‘Crime Scene has already videoed,’ Rick said as the Beamer pulled up in front of a pretty mint-green house with beautiful carved oak and etched glass double front doors. Yellow crime-scene tape crisscrossed one of the doors, blue roofing tarp covered a missing glass panel. Under an expansive overhang, a couple of MDPD uniforms stood guard, chatting. Above them, a witch, dressed in a flowing black gown and neon purple striped socks, had crashed head-on into the stucco. Two obvious undercover cars – a Chevy Impala and a Ford Taurus – blocked an MDPD Crime Scene van into the driveway, and police cruisers from both Coral Gables and Miami-Dade PD dotted the perimeter of the corner house. Across the street, Julia spotted a blue Channel Seven news van, its forty-foot satellite antenna artfully dodging not just telephone lines, but the towering, old eucalyptus and ficus trees that shaded the stately block.
‘So you’ll get to see what it looked like yesterday when the uniforms went in and before the techs trampled over everything important,’ Rick continued, looking past her at the house himself. It’s always good to visit the actual scene, no matter what the crime. That’s not always practical, I know, but a scene never looks the same in pictures or on video as it does in person. It’s like going to a hotel, you know? The room’s either better or worse than what you’d expected when you looked at the brochure or went on the website. Plus, when you get your detectives on the stand and they’re describing a scene, you can see it. You know what the house smells like; how you could hear the neighbors upstairs arguing. There’s even a taste peculiar to each crime scene. Then you can take what you’ve seen and tasted and heard and felt and you can tell the story to the jury the way it needs to be told, with the detail it needs to be told in.’
In the front yard, tiny, handmade ghosts danced in the thinning branches of an oak tree. As Rick talked, Julia watched them spin and twist in the breeze. On the neat front lawn, she could see a tricycle, a slip-and-slide, an oversized bouncy ball stuck in the bushes. The green canvas top of an elaborate wood swing set peeked over a black iron fence that ran alongside the house. Behind the fence was probably a pool full of even more toys. Toys that would never be used again. A strange, uncomfortable, heavy feeling settled in her stomach, like she’d swallowed an entire jar of peanut butter and it had gotten stuck on the way down. It was hard to imagine this Norman Rockwell house was a crime scene. It was really hard to imagine just what might be waiting inside that would still warrant the presence of so many police officers …
Besides the sudden shock of nerves that had turned her Lucky Charms to rubber cement, Julia felt a little ashamed, too. She’d never worked what Charley Rifkin would call a ‘real’ homicide before, but she still knew how they were investigated. Everything personal, anything private, inside that house was now subject to unlimited inspection by complete strangers. That meant drawers would be picked over, the tiniest of boxes opened, notes read, closets pilfered. And even though she’d never met young Jennifer Leigh, who was only four years older than herself, she still knew that there were things in that pretty mint house of hers that she’d never intended for anyone to see or read or hear. Ever. Because every woman had something – love letters, racy Saturday-night lingerie, pictures, a revealing journal. Now dozens of hands would be rifling through those special somethings – Julia’s included – touching them, photographing them, commenting on them, interpreting them. Perhaps what was most ironic, she thought grimly, was that even when the case did finally end – however that ending might come to pass – those private special somethings would still forever be stored away in some evidence locker, administratively categorized under Florida law as a very public record. She made a mental note to clean out her own cluttered closets when she got home tonight.
‘Ready?’ Rick asked, turning off the engine.
A sudden, hard thwack on the driver’s side window made her jump in her skin. Standing outside Rick’s window, in a slightly rumpled blue suit and a dress shirt the color of chewed Bazooka bubblegum, with microphone in hand, was Channel Seven field reporter Edward ‘Teddy’ Brennan. Julia recognized him from the Trauma News at Ten, although she thought he looked smaller in person than he did on TV. And, thanks to the metrosexual wonders of make-up, a lot tanner, too.
‘Hey there! Teddy Brennan, Channel Seven News,’ he yelled. ‘Can I talk with you?’
Behind Brennan stood Willie Nelson with a big, expensive camera on his shoulder. Sporting a foot-long faded yellow-white beard and matching braid down his back, unfashionably ripped jeans and a Dark Side Of The Moon T-shirt that looked like it probably came from the 1973 Pink Floyd concert tour of the same name, the only thing missing was the guitar.
‘I should have figured he’d still be lurking around,’ Rick grumbled. ‘Watch yourself around this guy, Julia. Brennan’s a shit. I’ll handle all the press on this,’ he warned in a low voice, opening his door. It wasn’t a date, so she immediately opened hers and stepped out.
‘Mr Bellido, is this officially your case now?’ Brennan asked, following Rick as he walked past the police barricades and onto the sidewalk. ‘Can you identify any suspects for us yet? Your office looking at making an arrest sometime soon? Should people be worried there’s a murderer on the loose? How about warning the anxious public with a description, some details, maybe?’
‘Alright, step back,’ said one of the uniforms who had walked across the lawn. He pointed at Brennan and his roadie. ‘Behind the horse. That’s what it’s there for, guys.’
Brennan ignored him, and, as if he’d just gotten a great idea, practically ran back behind the car over to where Julia stood on the grass. ‘Are you with the State Attorney’s, too?’ he asked.
Taken off guard, she nodded.
Like a shark to chum, the questions hit hard and fast. ‘How’d they die in there, huh? Is it true they were mutilated? Is this a ritual killing? What about the father? Have you guys questioned him? Is he gonna die, too? Why doesn’t your office want to make a statement on this?’
Julia turned away toward the house, and quickly followed Rick up the brick walk, careful to keep her eyes on anyone and anything but Teddy Brennan. Just the nod had probably given him too much. She knew she had a crappy poker face – heaven forbid it was a look from her that silently confirmed to the media that David Marquette was not just a suspect, but the suspect. Damn. Hopefully Charley Rifkin and the State Attorney himself wouldn’t see her nodding dumbly on the ten o’clock news. On the marigold-lined path before her she spotted what remained of a colorful chalk hopscotch board, its playing pieces of rocks and bottle caps still deliberately scattered inside the numbered boxes, as if the game was still in play. Next to it, someone had scribbled ‘Emma Luvs Tiler Stamm’ inside a lopsided heart. Someone else had tried to scratch out ‘Emma’ and write ‘Vicki’. She stepped over the marigolds and walked on the lawn.
‘This isn’t a press conference, Mr Brennan,’ Rick called out behind him as he opened the front door and he and Julia stepped into a huge marble foyer. ‘When I want to hold one, I’ll let you know.’ The door closed behind them with a thud.
‘Scumbag,’ Rick said under his breath as they stepped down into an enormous living room. Voices could be heard down one of the halls that shot off the living room. ‘Latarrino?’ he called out, disappearing down one of them.
She stood there in awe. She’d never been in such a big house. Such a perfect house. A stunning stone staircase, wrapped in a decorative wrought-iron railing, hugged a two-story faux-painted wall. The floor was a polished marble with square Brazilian cherry wood inlays. Expensive knick-knacks lined the shelves of an ornate curio cabinet and family pictures dotted an oversized buffet table. But for the thin coating of black dust that covered the glass coffee table and window sills, everything looked Architectural Digest perfect. At least from where she stood. The same foreboding, uneasy feeling she’d experienced in the car was back with a vengeance. It was like a horror movie. Any moment now she was going to find out why people were leaving the theater screaming.
‘You coming?’ Rick called out, walking back in.
She nodded. Something crunched under her feet.
‘Careful. Uniforms had to break the window to gain entry when they responded. I guess it hasn’t all been cleaned up. Don’t slip.’
She followed Rick into what looked like a busy, cluttered all-white kitchen. The latest decorator gadgets and appliances crammed marble countertops, as did miscellaneous baskets of kitchen junk, and stacks of cookbooks and cooking magazines. Jennifer must have been quite the chef – or at least liked to look like she was. Julia herself had trouble boiling water. Next to the sink she saw that cleaned baby bottles had been carefully laid out on paper towels, dishes for the morning left to dry in the dish rack. A morning that never came, she thought somberly. The always-happy Wiggles smiled at her from atop a pile of children’s books on the breakfast bar, next to a stack of clear evidence bags and red evidence tape and the smallest baseball mitt she’d ever seen; a Wiffle ball and plastic bat sat on the bar stool below. Standing around the kitchen’s island, with their backs all to her, were two guys in MDPD CRIME SCENE polo shirts, another uniform, and what looked like a plain-clothes detective, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to the elbows, a Glock holstered to his hip. A set of legs stuck out from a cabinet underneath the island’s sink.
‘He’s having trouble with the trap,’ said the plain-clothes with a chuckle as Rick walked up. ‘Like you need a degree in fucking rocket science to be a plumber. Yo, Satty, you want me to call Roto-Rooter to help you do your goddamned job?’
‘Fuck you, Brill,’ said a voice from under the sink.
‘Hey, guys …’ Rick said, his voice trailing off in a not-so-subtle way. He nodded behind him in Julia’s direction. ‘You want to watch yourselves?’
‘Whoa, excuse me,’ said the plain-clothes, turning around. Short and stocky with an extra-full handlebar mustache, he had a conspicuous, perfectly round bald spot in the back of his head that made Julia think of the dead patch of lawn left behind when you put a kiddie pool away at the end of the summer. He looked her up and down with what was either a half-smile of approval or a smirk of disappointment. She couldn’t tell which. ‘Didn’t realize you brought company with you, Ricky.’
‘Steve Brill, this is Julia Valenciano. She’s working this with me. Julia, Steve’s a detective with the Gables.’
‘Are you interning?’ asked Brill.
‘She’s a prosecutor, you ass,’ Rick shot back.
‘Whoops, I’m sorry,’ said the detective, raising his hands up. ‘I’m just gonna shut up now.’
‘Finally,’ said the voice under the sink.
‘You got it?’ asked Brill.
‘No, I don’t got it. But you’re finally gonna shut up.’ The room snickered.
‘That’s it. I’m calling in a plumber, you incompetent—’ Brill looked over at Julia again, hesitated, then finished his thought,‘—jerk.’ The next two seconds passed in awkward silence. She turned away, pretending to look out the sliding glass doors that led to a tropical backyard and the pool. And more uniforms.
Julia now knew what it must have felt like to be the first female sportscaster let into the men’s locker room. She wasn’t just the sole woman on this scene – a fact she was already acutely aware of – but she was also at least ten years younger than everyone else in the room, and, to put the icing on the cake, she was a lawyer. There were women in law enforcement – lots, in fact – but no matter what the person keeping track of the quotas in the front office might say, it was still a boys club. And if they could, most of those club members would gladly hang a ‘No Girls Allowed!’ sign on their station doors if the federal government would just let them. Then there was the fact that she was an attorney. Just because cops and prosecutors worked the same side of a case didn’t always make them the best of friends. It was well known around any courthouse that cops didn’t like lawyers. While ASAs had more redeeming qualities than their defense counterparts, they also had the unfortunate job of breaking bad news. So sorry, but the career criminal you stopped with the stolen goods on his front seat who gave a full confession will be going home today because something went wrong. Wrong with the stop, the search, the evidence, the confession, the ID, the law. And no one liked the bearer of bad news, especially when the bearer bore the ultimate power to drop charges. Top it off with a substantial age gap and pre-file conferences could get downright hostile.
‘What are you guys doing?’ asked Rick when no one said anything.
‘Cleaning out the asshole’s sewer line – what the hell do ya think we’re doing? We’re taking the traps.’ He looked back over at Julia. ‘Oh shit. Sorry for the language. Again.’
She shook her head. ‘That’s okay. Please, don’t worry about me.’
‘Speaking of sewers,’ said the legs with what sounded like a laugh.
‘Keep at it, Satty,’ Brill said, giving the leg closest to him a half-hearted kick. ‘And don’t forget your day job, now.’
‘Never. Besides,’ the legs said with a final grunt, ‘I got it. Hand me a bag.’
‘Where’s Latarrino?’ asked Rick, looking around.
‘Yeah, I’m happy to see you, too, Ricky. Thanks for exchanging pleasantries,’ Brill quipped. ‘Lat’s upstairs. Master bedroom, I think.’
‘You’re looking good, Steve,’ Rick said, slapping the detective’s shoulder. ‘The Rogaine looks like it’s working.’
‘That’s better,’ replied the detective with a laugh.
‘Okay, Julia, let’s head up,’ said Rick, turning to her. ‘That’s where the bodies were found. Let me show you what we got.’
‘Hey, Ricky, can we arrest this asshole yet?’ called out Brill.
‘Soon,’ Rick yelled back from the living room. ‘Let’s see what the dad of the year has to say when the anesthesia wears off. And besides, I’m not picking up the tab he’s running over at Ryder, Steve.’ The state of Florida was ultimately responsible for providing medical care to any person in their custody. Arresting David Marquette now might make for a nice lead-in on the five o’clock news, but it also potentially could mean footing the bill for his surgery and hospital stay. In a setting where an aspirin cost upwards of twelve bucks a dose, that could amount to a pretty outrageous sum. One that Julia figured the taxpayers of Miami-Dade County probably wouldn’t like to hear they’d be shouldering.
‘Oh shit,’ she heard Brill say to the guys in the kitchen. ‘I did it again.’
‘My kid makes you pay him a dollar if you say a curse word,’ someone said.
‘He must make a fortune off your fucking mouth, Ed,’ joked another.
‘College fund’s paid off.’
Everyone laughed.
‘ “Are you an intern?” You’re a fucking idiot, Brill,’ said Satty.
‘What? I think I have suits older than her.’
‘I could see that,’ someone said. ‘Maybe you should think about getting a piece.’
‘Fuck you, too, Burke,’ said Brill. ‘I ain’t wearing no toupee.’ Then he yelled out, ‘Hey, Julie, sorry about the language.’
‘No problem,’ Julia replied, with a sigh she made sure no one else could hear as she followed Rick up the stairs.