"Me," Marino was saying, "I think it wasn't any fun unless he chased her. He could've grabbed her, killed her down there in the living room, but that would've ruined the sport. He was probably smiling the whole time, her bleeding and screaming and begging. When she finally makes it in here, she collapses. The gig's up. No fun anymore. He ends it."
The room was wintry, decorated in yellow as pale as January sunshine. The hardwood floor was black near the twin bed, and there were black streaks and splashes on the whitewashed wall. In the scene photographs Beryl was on her back, her legs spread, her arms up around her head, her face turned toward the curtained window. She was nude. When I had first studied the photographs I could not tell what she looked like or even the color of her hair. All I saw was red. The police had found a pair of bloody khaki slacks near her body. Her blouse and undergarments were missing.
"The cabdriver you mentioned - Hunnel or whatever his name was - did he remember what Beryl was wearing when he picked her up at the airport?" I asked.
"It was dark," Marino replied. "He wasn't sure but thought she was wearing pants and a jacket. We know she was wearing pants when she was attacked, the khaki ones we found in here. There was a matching jacket on a chair inside her bedroom. I don't think she changed clothes when she got home, just tossed her jacket on the chair. Whatever else she was wearing-a blouse, her underclothes-the killer took them."
"A souvenir," I thought aloud.
Marino was staring at the dark-stained floor where her body had been found.
He said, "The way I'm seeing it, he has her down in here, takes her clothes off, rapes her or tries to. Then he stabs her and nearly cuts her head off. A damn shame about her PERK," he added, referring to her Physical Evidence Recovery Kit, swabs from which were negative for sperm. "Guess we can kiss DNA good-bye."
"Unless some of the blood we're analyzing is his," I replied. "Otherwise, yes. Forget DNA."
"And no hairs," he said. "None except a few consistent with hers."
The house was so quiet our voices were unnervingly loud. Everywhere I looked I saw the ugly stains. I saw the images in my mind: the stab wounds, the hilt marks, the savage wound in her neck gaping like a yawning red mouth. I went out into the hall. The dust was irritating my lungs. It was hard to breathe. I said, "Show me where you found her gun."
When the police had arrived at the scene that night, they'd found Beryl's.380 automatic on the kitchen counter near the microwave oven. The gun was loaded, the safety on. The only partial prints the lab could identify were her own.
"She kept the box of cartridges inside a table by her bed," Marino said. "Probably kept the gun there, too. I figure she carried her bags upstairs, unpacked and dumped most of her clothes in the bathroom hamper, and put her suitcases back in the bedroom closet. At some point during all this, she got out her piece. A sure sign she was antsy as hell. What you wanta bet she checked out every room with it before she started winding down?"
"I know I would have," I commented.
He looked around the kitchen. "So maybe she came in here for a snack."
"She may have thought about a snack, but she didn't eat one," I answered. "Her gastric contents were about fifty milliliters, or less than two ounces, of dark brown fluid. Whatever she ate last was fully digested by the time she died-or better put, by the time she was attacked. Digestion shuts down during acute stress or fear. If she'd just eaten a snack when the killer got to her, the food wouldn't have cleared her stomach."
"Not much to munch on anyway," he said as if this were an important point to make as he opened the refrigerator door.
Inside we found a shriveled lemon, two sticks of butter, a block of moldy Havarti cheese, condiments, and a bottle of tonic water. The freezer was a little more promising, but not much. There were a few packages of chicken breasts, Le Menus, and lean ground beef. Cooking, it appeared, was not a pleasure for Beryl but a utilitarian exercise. I knew what my own kitchen was like. This one was depressingly sterile. Motes of dust were suspended in the pale light seeping through slits of the gray designer blinds in the window over the sink. The drainboard and sink were empty and dry. The appliances were modern and looked unused.
"The other thought is she came in here for a drink," Marino speculated.
"Her STAT alcohol was negative," I said.
"Don't mean she didn't think about it."
He opened a cabinet above the sink. There wasn't an inch to spare on three shelves: Jack Daniel's, Chivas Regal, Tanqueray, liqueurs, and something else that caught my attention. In front of the Cognac on the top shelf was a bottle of Haitian Barbancourt Rhum, aged fifteen years and as expensive as unblended Scotch.
Lifting it out with a gloved hand, I set it on the counter. There was no strip stamp, and the seal around the gold cap was unbroken.
"I don't think she got this around here," I told Marino. "My guess is she got it in Miami, Key West."
"So you're saying she brought it back from Florida?"
"It's possible. Clearly, she was a connoisseur of good booze. Barbancourt's wonderful."
"Guess I should start calling you Doctor Connoisseur," he said.
The bottle of Barbancourt wasn't dusty, even though many of the bottles near it were.
"It might explain why she was in the kitchen," I went on. "Perhaps she came downstairs to put away the rum. She may have been contemplating a nightcap when someone arrived at her door."
"Yeah, but what it don't explain is why she left her piece in here on the counter when she answered the door. She was supposed to be spooked, right? Still makes me think she was expecting company, knew the squirrel. Hey, she's got all this fancy booze, right? She drinks the stuff alone? Don't make sense. Makes more sense to think she did a little entertaining from time to time, had some guy in. Hell, maybe it's this 'M' she was writing down there in the Keys. Maybe that's who she was expecting the night she was whacked."
"You're entertaining the possibility 'M' is the killer," I said.
"Wouldn't you be?"
He was getting combative, and his toying with the unlit cigarette was beginning to grate on my nerves.
"I would entertain every possibility," I replied. "For example, I would also entertain the possibility she wasn't expecting company. She was in the kitchen putting away her rum and possibly thinking of pouring herself a drink. She was nervous, had her automatic nearby on the counter. She was startled when the doorbell rang or someone started knocking-"
"Right," he cut me off. "She's startled, jumpy. So why does she leave her piece here in the kitchen when she goes to the damn door?"
"Did she practice?"
"Practice?"
he said as our eyes met. "Practice what*"
"Shooting."
"Hell… I donno…"
"If she didn't, it wasn't a natural reflex for her to arm herself but a conscious deliberation. Women carry Mace in their pocketbooks. They're assaulted and the Mace never enters their minds until after the fact because defending themselves isn't a reflex."
"I don't know…"
I did know. I had a Ruger.38 revolver loaded with Silvertips, one of the most destructive cartridges money could buy. The only reason it would occur to me to arm myself with the handgun was I practiced, took it down to the range inside my building several times a month. When I was home alone, I was more comfortable with the handgun than without it.
There was something else. I thought of the living room, of the fireplace tools upright in their brass stand on the hearth. Beryl had struggled with her assailant in that room and it never occurred to her to arm herself with the poker or the shovel. Defending herself was not a reflex. Her only reflex was to run, whether it was up the stairs or to Key West.
I explained, "She may have been a stranger to the gun, Marino. The doorbell rings. She's unnerved, confused. She goes into the living room and looks through the peephole. Whoever it is, she trusts the person enough to open the door. The gun is forgotten."