“I may have. Detective, I’m not real clear on the order of events. I remember hardly being able to comprehend what I saw. I remember checking the house. I remember checking Abby to see if she was still alive. And when I knew she was dead… All I could think of was Grant and his children. They love that woman. They’ve loved her all their lives. And when I knew she was dead…well, it’s possible I thought of telling him first.”
His gaze suddenly fixed on her, intense with emotion. “What difference does it make, Detective? The woman was dead. Abby was dead.”
Karen refused to give him even a moment to collect himself. Instead she pressed him. “It made a difference in how fresh the crime scene was. We might have found the killer in the vicinity.”
He shook his head, his eyes growing hollow. “Like I was even thinking of that. A woman I’d known for years was dead, brutally killed. And people I love were going to be torn up by it. Do you think I was even thinking about what you might need?”
Then he turned and walked away, making it clear he was done with her.
Karen paused, thinking, then decided to let him go. There were questions yet to be asked, but something about Jerry Connally… Some instinct told her he wasn’t the killer. She pushed away the niggle at the back of her brain that insisted Connally was withholding something and went back into the house. Unlike many cops, she had never believed that the most obvious suspect was the likeliest one in a case like this. She wasn’t going to allow herself to get misled. She would find the killer, but she wasn’t going to close off any avenues by making assumptions.
Karen found Millie dusting a heavy glass ashtray. Millie glanced up. “From the floor by her feet. Looks to have prints. Probably the vic’s.” She turned it over. “There’s a bloody smear on the bottom, but that’s from the carpet fibers.”
“So okay,” Karen said. “She’s in her nightgown and a bathrobe. The ashtray doesn’t have bloody fingerprints. Only smears from the carpet. Sounds to me like she’s asleep or falling asleep, hears something, grabs an ashtray from her bedroom, comes down and surprises the killer.”
Millie nodded, her trained eyes sweeping the room. “That would fit, yeah.”
“So what was the killer doing when she came downstairs? Burglary? So far as Connally can tell, nothing’s missing.” Karen nodded toward a lacquered end table where a sectional serving dish held jelly beans and other candies. “That’s silver. There’s other stuff right here. Even if the perp panics after he kills her, why not grab stuff that’s right here in the room?”
“I’m a criminalist, Karen.” Millie shrugged. “Not a profiler. Don’t ask me to explain how criminals think. I just look at what they leave behind.”
“Your people photographed the spatter patterns?”
Millie nodded. “And logged the footprints and all the rest.”
Karen checked her watch. It was nearly five-thirty. “I’m going to go canvas the neighbors. Maybe somebody saw something.” She shook her head. “This case is going to suck.”
Millie smiled sadly. “They all do, Karen. They all do.”
Out on the street, though it was still dark and most people ought to be in their beds sound asleep, a crowd had begun to gather. It wasn’t a big crowd; after all, this was an upscale neighborhood where gawking at misfortune was probably a solecism.
But the ghouls had gathered nonetheless, a handful. All looking as if they had climbed out of their beds and dressed in a rush. Probably the nearest neighbors, and most likely concerned that their own families might be in danger. That was the rational explanation.
But something else stirred inside her, the memory of a Ray Bradbury short story, The Crowd. In the story, the same group of gawkers had appeared at every fatal traffic accident. And in the pre-dawn stillness, Karen could almost see that story taking place. The faces before her, concerned and questioning and peering as if to look through the darkness and the crime scene tape and even the walls of the Lawrence home, could have been the same faces she’d seen around dozens of homicide investigations before. The face of society’s collective guilt and shame and morbid fascination with the depths of evil.
She’d seen too many of these crowds. Crowds around a house where a drunken husband had finally beaten his wife into eternal silence. Crowds around a playground where a drug deal gone sour had ended in gunfire. Crowds around a bar where fists and bottles had flown in the wake of angry words. Always the crowds. Always the same faces. Always the same questions.
Karen shook her head to clear her thoughts. It was late and she was tired. This was no time to let herself get spooked. These weren’t phantasms. They were just people. Curious, worried people.
Sliding her hands into the pockets of her slacks, she ambled in their direction. The houses here were on large lots that were carefully landscaped to provide the illusion that the residents were alone in the universe. These people might or might not have been friends and acquaintances before, but right now they were drawn together by a tragedy.
“Hi,” she said as she reached them. They had gathered by the tape barricade, politely out of the way. “I’m Detective Sweeney.”
“What happened?” one of them asked her, a man who was probably in his midforties, with the well-coiffed, well-built look that came from a combination of money and the time to spend with a personal trainer.
“Who are you?” she asked him.
“Wes Marlin. I live across the street. And I want to know what happened.”
“I’m sure you do.” Karen gave him a polite smile and pulled out her pad and pen, scrawling his name. “Phone number?”
“Why? I didn’t see or hear anything. I’m just worried. I have a wife and kids, you know.”
“Yes, of course. I can get your phone number, you know.”
So he gave it to her, along with his address. Then she turned to the others. “Did anyone hear or see anything at all?”
Most of the heads shook negatively, almost in unison, as if the crowd had become one entity. Muted calls of “What happened?” rippled out, indistinguishable one from the next.
Then another man spoke. “I heard a car,” he said.
Immediately Karen’s gaze snapped to him. “Your name?”
“Art Wallace. I live next door.” He pointed over his shoulder to the right. “The Lawrences are like family to me. We’ve been friends for ten years, at least. Our kids play together. So could you please just tell me if Abby is okay?”
“Abby?”
“The nanny. Oh, hell, she’s not a nanny anymore, she’s part of the family. Grant took the girls to D.C. with him, so she’s the only one home. Is she all right?”
He was a good-looking man in his midforties, a little thin in the hair, and wearing an expensive pair of glasses, but he had the kindest face among all the plastic faces around him. “Do you know Abby well?”
“Of course! Like I said, she’s part of the family.”
“When
