Baxter cleared her throat. “We need an agreement. That it won’t happen again.”
“We do? All right. We do.”
“I’m not saying it was unpleasant. My lips went willingly. But we have to keep our heads clear. Unmuddled.”
“Of course.”
“There’s no telling what Blackwell would do if he found out. Probably suspend us on the spot.”
“Quite possible.”
“But most important-I can’t afford to let the word get out about this. Not after what happened in Oklahoma City.”
Mike had no problem placing that reference, either. She’d had an inopportune affair with the OKC chief of police-a man much older than she was and married to boot-and once it was known in the department, she was hopelessly compromised. Not to mention the butt of scurrilous jokes and sexist remarks.
“I understand entirely,” Mike said. “So what are you thinking? We should ask Blackwell to split us up?”
“I’m just thinking there can’t be any more smooching. Can you handle that?”
Sure, he thought. I’d rather skip ahead to third base anyway. “Not a problem.” He kept his eyes dead ahead.
“Good. Well, I just thought we needed to get that established.”
“Right you were.” He turned the wheel hard to the left. “Break out the barf bags. We’ve arrived.”
When Mike opened the door to the toolshed behind the house, he uncovered a grisly tableau that defied his powers of description. He had never seen anything like this before. And he’d seen a lot of homicide in his time.
After an initial glance, he excused himself, stepped outside, covered his mouth with a handkerchief, and did his level best to keep from being sick. When he returned, Baxter had already begun gathering some preliminary information. She seemed remarkably undisturbed by the scene around her. In fact-was he imagining it?-there was a tiny smirk on her face.
“You okay?” she asked.
“No, I’m not okay. If anybody can see this and be okay, they’ve got serious problems.”
“I can cover if you want to wait outside.”
“Thank you, Sergeant, but I think I’ll do my job myself, just the same.”
What had he expected anyway? A power drill inserted into the cranium-no way that was going to create a pretty picture. Like a firecracker tossed inside a jack-o’-lantern. Now the shattered shell lay at his feet, and the seeds and stuffing covered the walls.
Mike closed his eyes. “Philip Larkin was right. ‘Man hands on misery to man / It deepens like a coastal shelf.’ ”
“God, not with the poetry again. I feel like I’m going to hurl as it is. Don’t push me over the edge.”
Happily, Mike didn’t hear her. His eyes were fixed and all his other senses were focused on the tiny toolshed that surrounded him.
“Are you doing something?” Baxter asked, after enduring a minute or so of this.
“I’m listening.”
“To what?”
“The room.”
“Oh, cool. I love this part.”
He stood in one place by the door, absorbing everything around him. “The best way to get a grip on what happened. Even better than forensics. Open your eyes and ears and drink it all in.”
“Sure. So what are you drinking?”
Mike paused before answering, giving every syllable slow and deliberate emphasis. “This… is the victim’s toolshed.”
“That much I got.”
“He loved this place. It was his favorite room. His retreat.” Mike moved through the small space. “He came here to be alone. For peace of mind. To calm himself.” Mike smiled. “He knew his killer.”
“I’m glad to hear it wasn’t a random drilling.”
“It had to be someone he knew well.” He paused a moment, lost in thought. “The killer let himself in, came back here, and found the guy working on his shelves.”
“So it was a close friend.”
“I doubt it.”
Baxter frowned, arms akimbo. “You’ve lost me.”
“I don’t think it was a friend. I don’t think it was someone he wanted to see at all.”
“Given how it turned out, I don’t blame him.”
“Something bad was going on. Something that got him killed.”
“And the room told you all this?”
“Yup.” Mike did a small pirouette in the center of the room. “Do you smell anything?”
“Are you kidding? Someone was killed in here.”
“Something else. Musk, I think.”
“Musk?”
“Probably a cologne or aftershave. And if I can still smell it, he must’ve put it on pretty heavy.”
“Who? The victim, or the killer?”
“That would be a good thing to know.”
Baxter rolled her eyes. “Great. Musk. Now we’ve got a lead.”
“Did anyone see anything? Hear anything?”
“We’ve got uniforms blanketing the neighborhood. So far they haven’t turned up anything.”
“The killer used a power tool, for God’s sake. Someone must’ve heard something.”
“Yes, but it wouldn’t sound like a murder. More like someone… mowing their lawn. Nothing to get alarmed about.”
Mike stood to one side and watched the crime scene technicians go about their work. He always tried to give them a clear field; he knew they wouldn’t tolerate interference, not even from a senior homicide detective. There was a time when these guys considered themselves ancillary technicians, subordinate to the detectives, and behaved accordingly. Then that TV show-CSI-became a hit. Now they all thought Mike worked for them.
Which was not a problem for Mike. They had the hard job, as far as he was concerned-the videographers, the hair and fiber team, the prints man, the coroner. The guys in coveralls crawling around on their hands and knees looking for trace evidence. Their work paid off. More often than not, if a case didn’t have an obvious suspect, it was forensic evidence that would lead him to one.
“Check his wallet?” Mike asked.
“What do you take me for? He didn’t have one.”
“No ID at all?”
“None. This house was being rented to a Philip Norton, but that appears to be a pseudonym.”
“Any photos inside the house? Any photos of him?”
“ ‘Fraid not.”
Naturally. That would’ve been too helpful. The victim’s head was such a mess they couldn’t possibly tell what he looked like now. So they had no face and no name. Great.
“Anything of interest in the house?”
“The place has been trashed. Still, I managed to find a noteworthy item or two.”
“Wanna give me a hint?”
“Packed suitcase in the bedroom. Apparently the poor guy thought he was going somewhere.”
Mike grunted. “He was right about that. He had a one-way ticket to ‘the undiscovered country from whose bourn / no traveler returns.’ ”
“Morelli, if you keep going with the poetry, I might have to use a power tool myself.”
“Any idea where he was headed?”
“North.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“He didn’t leave behind a bus ticket, Morelli. But I did notice that he was packing sweaters. So he wasn’t hanging around here and he wasn’t headed for Mexico.”
Mike nodded. “What else was in the house?”
“Fifty thousand dollars in cash.”
Mike did a double take. “Fifty thousand?”
“You got it, tiger. Hidden under a floorboard. Whoever tore the house apart never found it.”
He pivoted and reluctantly glanced again at the mess on the toolshed floor. “Our poor victim must’ve pulled some sort of heist.”
“Looks that way. I’ll start checking the wire reports. See if I can figure out what he did.”
“I don’t know what to think. But it’s very strange. Get some serial numbers off that money and run it past the FBI. They might be able to help you figure out where it came from.” Mike took another long look at the toolshed. He wouldn’t mind having a place like this of his own one day. Except not splattered with blood and brain matter. “Anything else?”