“It’s the one there on the end, on the second story,” he was saying.
“Your theory is he climbed that magnolia closest to the house, got up on the porch roof and then through the window?”
“It’s more than a theory,” he retorted. “I’m sure of it. No other way he could’ve done it unless he had a ladder. It’s more than possible to climb the tree, get on the porch roof and reach over to slide up the window. I know. I tried it myself to see if it could be done. Did it without a hitch. All the guy needs is sufficient upper-body strength to grab the edge of the roof from that thick lower tree branch,” he pointed, “and pull himself up.”
The brownstone had ceiling fans but no air-conditioning. According to an out-of-town friend who used to come to visit several times a year, Patty often slept with the bedroom window open. Simply put, it was a choice between being comfortable or being secure. She chose the former.
Marino made a lazy U-turn in the street and we headed northeast.
Cecile Tyler lived in Ginter Park, the oldest residential neighborhood in Richmond. There are monstrous three-story Victorian houses with wraparound porches wide enough to roller-skate on, and turrets, and dentil work along the eaves. Yards are thick with magnolias, oaks and rhododendrons. Grape vines climb over porch posts and arbors in back. I was envisioning dim living rooms beyond the blank windows, faded Oriental rugs, ornate furniture and cornices, and knickknacks jammed in every nook and cranny. I wouldn’t have wanted to live here. It was giving me the same claustrophobic case of the creeps that ficus trees and Spanish moss do.
Hers was a two-story brick house, modest by her neighbors’ standards. It was exactly 5.8 miles from where Patty Lewis lived. In the waning sun the slate roof glinted like lead. Shutters and doors were naked, stripped to the wood and still waiting for the fresh paint Cecile would have applied had she lived long enough.
The killer got in through a basement window behind a boxwood hedge on the north wing of the house. The lock was broken and, like everything else, waiting to be repaired.
She was a lovely black woman, recently divorced from a dentist now living in Tidewater. A receptionist at an employment agency, she was attending college classes at night to complete a degree in business. The last time she’d been seen alive was at approximately 10:00 P.M., a week ago Friday, about three hours before her death, I had estimated. She had dinner that night with a woman friend at a neighborhood Mexican restaurant, then went straight home.
Her body was found the next afternoon, Saturday. She was supposed to go shopping with her friend. Cecile’s car was in the drive, and when she didn’t answer the phone or the door, her friend got worried and peered through the slightly parted curtains of the bedroom window. The sight of Cecile’s nude, bound body on top of the disarrayed bed wasn’t something the friend was likely ever to forget.
“Bobbi,” Marino said. “She’s white, you know.”
“Cecile’s friend?” I’d forgotten her name.
“Yo. Bobbi. The rich bitch who found Cecile’s body. The two of ’em was always together. Bobbi’s got this red Porsche, a dynamite-looking blonde, works as a model. She’s at Cecile’s crib all the time, sometimes don’t leave until early morning. Think the two of ’em were sweet on each other, you want my opinion. Blows my mind. I mean, it’s hard to figure. Both of ’em good-looking enough to pop your eyes out. You’d think men would be hitting on ’em all the time . . .”
“Maybe that’s your answer,” I said in annoyance. “If your suspicions about the women are founded.”
Marino smiled slyly. He was baiting me again.
“Well, my point is,” he went on, “maybe the killer’s cruising the neighborhood and sees Bobbi climbing into her red Porsche late one night. Maybe he thinks she lives here. Or maybe he follows her one night when she’s on her way to Cecile’s house.”
“And he murders Cecile by mistake? Because he thought Bobbi lived here?”
“I’m just running it up the pole. Like I said, Bobbi’s white. The other victims are white.”
We sat in silence for a moment, staring at the house.
The racial mix continued to bother me, too. Three white women and one black woman. Why?
“One more thing I’ll run up the pole,” Marino said. “I’ve been wondering if the killer’s got several candidates for each of these murders, like he chooses from the menu, ends up getting what he can afford. Sort of strange each time he sets out to kill one of ’em, she just happens to have a window unlocked or open or broke. It’s either, in my opinion, a random situation, where he cruises and looks for anyone who seems to be alone and whose house is insecure, or else he’s got access to a number of women and their addresses, and maybe makes the rounds, maybe cases a lotta residences in one night before finding the one that’ll work for him.”