“Speak of the devil,” he said, looking at a fifty-something man who was sprinting out his front door, yelling and flailing his arms wildly. “That’s Carl there now.”
Jessie and Ryan looked at Carl, who appeared to be in genuine distress. Then they heard what he was screaming.
“Help me! Someone killed her!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ryan reached the man in moments.
He glanced back and saw that Jessie, with her still-sensitive back, was a few seconds behind.
“I’m a police detective,” he said to the man. “What’s going on?”
The man had an expression that was part horrified and part disbelieving, as if he couldn’t process what he’d just seen.
“I just got home and found my…girlfriend in the foyer. She’s dead. Somebody did something awful…it looks like she was beaten or something. I tried to help her. I thought she might be alive because she’s still warm. But there’s no pulse.”
“Take us in there now,” Jessie said, short of breath from just arriving.
The man ran back inside and they followed him. The door was open. Before they even got inside, Ryan could see the body on the floor of the foyer. It was rough. The victim, a woman who appeared to be in her twenties, was lying on her back, wearing nothing but a teddy. Her left leg bent back grotesquely in the wrong direction. Her right arm was equally disfigured. She was bleeding from somewhere on the underside of her head, a crimson pool slowly spreading outward.
But none of that was what drew Ryan’s attention. Wrapped around her neck was a stocking, one that looked similar to the one that had been used on Priscilla Barton. Ryan noticed something else. On the marble floor were bloody footprints headed off in the direction of the back of the house. The prints were of bare feet and they looked fresh.
“I think this happened in the last few minutes,” he said, looking over at Jessie. “I’m going to follow the prints. Will you call it in and secure the house?”
Jessie nodded and he took off, running down the hallway where the blood trail went. It led through the kitchen to a door that opened onto the alley. He unholstered his weapon and carefully peeked outside. The prints, now fading, headed to the right and he moved in that direction.
After about twenty yards the bloodstains disappeared completely and he was left guessing which direction to go. The guy could have hidden in any of these places, especially since so many were currently unoccupied. He looked around for any clue that might help.
Ryan was in an alley that divided the homes directly on the Strand from those one block east. They were equally impressive, in some case more so. The owners seemed to compensate for being a block away from the beach by being even more ostentatious in house size. Unlike the Strand homes, which had little yard space, the ones he was looking at now had large green spaces.
In fact, just up the way, he saw that one home with a yard had a small cabana. He squinted to make sure he wasn’t imagining it. It looked like the cabana door was slightly ajar. He moved in that direction and scaled the wooden fence without any trouble. As he approached the cabana, he considered calling Jessie but didn’t want to make any noise that might tip the attacker off.
When he got to the door, he saw that it was dark inside. The windows were curtained and there were no lights on. He took off his sports jacket and tossed it on the ground. For what he was planning, he’d need as much deftness as possible and wearing the jacket would interfere with that.
Without pausing to think about it too long, Ryan got a running start and dove into the room, rolling into an elegant somersault and popping upright. He spun around, training his gun on the interior of the cabana.
It was sparsely decorated with nowhere to hide. Despite the dimness, it quickly became clear there was no one in the room. Then he saw the other door. He gathered it led to either a bathroom or closet. Either way it was closed.
He shuffled to the right and approached the door from the side, briefly debating whether to try to access the room with stealth or force. But it didn’t take long to decide. If someone was behind that door, they surely heard him enter the cabana.
He also doubted, though he couldn’t be sure, that the killer was armed with a gun. In his experience, if someone was a stabber, they carried only a knife. If they were a strangler, they usually only had a cord, or in this case, a stocking. Most killers were quite loyal to their weapon of choice.
Still, he decided kicking in the door was wiser than trying to open it quietly, especially if it was locked. So he reared back and slammed the base of his shoe into the handle, which snapped off as the door flew open. Ryan leapt in, his eyes darting everywhere.
It was indeed a bathroom. But other than a toilet, a small, glassed-in shower and a sink, it was empty. He was about to leave when he sensed it more than heard it—the presence of another person in the cabana. He was just swiveling around when he heard the heavy breathing of someone very close by. Before he could fully spin back to the door, a body slammed into him.
As he felt the breath violently escape his chest, he flew backwards and his body smashed into the glass pane of the shower stall.
*
The first floor of the house was clear.
Just to be safe, Jessie had cuffed Carl Landingham to the banister in the foyer as she searched the massive mansion. Assuming he hadn’t killed the girl, she felt bad about leaving him there, trapped with the dead body of his alleged mistress. But she didn’t have much choice.
When she reached the top of the stairs, she saw the snapped-off heel of one of the victim’s stilettos. Leaving it where it lay, she continued down the hall, checking each room. Most looked undisturbed. On the bed in one guest room, she found a small backpack. Spread out next to it on the bed were clothes that she assumed belonged to the girl, including yoga pants and a hooded sweatshirt.
Jessie left them there and continued down the hall, going room to room, until she reached the master bedroom. Unlike the others, it was clear that this room had been used recently. The bed was unmade. There was a plate with crumbs on the side table closest to the balcony. On one dresser, a man’s clothes were neatly folded with a pair of sneakers on the ground in front.
Jessie left and headed back down the stairs to the foyer. She could hear the sound of sirens close by, not a shock since the department she’d called was only six blocks north. Carl was sitting on the bottom step with his head resting on his non-cuffed hand. The pool of blood around the woman’s head had now expanded and was seeping under her shoulders.
As Jessie took the last few stair steps, she noticed something she hadn’t picked up on in the mad dash earlier. While one stocking was wrapped around the girl’s neck, she was still wearing the other one. That was different than the situation with Priscilla Barton at the Bloom house, when it seemed that the assailant had found the stocking in the dresser. This time he’d just used what was available. And yet, upon initial inspection, it looked like both stockings used were similar styles and brands. Was this the killer’s thing?
Something about the sight made her recall the notes scribbled on Garland’s pad. She remembered his chicken scratch saying “fetish?” Was that a reference to the use of the stocking? Then she remembered another note, “missing h.” It seemed reasonable to guess that the “h” referred to hose, as in pantyhose. But what did he mean by “missing”? And she still had no idea what the term “OTB” meant. Jessie realized that another visit to the Bloom house was likely in order.