The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(2)

                             I held up the case. I had wrapped the strap around my right hand.

                “Good,” he said. “Come on.”

                He walked quickly on the narrow shoveled sidewalk leading around the building. I had to hurry to keep up with him.

                “So,” I said, as soon as we were clear of the other cops, “you guys don’t have your own cameras?”

                “We do,” he said. “You’ll just want a record of this.”

                Now I was really intrigued. A record of something that he was willing to share; a record of something that they didn’t want to record themselves? Maybe he had finally decided that I should photograph a rape victim immediately after the crime had occurred.

                Although Kaplan didn’t handle the rape cases. He was homicide.

                The narrow sidewalk led to another small porch. Kaplan pulled on the screen door, and held it for me. Then he shoved the heavy interior door open.

                A musty smell rose from there, tinged with the scent of fall apples. I had expected a crime-scene smell—blood and feces and other unpleasantness, not the somewhat homey smell.

                To my right, half a dozen coats hung on the wall, with a variety of galoshes, boots, and old shoes on a plastic mat. This was clearly the entrance that the homeowner used the most.

                “When should I start photographing?” I asked.

                “I’ll tell you when,” Kaplan said, and led me up the stairs.

                We stepped into a kitchen that smelled faintly of baked bread. I frowned as Kaplan led me through swinging doors into the dining area. A picture window overlooked the lake. The view, so beautiful that it caught my attention, distracted me from the coroner’s staff, who clustered in the archway between the dining room and living room.

                Kaplan touched my arm, looking wary as he did so. I glanced down, saw an elderly woman sprawled on the shag carpet, arms above her head, face turned away as if her own death embarrassed her. This area did smell of blood and death. The stench got stronger the closer I got.



                             I couldn’t see her face. One hand was clenched in a fist, the other open. Her legs were open too, and looked like they had been pried that way. A pair of glasses had been knocked next to the console television, and a pot filled with artificial fall flowers had tumbled near the door.

                The coroner had pulled up the woman’s shirt slightly to get liver temperature. The frown on his face seemed at once appropriate and extreme for the work he was doing.

                I moved a step closer. He looked up, eyes fierce. His mouth opened slightly, and I thought he was going to yell at me. Instead, he turned that look on Kaplan.

                “Who the hell is that? Control your crime scene, man. Get the civilians out of here.”

                “Sorry,” Kaplan said, sounding contrite. “I turned in the wrong direction.”

                He touched my arm to move me away from the crowd. I realized that he had play-acted to convince the coroner and the other police officers that my appearance in that room had been an accident.

                But it hadn’t been. Kaplan had wanted me to see the body.

                “This way,” he said in that formal voice, as if he thought someone was still listening.