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The Emergency Response Teams pulled out of San Rafael Avenue just after midnight, ambulance shrieking down University Boulevard toward Lomas. The scene was owned by the police now, front yard barred by a yellow ribbon of tape, warning: CRIME SCENE‒DO NOT CROSS.
Two officers flanked the front door eyeing the curious public and the responding officer was jotting down a few statements and making a witness list. An Asian woman was barely able to choke out a statement, said Zarah had not been seen for two days and the dog was a mess. No food, no water. Could have been three days for all she knew.
Malin stood on the curb hugging a notepad, eyes drawn to a sprinkle of rain in the beam of a street lamp. She turned her mind to the victim, Zarah Thai, a young woman who lived alone with her dog, ordered a pizza like she did every Friday night. She was found tied to a chair and gagged and had somehow managed to chew through the brown packing tape in her mouth. She had been vomiting on and off for twenty-four hours. This wasn’t the work of a street thug, a gang, or a sophisticated assassin. It was too personal for that.
Malin’s mind returned to Paddy Brody because to her he was showing all the classic signs of restlessness. She had likely shaken him up a little, made him nervous, made him look in his rearview mirror a little more often than he used to. Tried calling him a few times, but he never answered, and the word transparent kept buzzing around in her head.
A cackling laugh brought Malin’s mind back to the present, Unit Commander Roach was sharing a joke with an agent. It wasn’t until Roach raised his voice to officer Maynard, who was hunched over the roof of his unit and shaking his head vigorously, that she realized what had happened. Surveillance had failed. Her belly was already smoldering with hot needles of dread.
She took a gulp of fresh air and then another. Every crime scene stayed in her head, blinking in and out until the next one came along. In this case, there were ribbons of twisted cord hanging from the back of a chair and a puckered area rug spattered with dried blood and vomit. Tiny heels had hammered and hammered on that hardwood floor in the vain hope someone would hear her.
All the other rooms appeared undisturbed, no sign of a struggle, and one window had been smashed by the responding officer. Most of the other windows wouldn’t budge, wood frames warped from the recent rains or painted shut some years before.
Make-up was scattered about on the dressing table and there was an open pot of moisturizer with a deep indentation in the cream. All bagged and taken, including a fluorescent green tennis racket Malin had found behind the bedroom door. Then there had been the inevitable disagreement between the police officers and detectives as to how the perp got in and subtle whispers about Maynard.
Malin watched the Field Investigators and a group of Crime Scene Specialists as they emptied trash cans and nodded to each other in a silent language only they knew. Matt Black brought out a pizza box sealed in a plastic bag and swinging from two fingers. Dark hair in a schoolboy cut and a cheeky grin, he stood beside her silently for a few moments, lips forming words around a stutter. He clearly read the wretchedness on her face and went off on one of his little-known-facts rampage.
“Lucky she wasn’t gagged with duct tape,” he said. “Wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
Malin thought about that for a moment. It meant the crime hadn’t been well thought through. Meant the killer was getting sloppy.
“Sugar cane, almonds, wheat... they all contain a little cyanide,” he said. “Green potatoes contain glycol alkaloid. Too much of that and you’d be in a polished mahogany casket with a cream interior.”
“And how does that have anything to do with a pizza?” Malin asked.
“I’ve seen pizza sprinkled with Romano and Parmesan. But I can’t say I’ve ever seen one powdered with Rodenticide. Nor have I ever heard of anyone eating such a high dose.”
“She must have been hungry.”
“I think what you meant to say was, why didn’t she notice anything odd about the taste before she polished off three quarters of it? Thing is, they usually come in pellets, only this was ground down and mixed with extra mature cheddar. Of course we’ll run tests, but that’s my gut feeling.”
Malin felt her stomach contract. Matt would have stuck a nose and a finger in it if he had to.
“We had rats in the stables when I was a kid,” he said with a sad smile this time. “No amount of sign language could have coaxed my mom’s deaf pug out of those feed bins. Ate over three pounds of it right there in front of her. Took a few teaspoons of hydrogen peroxide before he threw up. Then came the activated charcoal, the plasma transfusion and treatments of vitamin K. But he survived.”
Malin loved dogs, couldn’t abide the thought of one dying from rat poison. “I hope Zarah will be OK.”
Matt gave a brief nod and then walked toward the criminalistics motor home. He paused in the middle of the street in front of Commander Roach, then turned and stared at her with a lopsided grin. “Want to go out for lunch sometime?”
“I don’t think I could eat anything after seeing that.”
Matt gave her a curt nod. “Temeke’s in the living room measuring the distance from the wall to the doggie door. He’ll be out soon.”
Malin blew out a large cloud of breath and thanked him. Never thought Matt liked her. Not like that.
She glanced through the front door, saw the back of Temeke’s head peering over the inner tape at the core of the crime scene. Black as midnight and damn fine. A man who read forensics textbooks every night, majored in psychology and criminal justice and had a brain like a sponge when it came to character patterns. She felt a rollercoaster of adrenalin, couldn’t stop stealing looks at him.
He was a bugger too. At least, that’s how the British described each other, and he was uncompromising and tenacious to a fault. In short, he stood out from his peers because of his background; behavioral science training wasn’t for everyone. That’s why Hackett kept him, even at the risk of losing a certain rapport he had gained with District Attorney Theodore L. Meyer.
She glanced down at the notepad in her hand, the diagram of the sitting room and the victim’s chair. Two words she always wrote in the margin. This time; anger, separation. She was never sure where these words came from, a primal sense, a whisper that seemed to wedge them there.
She stayed by the front door and smiled at the young Asian woman who was trying to dab her nose with a handkerchief. The man beside her gripped the collar of an energetic Dalmatian whose lips were wrapped around a butcher’s bone.
Malin wondered if Zarah Thai had been a specific target, vulnerable as she was. The pizza box came from a recognized chain of restaurants and for one naïve moment Malin wondered if it had been an accident. But no ground up rat poison mixed with cheddar cheese was an accident. It was more likely a spiteful afterthought.
A jealous boyfriend? It certainly wasn’t spontaneous, rather orchestrated by someone who knew Zarah liked pizza, or knew she regularly ordered one on a particular night.
Malin considered a man with a key to the house, but that didn’t wash, not with the threat of a police unit outside. She thought of someone in a neighboring house who had access to the back yard, or someone who had been inside the house all the time. Poison was too subtle for a man and she jumped to the natural conclusion that it had to be a woman.
She also jumped at the loud sigh behind her. Temeke was on the doorstep, slipping off a pair of shoe covers and gloves and slapping them on the lid of a nearby trash can. He walked further out into the street, lit a cigarette and then turned around to face her.
“Notice the word on the kitchen doorframe?”
She hadn’t but she nodded all the same.
“E-S-T-H-E-R-I.” He paused for a second to take a drag. “What else did you find out about Paddy Brody?”
“Glad you got my messages, sir.” He gave her a look as if to say yeah, so you followed Paddy and Adel to a gloomy wood, who gives a crap, and flapped a hand to invite her to continue.
“I tried to call him. No answer,” she said. “So I called his roommate. He said Paddy has counseling with Pastor Razz at Clemency Baptist Church on Thursday afternoons and classes at Gibson on Monday and Wednesday. Said Paddy could get weird sometimes. Started talking in his sleep about Lily Delgado. Thought you might be interested.”
“Time to bring Mr. Brody in.”
Malin could see a ripple of excitement on his face before he became distracted by the open door.
“They’re still bloody measuring and drawing sketches, Marl. Poor girl must have been in agony, stomach stripped down to the quick. Damn lucky she was found by a nosy neighbor.”
He jutted his chin at the man and the Dalmatian, and then came up close enough that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “Found the dog outside the front door, whining and scratching at the paint. Neighbor rapped on the window of the cop car, roused young officer Maynard over there from his forty winks and told him to get his ass into gear. Since there was no answer when he rang the bell, Maynard muscled his way through the garden gate and broke a window. And there was poor Zarah Thai tied up and unconscious. Of course, he never saw anyone go in. Or out, for that matter.”
“Why are we always hurting for witnesses?” It was Malin’s turn to sigh.
“I bet that’s every copper’s cry.” He flicked a hand at the responding officer and asked to look at his notepad. “Anyone I need to talk to?”
Officer Maynard shook his head. “All I saw was a pizza van. Guy rang the bell and left the box on the doorstep.”
“Did you get the license plate? Nah, I didn’t think you did. Color.”
“Gray.”
Temeke’s head snapped up. “What did he look like―”
“Black woolen hat, dark hair down to his collar. Five seven, a hundred and twenty-five pounds, or thereabouts. It happened so fast. The van was rattling down the street before I had time to think about it. None of the neighbor’s saw him.”
“Bloody typical, isn’t it. All glued to the TV, blinds drawn, no one doing neighborhood watch. It’s a pity because we are entitled to know the methods maniacs use to destroy lives.” Temeke gave a tight grin and eyed the Unit Commander on the other side of the street. He gave Maynard a dismissive nod and turned back to Malin.
“Look on the bright side, love. At least you don’t have to deal with that skinny old git over there fog-horning into his hanky. We’re lucky to have Hackett. If he had half the brains of Roach we’d have been given our marching orders by now.”
A fleeting glance told Malin the balding Commander standing in front of the motor home was no pushover. Roach had a somber face, steel gray hair and what Temeke frequently described as a poncey scent. He hated smoking and if he found so much as a whiff on his patch, the offender was sent packing for violating the crime scene.
“Aren’t you going back inside?” Roach shouted, finger pointed at Temeke.
“I’ve already been, sir,” Temeke replied, clearly sounding puzzled at such an obvious question.
“What’s that smell?”
“Smell, sir?” Temeke threw the cigarette behind him, gave it a cursory glance and ground it under his heel.
“Should have gotten here sooner. You’d have caught him in the act.” Roach straightened up, walked on over and stood right in front of Malin. He listened intently as Temeke introduced her.
“I’m glad you’re here to look after Temeke.”
“Look after him, sir? I wasn’t aware he needed looking after.”
“You’d be surprised what he’ll get up to unsupervised.” Roach looked at her and did not add that he expected her to agree with him. But it was implied in a quirky smile. “I heard you got a little bonus.”
“A bonus, sir?”
“Hackett only rewards the best,” he said, tapping his nose.
Malin stood still, breath suspended, wondering what type of gratuity he was referring to and how little it really was. She felt her spirits rise. About time those ridiculous hours she’d been pulling were noticed for once, especially the entire reorganization of the cold case files which were a shambles before she was hired. And here was Temeke scuffing moodily at the remains of his cigarette on the pavement because no one had said anything to him. She wanted to laugh.
“Awful, what happened.” Roach narrowed his eyes and looked past them at the house. “Things are getting worse out here, drugs, gangs, murder... and we’ve not even made a dent in it. I was only going over the figures with my sergeant this morning. Criminal mischief, dead bodies, behavioral problems, DUI, and that’s only if you don’t factor in traffic stops―”
“It’s not gangs,” Malin spoke up. She sensed Temeke’s head snap around, sensed his scrutiny.
“You don’t think so?” Roach said. “’Cause it’s important to me what you think. That’s why I asked you both here.”
“I think it’s a lone assassin, sir. Someone with a personal grudge. A revenge thing... you know.”
“Can’t say I do.”
“Including Alice Delgado, we’ve got three murders and one attempted murder. I say including Alice Delgado because all the victims went to Los Poblanos Academy. At the same time.”
“Alice Delgado was a suicide.”
“What if it wasn’t? What if it was somehow staged... made to look like a suicide? These aren’t a bunch of thugs executing girls with a bullet through the head. It’s too exotic for that. Feels personal, don’t you think?”
“If indeed they are linked.”
“What if they all played tennis at Tanoan Country Club? What if they all had the same sexual partner?”
“It would be unusual to have the same sexual partner, my dear. We don’t have harems in New Mexico. Don’t have the stomach for it. Or the culture.”
“No, of course not, sir.”
Roach’s eyes moved past hers to the front door of the house and he nodded to someone inside. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, eyes forward as he brushed past her.
Malin walked back to the car with Temeke in silence, turned on the ignition and headlights, and then rubbed her hands against the air vents. “He jumped at the sexual partner comment. Wasn’t interested in tennis.”
“Some people prefer sex to tennis. And a small portion of tennis could be termed as erotica. Seen how short those skirts are?” Temeke lit up another cigarette and switched his attention to officer Maynard, whose car pulled out of the road first. “Poor old bugger. Can’t see him making sergeant any time soon.”
“More victims... how does it look if we can’t protect them?”
“Thinking about Adel Martinez?”
“I’m thinking about better surveillance.”
“Volunteering?”
“Commander Roach has assigned two officers day and night. But Adel’s getting past them. And since suspects are still pretty thin on the ground, someone needs to stay in the house.”
“Not our area, Marl. But I’ll put in a good word at Southeast Area Command. And no, I won’t mention you followed Mr. Brody to a restaurant the other night and that Ms. Martinez was packing illegal goodies down that tight little blouse of hers. Or that you didn’t bring her home when you had the chance. Don’t want to ruin that nice bonus now, do we?”
Malin merely snorted. Temeke offering her services to Detective Suzi Cornwell was the last thing she needed, but she knew the case, knew the witness. It was likely Suzi would agree.
Temeke looked unnerved, like he knew there was something strange out there. “Did you notice the Dalmatian? Sodding big dog. Sodding big lamb shank and all.” He whistled softly to show he was impressed, raised his butt off the seat a little to retrieve a ringing phone.
“Yeah,” she murmured, and then it hit her. The doggie door wasn’t big enough for a full grown man, but it would certainly accommodate a boy.
Temeke turned slowly to face her, phone pressed against his ear.
“Go ahead, Luis... She’s what? You’ve got to be bloody kidding.”
