When the body had been freed, the first thing Jim Sung did was turn him on one side to check post-mortem lividity.
“Uh-huh,” he nodded. “Looks like the dirty deed was done up here, all right.”
Arvo could see that for himself. What blood hadn’t sprayed out into the room had collected down Marillo’s back, showing as a slight purple discoloration of the skin. It wasn’t as marked as that he had seen on other bodies. Because Marillo had lost so much blood when he was killed, there hadn’t been all that much left to sink to his back after death.
Jim Sung pressed the discoloration with his finger. It didn’t change. “See?” he said. “No blanching.”
Arvo saw. Blanching of post-mortem lividity occurred in only the early stages, before the blood had clotted.
Jim Sung inserted a rectal thermometer and turned to face the others as he held it in place. “I can’t tell you exactly how long he’s been dead,” he said, “but I’d say from all the signs it’s somewhere between eight and ten hours.”
Joe looked at his watch and nodded. “That makes it around midnight, one in the morning. Late last night, anyway.”
Jim Sung checked the temperature and made some calculations. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Body temperature bears that out.” He turned back to the body and began examining it, making notes, muttering to himself as he worked. “This should interest you guys,” he said, pointing to the back of the head.
Arvo had noticed blood on the pillow, and now he could see the reason for it. At the back of Jack Marillo’s skull was a roughly circular depression, cracked bone matted with hair, blood and brain tissue.
“Looks like some sort of hammer wound,” Joe said.
“What about the black eyes?” Arvo asked.
“You often get that effect with a blow to the back of the head,” Jim Sung explained. “Look, there isn’t a lot more I can do here,” he said, moving away. “Might as well get the specialists in, then call the meat wagon. You guys want to stay in here and talk or go outside and smell the flowers, a nice day like this?”
Arvo looked around the room. At the foot of the bed was a large TV and VCR set up on top of a couple of shelves of tapes. He glanced at the titles and found a mix of Hollywood classics and gay soft porn.
“Well?” said Sung.
“Have you checked out the bathroom?” Arvo asked.
Joe nodded. “Looks like someone took a shower there recently, but it’s impossible to say when. Judging from the time it takes my own shower to dry out, I’d say maybe last night. There’s what looks like traces of blood on the bottom of the tub, too.”
“Makes sense,” said Arvo. “There must have been one hell of a lot of it spraying around.”
Joe nodded and led the way out. After the death room, it was a relief, Arvo felt, to smell the pine and the fresh-cut grass again, and especially the eucalyptus after rain. Sparrows and starlings twittered in the trees. He took a long, deep breath. The sun still shone in a blue sky, laced with wisps of white cloud like milk spills, but the city already seemed a little dirtier now than it had an hour ago.
As soon as they stood in the backyard again, Joe reached for his cigarettes. Arvo felt his own craving rise as Joe lit up. He gritted his teeth and waited for the urge to pass.
The blond man on the tree stump had stopped crying and was staring down at his linked hands on his lap.
“Want to tell us what happened, Mr. Kincaid?” said Joe.
The man looked up. His eyes were red from crying; the lock of hair still covered one side of his face. He had Nordic features, high cheekbones and ice-blue eyes, their effect enhanced by a touch of smudged blue eyeshadow, and he looked both miserable and frightened. Hardly surprising, Arvo thought, given the circumstances.
“Must I?” he said. “I’ve already given my statement to Detective Heffer.”
“Come on, Jaimie,” coaxed Joe. “You’ll feel better if you tell me, too.” They went over to the picnic table, where Arvo, Joe and Kincaid sat down. Heffer remained standing, hovering over them, hands in his pockets, with the beginnings of a sneer twisting at his lips.
When they had sat, Kincaid squinted at Joe. “What do you mean, I’ll feel better? For what?”
“What was it, Jaimie, a lovers’ quarrel?”
“Now wait a minute—”
“No, you wait a minute, Jaimie.” Joe spoke quietly, but his voice carried authority. “Tell me if I’m wrong. You and Jack get a little high and get into a bondage situation, right? Things get way out of hand, maybe Jack says something, or maybe the coke’s rotted your frontal lobes, so you go get the kitchen knife and you kill him. When you see what you’ve done, you take a shower and call the cops. Is that how it went down?”
Jaimie paled. “No.”
“Then tell me, Jaimie. I want to help you.”
“Look, will you just fucking listen to me.”
“No need to swear, Jaimie. Stay calm. Of course I’ll listen.”
“How can I stay calm when you’re practically accusing me of murder? Jesus Christ.” He put his head in his hands again and moaned.
Joe just sat and watched, tapping ash into his little Sucrets tin. “Take your time, Jaimie,” he said. “No hurry.”
Jaimie took a deep breath and ran his hand over his hair, pushing the errant lock back in place. “Right. Okay. You’re listening?”
“I’m listening.”
“Jack’s my friend, right, and we were going away together for a few days this morning.”
“Where?”
“Jack has a cabin up in the Sierras. Mammoth.”
“That your car?” Joe pointed to a red Honda Civic parked next to a silver Porsche.
Kincaid nodded. “Uh-huh. And the Porsche is Jack’s. I came to pick Jack up and I... I... ”
“You did what, Jaimie?”
“He didn’t answer the door.”
“The door was closed?”
“Yes.”
“Was it locked?”
“No. I mean, it opened when I turned the handle. Then I saw the mud and blood on the floor.”
“You knew it was blood?”
“That’s what it looked like to me.”
“What do you do, Jaimie? What’s your occupation?”
“I’m an interior decorator.”
Arvo heard Heffer suppress a chuckle, turning it into a cough and putting his hand over his mouth. Kincaid caught it too and glared up at him. Heffer shook his head and wandered up the driveway.
“Seen a lot of blood in your line of work, have you?” Joe went on, ignoring the brief interruption.
“Well, no, but... ”
“It could have been ketchup, couldn’t it? Or paint?”
“It was blood. I... I just. I could feel there was something wrong.”
“Feel? You a psychic?”
“No. Jack and I are close. I just had a feeling, that’s all. A bad feeling.”
“What did you do next?”
“I called his name. He didn’t answer.”
“Was he expecting you?”
“Yes. I told you. We were going to Mammoth. I told him I’d pick him up at seven-thirty. It’s a five- or six-hour drive and we wanted to get there for lunchtime.”
“You two didn’t live together, then?”
“No.” He blushed a little. “We wanted to keep our relationship as discreet as possible. Because of Jack’s career.”