Warning Signs

CHAPTER 2

The first pair of detectives arrived about twenty minutes before midnight to find a well-delineated perimeter and a crime scene that was barely contaminated. Sam Purdy, the senior detective, was ecstatic. But he kept his joy to himself.

"Who was first officer?" he asked of the patrol cop who was manning the clipboard and controlling access to the scene.

"VanHorn and Carpino."

"RP?" Purdy was asking who had called in the crime-who was the reporting party.

"Still here."

"Wits?"

"Got one, guy named Bruce Collamore. He's the RP, too. That's him sitting in the backseat of my squad. Has a dog with him. Heard a scream a shade before ten. I talked to him a little bit-he's an interesting guy, teaches high school now, math I think. But he played a little pro football when he was younger, if you can believe it."

Purdy grunted. "That's it? That's all you know?"

The officer shrugged. "The Bengals. He was in camp for a few days with the Bengals."

"I should care where he played football?"

"Hey, it's early, Detective. We didn't want to mess with him before you guys got here. Played tight end, if you really want to know. Isn't built like a tight end now, though; he's tall enough, but he's too skinny, more like a Randy Moss type. He's crammed into the back of the squad like an anchovy in a can."

Purdy said, "I might give a shit about any of this if he played for the Vikings, but I certainly don't care about some guy who didn't last a week with the damn Bengals, that's for sure. Whose house is this?"

"Neighbor says it's a family named Peters, but the neighbor didn't hear anything that came down."

Purdy turned to his partner. "You get that? What else do we have, Luce?"

Lucy Tanner looked at her notepad. She knew he was asking her if the detective's log was current. In these circumstances, it was her job to make sure it was. She said, "We were called by dispatch via pager at ten twenty-six, arrive at the scene on Jay Street at eleven thirty-five. Six patrol officers present, all have checked in with the control officer. Medical personnel have come and gone. Photographers present and waiting for clearance to go inside. Ditto CSIs. Weather? Clear skies, temp near fifty. One wit at the scene, already isolated. Search warrant has been requested from Judge Silverman. We're waiting on it."

"You get snaps? I want a good set of snaps. Who knows what time the photographers will get to go in."

Lucy held up a disposable camera with a built-in flash. "This side of the house is covered."

"Let's go to the back, then."

Kerry VanHorn walked across the front yard of the house, approaching the two detectives. She was squinting. "Detective? I'm Officer VanHorn. I was first officer on the scene, along with Officer Carpino."

"Sam Purdy. This is Lucy Tanner. Where's Carpino?" Purdy thought he recognized VanHorn from a recent altercation he'd investigated between a bicyclist and a pedestrian on Canyon Boulevard. He wasn't sure he'd ever heard of Carpino, didn't think he'd been with VanHorn that day.

VanHorn nodded a greeting to Lucy before she answered. "We entered the home through an open rear door. He's standing watch there."

"Who's been inside?"

"Just Carpino and me initially. After we found the deceased on the main level, two other officers accompanied us on a search of the rest of the premises. Upon further search, we found a disabled person sleeping upstairs in the master bedroom. When we couldn't arouse her enough to take a statement, we called an ambulance. Two paramedics entered the house and removed her. At my request, one of them walked through the section of the house where I found the deceased to confirm that he was, well, deceased. The ambulance left about twenty-five minutes ago. The disabled woman is now at Community Hospital. You may want to dispatch someone to get her statement, Detective. She was not particularly coherent when I tried to talk with her."

"That's it? Got any names?"

"Yes, sir. That's it. And no, sir. The woman was, like I said, incoherent. I think she said her name was Susan, or Suzanne. I had trouble understanding her. She was not able to give a last name. Neighbor a couple of doors down across the street says the family is the Peters. Only wit is the RP, guy named Bruce Collamore. He's waiting in one of the squads. Heard a scream a few minutes before ten. I don't think he's going to be much more help; he's already told us all he knows."

"Yeah, I've already heard all about Collamore. Got cut by the Bengals during training camp, if you can believe that."

"What?" VanHorn asked.

Purdy ignored her question while he went through a mental checklist and reached satisfaction that things were under control. Then he realized he'd missed something. "Coroner here yet?"

"Haven't seen anyone," she said.

Purdy made a note to have Lucy ascertain that Scott Truscott, the coroner's assistant, had been called. He said, "Good job here, VanHorn. You and Carpino managed this scene like you do it every weekend."

Purdy and Lucy followed VanHorn down the path to the backyard. Lucy snapped some photographs of the rear of the house before VanHorn introduced the detectives to Carpino. No one shook hands; Purdy and Lucy were busy pulling latex onto their fingers.

"The yard was like this? Nothing's been touched?"

Whiskers answered, "Just like you see it. No one's been back here but us since we arrived. Only things we touched outside were the doorknobs. We did that before we realized what we had."

The search warrant arrived around twelve-thirty.

The crime scene investigators and the police photographers preceded the two detectives into the house. After about fifteen minutes, the CSIs reported to Purdy that they'd finished clearing and vacuuming the path to the living room and that he could enter.

Everyone pulled coverings onto their shoes. At Purdy's request, VanHorn led the way inside and pointed out the direction she had walked to get to the living room before she discovered the body. On this return visit she went no farther than the foot of the stairs, using the beam of her flashlight to direct the detectives the rest of the way to the deceased. "He's there, behind that couch."

"All the lights were off? Just like this?" Purdy asked as he carefully crossed the length of the room and lowered himself to a crouch a few feet from the body. The detective's feet were in a little clearing in the center of the pottery debris.

"Yes. We touched nothing in this room. I did feel the victim's wrist for a pulse and I tripped over some of the broken pottery when I got back up. The EMT was careful, too, when he confirmed the death. I watched him. That's it. Nothing else was touched down here. Upstairs was different. We tried to watch what we were doing, but moving that lady to the hospital spilled some milk. Couldn't be avoided. I've started making a list of everything I think was disturbed up there."

"Good. Finish the list and get it to me. We'll take it from here."

"Oh, I almost forgot, the dryer was on. Upstairs? There's a washer and dryer. When I first came in the house, the dryer was on. It finished its cycle just before I found the body. Made a loud buzzing sound."

Purdy took a moment to catch her eyes and smiled at her. "Scared the shit out of you, I bet, didn't it?"

She laughed. "Yeah. Scared the shit out of me." VanHorn didn't generally condone profane language. But the phrase seemed to fit the circumstances.

"That was when?"

"Ten twenty-five, ten-thirty, give or take a couple of minutes."

"Got that, Luce?"

Lucy raised her pen from her notebook but didn't look up. "Yeah, Sam. I got it."

"You can go, Officer. Good work."

Purdy stood up straight, took a flashlight from Lucy's hand, and swept the room with the beam, pausing a few times. While he perused the space, he took note of the temperature in the house, inhaled the aroma of the room, and digested how the shadows played with the darkness. He knew Lucy would be doing the same drill. In a few minutes, they'd compare impressions. When he finally stepped forward, he approached the corpse cautiously, noting the position of the lamp on the floor, treading carefully around the pieces of ceramic.

Lucy hung back; she was at least six feet behind him. Purdy could hear her breathing through her mouth.

"You okay, Luce?" he said.

She said, "Sure." But Purdy didn't quite believe her.

"You need a minute? Or are you ready?"

"I'm right behind you, Sam. I'm fine."

Maybe a stranger would have failed to recognize the catch in her voice. But Purdy heard it. "If you're going to puke, puke outside, okay?"

He expected her to curse at him in reply. Instead, she said, "I told you I'm fine, Sam."

Purdy once again lowered himself to a crouch, this time right beside the body. For a few seconds he focused on the injuries and on the blood, not on the dead person. A gestalt thing-figure, not ground. The head and face wounds that had been inflicted were severe. At least two deep crushing blows. Probably more. Blood pooled around the man's head like a lake on a dark night. The blood loss was copious. With the flashlight beam he traced a fan-shaped splatter that extended up the nearest wall all the way to the crown molding. The conclusion was obvious: The victim had been standing when he was hit and had lived long enough to bleed like a broken dike.

"Is he dead, Sam?" Lucy asked the question as though she didn't quite believe it was true.

Purdy didn't bother feeling for a pulse. He knew dead. "He's really dead, Luce. Bashed in the face and head with something heavy and hard. My money's on the lamp or this broken pottery."

She didn't reply.

Purdy asked, "Can you see outside? Has the coroner's van arrived?"

"I don't see it out there."

He thought she sounded funny.

Sam Purdy was a big man. He lowered one knee to the carpet so he could lean over and examine the undamaged part of the man's face. It took him maybe two seconds of focus to identify the victim.

"Holy shit. You know who this is, Luce?"

She swallowed. Her voice was hollow. "I can't see him from here. Just some blood. All I see is the blood."

Purdy said, "Whose house is this, anyway? Do you know whose house this is? Lucy?"