long hallway that housed only three rooms. A large office sat to the left. It was tidy to the point of being almost empty, looking out into the grove of trees along the back of the house. The huge bathroom boasted his and hers sinks, a large shower, a tub, and a linen closet that was as large as Mackenzie’s kitchen.
Just like downstairs, there was nothing to paint an accurate picture of the Sterlings or why anyone would want to kill them. Wasting no more time, Mackenzie walked toward the end of the hallway where the bedroom door was standing open. Sunlight came pouring in through a large window on the left side of the room. The light swallowed up the end of the bed, turning the maroon there an alarming shade of red.
It was dizzying in a way, to step into the bedroom of a spotless house to see all of the blood on the bed. The floor was hardwood but Mackenzie could see splatters of blood here and there. There was not as much blood on the walls here as they had seen at the Kurtz residence, but there was some speckled in droplets like some morbid abstract painting.
There was a faint smell like copper in the air, the scent of spilled blood having dried. It was faint but seemed to fill the room. Mackenzie walked around the edge of the bed, looking at the light gray sheets that had been deeply stained in red. She saw a single mark in the top sheet that might have been a puncture wound from the knife. She observed it closer and found that was exactly what she was looking at.
With a single lap around the bed, Mackenzie was sure that there was nothing here that would push the case along any further. She looked elsewhere around the room – the bedside tables, the dresser drawers, and the small entertainment center – looking for even the smallest detail.
She saw a slight indentation in the wall, no larger than a quarter. But there was speck of blood around it. There was more blood beneath it, a slight dribble that had dried on the wall and the smallest little fleck of it on the carpet beneath the indention.
She went to the indentation in the wall and looked at it closely. It was a peculiar shape, and the fact that there was blood centered around it made her think one was the result of the other. She stood up straight and checked the small hole’s alignment with her body. She raised her arm slightly and bent it. In doing so, her elbow aligned with the hole almost perfectly.
“What have you got?” Harrison asked.
“Signs of a struggle, I believe,” she answered.
He joined her and took note of the indentation. “Not much to go on, is it?” he asked.
“No, not really. But the blood makes it notable. That and the fact that this house is in pristine condition. It makes me think the killer did everything he could do hide any signs of a struggle. He almost staged the house, in a way. But this sign of a struggle could not be hidden.”
She looked down at the small blood splotch on the carpet. It was faded and there were even very faint traces of red around it.
“See,” she said, pointing. “Right there, it looks like someone tried cleaning this up. But he was either hurried or this last little bit just would not come up.”
“Maybe we should double-check the Kurtz house then.”
“Maybe,” she agreed, although she felt confident that she had thoroughly looked the place over.
She stepped away from the wall and went to the enormous walk-in closet. She looked inside and saw more tidiness.
She did see the one single thing that could have been considered as messy within the entire house, though. A shirt and a pair of pants were crumpled up, pushed almost against the closet wall. She pulled the shirt away from the pants and saw that they were men’s clothing – perhaps the last clothes that Gerald Sterling had ever worn.
Taking a chance, she reached into each of the front pockets. In one, she found seventeen cents in change. In the other, she found a crumpled receipt. She straightened it out and saw that it was from a grocery store five days ago…the last day of his life. She looked at the receipt and started to think.
How else can we discover what they did on their last days alive? Or the last week, or even month?
“Harrison, in those reports, didn’t the Miami PD state that they had gone through the phones of the deceased to check for any red flags?”
“That’s correct,” Harrison said as he cautiously stepped around the bloody bed. “Contacts, incoming and outgoing calls, emails, downloads, everything.”
“But nothing like Internet search history or anything like that?”
“No, not that I recall.”
Placing the receipt back into the pair of jeans, Mackenzie exited the closet and then the bedroom. She headed back downstairs, aware that Harrison was following behind her.
“What is it?” Harrison asked.
“A hunch,” she said. “A hope, maybe.”
She walked back to the roll-top desk in the sitting area and opened it again. In the back, there was a small basket. A few pens stuck out, as did a basic single-sheet personal checkbook. If they keep a house this tidy, I’d assume their checkbook is in the same condition.
She took the checkbook out and found that she was correct. The figures were kept with meticulous care. Each transaction was written very legibly and with as much detail as possible. Even ATM withdrawals were accounted for. It took her about twenty seconds to realize that this checkbook was for some sort of secondary account and not for the Sterlings’ primary checking. At the time of their death, the account held a little over seven thousand dollars.
She looked through the check register for anything that might give her some sort of clues but nothing jumped out at her. She did, however, see a few abbreviations that she did not recognize. Most of the transactions for these entries were for amounts of around sixty to two hundred dollars. One of the entries she did not recognize had been written out for two thousand dollars.
While nothing in the register seemed immediately curious, she remained hung up on the abbreviations and initials that she was not familiar with. She snapped a few pictures of those entries with her phone and then returned the checkbook.
“You have an idea or something?” Harrison asked.
“Maybe,” she said. “Could you please get Dagney on the phone and ask her to task someone with pulling up the Sterlings’ financial records over the last year? Checking accounts, credit cards, even PayPal if they used it.”
“Absolutely,” Harrison said. He instantly pulled out his phone to complete the task.
I might not mind working with him so much after all, Mackenzie thought.
She listened to him speaking with Dagney while she closed the roll-top desk and looked back toward the stairs.
Someone walked up those stairs four nights ago and killed a married couple, she thought, trying to envision it. But why? And again, why were there no signs of forced entry?
The answer was simple: Just like with the Kurtzes, the killer was invited in. And that means that they either knew who the killer was and let him in or the killer was playing a certain part…acting like someone they knew or someone in need.
The theory felt flimsy but she knew there was something to it. If nothing else, it created a fragile link between the two couples.
And
