Far to my right was a twin bed. From a distance I saw disarrayed bedcovers and a splay of dark, tangled hair. Watching where I stepped, I went to her.
Her face was turned toward me, and it was so suffused, so bloated by decomposition, I could not tell what she had looked like in life except she was white, with shoulder-length dark brown hair. She was nude and resting on her left side, her legs drawn up, her hands behind her and tightly bound. It appeared the killer used the cords from venetian blinds, and the knots, the pattern, were joltingly familiar. A dark blue bedspread was thrown over her hips in a manner still ringing of careless cold contempt. On the floor at the foot of the bed was a pair of shorty pajamas. The top was buttoned, and it was slit from the collar to the hem. The bottoms appeared to be slit along the sides.
Marino slowly crossed the bedroom and stood next to me. “He climbed up the ladder,” he said.
“What ladder?” I asked.
There were two windows. The one he was staring at was open and nearer the bed. “Against the brick outside,” he explained, “there’s an old iron fire escape ladder. That’s how he got in. The rungs are rusty.
Some of it flaked off and is on the sill, probably from his shoes.”
“And he went out that way, too,” I assumed aloud.
“Can’t say for sure, but it would appear so. The door downstairs was locked. We had to bust it open. But outside,” he added, looking toward the window again, “there’s tall grass under the ladder. No footprints. It rained cats and dogs Saturday night so that don’t help our cause worth a damn either.”
“This place air-conditioned?” My skin was crawling, the airless room hot and damp and bristling with decay.
“Nope. No fans either. Not a single one.” He wiped his flushed face with his hand. His hair was clinging like gray string to his wet forehead, his eyes bloodshot and darkly ringed. Marino looked as if he hadn’t been to bed or changed his clothes in a week.
“Was the window locked?” I asked.
“Neither of them was—” He got a surprised look on his face as we turned in unison toward the doorway. “What the hell . . . ?”
A woman had started screaming in the foyer two floors below. Feet were scuffing, male voices were arguing.
“Get out of my house! Oh, God . . . Get out of my house, you goddam son of a bitch!” screamed the woman.
Marino abruptly brushed past me, and his steps thudded loudly on the wooden stairs. I could hear him saying something to someone, and almost immediately the screaming stopped. The loud voices faded to a murmur.
I began the external examination of the body.
She was the same temperature as the room, and rigor already had come and gone. She got cool and stiff right after death, and then as the temperature outside rose so did the temperature of her body. Finally, her stiffness passed, as if the initial shock of death vanished with time.
I did not have to pull back the bedspread much to see what was beneath it. For an instant, I wasn’t breathing and my heart seemed to stop. I gently laid the spread back in place and began peeling off my gloves. There was nothing more I could do with her here. Nothing.
When I heard Marino coming back up the stairs, I turned to tell him to be sure the body came to the morgue wrapped in the bedcovers. But the words stuck in my throat. I stared in speechless astonishment.
In the doorway next to him was Abby Turnbull. What in God’s name did Marino think he was doing? Had he lost his mind? Abby Turnbull, the ace reporter, the shark that made Jaws seem like a goldfish.
Then I noticed she was wearing sandals, a pair of blue jeans and a white cotton blouse that wasn’t tucked in. Her hair was tied back. She wasn’t wearing makeup. She carried no tape recorder or notepad, just a canvas tote bag. Her wide eyes were riveted to the bed, her face twisted by terror.
“God, no!” As she placed her hand over her open mouth.
“It’s her, then,” Marino said in a low voice.
She moved closer, staring. “My God. Henna. Oh, my God . . .”
“This was her room?”
“Yes. Yes. Oh, please, God . . .” Marino jerked his head, motioning a uniformed man I couldn’t see to come upstairs and escort Abby Turn-bull out. I heard their feet on the stairs, heard her moaning.
I quietly asked Marino, “You know what you’re doing?”
“Hey. I always know what I’m doing.”
“That was her screaming,” I numbly went on. “Screaming at the police?”
“Nope. Boltz had just come down. She was yelling at him.”
“Boltz?” I couldn’t think.
“Can’t say I blame her,” he replied unemphatically. “It’s her house. Can’t blame her for not wanting us crawling all over the damn place, telling her she can’t come in . . .”