The Wrong Girl

13

“See?” Kat McMahan pointed to the kitchen floor. A once-shiny web of red had dried to crusting brown lines outlining each square tile.

“Blood on the floor? Yeah, I see it,” Jake said.

“Well, I think-”

“They’re gone downstairs.” DeLuca appeared in the doorway. He held a stack of numbered orange plastic tents to mark the crime scene.

Jake took yet another look around. Not much to mark. No bullet casings or bloody gloves. He had to get on this. Look around the apartment for himself. There had to be something.

“Hennessey’s holding down the fort,” D was saying. “And I told Afterwards to hit the road. Call in tomorrow. Bloodsuckers.” He shrugged off his bad joke, placed the markers in a stack on the floor, and pulled a digital camera from an inside jacket pocket. “Kat? Okay if I get some extra photos in here? Crime Scene’s doing the back rooms, prints and evidence collection, but I want my own stuff.”

Jake cocked his head toward the ME. “Dr. McMahan was telling me about the-”

“Blood on the floor,” Kat interrupted. “And yes, Paul, please get a shot of that. From this angle.” She pointed. “And this one. In gauging the potential blood flow of the victim’s head wound, two things. First, it shows this is the primary scene of the murder. This is where she was killed. She wasn’t moved. But the amount of blood, the volume, is more than one would expect from a wound of this type. In other words…” She paused, one eyebrow raised.

“It’s someone else’s blood,” Jake finished.

“Could be,” Kat said.

“The bad guy,” DeLuca added.

“Could be,” Kat said. “So before this gets cleaned up, we’ll need to have photos taken in situ, then-”

Since when was an ME telling him how to do his job?

“Gotcha, Doc,” Jake said. “DeLuca will get our shots, as usual, then we’ll have Crime Scene pull up the tiles, send them to the lab. See if the blood matches the victim, or if we have ourselves a giant lead.”

He had to give her credit, though. He might not have figured that out. “Thanks,” he added. “DNA could take weeks. But could be big.”

“So who was the hot babe at the news conference?” Kat asked. “The pushy one in the tight jeans and Burberry muffler? The one who asked why I was here.”

Jake shot her a look. Hot babe? “Ah-she’s…”

“Jane Ryland from the Register newspaper,” DeLuca finished Jake’s sentence.

“You know her? Tell her she should stick to questions about the crime,” Kat said. “I’m here because I’m a hands-on kinda gal. But our in-house practices and procedures should stay in-house.”

Tell Jane what to ask? Like that was gonna happen. “Well, I don’t-”

“Now. If you two have no objections,” Kat went on, ignoring him, snapping the wrist of one lavender latex glove, “as soon as you’re finished with your photographs, I’m gonna alert my guys to come take this poor woman to the morgue. Back in my examination room, we’ll see what else we can find.”

So this newbie ME wanted to make it clear she was in charge. Not his problem. What was his problem-identifying this woman on the floor.

There’d be a purse, somewhere, with ID. Insurance files. Rent stuff. Financial records and checkbooks and all the other items that defined each person’s history. In some drawer? A box in a closet? They’d find it. Now that the news conference was over, and this ME was finally wrapping up, they could start looking.

But where were the worried relatives? Calls from frantic neighbors and friends? Two beat cops were out canvassing, Hennessey reported, so he’d see what they dug up. But not one person had knocked on this apartment door-according to Hennessey-to see what happened to the victim and her kids.

Her kids. Two kids.

“Gonna take a look around the place while you shoot, D,” Jake said.

No answer. DeLuca focused on his photography, Kat directing each shot. Jake shook his head. D was a big boy.

The rest of the apartment lay only a few steps down the dingy hallway, no pictures on any walls. To his left, a tiny bathroom, pink plastic shower curtain, three wet washcloths dangling over a metal rack. Three toothbrushes, two short, one taller, in a clear plastic Mickey Mouse cup. Wastebasket with crumpled tissues, empty toothpaste tube, dental floss. Jake took a pen from his pocket, lifted the lid of a white plastic clothes hamper. Sniffed.

And winced. It reeked. But no smears of red, no signs of a murderer’s hurried cleanup, no stash of bloody towels. On top, at least. Someone’d have to bag what was inside, then go through it. He hoped not him.

“Hey, Brogan. Hello and good-bye. We got what we need, photo-wise.” Photo Joe wore his equipment like a SWAT guy, cameras on bandolier straps across his chunky shoulders. Other crime scene techs used tiny digitals. Not Photo Joe Marcella. “Domestic, I’d say. We’re outta here.”

Lee Nguyen followed him, as usual, toting a bulky black suitcase marked PRINTS. She wore purple gloves and her BPD-issued navy nylon jacket over a white turtleneck.

“Domestic, yeah, mos’ def,” she said. “We’re done. Later, Jake.”

“Later?” he said. Done? Not on his watch. “Joe and Co.,” some cops called the two of them. Their evidence collection sometimes left much to be desired. “Hold it. You guys wanna take the bathroom now?”

“Not particularly,” Nguyen said.

“It’s why you two get the big bucks.” He hated when the old-timers, hell, when anyone, tried to cut corners. No way was he going to let Joe and Co. do a half-assed job. “I’ll head for the bedrooms if you’re done back there.”

“Ten-four,” Joe said. “Will do.”

“Good,” Jake said. Now he could scope out the rest of the place. Find those personal belongings. Across the hall, an open door to a bedroom. One window, lace curtains, view curtailed by a too-close brick wall.

Four-drawer veneer dresser with mirror, no photos tucked into the corners. He’d check the drawers. It smelled of-Jake sniffed again. That pink baby stuff. Lotion.

One twin-sized bed, pristinely made, Jake catalogued. Bedspread white. Two pillows. A stack of diapers. Cookie cutter stuff. Nothing. Beside it, two little-well, not cots, but almost mini-beds with white Pooh comforters and a stuffed bear in a yellow-striped T-shirt perched on each little pillow.

He stood in the doorway to the bedroom, staring. Assessing.

“There we go,” Jake whispered. Then pulled out his BlackBerry.

Where’s the baby? he typed. Because next to the twin bed, next to the two toddler beds, sat a delicately white-slatted wooden cradle.