His grin faded, and the skin tensed around his eyes. 'Just you.'
Kaden stood to leave, Delveckio rising on a slight delay.
'You find anything unusual in her bloodstream?' I asked.
They halted. Kaden pivoted, slowly. 'Why would you ask that?'
'Two nights ago I felt really hazy when I woke up. I thought it was brain-tumor fallout or stress. But maybe I was drugged so someone could cut my foot.' I leaned back in the chair, folded my arms. 'Take my blood.'
Delveckio raised his eyebrows at Kaden, who took two solemn steps back to his chair and sat. 'Why'd you wake up so quickly, then? If you were drugged?'
'Dunno. I have a pretty good tolerance from my misspent youth. Can we run my blood?'
Kaden fished a cell phone from his pocket and dialed. 'Kaden here. Get me Wagner.' He rose and walked out of the room.
'Lloyd Wagner's on this case?'
Delveckio looked peeved to be stuck with me. 'Of course. He worked the first murder, didn't he? Isn't that why you called him? You knew him from your trial and figured you could harass your way in?'
'I knew him before. He's helped me on some projects.'
'Yeah, well, I think it's safe to say he's not interested in helping you anymore.'
Kaden's voice hummed through the walls, but I couldn't make out the words. Delveckio did his best not to make eye contact with me.
I asked, 'On the footage did you notice… did you see me move anything from the nightstand?'
'Huh?'
'Something in a jar?'
'I was hoping this could get weirder.'
'Did you?'
'No.'
So my tumor had already crawled off by the time I set up the recorder. Which meant it had likely vanished around the time my foot had been cut. Another oddity to toss on the heap.
Kaden returned. 'Would've cleared your bloodstream by now.'
I asked, 'What would have?'
Kaden shifted from one foot to the other, giving me the stonewall.
'Come on. If I may have been drugged, at least tell me what I could've had in my system.'
'Xanax and sevoflurane. Alprazoblah-blah that's Xanax is shorter-lasting. The other, too. It's a knockout gas. 'Rapid elimination from the bloodstream,' the man says.'
'So how'd you catch it in Broach?'
'Quick response. Patrolman radioed in the body. We heard that it looked similar to Genevieve Bertrand, called in the cavalry so no one would trample evidence. Our criminalist had dropped a trace-evidence report at Rampart, was just a few blocks away having a burrito. Hot-assed it over to the crime scene. They always draw blood right off.'
Delveckio licked his dry lips. 'Plus, Broach's metabolism wasn't working so fast when we found her.'
'Why give someone Xanax if you're gonna knock them out?' I asked.
'You wouldn't,' Kaden said. 'We're thinking she took it before bed.'
'So she was grabbed in her sleep?'
'Signs of a struggle.'
'The sevoflurane didn't do the trick?'
'Or was given to her later.'
'Take her kicking and screaming and subdue her after?' I asked. Kaden shrugged, so I added, 'What kind of struggle?'
'Sheets dragged off the mattress, stuff knocked from the night-stand, alarm clock lost its battery at ten twenty-seven.'
'How old-fashioned.'
'A battery-operated alarm clock?'
'The clue.'
'You have a suspicious mind.'
'Let's make use of it.'
'We're not gonna invite a key suspect to dick around in our investigation.'
'You don't need to invite me anywhere. Just let me look at photos from the scene. See the body, how it was left. Maybe something'll trip my memory.'
'Memory of what?' Kaden eyed me, then tapped Delveckio on the knee with his file. 'Let's go.'
'Whether you believe me or not, I don't know what happened the night of September twenty-third. And whether you believe me or not, I want to know if I did it. You need answers. You're professional interrogators. I assume you're capable of getting what you want from me without giving up what you don't want to.'
Kaden stared at me, then chuckled and tossed the file on the table, the papers spilling out. I spread them across the surface. They were laser printouts, pretty good resolution, with multiple duplicates of each shot.
Kasey Broach's naked body had been dumped under a concrete freeway on-ramp. She lay on her back, chin tossed up and to the side as if she were trying to flip the hair from her face. A nasty abrasion mottled her right hip, and the skin looked split on her right cheek. Her wrists were bound with tape, her ankles with white rope. Around her, weeds pushed up from cracked asphalt. The skeleton of a fence remained in the background, chain-link sloughed from three remaining posts. A beater of a coupe sagged on slashed tires, windows smashed in, roof dented down to the headrests, hood dense with bird shit. Behind it on the sloping underbelly of the ramp, a graffiti artist had abandoned a work in progress.
A close-up showed Broach's arms spotted with marks where flies had started their work. For some reason they underscored her death. So helpless, incapable of swatting a bug feasting on her.
I stared at Kaden. ''The killer duplicated every specific'? Of Genevieve's murder? Are you kidding me? He kidnapped a woman, drugged her, moved her body, stripped her, bound the wrists and ankles, and dumped her in a public place.'
'There are an alarming number of similarities,' Delveckio said.
'As for the differences? We usually see an upward evolution as a killer grows more experienced, learns from prior mistakes.'
'You neglected to mention that earlier, when you were busting my door down. Why do you think she's naked?'
'Growing bolder,' Kaden offered, studying me closely. 'Could be part of a growing fantasy.'
'Or he stripped her for the bleach washdown,' Delveckio added, 'which meant he knew we'd analyze the body for trace and foreign biologicals.'
'And? Was she raped?'
Delveckio shook his head.
'What'd you find?'
'Aside from your blood and your hair?' Kaden flipped through his notepad. He tapped his pen to the paper. 'Ah, here it is: None of your fucking business.'
'Bruising at the wrists and ankles would indicate she was bound before the fatal stabbing, no?'
The detectives exchanged an irritated glance but didn't respond. Crafty detective work, keeping me in the dark like this.
'The Sevoflurane. She was kept alive. Unlike Genevieve. Points to sadistic tendencies?' I returned their stares. 'Blink twice if I'm getting warm. How about the abrasions on the hip and cheek? From being thrown out of the vehicle?'
Delveckio gave me the sour face, but Kaden just grinned his amusement. 'You know, we got some experience with bodies,' he said. 'Maybe even as much as you.' His cell phone chimed, and he glanced at it, then nodded at Delveckio and stood. 'You're not our partner. You're not a cop. You're a fucking writer. And, according to your first verdict, a killer. When we require your help, we'll question you.'
As they gave me their backs, blocking the mirror's view of me, I slid a handful of printouts from the table down into my lap. The move was purely, bizarrely instinctual.
