LITMIR.BIZ

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and around to the back door of the house. Fitz was standing there, the ever-present cigarette dangling from his lips. It was lit, and though Taylor felt a rush of annoyance at Fitz, who had quit smoking a number of times unsuccessfully, she immediately dug in her pocket for her own pack. Drawing up beside him, she lit her own and inhaled deeply. Only a slight tickle in her throat reminded her that the doctors would be royally ticked off if they knew she was smoking, but she dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand. Fitz caught the motion and grinned.

      “Justifying your addiction to the noxious weed to your doctors in your head again?”

      Taylor gave him an affectionate smile. Fitz just knew her too well. They’d worked together for several years, and despite the fact that she was nearly twenty years his junior and a woman to boot, he’d never had a problem with her being his boss. Just the opposite, he had been the one who’d stood by her promotion to lieutenant last year when many in the force did not. And he was one of the few who didn’t mind the new chief, either, but that was Fitz. Always willing, near retirement and couldn’t give a care to politics. Besides, the new chief had restructured the department in such a way that Fitz had gotten a promotion and pay raise, which did nothing but improve his mood. More to retire on, as he jovially put it. Now Homicide was set up so that Fitz was the sergeant and had six detectives working under him. He reported only to Taylor, and she, as the department lieutenant, reported only to Mitchell Price. It was a top-heavy hierarchy, but the people of Homicide had managed to come out unscathed and with more power than they had before. Price, being the captain, had control over all the CID, Criminal Investigations Division, and the lieutenants for each division reported to him and him alone. It gave him more authority but less oversight, so he depended heavily on his LTs to make all right in the world for him. He now reported directly to the chief, and the political headaches were worth it to him since he could keep his people out of the fray.

      Taylor sucked on her cigarette and forced the thoughts of doctors’ disapproving glares out of her head as she ran two long fingers along the scar on her throat. She gave Fitz a brief hug, tamped the half-smoked cigarette out on the sole of her cowboy boot and pocketed the butt. No sense disturbing the crime scene.

      “So tell me what’s happening. You got the background on Shauna Davidson for me, right?”

      “I did. Wasn’t a mall rat like I thought, she wasn’t working. Taking some summer courses, but that’s it. The idle rich…” He smiled at Taylor and she shot him the bird. He laughed and continued. “She’d been out with some friends after class. No one has a lot of details to share yet. We’ll get it, don’t worry.”

      “Okay then. We’ll have to report all the information to Special Agent Baldwin, he’s going to be working the case.”

      “Taylor, about Baldwin.”

      “What? What about him?”

      He looked at her hard and she realized he knew exactly what type of housekeeping she and Baldwin were doing. Fitz had always been able to figure her out.

      She blushed. “Yeah, whatever. Let’s not worry about that right now. Let’s focus on this for the moment, then we can go over all the information you got on Shauna Davidson. Let me ask you this. Is Betsy okay?”

      Fitz took one last lung-numbing drag on his cigarette and extinguished it. He pulled out a pack of gum, politely offering it to Taylor. She pulled out a piece and looked at him, waiting. He took his time unwrapping the silvery stick, as if gathering his thoughts. She wondered if he was debating whether to listen to her admonition about discussing her personal life with Baldwin, but he was back in professional, not personal, investigator mode.

      “I don’t have the whole story, but I got a call right before you showed up. She’s gonna make it, but they had to take her into surgery to clean something up, some kind of blood pooling in her eye cavity. He broke her cheekbone, Taylor. Beat the shit out of her.”

      “That’s not his MO.”

      “Nope. He usually ties ’em up and does ’em, then takes off. But this one was personal. Tied her up, raped her, then beat the shit out of her. She managed to get an arm free after an hour of struggling and called her partner, Brian Post, to come get her and take her to the hospital. It wasn’t until she was there that they called Price. Wanted to keep it as quiet as possible. We don’t need the press crawling all over this one. ‘The Rainman’ strikes lead investigator. They’d have a field day with it.”

      “Brave girl, keeping her cool like that.”

      “You can say that again. I talked to Post, he told me she was totally calm, cool and collected about the whole thing. Only got upset when they told her that they needed to go in and fix the, whaddaya call it…”

      “Occipital orb?” Taylor interjected, making a good guess.

      “Yeah, that’s it. She was upset that she’d be out of it for a while and couldn’t help with the investigation. Broken face and she wants back in immediately. Ballsy chick, that one.”

      Taylor agreed. She didn’t think she could handle herself nearly as well in the same situation. She knew she hadn’t when she’d been the one in the hospital.

      “So what do they want us to do?”

      “They want us to go through the house and do the crime scene. They don’t even want the CSIs out here, that’s how deep this is getting buried. So far, only you, Price, the chief, her partner and me know. They’d like to keep it that way.”

      “Do you have a crime scene kit with you? And a camera?”

      He gestured to his feet, where a large case that looked like a tackle box sat. “Picked it up on my way over.”

      “Thank you for thinking ahead. Here’s my question. Don’t you think the Rainman will get pissed if he doesn’t see his handiwork on the news?”

      “I think Betsy wants to deal with that later.”

      “Okay, I’m cool with that. But we need to get a statement from her regardless.”

      “Post already did that. When we’re done here, we can head over to Baptist and pick it up, talk to her if she’s out of surgery.”

      Taylor contemplated the back door, the lock obviously jimmied. They had a job to do, so they may as well get on with it.

      “Let’s do it.”

      They snapped on latex gloves, slipped soft booties over their own boots and started working the scene. Taylor started with the broken lock, dusting for fingerprints and thanking the awning above the door for keeping the handle dry. She lifted a decent print from the doorjamb, took pictures of everything and then they slowly worked their way inside.

      The inside of Betsy’s home looked like a small tornado had come through. The kitchen table was overturned, the glass top shattered. Blood sparkled on the shards, and a trail of blood left the kitchen. Taylor followed it, taking pictures, to the living room. Blood soaked a corner of the couch, a lamp was overturned, but the rest of the room didn’t look too bad. Taylor could see rope lying on the floor in front of the couch.

      “Let me run this by you. He comes in the back door, surprises her in the kitchen. Awful lot of blood. Did he break her nose, too?”

      Fitz was nodding. “Yeah, got her good right in the face before she had a chance to do anything.”

      “Okay, so he smacks her in the kitchen, drags her into the living room and assaults her on the couch. When did he tie her up?”

      “Just from what Post told me on the phone, he disabled her in the kitchen, and she woke up on the couch, trussed like a Christmas pig. When he finished raping her, he tied her legs.”

      “Looks like he looped the rope around the back of the couch.” Taylor was working her way around the room, taking pictures. “See the trailing ends here? That must be where she got herself loose. Okay, let’s finish up here.”

      They set about their work, processing the scene, collecting some of the

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