barrello grumbled as the attorney drove off.
“You have a problem with this particular guy, or the entire legal profession in general?” I asked.
“Lawyers in general,” Barrello answered curtly. After withdrawing the key, he crumpled the manila envelope and tossed it into the flower bed. “My wife’s doctors screwed up some tests a couple years back. Let things go on too long. She wound up with a lot of surgery, and sorting it out’s been a mess. Everybody’s suing everybody. By the time it’s over, the attorneys will be happy as clams. We’ll be lucky if we wind up with enough for a cup of coffee.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Barrello twisted the key in the lock and opened the door. I followed him in, noting a tiled entry, a step-down living room, and a staircase leading to the second floor.
“What exactly are you looking for?” asked Barrello.
“I’m not sure. This place have a security alarm?”
“No. Most of the other houses around here do, but one of the neighbors said Mr. Pratt claimed a dead bolt was better than the best burglar alarm.”
“Dead bolt, huh? So why didn’t he use it?”
Barrello shrugged. “You tell me.”
After a circuit of the first floor, Barrello and I proceeded upstairs. From the look of things, the Orange County investigators had done a thorough job-beds stripped, sink traps and bathtub drains removed, dustings of ferric oxide applied. In the master bedroom I noticed a stained patch of carpet near the closet. I knelt to examine it. “This where the husband died?”
“Uh-huh. At least that’s the way we’ve got it figured. Our lab matched the stain to residual fluid in his bladder.”
As I rose, I noticed that the knob on the bathroom door was askew. I glanced toward the bed, then back at the doorknob. Leaning closer, I noted fibers stuck in the crack between the shaft and the flange. “Makes sense,” I said, remembering the ligature mark on Mr. Pratt’s chest.
“What?”
“Fibers caught in the door handle.”
“I see them. Shit, we missed that.”
“We did, too,” I admitted, making a mental note to have SID reexamine the Palisades scene.
“What do you mean, it makes sense?”
“Later. Was anything missing from the house?”
“Not that we could tell,” Barrello answered, clearly irritated at being put off. “Kinda difficult to determine with everybody… gone,” he added. “We found cash in the dresser. The guy’s wallet and the woman’s purse appeared untouched. Both cars were still in the garage.
I spent the next quarter hour inspecting the master bedroom and the remainder of the second floor, then headed back downstairs. Barrello followed me through a cluttered utility room into the garage. The Pratts’ cars, a brand-new Audi and an older Plymouth Voyager showing considerably more wear, sat like dusty sentinels in their spaces. In the remaining area, beside a neat arrangement of bicycles, I found a workbench with tools hanging in pegboard outlines, plastic hardware containers in pigeonholes, and power tools neatly arranged on racks and shelves. I shook my head in admiration, recalling my own messy workshop at home. After locating a button beside the light switch, I opened the garage door and made my way to an electrical panel on the far wall. “This where he shut off the power?” I asked.
Barrello nodded. “As you can see, it ain’t that easy to find.”
“No,” I agreed. “Can’t see the guy turning on lights to look for it, either.”
I stepped around the cars to the workbench, noticing the partly assembled hull of a model sailing ship-it’s masts, gaffs, and bowsprit already in place. A set of plans and parts from a model kit lay beside it, along with an oak rudder and a handful of miniature teak planks that apparently Mr. Pratt had been shaping using the kit pieces as templates. I opened a number of drawers, finding their contents perfectly arranged, immaculate.
“You seen enough?” asked Barrello impatiently. “I’ve got things to do.”
“Yeah. I’m finished.”
After returning to the utility room door, I hit the garage-opener button and started to follow Barrello inside. Something caught my attention. I reentered the garage and hit the button again.
“Kane. You comin’?”
“Give me a second.”
Barrello returned, watching curiously as I pulled on a pair of latex gloves, grabbed a stepladder from the corner, and removed the light cover on the door-opener motor.
“What’re you doin’?”
“The light on the opener’s out. The one in the Palisades was out, too. Probably doesn’t mean anything, but as anal as this guy Pratt seemed to be… Hmmm, what have we here?”
One of the two bulb receptacles on the front of the opener was empty. As Barrello moved closer, I pried something from the empty fixture with the tip of my pen.
“What’d you find?”
“Potato,” I answered, tossing Barrello a brown, shriveled chunk of vegetable. “Good for getting out broken bulbs. Appears that Mr. Pratt tried to change a dead bulb and wound up twisting it off in the socket.” I attempted to screw out the other bulb, holding it close to the stem. It wouldn’t budge.
I crossed to the workbench, returning with a pair of insulated pliers. After inserting the tool’s beaks into the vacant socket, I twisted, unsuccessfully trying to unscrew the broken bulb remnant. “You might want to have your guys dust the cover and remaining bulb,” I suggested as I stepped down from the ladder.
“Think the killer messed with them?”
“Maybe. We have a car missing from the Palisades house,” I answered. “It’s possible that the guy originally planned on stealing one of the Pratts’ cars, too. Maybe he intended to stash the bodies in the trunk and then hide
