By late afternoon the next day, Colleen still hadn’t heard from Lynda. She hadn’t heard from anybody. At one point, she picked up the phone just to check for a dial tone, make sure the thing still worked. Her answering service, likewise, had no new messages. Outside, the fog had given way to soft rain.
She called Lynda’s house. No answer.
How could Colleen have gotten it so wrong? She had really thought Lynda was going to come through with some money. There was the threat of SFPD.
So much for intuition. She slipped on her bomber jacket over a white T-shirt and jeans. She’d make one more attempt to convince Lynda to do the right thing.
She checked the window out front on Vermont. No white van lurking.
She got her junior burglar tool kit and headed over to Lynda’s house on Colon Avenue.
No lights were on as she drove by. No car in the driveway. Odd.
She parked down on Monterey, got her PG&E hard hat, clipboard, threw on a plastic raincoat, headed up to Lynda’s house with her bag of tools. Rang the front bell on the gate, just to make sure Lynda wasn’t home. No answer.
The squeal of small wheels caught her attention. Colleen turned her head slightly to see a young woman in a scarf pushing a baby carriage.
“Problems?” she asked. She had a high voice.
“No,” Colleen replied, looking at her clipboard. “Just a follow-up.”
Damn. She waited until the woman moved by.
Colleen followed the same brick wall alongside the house she’d taken the other day when she broke in. She got to the emerald green door. No one at the window of the house next door. She slipped on her gloves.
The lock to the green door to Lynda’s yard was still the way she’d left it, broken. Lynda either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t had time to make repairs. Checking around, Colleen let herself in. The side door to the garage was still easy to pick.
Lynda’s black BMW was not in the garage.
Colleen entered the kitchen through the garage quietly, tiptoed in.
No breakfast dishes out, no box of cereal, no carton of milk. A couple of unfinished TV dinners sat on the yellow tile counter. A half-eaten Salisbury steak and a barely-touched Mac & Cheese. Colleen suspected Lynda had the former, Melanie the latter. Lynda Cook, master chef. And even though she owned a snazzy Kenmore dishwasher, none of the dirty dishes in the sink had made it that far.
A half-empty bottle of vodka sat on the kitchen counter, along with a near-empty can of Tab, next to a spanking new Radar Range microwave oven. The latest gadget. It didn’t look like anyone had had breakfast, going by Lynda’s fastidious kitchen habits.
In the living room, Colleen was surprised to see more disarray. The place had been neat enough yesterday when she stopped by. The stereo was lit, but no music was playing. The crocheted sofa blanket trailed across the floor. The brass floor lamp by the sofa lay on its side, the shade snapped off, halfway across the room, misshapen. A tall glass had spilled off the coffee table onto the rug.
Colleen got on her hands and knees and sniffed. Vodka and Tab would be her guess.
She stood up.
Did Lynda drink herself silly last night, stumble off to bed after trashing the living room? She might have had a rough night, dealing with the pressure of Colleen’s twenty-seven-K demand.
Colleen headed up the stairs. And that’s when she noticed the movie poster for Deadly Blessing lying on the floor of the landing. Glass was broken. Shards lay on the rug below. The frame was cracked.
Colleen heard the murmur of a television upstairs. Coming from Melanie’s room?
Maybe someone was home.
“Hello?” Colleen said evenly. “PG&E. There was a gas leak reported. Anyone home?”
No response.
She headed up to Melanie’s room.
The small TV was on at low volume. The bed was unmade, and clothes and shoes were scattered by the closet. A can of Coke lay spilled across the rug. Not like the room she had seen before.
Colleen went over, turned off the TV.
Something wasn’t right. Her heart thumped with anticipation.
She crossed the hall to Lynda’s room.
Lynda’s bed was unmade, the covers pulled off to one side. No big surprise there, but the side table drawer was pulled open, the drawer that Colleen had opened the other day and discovered a baby-blue-handled pistol and dildo.
She stepped around the bed to investigate.
And jumped when she saw Lynda Cook, twisted and bent, facedown on the floor, in a silk dressing gown barely covering her naked backside. Her blond hair was matted with thick, congealed lumps of blood and brains surrounding an ugly hole in the back of her head. The blue shag rug directly below was a thickening crimson blotch.
Colleen had seen dead bodies in her time, but you never really got used to them. She let her stomach settle. It took a while.
Heart pounding, Colleen squatted down to check Lynda’s pulse, knowing she was far too late. Lynda’s wrist was stiff and stone cold, even through Colleen’s gloves.
As much as she hated the thought, the first person who came to mind was Steve.