LITMIR.BIZ

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of the more simple and elegant bungalows and brick Tudors was a colossal mystery.

      Though it clearly was not the biggest mystery on the street at that moment.

      Kaminski parked his black Toyota Prius and approached a couple of blues who’d secured the scene. One a slightly haggard veteran and the other an eager beaver.

      “Guys,” he said.

      “Evening, Ed,” said Tracy Smart, the more seasoned of the two.

      “The female vic in there?” Kaminski indicated the ambulance as the door closed and the driver stepped inside.

      Tracy shook his head. “She’s en route to the ER.”

      “Going to be okay?”

      “That’s what I hear,” said the younger cop, a kid with an earnest demeanor that reminded Kaminski what it was like to be fresh out of the academy. The top-of-the-class syndrome , he thought. The eager beaver’s need to raise a hand, make a comment, just to be sure to be a part of the conversation.

      “Thanks, Tracy . . . and . . .” He looked at the kid.

      “Officer Caswell.”

      Kaminski grinned. “Yes, officer. You got a first name?”

      “Robert,” he said, nodding, like he was confirming some major mystery of life.

      Kaminski nodded back and looked up over the lawn at the front door of the house. “Got it.”

      Not Bob. Not Rob. But Robert.

      “Call me Detective,” he said over his shoulder, stopping a beat to look up and down the block as he made his way up the painted gray steps.

      He nodded at another officer by the door.

      “House is secure?” he said.

      The officer nodded. “Yeah, neighborhood canvass at work, too.”

      Kaminski pulled the knob and stepped inside. The foyer was grand, museum-entryway grand. The floor was burnished oak topped with a powder blue and gold oriental rug, its pile so thick that the soles of his shoes nearly levitated as he walked to the sitting room. The coffered ceiling seemed a mile overhead. He looked up; pale blue insets filled the voids between dark oak mullions. The staircase was curved, sweeping from the first floor to the second like an anaconda. A series of portraits artfully illuminated by unobtrusive spotlights added to the museum vibe.

      Not my taste, he thought. But who knows what a man will do with the dough if he has too much?

      He glanced in the direction of the pocket doors, pulled open to reveal the activity of the murder scene. The smell of blood and gunpowder was unmistakable. Sweet and smoky. Not like barbecue, of course, but more like the scent of a Fourth of July picnic. A Tiffany fixture overhead sprayed gold light from its mushroom shades; Kaminski could see the coroner and assistants in clean suits, assuring that whatever evidence would be gathered from the deceased would not be anything they brought in from the outside. There was never a time when that procedure didn’t make sense, but it didn’t become official until a case a dozen years before in which a defendant claimed chain-of-custody issues when a detective’s Persian cat’s fur was discovered on the corpse.

      If a person visiting an open house was required to wear disposable booties, then no one should argue the need for initial criminal responders to suit up.

      Kaminski caught the attention of forensics specialist Cal Herzog, hunched over the area by the sofa where the body had been found.

      Cal, a balding man of about fifty, who began working in the forensics unit at the Tacoma Police Department after a reasonably distinguished career in the military, was crouched over the dead man.

      “Evening, Cal.”

      “Just in time. Medical examiner’s about ready to bag him,” Cal said.

      Kaminski stepped closer. “Let me have a look.”

      “Point-blank,” Cal said, indicating the wound on the back of Alex Connelly’s head. The place of entry for the bullet was like a bloody borehole that cut through the man’s skull and into his brain. Death, no doubt, was instantaneous. Alex Connelly, sitting in his robe, facing the television, might not even have had an inkling that the gun was going to fire.

      “SOB didn’t struggle,” Cal said. “Didn’t even know this was going to happen.”

      Kaminski crouched behind the camelback sofa and looked up at the TV over the mantel.

      “I don’t know about that,” he said. “Pretty good reflection off that plasma. Almost like a mirror.”

      Cal looked up. The TV had been on when the blues arrived and secured the scene, but it had been loud and one of the cops shut it off.

      Kaminski fixed his eyes on the victim. He wore a blue and gold robe. It was a flimsy, silky fabric that he wouldn’t be caught dead in.

      Which, of course, Alex Connelly had just been.

      He had slippers on his feet. Nothing else.

      “What does the vic do for a living?”

      “Works for an investment firm downtown. About middle on the high-up scale, if you ask me. You know, makes enough dough for a lease on this place, but not enough to buy it.”

      “Lexus, actually a his and hers, in the garage, er, carriage house,” one of the cops said, correcting himself. “Not a Porsche.”

      “Almost feel sorry for him,” Kaminski said. “You know, not being able to get a Porsche.”

      It took three men to move the body to the split-open bag. In doing so, the robe slipped to reveal the victim’s chest. A tattoo of an eagle with artillery and olive branches in its talons soared over his right pec, which, given his age, was well defined.

      “Nice ink,” Kaminski said. “Looks like navy.”

      While the techs and cops worked together to process the scene for evidence, Kaminski took a tour of the house. It was late by then, but the place seemed as if it had been ready for a Realtor’s open house. Nothing was out of place. The kitchen, small by the standards of what modern people wanted, was nicely redone to include the niceties that big-bucked folks wanted. A Sub-Zero refrigerator was clad in white cabinetry to match the rest of the kitchen. A Viking range was another giveaway that the place had been redone. Nothing was out of place on the plane of soapstone that served as the counter.

      Upstairs, Kaminski entered the master bedroom. A Rice bed that in someone else’s house would have been ridiculously oversize commanded the large room. The bed had been turned down. All perfect.

      The dead guy was in a silky robe and slippers.

      Where were his clothes?

      The bathroom was also show-ready. He went inside and a flash of red caught his eye. On a hook on the back of the door, a woman’s teddy.

      Nice, he thought.

      As he moved the door, the fabric fluttered, like a red flag.

      He opened the shower door and caught a whiff of cleaner. The marble surface was slick, dripping wet.

      Cal appeared in the doorway.

      “Everything diagrammed, photographed. ME is taking the body now. Some blood in the hallway, fair amount of spatter on the wall behind the couch. We’re dusting everything. Place is pretty clean. Must have a maid.”

      “All right. I’m going to the hospital to see Mrs. Connelly.”

      “Techs are there now.”

      “Gunshot residue?”

      “Hands have been swabbed.”

      Kaminski nodded. “Prelim?”

      “Clean.”

      The two started down the stairs as the body was being carried out, bagged and tagged,

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