CHAPTER SEVEN
It was close to midnight when Lacey and Jack made it back to the tiny police station along with Terry and Mathews. They’d left Garcia at the cabin to wait for the transportation to take Will Marino’s corpse to the morgue, where he’d join his ex-wife. Terry had decided to process the cabin thoroughly in the morning, when there was more light and his men weren’t about to fall over from exhaustion.
When Dr. Pillai had shown up at the cabin, he whipped out a miracle sprayer that shooed the flies away. But by the time he arrived, there were already fewer flies, and from the little Lacey remembered about entomology, that meant they’d already laid all their eggs. She didn’t care to be present for the second stage, when the eggs hatched into maggots. With his flashlight, Dr. Pillai confirmed an entry wound in Will’s soft palate and Lacey’s findings that there’d been no exit hole in his skull.
“He looks like a thick-skulled kind of guy,” Dr. Pillai had commented with typical medical-examiner humor. “I’ll find out for certain tomorrow. I’ve seen .22s do this before. Now, if it’d been a .38 or .45, we’d have a big mess to clean up. He’s kept it simple for us.”
Terry had winced at the doctor’s blunt observation, and Lacey wondered if Terry had encountered head-shot victims before. Or if he simply had a good imagination.
“I grabbed the wedding dress and veil from the morgue,” Dr. Pillai had told Terry. “I figured since I was seeing you tonight, I’d hand it off.”
“Thanks for saving us a trip. There was nothing else on her body?” Terry asked.
“No. She was naked under the dress. The veil was the only other physical item.”
Lacey still was stumped by the wedding dress. She wondered if the killer had dressed her. Or had Patty put it on before she was killed? She doubted it. Most women would have at least worn panties.
Lacey was starving, and there wasn’t a 7-Eleven or Denny’s within fifty miles. Little in the small town was open after 8:00 p.m. Twenty-four-hour gas station? Forget it. Instead, they were making do with a fresh pot of coffee from the ancient coffeepot, and half a box of stale donuts. Terry had commented that they were lucky there were any left at all.
She followed Terry into the conference room and collapsed in a chair. Maybe it was time for her and Jack to go home. But Jack looked energized. He and Terry had talked the entire way back to the station, bouncing ideas off each other about who could have staged the suicide in Will’s cabin. She doubted she’d be able to drag Jack back to the hotel.
Lacey’s cell phone rang. It was Dr. Pillai. “Hey, are you still with Chief Schoenfeld?” he asked.
“Yes, we just got to the station.”
“Put me on speaker. I think you’ll want to hear this, too.” The doctor sounded grim.
“It’s Dr. Pillai,” she said to Terry as she hit the speaker button. “He’s got something.”
“Go ahead, Doctor,” Terry said.
“I’m still at the cabin looking over some things, and you’ve got a timeline problem.” Dr. Pillai’s rich voice was tinny through Lacey’s speaker. “Will Marino was killed before your lady in the hot tub. There’s no way he’s your killer unless he pulled a zombie maneuver.”
Terry looked at Lacey and Jack. “Seriously? He died first?”
“Absolutely positive. This guy’s been dead over twenty-four hours. I’d say he was killed yesterday afternoon sometime, based on the bug life and decomp that’s started.”
Lacey remembered the swelling of Will’s chest. She hadn’t known if he was just a big guy or if his insides had already started to decompose and release gas.
“And his hands are too small,” stated the medical examiner.
“What?” asked Terry.
“The marks on Patty Marino’s neck. I could see every mark left by your killer’s hands. My own long fingers allowed me to put my hands in the killer’s position, but this guy has short, squatty fingers and hands. He couldn’t have made those marks.”
Lacey closed her eyes, remembering the arm that hung off the couch toward the gun on the floor. Satisfaction rolled through her; she’d been right about it not being suicide.
“His hands and arms don’t have the scratch marks I was hoping to see either. Maybe Patty didn’t scratch at her killer, but my gut tells me she did.”
“Anything else, Doctor?” Terry asked. He looked stunned.
“Isn’t that enough?” Dr. Pillai joked as he wrapped up the call.
“It’s a good thing we didn’t stop at the obvious,” Jack said.
“We’ve got to find out who else uses that cabin and who Will would have been willing to share beer and steaks with. And who used his phone after he died.” Terry looked at Mathews as he measured coffee for the maker. “Did you get the rest of the names of the guys who use that cabin?”
“I’ll check and see if I have any texts or e-mails,” Mathews said. “I left messages with a few people trying to track them down.” The cop disappeared down the hall.
“Hopefully, one of those keys Will had on him will get us into the Marino house.” Terry speculatively eyed Jack, who gave him a wolfish grin.
“You want to look tonight?” Jack asked. He sounded like a kid at Christmas.
What? “Seriously, you guys,” Lacey said. “Tonight? Doesn’t anyone need sleep around here?”
“Do you want me to take you back to the hotel first?” Jack asked. Clearly, he had no intention of missing out on Terry’s first look inside the Marino home. She was not going back to that hotel to sleep alone.
“No. I’m going where you go,” she said firmly, and his face lit up. Her fiancé clearly missed the investigative aspect of being a cop.
Jack jumped up. “Let’s go.”
The Marino house was a double-wide trailer. A nice one, Lacey had to admit, with two acres of grassy fields that shimmered in the light of the full moon. Someone had built a front porch on one side and a carport on the other. Flowerpots dotted the sides of the driveway. Even in the dark, Lacey could see that the flowers were drooping; they clearly needed water.
The four of them tramped up the stairs to the front porch, and Terry dug out the keys that Jack had taken from Will’s corpse.
“Garcia’s coming, right?” Jack asked.
“He’s on his way. Will’s body is on its way to the morgue. I told Garcia to go home, but he asked what we were doing. I think he wants to get a look at the Marino house, too.” Terry grinned at Jack and Mathews. “You cops are a nosy bunch. You’ll forgo sleep to get a look at some possible evidence.”
He found the right key and pushed open the door after glancing to see that the four of them were gloved and bootied. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.” He flipped on the light switches next to the door, and the inside of the home lit up.
The inside of the Marino home was eerily silent; the only noise came from their footsteps and the occasional creak of the floor.
Lacey’s goal was to find wedding photos. She wanted to know if Patty was in her own dress or someone else’s. Would wedding photos have survived if the couple divorced? She’d packed away her own in a box in the garage for several years, unable to throw them out because they’d been so expensive and she’d loved the images of her dress. She tossed them when Jack entered her life.
She watched Jack as he studied the inside of the home. He was a rock. Every day she counted her blessings that he’d found her and wanted to be with her. She knew she’d have more wedding photos one day.
Lacey scanned the artwork on the walls. All were simple framed prints. No photos of two people who used to be in love. There was no warmth in the house created by homey touches. There were a few dirty dishes in the sink, a few books and magazines on the table, and throw pillows on the floor. Lacey wondered if Patty didn’t have any skill as a decorator or if the home reflected how the two people felt toward each other. Empty.
The men were still examining the living room, and Lacey wandered down the hall, looking for photos and Patty’s bedroom. She got to the master bedroom and frowned. It was a mess. Not a mess like someone had thrown things around, but a mess like a slob lived here. Men’s clothes and dirty tissues lay everywhere. She backed down the hall two steps and pushed open another door. Here was Patty’s room. Apparently, Will had taken over the master.
Patty’s bed wasn’t made, but everything else was neat and clean. Still no photos on display. Lacey got on her knees and peered under the bed. She slid out several large boxes and started sifting through them. She found the wedding album in the second box. Patty hadn’t been able to throw hers out right away either. She flipped it open and smiled at the sight of the couple in love. Patty was beautiful, Will looked happy, and the dress was the one from the hot tub.
Lacey slammed the book shut. What had happened? How had two people gone from wedded bliss to murder? She’d spent a long time being angry with her ex, but she’d never been driven to kill him. Even after he’d put his fist through her face. Although that had finalized her decision to leave him.
Would she and Jack hate each other one day?
She thrust the thought out of her head.
Jack wasn’t her ex. What she had with Jack was different. They were meant to be together. She’d known the first time she saw him that he was going to be a big part of her life. A positive part.
“Lacey?” he called, his footsteps moving down the hall.
“In here.” She fought the urge to slide the box back under the bed, to hide Patty’s failed marriage, to hide her own old marriage. He stopped in the doorway, concern on his face. She understood. He needed to see that she was physically safe. He’d suffered panic attacks for a few weeks after he’d rescued her from the devil. His emotional healing was a slow process.
This house was unnerving them. The foreignness and the quiet and the knowledge that the occupants had died. There was an oppressive air in the home that gave her the creeps and was no doubt triggering his anxiety.
His concern seemed to vanish as she smiled at him. She stood up, brushing at her knees. “I found the wedding photos. That was Patty’s wedding dress. The veil, too. I wonder where she stored it.”
“Terry found a ripped piece of fabric in the living room. White stuff caught on the edge of the hearth,” Jack said. He took her hand and led her away from the photos. In the living room, Terry and Mathews were crouched next to the edge of the fireplace. Terry glanced up as she came in.
“Does this look like wedding-dress fabric to you?”
“It could be,” she said. The piece hooked on the sharp brick could barely be called fabric. It was a five-inch swath of sheer tulle. Exactly what Patty’s dress had been made of. Patty had been married during the ballerina-style era when wedding dresses were huge skirts of layers and layers of tulle. “Dr. Pillai gave you the dress back tonight, right? Did you leave it back at the station? We could see if it has a tear of this shape.”
“It’s still in my trunk,” Mathews spoke up. “I forgot to take it into the station. I’ll get it.”
“I’ll help you.” Lacey followed him out. She hadn’t told Terry she thought it was the same dress yet, because she wanted one more look at the bodice. The skirt was clearly the same, but she suddenly had doubts about the top of the dress.
Mathews hustled down the steps, jogged to his car, and stopped at the trunk, fumbling with the latch. “Can you hit the button on the inside of the driver’s door?” he asked her. “This isn’t working.” Lacey opened the squad car and peeked at the mass of buttons on the door. She didn’t see a trunk release. “Which one—”
She felt cold metal in her ear. A gun.
“Get in. You’re driving. Scream and I’ll shoot your brains out. I’ve already killed in the last twenty-four hours, and I’ve got nothing stopping me from doing it again.”
Lacey couldn’t move. Her brain shut off. Not again.
Mathews shoved her into the driver’s seat, and she fell forward, grabbing at the squad car’s steering wheel. “Sit!” he yelled.
She swung her legs in, and he slammed the door. And before she knew it, he was in the backseat with an arm around her neck and his gun in her ear again. Her breathing stopped and her hands turned to ice. He killed Patty. What does he want with me?
He briefly let go of her neck to lean past her and put the keys in the ignition. “Turn it on.”
With a shaking hand, she reached out and turned the key. Her foot moved automatically for the brake pedal. “I can’t reach the pedals.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” She felt him shift behind her as he reached between her seat and the door. A low hum sounded, and her seat moved closer to the steering wheel.
“How far?”
“All the way,” she automatically answered.
“Don’t even think of honking the horn,” he said at the exact moment the thought crossed her mind. He pressed the gun harder in her ear, and pain shot through her skull. “I’ve got nothing to lose tonight, and you’ve got everything.”
The seat stopped, and she tried to breathe evenly.
“Back it up and turn around,” he ordered.
The headlights went on automatically as she shifted into drive. “Where are we going?”
“The Pacific Inn,” he said in a weirdly happy voice, like they were starting a trip to Disney.
She turned out of the Marino’s long driveway and onto the main road.
What would Jack do when he realized she was gone?