11
The street outside Michelle’s house was comatose-quiet, the tranquil residential neighborhood even more so that night, like it had clammed up from shock. A solitary police cruiser was parked out front and yellow crime tape was strung out around her property, the lone, faint echoes of the bloodstorm that had struck earlier that day.
The only ones on the outside, that is.
Inside, the echoes were much louder.
A large, congealed puddle of blood was the first thing that greeted Villaverde and me as we walked in. A messy streak broke off from it and arced sideways, away from the doorway. I visualized how it must have happened, when Michelle’s boyfriend’s body was shoved sideways by the shooters as they rushed out of the house with their wounded, or dying, buddy. Another trail of blood—the wounded shooter’s, presumably—snaked deep into the house and disappeared into a dark hallway, accompanied by the bloody boot prints of at least two others.
I advanced into the hallway, trying to avoid the red stains on the ground. The place was littered with crime scene debris—black fingerprint dust, discarded index cards, rubber gloves, and empty tape dispensers. I’ve always been struck by how quickly death takes hold and imposes itself on whatever territory it’s invaded, how quickly it can suck the life and light out of a victim’s home and make it seem like they’ve been gone for years. This was no different, and the brutal finality of it was all the more striking given how close I had once been to Michelle.
I followed the macabre trail deeper into the house and down a narrow corridor. At the end of it, where it opened up into the kitchen, was another bloody mess, this one all over the floor and the walls. A frenzy of images rocked me, ones my mind was throwing up based on what Michelle had described. I pictured her plunging the kitchen knife into the shooter’s neck, matching it with the red spurts lining the walls. I imagined the shooter collapsing to the floor, by the big puddle of blood, then being hustled back out of the house, almost if not already dead, his feet dragging behind him like twin paintbrushes and leaving a snaking red trail.
I stepped into the kitchen. It was relatively undisturbed. I could see the ghost of Michelle going around it, going about her Saturday morning routine. I noticed the dishwasher, open and with its trays out and still half-full, but what drew my eye was the fridge.
I moved closer to it.
Every square inch of its door was covered with photographs, drawings, and other personal mementos, like a montage of her life. I couldn’t stop my eyes from feasting on them, and as I did, I felt my lungs shrivel. It was a shrine to happier days, a testament to a woman and her son and the abundance of good times they’d shared—good times I’d not been a part of, good times Alex would never enjoy again with his mother.
I lingered there as the images took root inside me, pictures of Alex from when he was a baby, of him and Michelle in parks and swimming pools and at the beach, all of them lit up by big smiles and laughing faces. My throat tightened as I took in Alex’s drawings, crude and colorful creations of stick people and trees and fish and misshapen letters, enchanting expressions of an innocence that the boy was unlikely to enjoy ever again. Throughout it all, my mind was vaulting ahead, dropping me into those scenes like a digital special effect and taunting me with endless what-could-have-beens.
“Seems like she had a nice life.”
Villaverde’s words broke through my reverie.
I gave him a slow nod. “Yeah.”
Villaverde stepped closer and took in the mementos on the fridge in silence. After a moment, he said, “Forensics have been over everything, so if you want to take something . . .”
I looked at him. He shrugged. I turned back to the fridge, took another long look at it, then peeled off a photo of Michelle and Alex posing next to a sandcastle on some beach.
“Let’s check out the rest of the house,” I told Villaverde as I slipped the pic into my breast pocket.
The rest was more or less undisturbed. Framed photos of Michelle and Alex kept calling out to me as I went through the living room and the master bedroom, but apart from accentuating the cold feeling in my gut, nothing in either room seemed out of place or looked to be of use to the investigation. Alex’s bedroom was more of a challenge—I knew it would help him to have some of his favorite things with him, but I didn’t know where to start or what to choose, and that only made me feel worse. It was cluttered with all kinds of toys, books, and clothes, and its walls were a colorful mosaic of cartoon posters and more of Alex’s drawings. I thought that a good place to start would be to bring back the cartoon-covered bedsheets with me, as well as the three plush animals that were scattered on them. I pulled them all off the bed and rolled them into a ball, and I also grabbed some clothes from his closet.
The last room we checked out was a third bedroom, the smallest of the three. It was set up as her study, with a dark wood desk, well-stocked bookshelves, and a deep sofa laid out with a bunch of velvet throw cushions. Again, framed photos were nestled among the books and memorabilia from Michelle’s past. I saw that, along with all the big novels and travel guides I remember she enjoyed, she also had plenty of the New-Agey tomes she was into, mind and spirit stuff I used to poke fun at. It was all warm and cozy and bathed in Michelle’s eclectic taste, and it drove home even more how much Alex was going to miss her.
As I scanned the bookshelves, I also noticed a small, black wireless router that sat inconspicuously on top of a plastic storage box. I edged closer to it and saw that its green LED lights were on, indicating that it was broadcasting. I turned and saw a small inkjet printer on a low side table by the desk. It had a wireless logo on it. I swung my gaze across to the desk itself. There was no computer on it. There was, however, a small white cord that snaked down the side of the desk and led to a small, white power adapter with an Apple logo on it that was plugged into a wall socket.
But no computer.
I turned to Villaverde. “Did anyone log in a computer? A laptop, or maybe an iPad?”
“Hang on,” he replied as he pulled out his phone.
I looked around. I couldn’t see one anywhere. I went back and checked the master bedroom, the living room, and the kitchen.
Nothing.
Villaverde’s call yielded no positive news. The homicide detectives who’d worked the house hadn’t come across a computer. If they had, they would have logged it and sent it over to the crime lab.
“She didn’t have one with her at the hotel,” I told Villaverde. “Which means it was probably still here when she ran out of the house.”
I checked the router again. It was a Netgear device and not Apple’s own Time Capsule, which was a bummer. Apple’s box automatically backs up the household computers’ drives wirelessly, which would’ve been a boon in this case, but then again, maybe the guys who came for her would have taken that, too.
“So the shooters took it,” Villaverde said.
It wasn’t a huge help, but it told me something.
The killers weren’t just after her.