In the living room, Wil worked grimly and silently, upending couches, slitting burlap bottoms, pulling a clock off the wall and shaking it hard enough to do serious damage, peering up the fireplace.
She decided to get an overview of the house, found three bedrooms, two bone-empty, one a disgusting mess, a pair of bathrooms, a dining area off the kitchen, and, next to the living room, a paneled den that looked out to the backyard, nothing in it but a brown leather recliner and a sixty-inch TV. An illegal black box sat atop the television. Petra switched on the set and was assaulted by five feet of penis entering vagina, a lazy synthesizer score, moans and grunts.
“Oh, those men,” said Wil, laughing.
She turned off the TV, opened the curtains. The yard was nice-sized, with several mature trees and an oval swimming pool, but the grass was ten inches of hay; the pool, a sump of algae-streaked soup. High block walls and shrubbery blocked the neighbors' views. Lucky for the neighbors.
Light-years from Ramsey's princely lifestyle. All those years of being nothing like Ramsey.
She decided to tackle the disgusting bedroom first. It smelled like the bottom of a laundry basket. King-size bed, cheap headboard, black sheets and pillowcases flecked with oily gray stains. Gloving up, she bagged the linens. The mattress was a mildewed ruin. Even protected by surgical rubber, she found handling Balch's linens repulsive.
Facing the bed was another TV, same size, and a second black box. Same porn station. Wadded tissues and stroke books in a nightstand added to the picture of Balch's solitary sexual life. She flipped through the magazines, hoping for some really nasty S &M to build up the bad-guy psyche, but most of it was straight hetero male fantasy; the worst, some lightweight bondage.
The porn went into a bag, duly noted.
Piles of dirty underwear and socks created a lumpy rug between the wall and the left side of the bed. Balch probably slept on the right side, tossed his junk across. The closet was crammed with sweat suits in varying colors, drawstring lounging pants, jeans, shirts, all with Macy's labels. A plastic bag with a ticket from a dry cleaner- on Hawthorne Boulevard- contained two pairs of pants and three shirts, including the bright blue silk he'd been wearing the day of the notification call.
She removed the plastic-wrapped garments. He leaves dirty laundry on the floor for days but chooses to clean these.
Probably the stuff he'd worn while murdering Lisa. Two pants, three shirts.
If they were bloodstained, why hadn't the cleaner noticed? She tagged and bagged, moved on to the shelf above the closet. Thirteen file boxes up there. Balch's tax records. She took her time with them.
His salary from Ramsey was his sole income. Ramsey'd started him off twenty-five years ago at $25,000. Regular raises had brought him to $160,000. Nice, but nothing compared to the boss's millions.
The forms listed little by way of investment. He'd deducted depreciation on the Saddlewax house, which had been purchased fourteen years ago, and his car leases- Buicks, then Caddies, now the Lexus- but no other real estate. For thirteen years, alimony had been paid monthly to Helen Balch, of Duluth, Minnesota. For the last nine, he'd also divvied up to Amber Leigh Balch.
Helen's name conjured up a middle-aged woman, the dutiful first wife. The house bought fourteen years ago- right after the marriage? If so, dissolution had taken place one year later.
Amber Leigh sounded like an industry pseudonym. Petra saw a homewrecker with big hair, long legs- probably blond, because Lisa and Ilse said he liked blondes. Big-chested bimbo, a face not quite pretty enough. That hadn't lasted long, either.
Two thousand a month to Helen; fifteen hundred to Amber.
His take-home was a little over eight thou a month. Lease payments on the Lexus were six hundred. Take away that and spousal support, and he cleared thirty-nine hundred a month. For the last few years, he'd received tax refunds of twenty grand or so. Not poverty, but chicken feed by industry standards. By Ramsey standards.
No obvious signs of big-ticket hobbies or conspicuous expenditures. Did he play the track? Sniff coke? Had he accumulated a money stash? Augmented it with skim?
She searched every corner of the room, found no bankbooks or investment material. Unlike Lisa, no plans. Had she been his launderer?
Then she'd demanded more. Or tried to blackmail Balch. Money and passion; had to be.
A door slammed. She looked out the window and saw Wil heading for the garage. He pushed a remote and the door slid open. No car that she could see. She returned to the tax files, labeling each carton. Onward.
The first of the empty bedrooms was just that. In the second, though, she found more booty on the closet shelf: three shoe boxes of loose photos. First came thirty-year-old professional shots of football teams, high school and college, the faces too small to make out, then home-camera jobs showing Ramsey and Balch in full athletic gear, giant padded shoulders, tight waists.
Tall, Dark, and Handsome and his flaxen-haired buddy, both grinning, cocky, ready to take on the world.
After that came wedding snaps, Balch still lean and tan, wearing a powder-blue tux, a ruffled shirt, and an unsure expression. Helen turned out to be slender, attractive, with short dark hair and a prim mouth. Later photos showed her aging well, staying slim, sometimes wearing glasses. Holding a baby.
Wrapped in pink. A daughter. Balch had never mentioned a child during the interview, but why would he, they'd been focusing on other people's lives. Petra remembered how he punted away personal questions. At the time, it had seemed aw-shucks. Now she understood.
Twenty or so pictures of the child, no name on the back of any of the pictures. A pretty dark-haired girl who favored her mother. Snapshots up till age eight or so, then nothing.
The divorce, or had it been worse- a death? Yet another loss in Balch's miserable life?
Box number two contained smaller versions of the celeb shots Petra had seen on Balch's office wall. Mostly Ramsey, a few of Balch. Various photographers, Hollywood and the Valley.
The last box was nearly empty. Just a wedding portrait, photographer's stamp from Las Vegas- a Vegas connection. Balch in a dark suit and white banded-collar shirt, pink-faced, puffy, slightly off-kilter, towering over Amber Leigh, who was tiny and Asian, with incredible cheekbones and breasts that screamed augmentation. Not what Petra had pictured, but definitely bimboistic.
He married dark-haired women but killed blondes.
Beneath the photo was an envelope dated three years ago.
Loopy childish handwriting addressed to Mr. G. Balch at the Saddlewax address. On the return side, Caitlin Balch, no address; Duluth, Minnesota, postmark.
The same handwriting on a single sheet of lined notepaper.
Dear Dad,
Well, Im graduating from Junior High and I won an award for band, but I don't think you care about that. You never call or come here anymore and you never send the alemoney on time and with Mom being sick that makes it really hard for us. Im only writing this because Mom said I should, you should know when your daughter graduates.
You don't care. Right?
Your daughter (I guess)
Caitlin Lauren Balch
Pathetic. Had he ever answered? No further correspondence said probably not.
No shots of Lisa. Or Ilse Eggermann. That would have been too much to hope for.
If he'd been obsessed with either of the dead women, he'd probably destroyed the evidence. Or taken it with him to play with.