The houses on Wildmarsh Street were similar in architecture to Hoyt Lane. The place, nevertheless, had a more hip vibe, the cars parked – VW beetles and battered pickups – along with bicycles hooked onto gates and drainpipes, clearly shouting student. Beta Rho Sigma was an old sorority dating back to the Thirties. It rented some of the best houses in the district and must have employed a contractor to take care of the neat garden wrapping itself around the plot. On either side, two private residences squeezed up against the lawn. Space, it seemed, had always been at a premium here. The house where the murder occurred was set back from the road. A newer building, apparently also rented by the sorority, stood in what once must have been the house’s garden. To approach the scene of the murder, the killer must have walked in the dark down a passageway passing the newer home.
As a sorority house, there would have been other students going in and out of the building, but police had still pinned the crime on an out of towner. Carla agreed with the detectives’ theory that the house had been directly targeted. College girls held an unhealthy attraction to predators and if it wasn’t for the building in the old front garden, Carla would have gone for a random attack on a student house. However, the more accessible building would equally have served the killer’s needs. He had risked drawing attention to himself by making for the harder to reach house, although his reasons for doing so were unclear.
A girl sporting two braids answered the door with an air of anticipation. She was wearing a furry gilet along with sliders which Carla had an idea cost a fortune.
‘Come in. This is very exciting.’
Not if you’d seen the photos, thought Carla, but the girl was just out of high school so deserved a little latitude.
The new tenants had been in residence only a few weeks and there was still an air of transience about the place. There was a rota tacked by the front door with trash duties for each student and a reminder that everyone washed up their own dishes. The tang of fresh paint was just discernible, as the place was probably given a fresh makeover at the end of each academic year. When her mobile rang, the student made her excuses and went out, leaving Carla with a dark-haired girl in oversized jeans and a cropped top who’d come into the vestibule.
‘The detective who called said you worked at the university.’
‘I’m in the archaeology department.’
‘Cool. I’m Kaitlyn – I’m majoring in American Literature. It’s my room where the girl died unfortunately. Do you want to follow me down to the basement?’
Carla passed a communal living room, small kitchen and a bedroom on the ground floor. The other bedrooms along with a bathroom and a small laundry space were down a steep set of stairs.
‘How do you feel about sleeping in the basement, especially given what happened in your room?’
‘I’m fine with it. They’ve massively increased security since the murder. We can shutter the windows, double bolt the doors. I feel pretty safe.’
Kaitlyn had only partially unpacked and clothes were strewn across the bed. From a quick glance, Carla saw the room bore no resemblance to the photos she’d recently seen. All the furniture had been changed and the walls had been painted a dark cream. Kaitlyn continued to chatter at her side.
‘We knew all about the killing, of course. Rooms are in short supply, so we were lucky to get a place and none of us are really spooked about it. There was no trouble at all last year.’
Carla nodded, trying to hide her disappointment at the altered appearance of the room. ‘I’ll take a look outside if that’s OK.’
As she passed, her eyes were drawn to the window where three dark marks had been seared into the old pine on one side of the frame.
‘What’s this?’
Kaitlyn moved forward. ‘They look like burn marks. A candle must have been put on the sill. You can see the shape of the flame.’
These were the jottings Lauren had made into her final notebook; they were flames that she had been trying to decipher. Carla could only guess what notes she’d made at the time of Madison’s death, but these marks had continued to gnaw away at Lauren. She had been doodling them as she noted down the three numbers and circled Baros’s name.
‘Can I take a photo?’
‘Sure. They’re only candle marks.’
But not where a candle would have stood. Someone, with a taper in their hand, had held the flame against the wood and a long-buried memory was stirring. Carla was itching to get on the internet and check out the marks but, job done, Kaitlyn was hurrying her from the house.
There was a huge ash tree in the garden with a seat surrounding its trunk. Carla sat down, feeling the damp seep into her jeans. The rustling of the leaves overhead should have been soothing, but Carla’s eyes were focused on the surroundings. A killer had visited here with death on his mind and it was possible there was a link with Tiffany Stoker’s death. Scorch marks had been used as house protection and if the killer was responsible for the marks, it suggested once again the use of ritual to ward off evil. Even if this was the case, however, it didn’t explain why this house had been chosen. Grass, the ash and a picket fence. It presented to the world an ordinary Jericho home.
Giving up, Carla picked up her bag and went back to the car. The place made her jittery and she couldn’t shake off that she was plunging herself into danger. She wondered who else Viv had told about her witch bottle theory, Baros and Perez certainly, and possibly Albert, although she had pulled Carla away from him to discuss the case. Her danger, surely, would not come from those three. Carla was so deep in thought she didn’t notice that her phone, which she’d left in the dashboard drawer, was ringing. She answered it, fumbling at the screen.
‘It’s Jack. Jack Caron. Anna’s got a fundraising dinner tonight and it’s women only. I wondered if you fancied a drink at Morrell’s.’
Carla paused, confused. Was that what married men did on a Saturday night while their wives were elsewhere?
‘I thought we could have a catch-up. We could do coffee if you’d prefer.’
Carla considered the empty evening lying ahead of her. There appeared to be nothing underhand in Jack’s invitation, but drinks alone might be misconstrued by a casual observer, especially in a bar as busy as Morrell’s. ‘How about dinner instead?’