Love Is Murder

II

As soon as Lucy stepped out of her room, she realized that shouts were coming from Trevor and Vanessa’s room. She ran down the hall to the last room on the right just as Kyle swung open his door across from the Marshes’ room. He was bare chested, and Angie had on a short robe. Both looked stunned, but Kyle took action and ran into the Marshes’ room ahead of Lucy.

“Vanessa,” Trevor moaned his wife’s name. Tears dampened his face as he shook the lifeless body on the bed. “Please wake up!”

Kyle froze inside the doorway. Lucy pushed him aside and went to Trevor’s side. She didn’t have to feel for a pulse; it was obvious that Vanessa had been dead for at least an hour. Her half-opened eyes were glassy and already had a thin, cloudy film over them, and her jaw and eyelids had already noticeably stiffened. Rigor mortis starts in the face and limbs and works inward.

“Trevor, put Vanessa down,” Lucy said calmly.

“W-why?” he cried.

Lucy quickly assessed the large room. It was L-shaped, with a couch and desk in a small area directly in front of the entrance, and the bed in the larger area to the left. Clothes had been draped carefully over the sofa, as if someone was deciding what to wear: a simple black dress; jeans and a cashmere sweater; and a blue sweaterdress. Matching shoes were lined up beneath each outfit.

Vanessa was on the bed in a thick white terry bathrobe, similar to the one Lucy’s sister-in-law had given her for Christmas last year. Vanessa’s long, golden blonde hair was damp and a bit stringy, as if she had brushed it after getting out of the shower but it had nearly dried before she could style it.

A prescription bottle was on the nightstand, along with a glass of white wine. Lucy squatted to read the label without touching the bottle, remnants of her training with the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office-not that this was anything but what it seemed.

The prescription was made out to Vanessa Russell for Seconal. Seconal was a common temporary sleep aid. The thirty-day prescription had been filled two months ago and appeared half-full-not uncommon, with the direction to use as needed for insomnia.

The DeWitts were still standing in the doorway when Grace came through saying, “Excuse me, please, excuse me.”

Lucy looked up. “Grace-”

“Oh my God, what happened?”

“You need to call the police.”

“Police? Why? Is she-”

“She’s dead,” Trevor moaned.

“But how?” asked Grace.

When Trevor didn’t answer, Lucy did. “We don’t know.”

Trevor rocked Vanessa’s body in his arms. “I don’t understand. Why would she do this?”

“What happened?” Grace asked.

“It could have been an accidental overdose,” said Lucy. “We don’t know how many pills were in the bottle. It’s an older prescription.”

Grace frowned. “But-she took pills, right?”

Lucy couldn’t say. On the surface it looked like Vanessa had taken sleeping pills-but there was no suicide note, no indication that she’d intended to harm herself. But if she wanted to take an afternoon nap, why take Seconal, which came with the warning to only take if you could sleep for eight hours because of possible side effects? Not that people followed the rules of their medications, but if Vanessa had been taking the drug for a while, she’d know its potential dangers.

That there was a nearly empty glass of wine was also disturbing, because anyone who regularly took sleeping pills knew alcohol enhanced the effect of the drugs, even within normal dosage.

Alan Larson popped his head into the room and Lucy said to Grace, “Get everyone out of here. Please,” she added as an afterthought.

She wasn’t a cop, but she’d been at enough crime scenes to know that contamination was a big problem. Not that this was a crime scene; it was technically an unattended death, but Lucy felt compelled to protect the body and the scene as much as possible before the police arrived.

Grace walked over to the guests and said, “Please go downstairs. Give us a moment.” She closed the door over concerned protests.

“Trevor,” Lucy said firmly, but with great deliberation and calm. “Trevor. Please.” She waited until he looked at her before she continued. “You need to put your wife down.”

Trevor stared at her. “Who are you?”

“Lucy Kincaid. We met last night, remember? At dinner, with my brother Patrick. You talked to him about how you grew up in Laguna Niguel. We’re from San Diego originally. Do you remember?”

Trevor nodded. “Can you help Vanessa?”

“Trevor, Vanessa is dead. You need to put her down.”

He blinked rapidly, then he looked at his wife as if he hadn’t realized he was still holding her in his arms. He stared at his dead wife for several moments. Grace tried to talk, but Lucy silenced her.

“Oh, dear Lord,” Trevor said laying Vanessa’s body back on the bed. He stood and looked at her lifeless body, finally understanding there was no bringing her back.

“Grace, please take Trevor downstairs,” Lucy said.

“You need to come, too,” Grace said.

“I will. I want to cover the body.” That wasn’t the complete truth.

“We can wait.”

“Trevor should go now.” She looked at Grace pointedly, and she didn’t know if the hostess understood, but she did walk Trevor out of the room.

“Let’s get a cup of tea, all right?” Grace said as she led Trevor out to the hall. She shot Lucy a scowl, but didn’t insist she join them.

Kyle DeWitt was still hanging out in the hall. Lucy said to him, “Please go to the barn and get my brother.”

“Can he do anything?”

“He was a cop for nearly ten years, he’ll know what we need to do since I don’t think the police or an ambulance will be able to reach us tonight.” Lucy also knew they had limited options-they had to get the body someplace cold to slow decomposition. Otherwise, as the gases and bacteria broke down, there would be a horrid stench, especially in the warm lodge. If the authorities couldn’t reach them by morning, they would have no choice but to move the body.

After Kyle left, Lucy closed the door and locked it before going back to Vanessa’s body. Six years ago she couldn’t have imagined viewing a dead body much less touching one, but between the sheriff’s department and the morgue, Lucy had lost any squeamishness she might have had.

She hesitated before touching anything else in the room. She saw a pair of leather gloves on the dresser, which she remembered Vanessa had been wearing that morning. Lucy put them on, then inspected Vanessa’s body. Touching her skin, she realized that rigor wasn’t well developed. Lucy would guess from the facial muscles and thin, cloudy film over her eyes that Vanessa had been dead at least an hour, but because rigor was still limited to the outer extremities, she didn’t believe she’d been dead longer than three hours. If she had more training, she might be able to pinpoint time of death more closely. The sooner a body was discovered, the more accurate the time of death could be determined, but coroners had more tools at their disposal, as well as more experience.

Lucy glanced at her watch. 5:24 P.M. Vanessa had died roughly between 2:30 and 4:30 in the afternoon. Lucy was confident that she’d been dead longer than an hour, but three hours was a guess, so she pushed her window to 1:30 P.M. Patrick had been an e-crimes cop and never liked forensics, but he also had a lot of training and might have more insight.

Lucy studied her surroundings, imagining the likely scenario that had led to Vanessa’s death. Shower. Bathrobe. Pills. Lucy had a degree in criminal psychology, but had studied a variety of mental illnesses, including depression. Identifying a suicide was difficult, but there were reliable indicators. Lucy hadn’t seen any of the standard signs of depression in Vanessa Russell-Marsh, though many clinically depressed people didn’t show outward signs, especially if they were on meds. Vanessa had been the quietest at dinner, but introverts were uncomfortable in groups of strangers and, like Lucy and Patrick, the Marshes had arrived yesterday afternoon. Vanessa had seemed to have a quiet affection for her more extroverted husband, and had been polite if a bit standoffish.

Suicides sometimes made themselves attractive prior to killing themselves-showering, putting on makeup, dressing in their nicest clothes-so that their loved ones would see them at “their best.” The shower itself didn’t throw Lucy off-it was that Vanessa had showered but not dressed or made herself up.

And why here? If it was an accident, why would she take sleeping pills in the middle of the day? Especially Seconal. It made no sense, and made it appear more like a suicide than an accident. Yet, just because the bottle was there didn’t mean Vanessa had ingested the pills. The bottle was half-filled and closed. But if she hadn’t overdosed on sleeping pills, what had killed her?

Lucy continued her visual examination of the body. Vanessa’s fingernails and toes were painted dark red, and it appeared fresh-no chips. Lucy couldn’t remember if Vanessa had painted nails last night, or what color they were.

Her engagement ring was a huge marquise-cut diamond. Too ostentatious for Lucy, but it fit Vanessa and she could see Trevor giving it to her. Her wedding band, on the other hand, looked like an antique, a thin, unpolished gold band with seven tiny diamonds embedded in an intricate pattern. It was dwarfed by the engagement ring, but Lucy thought it was the more interesting and attractive piece of jewelry.

What a waste, she thought. Vanessa was a beautiful woman, newly married to a man who appeared to adore her, and she was dead.

Always look from the inside out. Husbands, boyfriends, exes-nine times out of ten, when a woman is found murdered, it’s someone she knows.

Lucy frowned. Murder was a far cry from an accident or suicide. But the idea stuck in Lucy’s head that Vanessa hadn’t died naturally or by her own hand. Lucy looked at the scene like a cop.

“It could be natural causes. She could have had an embolism or an aneurysm,” she whispered to herself.

Lucy had only minimal medical training, some human biology classes that had enabled her to land the internship at the morgue, but she was more interested in the process than in actual autopsies, despite her assistant pathologist certification. She had no idea how to inspect the body for signs of such natural causes of death, but it would be clear in an autopsy.

Maybe she was too suspicious. Did Lucy really expect the worst in every situation? She didn’t want to think that she was such a negative person, but when she worked on a body in the morgue, she was most interested to learn the cause of death-natural, accident, or murder? At the sheriff’s department, she’d worked closely with one longtime cop near retirement. Joe Marquez’s philosophy was, “Everyone is guilty of something.” Lucy hadn’t believed it, but in Joe’s life more often than not people lied, even if they weren’t killers or rapists. Wives lied to protect their husbands; women lied about assaults out of fear; juveniles lied about minor crimes because they didn’t want to get into trouble-and sometimes to see if they could get away with it. Fear of cops was a motivator for many, but Joe didn’t have a lot of faith in people or the system. Had some of Joe’s skepticism about the human condition rubbed off on her? Or was it her own past experiences that made her unusually suspicious?

She opened the bottom drawer of the dresser where in her room were extra sheets and blankets. They, too, were in here. She took out a top sheet and covered Vanessa’s body. She said a quick prayer, and as she was about to cover her face she noticed something on the side of her neck.

Lucy carefully moved Vanessa’s hair and turned her head slightly to get a better view. A tiny red pinprick on the side of Vanessa’s neck looked suspiciously like a needle mark. She cursed herself for not having her cellphone with her to take a picture, but up here there was no reception so she’d left her phone in the car. She searched the room, looking for another camera. If the Marshes didn’t have one, she’d ask the others, though she’d then have to explain why.

Vanessa’s death now appeared much more like murder.