“Sergeant Breem,” Hernandez said, extending his hand in introduction. “I’m Detective Ryan Hernandez with the LAPD. This is our profiler, Garland Moses. We appreciate you letting us participate in the investigation.”
“Are you kidding?” Breem said, almost laughing. “We’re glad to take a backseat on this one. Not to be insensitive, but Barton isn’t an easy guy to root for. He’s been nothing but a challenge since he and the missus moved here. We’ll give you all the support you need but when it comes to dealing with that guy, we formally defer.”
“Where is Mr. Barton?” Hernandez asked.
“He’s at his house. It’s right next door. If you listen closely, you can probably hear him yelling at my officer right now.”
“We’ll hold off on chatting with him for a bit then,” Hernandez said, turning to the coroner, a youngish guy named Pugh. “What do you have so far?”
“Body temperature indicates she died less than three hours ago. Ligature marks and subconjunctival hemorrhaging strongly suggest strangulation. There’s some bruising on the arms and chest, indicating a possible altercation before death. No sign of sexual assault so far.”
“Anything else?” Hernandez asked.
Sergeant Breem piped in.
“We found a bottle of wine with a note in the kitchen. It looks like a housewarming gift from her. The note suggested the victim thought she had a new neighbor. But the couple that owns the house hasn’t moved. They’re on vacation but aren’t renting the place out.”
“That’s odd,” Hernandez said.
Breem nodded in agreement.
“We think someone may have been in the middle of robbing the place when she came over. Or possibly someone saw her go in and followed.”
Hernandez looked over at Garland, who didn’t comment on the theory. Instead he bent down near the body and studied the stocking still loosely wrapped around Barton’s neck.
It was an odd choice for a murder weapon. Garland had seen lots of strangulations, many using wires, extension cords, and even bare hands. But he couldn’t recall anyone ever being choked to death with a stocking.
It looks expensive.
He looked up, about to ask if anyone knew the brand. But seeing that the foyer was exclusively populated by men, he made a mental note to do some research of his own later.
“Can someone bag this?” he asked.
A crime scene tech stepped in to do exactly that, picking up the stocking with forceps and dropping it in an evidence bag.
“I doubt we’ll be able to pull any prints off it,” Breem muttered. “The place has been wiped clean of them. Whole sections of the house don’t have any at all, not even from the homeowners. Whoever did this was diligent about cleaning up and seemed to wear gloves the entire time.”
“Any chance of getting skin or hair fibers off the stocking?” Garland asked the tech.
“Possibly. But I see bits of material on it that also suggests the perpetrator might have been wearing gloves. We’ll let you know.”
Garland let Hernandez and the MBPD focus on the minutiae of the crime scene while he wandered around the house, trying to get a sense of what might have happened. There was no sign of an altercation anywhere else, which made him suspect that Breem’s theory—that she was followed in or walked in on something—had merit. He knew she’d at least made it to the kitchen before anything happened. But where else she’d been in the home was a mystery.
“Garland!” he heard Hernandez call out.
He walked back into the foyer where everyone was looking at him expectantly.
“Yes?”
“Garth Barton wants to talk to you,” Hernandez said. “He’s insisting on it and supposedly getting snippy.”
“Let’s go,” Garland sighed. “I wouldn’t want to keep the VIP waiting. Where was he when this went down, by the way?”
“He volunteered that he was driving home and on a phone meeting the whole time,” Breem told them. “He says his commute home takes about seventy to eighty minutes a day. We’re confirming it all. But if he’s being honest, he’ll have an alibi for the window of death.”
“That’s unfortunate if true,” Garland muttered under his breath.
“Why?” Breem asked.
“Because if it wasn’t the husband, we’ve got a real challenge on our hands: highly trafficked area, little security to speak of, and minimal physical evidence.” Then, unable to keep the weary cynicism out of his voice, he added, “I don’t envy the people who have to solve this one.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Kyle Voss woke up the next morning and bounded out of bed.
He dropped to the floor and immediately did a hundred push-ups. Then he did a three-minute plank, followed by fifty burpees. Happily drenched in sweat after only being awake for fifteen minutes, he went to the bathroom and stripped naked.
Staring at himself in the mirror, he couldn’t help but admire his physique. Two years in prison may have put a pause on his professional life but it had done wonders for his body. He was harder and fitter than he’d been since his high school football days. At six foot two and an unyielding 215 pounds, he honestly thought he’d be passable as an NFL safety. His blond hair was still quite short, a remnant of his prison buzz cut. His blue eyes were clear.
He hopped in the shower, which he turned all the way to cold. He made sure to scrub every inch of his skin, refusing to hurry and refusing to shiver. When he was done, he toweled himself off and put on his favorite suit. This was an important day and he wanted to look good.
He’d been keeping a low profile since he got out of prison, laying the groundwork for his upcoming plans without drawing too much attention to himself. But all that would change today. This was the start of his public reinvention. It was crucial to his overall plan and had to go well. He felt a funny flicker in his stomach and eventually managed to identify it as nervousness.
The schedule for the day was quite involved. Even though the judge had dismissed his case, Kyle still had to meet with a parole officer twice a week. He didn’t mind. Acing those sessions would pay dividends when his character was inevitably questioned down the line.
After that appointment, he had a meeting with his recently created foundation, WCP, which stood for the “Wrongly Convicted Project.” It dispersed funds to charities that provided legal support to prisoners fighting false charges. It also allowed Kyle to perform some clever accounting magic, which he would eventually employ to help some friends he’d made behind bars.
After that, he had an interview with a local news station about the foundation. He’d been meeting with a media relations expert who’d taught him how to focus on the foundation without getting caught up in unpleasant conversations about the reason he was convicted in the first place—that whole mess with Jessie. This would be his first attempt to navigate those choppy waters.
Once the news interview was over, he had one of another kind. He was meeting with a wealth management firm based out of Rancho Cucamonga, not far from his Claremont townhouse. He’d moved to the charming college town, over thirty miles from downtown Los Angeles, so that no one could credibly accuse him of trying to intimidate his ex-wife. And if the interview went well (he’d been assured by his friends in Monterrey that it would) he’d have an imprimatur of legitimacy that would be crucial to the work he had planned in the coming weeks and months.