“The homeowners and both assistants have the codes. You have to enter them as soon as you walk into the foyer. If you don’t, then the alarm company gets notified and then they, in turn, notify us that there’s been an unauthorized entry. Eve Bowers related that the system was already disabled when she arrived, so she did not use a code. I’m not sure who else has them.”
“We’ll ask Mr. Collins when we interview him,” Josie said. “Right now, I want to see the scene.”
FIVE
There was blood everywhere. From the large foyer, through the massive great room, and into the kitchen—mostly full and partial footprints that appeared to be from a man and a woman—pointing both ways and overlapping. The majority of the blood spatter was in the kitchen. It cut a messy, mottled path across white granite tile into the dining room where a large oak table dominated the room. The body of Dr. Claudia Collins slumped in one of the chairs. Her long sandy hair obscured her face, but a cascade of blood was visible along her side. Dr. Feist stood on the other side of her, gloved hands probing at her forehead. With Mettner in tow, Josie rounded the table, drawing closer. Still-wet blood soaked Claudia’s hair, dripping from its ends onto her khaki slacks and down her arm, which hung several inches above the tile. Rivulets ran down over her hand to her fingers and onto the floor.
Josie scanned the rest of the room. There was seating for a dozen people although there were only two place settings. Between the place settings, a bottle of champagne rested in an ice bucket that was now more water than ice. Beside it, a vase of fresh roses dripped petals across the white linen tablecloth. On either side of it candles flickered, their vanilla scent mixing with the scent of early decomposition and blood. Wall sconces shaped like lanterns dotted the walls. Each one was lit although collectively they did not look as though they gave off much light. Someone from the ERT had erected halogen lights on each side of the room so that they could work.
The head of their ERT, Officer Hummel, appeared in the kitchen doorway. “The candles were lit when we got here, as were the wall sconces.”
Josie looked again from Claudia’s hand to the doors leading to the kitchen. Droplets and more footprints. In this light it was easier to pick out the footprints that appeared to be from a woman’s heeled shoe and another set that were larger, resembling a man’s dress shoe. She and Mettner had been careful to avoid them, but they were everywhere, each one layered on top of another. “What a mess,” Josie said.
Hummel followed her gaze. “Both Eve Bowers and Beau Collins stepped in the blood and tracked it all through the first floor. We’ve already taken their footwear into evidence. We’ll match it up to what we’ve got here. Anything that doesn’t match might belong to the killer. We didn’t find any blood on Claudia’s shoes, which, as you can see, are ballet flats.”
Mettner said, “But whatever happened here clearly started in the kitchen.”
“Which means someone carried her in here,” Josie said. She pointed to the floor where, among the footsteps, was a trail of droplets, beginning—or ending—where Claudia’s hand dangled. “The droplets coming from her hand are circular with no spines but the ones leading from the kitchen out here are elongated, oval-shaped, with spines—or cast-off marks, if you will.”
“Right,” Mettner said. “When blood gets flung rather than dripping straight down, once it impacts a surface, it has the elongated oval shape with an extension. You know when I learned about this, my instructor referred to the spine as an elephant’s trunk.”
Josie said, “I’ve heard that before.”
Whether it was called a spine, a cast-off mark, or an elephant trunk, the measurement of the elongation and the exact shape of the oval were all dependent on the angle at which the blood hit a surface. However, passive drips, which were caused by gravity and not by force, and fell straight down, were circular with no cast-off marks.
Josie said, “Once she was in this chair, she didn’t move.”
Mettner followed the trail from the chair toward the kitchen. “These must be from her arm swinging while he carried her.”
Hummel nodded and beckoned back into the kitchen, pointing out the trail as they walked. They had already passed through the room once on their way to the body, but now Josie took a closer look. Like the rest of the house, it was spacious. The tile was white granite, the cabinets oak. There was no island countertop, only a small, circular table with seating for two sat off to one side. Stacked high on top of it were a number of plastic takeout containers, covered with blood droplets. The faint scent of steak and salmon emanated from them. The stove and even the sink sparkled. Not a crumb or dirty dish in sight.
Except for the blood nearly everywhere, the room was pristine.
Across from the table, recessed into the wall was a small vestibule that led to sliding glass doors. Josie edged around more bloody footprints and droplets layered across the middle of the kitchen floor toward the doors. She pushed aside one of the hanging blinds. Exterior lights illuminated a large deck and beyond that, down a set of steps, an in-ground pool, now covered for winter.
“Were those doors locked?” she asked.
“Yes,” Hummel said. “There is a keypad outside of the door, too, so to get in you need a passcode.”
She moved to the table, again careful to keep her Tyvek booties out of the blood. No easy task. Mettner was already there, nudging one of the foam containers with a gloved finger. “Takeout food for their anniversary?”
Josie motioned to a large area of blood spatter on the wall over one of the chairs. More blood spilled across the table. “Is this where it started?”
Hummel pointed to a stained area of the wall that would have been about head level had Claudia been seated there. The blood droplets were small and scattered, indicating medium-velocity impact spatter, meaning someone had struck Claudia with something. Gravitational drips trailed down toward the floor. More blood pooled in several places at the base of the chair, thick and dark. Hummel said, “It was a head injury. I’m thinking blunt force trauma. Not sure with what. The doc maybe can help you with that. We haven’t found anything here that could have been used as a weapon.”
Mettner said, “Looks like she was sitting in the chair when it happened.”
Hummel nodded. “I think so. She would have been facing away from the great room, so I think he came in the way we just did, from the front door, and snuck up on her. Hit her on the head before she even knew what was happening.”
Josie looked from the door to the chair. “How many entrances to this place?”
Hummel said, “The front door and that one right there that leads to the pool.”
Josie said, “She would have seen someone trying to come from the pool area. You’re right. He had to come right through the front door. She left the alarm disabled, per Eve Bowers, probably because she was expecting people.”
“What good fortune for the killer,” Mettner said.
“Or he knew her schedule, knew she would be here and waited to catch her alone,” Josie said. “Let’s keep going.”
Hummel pointed to the part of the table that was nearest the wall. “This is where her purse was sitting—we took it into evidence. Behind the takeout containers. It appears as though she came in here, put her things down, unpacked these, threw away the takeout bag—I found that in the trash bin—and plopped into this seat. She might have been on her phone—maybe that’s why she didn’t hear him? But her phone is not here.”