A Clean Kill

Thirty-six

It took all morning for the preliminary work on the Perkins house to be completed. The process of uncovering Alison Perkins's body took over an hour longer. At this point Mike was long gone and Minnow had left the building only to return later. April, however, felt that she owed it to Alison to stay with her body until it was tagged, bagged, and taken away. It seemed that every month that task took longer and longer as crime-scene techniques became more sophisticated. By the time the assistant from the medical examiner's office got to the Perkins house, one corner of the bedroom had a sizable pile of waste from packaged test materials. The room was gritty with powders, and the odor of ammonia lingered in the room.

When Sergeant Minnow entered the room for the first time, he'd wrinkled his nose. "What's that smell, poison?"

"Smells like household cleaner to me," said Igor, the more experienced half of the CSI team.

Minnow frowned at April as if to say, What are you still doing here?

She smiled benignly at him as she gathered her thoughts. She had the same sense now that she'd experienced yesterday, that someone was sending a message. The first body -had been washed in the shower, the second possibly with household cleanser. What was that about? She shook her head sadly. She needed to see Alison's body, and it was taking forever. Igor and Tam, a new face in the unit, peeled back Alison's bedspread centimeter by centimeter, carefully checking for foreign materials of any kind, stray fibers, hair, a broken nail— anything at all that might have been left behind by someone leaving the scene. They picked off tiny items with tweezers. Dog hairs, people hairs, threads, and feathers—something that looked like a scab, but Igor identified as "probably a booger."

April glanced at her watch for the hundredth time. The minutes ticked away, postponing her long to-do list. She had that hair sample from the powder room in her purse. She had her own plans for it. She'd already raided all the hairbrushes in the house. It was too short and coarse for the little girls' hair. Too short for Lynn's as well. She'd made some notes to herself. Hair from the cleaning lady from yesterday? How long did it take for water drops in a sink to dry out? Could it still have been wet from the day before? Probably not. Maybe the killer's hair. What color?

Whoever it was had definitely been in Alison's closet, had been in the bathroom, had been in the sitting room. Lynn was sure the magazines had not been there earlier in the morning. Igor had tested them for prints, and all of them had been wiped clean. Maybe the exit path had been through the little sitting room, and the killer had stopped there to wash up. Another note to herself. Alison's rings were missing. What else?

Finally Igor and Tam lifted the rolled bedspread off the end of the bed and bagged it. By then there was no longer any doubt about the nature of Alison's death. Her body was clothed in a long white nightgown, carefully tucked around her ankles. Her hands were folded across her chest. The witnesses to the unveiling made a tableau around the bed— Sergeant Minnow, April, the assistant from the medical examiner's office, and Igor and Tam.

"Oh, Jesus," Minnow exclaimed.

The smell of ammonia was strong on the body, and it was clear that whatever mess Alison had made in dying had been washed away with household cleanser. Her body had been swabbed with it. The cameras started again, taking pictures of the dead woman from all angles.

"Some sick puppy, the person who did this," Minnow muttered.

No one else said anything. The assistant ME did a cursory examination of the victim's head, chest, arms, hands, and shoulders. There didn't appear to be any tissue under her fingernails, bruises on her neck, arms, shoulders, head. Just that horrible anguished face and the wide-open eyes. Her hands were paper-bagged anyway.

Minnow turned away. He was done there. "You got anything?" he asked April as they walked down the hall to the stairs.

She told him about her conversation with Lynn. "Was that guy who followed Remy one of your people?"

He laughed. "Uh-uh. Ours was a female. She didn't pick it up," he said with a moment of pride. "Yeah, we knew Remy came over here." Then he sobered quickly and ticked the events off on his fingers. "Let's get this straight. The two nannies meet for coffee at six forty-five. Yesterday's killer tells today's killer she's getting canned, so she offs her boss, too? What is this, the revenge of the nannies?"

April shook her head. "I'm seeing a small window of opportunity when someone close to the two victims knew they would be alone and vulnerable. Maddy Wilson was in her steam room relaxing after her workout. Her husband and her nanny were off together in his restaurant. We've got some witnesses to that. We talked to the chef last night. Wilson was taking inventory. Remy was with him. This morning, Alison had taken a tranquilizer, or possibly two, as was her habit when she'd abused too much. Yesterday was a stressful day for her, and she'd done too much cocaine, I'm guessing. She was popping Vicodin to come down and had gone back to bed for a nap. Again, Lynn was out taking the girls to play school. So in that window, I'm seeing someone else."

"Then you don't think it was either of the nannies?" Minnow said. They started down the stairs to the living-room floor.

"Remy was not truthful in her interviews, but I believe that was because she was having an affair with her boss," April said.

"In my book that's a motive."

April shook her head. "It's a reason to feel guilty."

"Sounds like a motive to me, but okay, have it your own way," he said as if he would never let that happen. "Just for the sake of conversation let's eliminate the nannies. Who then . . . the trainer?" He scratched his head as if he didn't like that idea.

"Well, no. I spoke to Dr. Gloss. He said Maddy Wilson's body was exposed to the hot shower for less than twenty minutes. That would eliminate him."

"No way!" he exclaimed.

"Working backward. Derek was in the deli at nine-oh-five and in his gym at nine fifteen. If Remy found the body and turned off the shower at nine forty-five, the attack would have happened after he left." It wasn't rocket science.

"You spoke to the ME?" Minnow said, sounding surprised.

"Yeah," April said modestly, because it was a coup to reach him. She stopped inside the front door of the house, not wanting to finish the conversation on the sidewalk surrounded by reporters.

Minnow screwed up his face. "So what's your hypothesis?" he asked.

"I don't know. But I was wondering, is there a surveillance camera here?'"

"No." He looked as if he wanted to know what she was planning, but was afraid to ask, so she helped him out.

"I'm going to talk to Remy again," she said. "She needs to come clean on everything she knows."

He nodded and didn't query where this interview was going to take place. Apparently he wasn't in the loop about what had happened yesterday. Then he said, "We'll be getting more people on this now. How about you give me your cell phone number so I can reach you if something comes up."

"Oh, yeah, of course," she said. It hadn't occurred to her that nobody had given it to him. She gave him the number. They opened the door, and the barrage of reporters' questions began.