and hell if he didn’t ride a damned cable car now and again. He just liked the feel of the city, the smell of it. So despite this new Cahill mess and the long hours he put in with the department, he was glad to be back.
“Hey! Detective! Over here!” From within the house, Tallulah Jefferson gestured for him to come back inside. She was eyeing the marble tiles of the floor while the ME was examining the body, taking internal temperature, checking for contusions and lividity. A petite black woman, Jefferson was nothing if not an enthusiastic criminalist. She was able to divorce herself from the person within the body in a way that Paterno had never seen. She wore no makeup, and she always sported some kind of headband to scrape her springy curls away from her face. Now her usually smooth forehead was wrinkled in thought as she huddled with Janet Quinn at the base of the stairs while an officer dusted the railing for prints and a photographer snapped off pictures.
“What have you got?” Paterno asked, approaching her.
“No accident, that’s what I’ve got.” Jefferson nodded, as if agreeing with herself, then looked up at the landing and squinted. Paterno guessed that in her mind’s eye she was watching a slow-motion movie of what she thought were the last seconds of Eugenia Cahill’s life. “The way I see it, she fell from the landing, not down the stairs.” Jefferson pointed to the sweeping wooden steps covered with an expensive runner. “I can’t find any signs of anything hitting the wall, no blood, no unusual scrapes on the risers or railing where either her body or her cane would have hit and bounced as she tumbled down. Nothing on the runner, no tears to the carpet or smears of blood, at least none that I can see.” Jefferson scratched a spot near her headband. “And see where she landed…over here.” The criminalist walked back to the victim’s body, where the ME was getting it ready for the body bag.
A thick red stain spread upon the floor, Eugenia’s blood in a pool directly under a huge chandelier suspended from the floor above. Dripping crystal and illuminated by hundreds of small lights, the chandelier seemed garish and overwhelming considering the tiny victim directly beneath it. “She’s a good six feet from the bottom step. No way would any kind of momentum send her over here, even if she skidded over the tile. This rug”—Jefferson pointed to a small circular carpet at the base of the stairs—“would have been disturbed, but see: not even one piece of fringe is out of place. No blood streaking the floor. No scuffs from her shoes. And I don’t think the body was moved. It looks like she landed right where she ended up.”
“She was pushed?”
Jefferson glanced up at the landing. “She was not quite five feet tall, and presumably a little stooped. Walked with a cane. The rail would have hit her about here.” She leveled a hand on her own body, to a spot just under her breasts. “Even if she tripped, or fell, or had a heart attack or stroke or whatever, how did she get over the railing? I could see her stumbling on the landing and falling against the rail, and if it was really weak and she hit it with some kind of force, maybe the old railing would have splintered. Maybe then she could’ve fallen through, but I really don’t think so. Doesn’t matter. I checked. That railing’s oak and damned solid. No weak connections, no broken balusters. Besides, I think the body’s in the wrong spot. If she fell or were dangled, she’d land over here.” Jefferson walked to below the landing, closer to the wall. “We won’t know until we take more measurements, but I’m guessing she either did a swan dive from the railing, leaping outward, or, more likely, she was helped over.”
“Homicide.”
“It’s preliminary, but yeah, right now, that’s what I’m saying. I didn’t see any sign of a struggle on the landing, but I’ll look again.”
So who would kill her? Paterno wondered, his gaze moving from the foyer to the sitting room, then toward hallways that he knew from previous visits led to the kitchen, dining area, and elevator. If he remembered correctly, this floor was strictly for entertaining; the second was the real living quarters, and included Eugenia’s room; the third was bedrooms; and the fourth had once belonged to live-in servants. Beneath it all was the garage. The house was worth millions, and he wondered who would end up with it now that Eugenia was dead. He walked to the sitting room off the foyer, glanced around. “Anyone see a dog?”
“What? A dog?” Jefferson asked.
“A little white dog. It was the victim’s. According to her granddaughter, Eugenia never went anywhere without the damned thing.” He remembered the little white mutt, a terrier mix of some kind. The dog had been a pain in the ass the last time he’d visited here, and he figured it hadn’t improved with age. What was amazing was that the scrappy thing was still alive.
Or had been.
Jefferson walked up the stairs to the landing. “No dog, white or otherwise.”
“Let me know if you come across it.”
Jefferson flashed him a smile, showing off slightly flared teeth against her mocha-colored complexion. “Does it bite?”
“Probably,” Paterno said. “It’s a Cahill.”
She snorted, already back at the railing above and studying the balusters positioned directly over the body. Meanwhile, the techs had spread out, dusting for prints, collecting debris, and continually snapping pictures in their painstaking search for evidence.
Quinn joined Paterno. “I’ll start with the phone records, the computer, and her date book. They’re all up in the library.”
“She’s got a computer?” Paterno asked.
Quinn nodded.
“The granddaughter said she didn’t like them.”
“I’ll check it out.”
“See if you can find any legal records,” he added. “Insurance policies and a will.” Frowning, he stared at the interior of this immense house with its original art and expensive, if worn, furnishings. “A place like this might have a wall safe.”
“Already checking,” Quinn assured him as she headed up the stairs to the library.
Paterno glanced down at the victim again, a last look before she would be zipped into a body bag and placed on a stretcher. His gut clenched as he stared at the dead woman’s tiny body, dressed in its expensive pants, suit jacket, blouse, and scarf. As if she’d planned to play bridge or have tea with her friends. Her hair was messed and bloody now, but he guessed it had been recently done—smooth apricot curls were still teased and sprayed into position.
Damn it all.
He had a bad feeling about this.
Real bad.
At least the beer was cold, Cissy thought, though considering the outside temperature, she and Jack should have been sipping hot chocolate laced with whiskey or Bailey’s, the kind of drinks they’d loved on the few trips they’d taken, skiing at Tahoe and Heavenly Valley. Back in the days when everything had felt magical. She recalled coming into the lodge exhilarated from the ski runs, snow melting in Jack’s hair, his face red with cold. Clunking in ski boots, they had ordered drinks, then sat outside to stare at the clear, incredibly blue waters of the lake, and later, after soaking in a hot tub outside, they’d spent hours in their room making love.
A lifetime ago.
Cissy took a swallow from her bottle and pushed those particular thoughts back into the locked closet where they belonged. No sense getting maudlin or nostalgic. So she had loved Jack with all
