“Ma’am,” Deputy Copsey says with a nod and a grin as Sheriff Gray and I come up on the front stoop. He knows I hate being called “ma’am.” It’s his way of telling me I’m one of the crew. One of the guys. One of the troops. I don’t care if I am. I have a job to do.
“Deputy,” I say, and smile.
Copsey writes our names on the log. He will note everyone’s comings and goings and record the times.
A crime scene deputy I don’t recognize is laying a folded white sheet on the left side of the carpeted stairway. He’s wearing white Tyvek coveralls with the hood pulled up, gloves, seafoam-green paper booties. He comes back down the stairs, careful to stand on the folded sheet. He hands us gloves and booties. Sheriff Gray has a little trouble with the latex gloves. His hands are sweaty and the gloves stick to his skin. The crime scene guy offers me a hair net. I decline by staring him down. I’m getting good at that.
He gets me back. “This way, ma’am. Sheriff. Stay on the sheet.”
I don’t correct him about the “ma’am” shit. I’m standing at the base of the stairs. My imagination is on crack. Sheriff Gray hasn’t remarked on the condition of the body except that I won’t recognize the victim. That speaks volumes.
I start up the stairs and the smell gets stronger with each step. I wonder if stink rises, like warm air. The carpeting is a deep-pile mix of gray and black and tan fibers. It’s been a while since it was vacuumed. I always assumed Monique was a clean freak. She must have changed.
With each step I expect to see blood. Yet there isn’t any. I get to the top of the landing and the tech leads us down a short hallway. Doors are open on the left and right. Straight ahead a door is partially open to what looks like a half bath. There are little decorative towels hanging beside the sink. Unused. The neighbor told the sheriff that Monique had moved in about two weeks ago.
She wouldn’t have used this room.
The tech leads me to the door on the right. I know the room on the left will be facing into the woods, and so I suspect this room will have a view out over the water. The room comes into view in slices as I slowly move up to the doorway. A tallboy dresser is against the wall to my left. The top is bare. No photos or trinkets. I take another step and see a door just beyond the dresser. Probably the master bath. The door is open and another white-clad tech is bent at the waist, a camera clicking away.
On the far side of the room is a bay window with sheer curtains and room-darkening shades. The shades are halfway open and the sheers distort the light. A bed is to my right with a king-size mattress and an expensive-looking royal blue duvet. The carpeting is thick, cream colored. The tech in the bathroom doorway is straddling what looks like bloodstains.
The body is not on the bed or on the floor. It helps to think of her as “the body” and not Monique. I have distanced myself from her as a person.
There are faint smudges, pinkish smears, on the carpeting between the bathroom and the bed. Someone has stepped in the blood and tracked it across the room to the foot of the bed. It passes through my mind that there’s something odd about the smudges. If a shoe had smeared the blood, the edges would be defined, sharp, rounded. Instead, it looks like a hand was dragged across the carpeting.
Then I see it.
Toes and a heel.
The killer had been barefoot.
There’s no indication of a struggle in the bedroom. There was no sign of that downstairs unless it was in another room. A squat double dresser is set against the wall under the bay window. On top of this are several framed pictures. Monique and her daughter, Leanne. Another of just Leanne. Leanne with another older girl and a young boy. The boy is maybe six years old and is looking up at the girl with a smile that reaches from side to side. Leanne’s older sister is Gabrielle. The boy is Gabrielle’s son, Sebastian.
I dread notifying Gabrielle that her mother is dead. I know Sheriff Gray will offer, but I have to do it.
Five
Early Monday morning
From the boat she could see a truck with SHERIFF’S OFFICE markings arrive. She had binoculars with her but didn’t use them yet. She wanted Rylee to come. The truck had parked in the yard and an older, heavyset man got out. She focused the binoculars on his face. It was Sheriff Anthony Gray. He was approached by the old woman with the dog. The woman was pointing at the house and then holding her nose. The dog was straining against the leash. The smell of rotting meat must be intoxicating to an animal. It had been two full days since the killing. Before she’d left the house, she’d turned the thermostat all the way up.
The sheriff was telling the woman something. Probably to stay there. Then he went up the yard and inside. He came out within minutes and went to his car without speaking to the woman, who was trailing along behind him, nearly dragging the dog behind her.
It would be a while before Rylee was called. She went below deck, made a strong drink, got the camera with the zoom lens, put on a wide-brimmed beach hat and went back out. She turned her deck chair to face the shore. She was wearing a black one-piece with a cover-up and sandals. She focused the camera on Sheriff Gray and the old woman and snapped a few shots. The sheriff was writing something in a notebook and then motioned for the woman to leave. He didn’t have to insist. She tottered off, dragging the pooch on his leash.
The next to arrive was a white van with a flower shop logo on the side. Then another van, this one with two deputies. She had pictures of them, too, but didn’t have their names. Yet.
The sheriff spoke to them and they began putting white coveralls on. She ignored them. She only wanted to see Rylee. The bitch had taken everything from her. She would wait until she could see the look on Rylee’s face when the sheriff told her what had happened inside. She wished she could be inside the house when Rylee saw the body. She should have put a nanny cam in there. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. Even if they’d found the nanny cam, she wouldn’t have cared. She could buy one at Walmart with cash and it would only add to the fun. “Next time,” she muttered.
She leaned forward and focused the binoculars on a car pulling in. It was the Taurus driven by Rylee, who was going by the name Megan Carpenter here. Her real name was Alexandra Rader, Alex Rader’s illegitimate daughter. But she would always think of her as Rylee.
She’d taken plenty of pictures of the car and Rylee in the parking lot outside the Sheriff’s Office and in front of Rylee’s place in Port Townsend. The car’s paint had oxidized. Rust spots were already blooming around the pitted wheel wells. That was how much her Sheriff Gray thought of her. She didn’t deserve a better car. In any case, she wouldn’t need it much longer.
She’d learned about Monique from Michael Rader. Michael had led her to Monique, and Monique had led her to Rylee.
The plan had gone well. She’d befriended Monique and convinced her to find Rylee in Port Townsend and warn her about Michael. Monique had asked her to help and, of course, she’d agreed. Monique would go ahead, and she would come in a few days’ time. She needed the time to locate Monique’s daughter and obtain the drug she would need to create the perfect crime scene.
She focused the binoculars again. She watched as Rylee talked to Sheriff Gray. He was old and tired looking. He should be retired. She might help him along. But not yet. There were others she had to deal with first.