threatened to kill him afterward. I'm thinking she may have made good on the threat and then killed herself afterward.'
'Name?' Audrey asked.
'Of the rape victim? Latty. That's all I have on her so far.'
'Wait a minute,' Kramer objected. 'Wait just a damn minute. You're telling me the floater is a rapist? How do you know that?'
'Because I saw it,' I snapped. 'On tape.'
'He did it at D.G.I.?' Audrey asked.
'That's right.'
'What's a D.G.I.?' Kramer demanded. 'Sounds like the two of you are talking in code.'
'Designer Genes International. That's the biotech company down on Western where Don Wolf worked. When he brought the girl into his office, a hidden security camera recorded the whole thing.'
'The rape you mean.' Kramer grinned. 'That sounds pretty kinky. Where can I get a copy of this tape, or are you putting it out on a pay-per-view basis?'
Pocketing her notebook, Audrey proceeded to the apartment door. 'We could just as well get started,' Audrey said. 'You've called for a crime scene team?'
'They were summoned the same time you were. They should be here any minute.'
Without entering the room, she turned on Sam Arnold and fixed him with a reproving stare. 'When we go on in, stick close to the wall and well away from any footprints or spatters. You got that, Detective Arnold?'
Kramer's hapless new partner cringed under her gaze. Something told me this wasn't the first time he had dealt with the lady.
'Got it!' he repeated quickly. 'Yes, ma'am.'
Out in the hallway, the awful stench had dissipated a little, but once inside the apartment, the odor was again overpowering. We headed toward the bedroom, following the same circuitous path I had used earlier. Sam Arnold made it around the perimeter of the room all right, but as he neared the bedroom door in the hallway, the smell proved too much. He began making a small gurgling noise in his throat.
'Oh, for God's sake, you useless little wimp,' Kramer growled. 'Get the hell out of here before you barf all over our shoes.'
Retching, and trying to cover his mouth with his hand, Arnold bolted for the door to the apartment. He made it to the outside hallway, but just barely.
Audrey sighed and watched him go. If there had been footprints to be found in the carpeting of the doorway, they were gone now, mashed flat by Detective Arnold's pell-mell retreat. 'Damned kids!' she muttered, shaking her head.
Rank has its dubious privileges. In a world of parallel bureaucracies, an assistant medical examiner outranks mere detectives. Kramer and I followed Audrey into the gore-spattered bedroom. Seattle isn't known for having flies in the dead of winter, but I heard an unmistakable buzzing of flies as we made our way into the room.
'Am I having a hot flash or is it hotter than hell in here?' Audrey demanded.
'It's hot,' I said. 'I checked the thermostat as I came by. It's set at eighty.'
'Eighty? Christ!'
'You want me to turn it down?'
Audrey shook her head. 'We'd better leave it where it is, at least until the crime scene techs show up. Of course, by then, we'll all be baked to a crisp.'
Taking the lead, Audrey approached the bed from the left-hand side. 'Yikes,' she said. 'The whole back of her head is gone.'
'After you,' Kramer said, motioning me forward with an exaggerated bow.
Following the same path Audrey had taken, I, too, approached the bed. Because I had been watching my feet, I was right beside the bed when I finally looked up. The first thing I saw was the woman's lifeless left hand dangling over the side of the bed-a left hand with a wedding ring. I didn't recall that the girl on the tape had worn a ring of any kind. And looking further, at the terrible carnage of the bed itself, I realized at once that my initial theory was wrong. The exiting bullet had destroyed the back of her head, but the face was pretty much intact.
'It isn't her,' I said. 'It isn't who I thought.'
'First it is and then it isn't,' Phil Kramer said tauntingly from over my shoulder. 'Make up your mind, Beaumont. So who is it now?'
'Don Wolf's wife,' I answered.
'Are you sure?' Audrey asked.
'I think so, although I've only seen her picture. Her name's Lizbeth. She's from La Jolla, California. Bill Whitten told me that when Don Wolf moved to Seattle a couple of months ago, she stayed put in California waiting for the house to sell.'
'So maybe some of your guesswork isn't so far off the mark after all,' Kramer said. 'And maybe it's still murder and/or suicide. Supposing the wife found out her husband was up here screwing around. She probably came looking for him with blood in her eye and then did herself in afterward. Closing these two cases should be duck soup.'
'Nobody's closing anything until I know for sure who she is,' Audrey Cummings snapped. 'I want positive I.D. Comparison with a picture isn't good enough. I'll want fingerprints and dental records or both.'
'This must be the place,' Janice Morraine said from the doorway, announcing the arrival of the crime scene investigators. 'It's hot as blue blazes in here. You don't expect us to work in this much heat, do you?'
Janice, a criminalist by trade, is the lead crime scene investigator for the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab. Those who make the mistake of calling her a criminologist do so at their own risk. Smart ones never make the same mistake twice.
'It's hot all right,' Audrey replied, 'but don't touch that thermostat until one of your guys dusts it for prints.'
Behind me, Kramer heaved an impatient sigh. 'Dust it for prints? How come? The woman blew her brains out. Don't tell me we're going to squander the next three days jumping through hoops and treating the scene like it's from a multiple-'
'There's a weapon here on the bed. Looks like a three fifty-seven. That may be what killed her. For right now, I'm calling it homicidal violence. It was obviously close range. It may turn out to be suicide, but I doubt it.'
Kramer groaned. When you're on a fast track, cases cleared in a hurry look better than those that take longer. A call of homicidal violence meant our job was just starting.
'What makes you say that?' he asked.
'The wall,' Audrey Cummings answered confidently. 'Women don't usually go out in ways that leave that kind of mess for somebody else to clean up.'
'Mess?' Kramer echoed.
'Mess,' Audrey Cummings repeated firmly.
'Okay,' Janice Morraine said, taking charge. 'You'd best move out of the way and let us get started.'
While Janice Morraine and Audrey Cummings conferred near the bed, Kramer led the way out of the room. 'I've never heard anything so dumb,' he grumbled under his breath.
'I think I'd shut up about that if I were you, Detective Kramer,' I told him. 'At least as long as Audrey Cummings is within earshot.'
'But the mess? What kind of fruitcake reason is that?'
I shrugged, enjoying Detective Kramer's annoyance. 'When it comes to women,' I told him, 'like it or not, there are some things you just have to accept on faith.'
Seven
I followed Kramer out of Don Wolf's apartment, directly into the arms of Captain Lawrence Powell, who saw me and did a double take. 'Watty said Detectives Kramer and Arnold were here. I thought you were supposed to be working on the floater?' he said.
