LITMIR.BIZ

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      “We got some beauties.” Benny’s voice was basso pro-fundo. “Unfortunately, they’re repeats. See right here … this is a right index, it shows up twice. Here we got a partial palm and two right thumbs on the dial. A middle over here. On the inner dials we have the same palm and index. You can see how small they are. Female. I’ll transfer them but I’m betting they belong to the lady of the house.”

      “Anything else?”

      “Not so far.”

      Marge shrugged off the lack of progress. Most perps just didn’t leave calling cards, but almost all left evidence transfer. Even if she couldn’t find anything else, there was the semen. Marge could smell it as she approached the bed. She’d bag the sheets after she sifted through the mess on top of them.

      She wandered into the master bathroom. Its walls were ceramic tiles of mint and hunter green in immaculate condition. The taps were old-style fixtures but the chrome was high-polished and scratch free. There was a beveled mirror on the back of the door. Open glass shelving served as the medicine cabinet. The racks held pottery crocks labeled in calligraphy—witch hazel, foxglove, mint, trefoil. No over-the-counter meds, not one prescription vial. The top shelf held a bowl of cinnamon-smelling pinecones and acorns. The bathroom window was clear glass, but obscured by a curtain of dangling crystal beads. They sent prismatic rainbows onto the walls.

      Whoever messed up the bedroom hadn’t bothered with the bathroom.

      Marge returned her attention to the bedroom. It was papered in something silky and cream-colored and dotted with a couple of dozen black-and-white photos of Lilah Brecht buddying up to celebrities. Or maybe it was the other way around. The stars looked thrilled to be in the snapshot. All the photos had been autographed.

      To Lilah and Valley Canyon: With my fondest love, Georgina DeRafters.

      To Lilah Brecht: the only woman who has seen me without makeup. Keep that cellulite off my thighs. Love, Ann Milo.

      Georgina DeRafters and Ann Milo: old-timers who’d made strictly B movies. The As were probably hung on the spa’s walls. How did that make the Bs feel? Did they even notice? They were bound to; all actresses are narcissistic. What did Lilah tell them after they’d paid her hundreds a day and didn’t even see their pictures on the wall?

      I keep my closest and dearest friends at home?

      Marge shrugged. For every picture still on the wall, there were at least that many scattered about the room. The glass protecting the photographs had been deliberately smashed, as if someone had taken the pictures off the wall and smacked them with a hammer. One bull’s-eye in the center of each picture, broken seams radiating outward. The room twinkled with glass reflecting the bright midmorning light. The sunbeams coursed through two large windows—one on the eastern wall, one on the northern. Pete had found the bedroom windows locked: The lab men hadn’t found any pry marks on their sashes.

      The nightstands flanking the bed had been pushed over, the table lamps crushed to dust. The impact of the lamps falling to the floor couldn’t have pulverized the ceramic bases to that extent. The table-to-floor distance was just not that great. Someone had smashed the suckers.

      Someone had been pissed.

      The dresser had been cleared of its contents, drawers pulled out and emptied, clothes tossed about carelessly.

      Only Lilah’s bedroom had been trashed.

      Maybe the perp was expecting to find something in the safe. When it wasn’t there, he’d searched the entire bedroom.

      But then, why wasn’t the rest of the house tossed?

      Maybe he found what he wanted.

      Then he raped her.

      Marge carefully fingered the broken glass on the bed with her gloved hand. She’d have Benny bag the pieces. Could be someone cut himself, leaving traces of blood. The lab man came out of the closet.

      “I’m done inside, Detective. You want to search it for evidence, go ahead. I’ll start dusting the walls.”

      “Find anything other than those female prints?”

      Benny shook his head.

      “Detective?”

      Marge turned around. Officer Bellingham had returned, a very grave look on his face.

      “We finished our interview with the stable hand. I think you’d better check him out personally.”

      “Stable hand?”

      “Yes, ma … Detective. He claims he lives there. There is a small hot plate inside one of the stables, some cooking utensils and work clothes. And there’s a chemical toilet just outside the barn. He could be telling the truth. But I don’t think the man has his full faculties.”

      “He’s retarded?”

      “Or very stupid, Detective. He answers in one-word sentences, won’t look you in the eye. Very suspicious. Of course, he claims he didn’t hear anything. And the stables are pretty far away from the house. But I think this man needs to be questioned. Officer Potter is with him now. Should we bring him here?”

      “No, I’ll go out to the stables. You make sure no one unauthorized comes in the bedroom. This stable hand have a name?”

      “Carl Totes. He says he’s worked for Miss Brecht for many years. Like I said, there’s evidence that he does reside inside the stables but I think he could be a suspect.”

      “I’ll check it out.”

      “By the way, Detective, there are six stalls and five horses inside the stable.”

      Marge patted him on the back. “Good job, Officer.”

      Bellingham tried to hold back a smile but didn’t quite make it. The left corner of his mouth spasmed upward. Through crooked lips, he said, “Thank you, Detective.”

      It took three cups of tea and a half hour for the maid to calm down. Her name was Mercedes Casagrande, a thirty-five-year-old native of Guatemala who’d worked for Lilah Brecht for seven years. She wasn’t forthcoming with the answers, but guarded as she was, Decker sensed she wanted to help. She just didn’t want to jeopardize her job or the privacy of her patrona.

      They sat at an oval dining-room table, the room furnished in early-twentieth-century pieces. The interior of the house had been done up in the style of Art Nouveau or Art Deco. Decker never could remember the difference between the two periods. As he made chitchat with the maid, she began to relax and answer his questions in halting English.

      Decker slipped out his notepad and asked, “How many days a week do you work here for Missy Lilah?”

      “I work all the days except Saturday and Sunday. I don’ work on those days ’cause I go to church.”

      “What are your hours?”

      “Seven to fife. But sometime I work diferente hours. If Missy Lilah need help in the night for the dinner. I work eleven to eight, mebbe nine o’clock. If someone take care of my kids.”

      Decker said, “You never sleep in?”

      “No.” Mercedes shook her head. “No duermo en la casa, no.”

      Decker said, “So you weren’t here yesterday?”

      “I work yesterday, jes.”

      “But it was Sunday.”

      Mercedes looked confused. “I work only four hours. Missy Lilah call me and say house is a mess. So I come. That is not every week. Mebbe I work Sundays one time a month. But only if someone watch my kids.”

      “And what time did you leave?”

      “I leave fife, fife-thurdy, mebbe. Everythin’ is okay. Missy Lilah tell me she go out with her brother so I don’ have to make dinner.”

      Decker smoothed his mustache.

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