“I’m sure it is.” Mary looked around, and everywhere were the signs of the police investigation; a fresh blue bootie used by crime techs lay curled up on the floor, large sections had been cut out of the bloodstained rug to be analyzed, and black smudges of fingerprint dust marred the surfaces in the living room and kitchen.
Bennie and Lou came over, joining Mary and Judy, and the four of them formed a forlorn group around the bloodstain. Bennie shook her head. “Oh, man. What we really want is John back. What we’ll settle for is justice. I say it every time, I think it every time. Justice is only a consolation prize, and even so, it’s still the best one going.”
Lou hung his head, the wrinkles of his face deepening with sadness. “Ain’t that the truth. Judy, we’re real sorry.”
“Thanks.” Judy held the photos to her chest. “So what are you guys thinking? I’m not much help yet. It’s hard to get my brain in gear.”
Bennie patted her shoulder. “Okay, let’s get busy. Carrier, where would the lamp usually be, the one that the killer used?”
Judy pointed. “It used to be right here, on the end table on the right side of the couch. John used to work on the couch with his laptop, or read. He liked the focused light, and the lamp had a shade that faced down.”
Bennie nodded. “So it’s clear the way this happened. There’s no sign of any forced entry, so John must’ve let somebody in, somebody he knew or at least wasn’t threatened by. They started talking on the couch, maybe sitting down together, this way.” She gestured to the couch and its matching chair, catty-corner. “The killer picks up the lamp and attacks John, who fights back. These chairs are too heavy to be knocked over, but everything else gets knocked over.”
Lou nodded, listening. “But the killer killed him with the base. He might’ve taken the lamp outta the base first. It lifts right out of the center, like, it swivels. He prolly threw it aside. You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”
Bennie half-smiled. “If so, the killer’s prints will not only be on the base, but also on the arm of the lamp and maybe even the shade. Judy, do you remember touching the arm or the shade?”
Judy brightened a little. “No, I don’t think I did. The shade gets hot when you use the lamp. You’re supposed to use a low wattage bulb, but John always used a higher wattage so he could see better. And this was his side of the couch, not mine. I may never have touched that lamp.”
“Okay, that’s good. Score one for us.” Bennie walked to the bedroom, taking pictures with her cell phone. “I assume you guys had your argument in here and that’s how Barbara Mulcahy saw you through the window.”
“Right. We were in the living room too, but on Saturday night, we were in the back bedroom.”
“Let me see.” Mary slowed her step as she entered the bedroom. She felt uncomfortable as if she were intruding on John’s privacy, especially when she caught sight of his beloved black Mont Blanc pen on the dresser, which he always used to sign pleadings. It was next to a pump bottle of eyeglass cleaner and a special gray cloth, and she suppressed a twinge of sadness, remembering that she used to tease him about cleaning his glasses so much. And next to that on the dresser sat a sales receipt on top of an unopened box of Bose headphones that he was undoubtedly going to give to William.
Lou and Bennie crossed to the window, taking pictures, and Mary forced herself to focus. There was a queen-size bed with a blue comforter and a wooden headboard flush against the wall on the right, and the dresser and a closet with a sliding door on the left. Between the two was a double panel window, covered only on the bottom by one of those top-down shades that roll from the top down, not the bottom up.
Lou lowered his cell phone, frowning at the shade. “I have these shades too. They let in the light at the top, but they block the view from the neighbors.”
Bennie took another cell-phone photo of the shades. “Exactly, so how does Barbara Mulcahy see anything? Carrier, did John open the shades every morning, so they roll all the way down?”
Judy appeared at the threshold. “No, not generally. We left them that way. It’s the southern exposure, and we liked the light coming in at the top. We left them just the way they are now.”
Mary went to the side of the window. “So Judy, is this how you remember them that night?”
“I don’t remember them that way, but that’s probably how they were.”
“Lou, here.” Bennie dug in her bag, produced a tape measure, and handed it to Lou. “Get me the dimensions of the window and measure how much of it is covered by the shade. I want to be able to reproduce this exactly. When you’re finished, we’ll roll the shade down all the way and see how far Mulcahy’s window is from this window, as well as the angle.”
“Okay.” Lou started measuring and making notes on his cell phone, and Bennie turned to Mary and Judy.
“Ladies, this is also good for us. It makes me question how much Mulcahy could actually see of the apartment. I’m assuming her apartment is on the second floor, roughly level with this floor. There’s not a lot of three-story buildings on these blocks. If she’s on the second floor, she can’t see anything through the lower half of the window.”
Mary sensed Bennie was right. “So maybe she sees what’s going on only when they stand up. Judy, does that sound right, on Saturday night?”
“Yes.” Judy nodded sadly. “Sometimes he was standing up and sometimes I was or we both were.”
Lou clucked, as he measured. “So that answers one question. She definitely couldn’t have seen John with the killer in the living room, or anybody in the living room, not through the window at this angle.”
“I agree.”
“Okay, done. Ready to roll down the shade.” Lou pocketed the tape measure, rolled down the shade, and they all gathered at the window, with Mary in front, since she was the shortest.
“Mulcahy’s not home now,” she said, looking into the darkness. Across the way was the back of another block of row houses, and they were all two stories. Nobody was home in the house directly behind this one, on either side. Each house had a small backyard, fenced in by wooden privacy fences or cyclone fencing, and one or two were paved for private parking spaces. Otherwise cars were parked lengthwise on both sides, probably illegally.
Mary looked around for a streetlight or any other kind of light, but there weren’t any. “I’m surprised there’s no lights back here, not even one.”
Bennie frowned. “It’s a private drive, so the city doesn’t light it. There may be lights on motion detectors down there, but we won’t know until we walk it.”
Mary’s thoughts raced. “This is more good news for us, isn’t it? It supports the theory I told the police, that the killer could’ve entered the apartment in the back and not been seen.”
“You’re right.” Bennie smiled, and Mary looked out the window to the left to see the black-iron lattice of the fire escape going from John’s office and down the back of the house.
“Look! The fire escape is right there, off the office window.”
“Understood.” Bennie nodded with approval. “It’s a completely alternative theory. Somebody enters the apartment through the fire escape, an intruder or burglar. He could have surprised John in the living room, while John was working. The killer sneaks up behind him, they struggle, he kills John with the lamp base and steals the laptop and phone, if that’s what the police meant by electronics. We have yet to find that out, by the way. We need to know what was actually taken. We’ll have to get his phone records, too.”
Mary nodded, grimly. “It’s a good theory, assuming the office window isn’t locked.”
Judy’s face had gone pale. “It won’t be. We never locked these windows. John loved fresh air. He worked in his office all the time with the window open.”