Adrenaline cleared his mind. He forced his hands inside her thighs to spread them. Leaned in to press her onto the bed. Positioned himself between her legs, letting his weight hold her down, and drove her arms into the mattress. Desperation gave him the speed to get one hand around her throat, then the other. Rose up so he could press straight down and use his size to keep her hands off his face. Pressed his thighs into the backs of her knees to stifle her movements. Carol writhed against him, her mound pressing against his groin made him hard. She got her knees loose and kicked at his back with her heels like spurring a horse. He ignored the pain in his kidneys, watched her face start to change color. The kicks and thrusts got weaker. Slower. He pressed down harder. Her eyes rolled up. The kicks stopped. Then the punches. Carol’s arms and legs fell away. Then she was still and he relaxed.
Tom stood and tasted the salt of his tears and blood on his lips. Carol’s nightshirt had ridden up to expose her trimmed pubic hair. He became aware of his arousal and fought back a throat full of bile. He had to get out, he’d been there too long already, but he needed some jewelry and cash first. To make it look good.
He trashed the jewel boxes and knick-knacks on the dressers and nightstands. Pieces of colored, shaped glass that bounced when they hit the floor, too heavy to break. Dumped the contents of the drawers. He knew there was nothing here but paste, the real jewels in the walk-in closet. Marty told him what to take, made him write it down so he’d get the right stuff, look like a knowledgeable thief. Threw around shoes, clothes, hat boxes, anything to make a mess. Stuffed jewelry into a Crown Royal bag, then stood with a handful of cash to catch his breath and be sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.
The television seemed louder than before in the unnatural quiet. Some movie on HBO from the language. He listened to it for a minute, hearing only the voices, not what they said, the sound muffled by the weight of the house’s sudden stillness. Tom felt his heart beating in his chest and ears, wondered if he could hear it if he tried. Stood perfectly still to listen and what he heard was a sound like a person coming up from a long time under water, and movement.
From inside the house.
His watch read 10:23. Marty wasn’t due until midnight and he wouldn’t come back early tonight of all nights. Someone must have heard. Did they come over, or call the police? The police would have knocked, rung the doorbell, something. They wouldn’t just come in. And they wouldn’t come sneaking around. They’d announce themselves. He’d watched ten thousand cop shows. “Police! Is anyone home?” They’d do that, right?
Time to go. He pulled shut the bag full of jewels. Left the cash. Too bulky. All he wanted now was out. He stepped back into the bedroom and heard what sounded like sobs and saw Carol Cropcho wasn’t on the bed.
Oh. Fuck. Me.
He heard her crying on the floor the other side of the mattress. He dropped the bag and fell to his knees to look under the bed. Her hand swept back and forth reaching for the phone. He got to it first. Carol screamed, “No!” loud and long and broke into sobbing as he threw it against the wall.
Tom rose and came around the foot of the bed. Carol screamed, hysterical now, gibberish coming out, too frantic to form words. She threw whatever she could reach. A baseball-sized glass sculpture he’d dumped onto the floor hit his shoulder like a rock. The next one would have dented his temple if he hadn’t got his hands up. He turned the corner of the bed. Saw the bruises on her throat and the panic in her eyes as she scrabbled around the floor for something else to throw. He picked up an oblong piece of the same type she’d been throwing by the narrow end and drove it into the side of Carol’s head. The first one put her down. The second probably finished the job, but he didn’t stop until bits of blood and brain spattered onto his gloves and cheeks. He stopped and his eyes eased into focus. The left side of Carol’s face and head were completely stove in, hard to tell where hair stopped and gore started.
Tom almost made it to the toilet before he vomited.
CHAPTER 3
Ben Dougherty leaned against the doorframe of the Cropcho bedroom and watched Rick Neuschwander work. He didn’t touch anything. He didn’t say anything. Neuschwander even more methodical than usual, homicides not everyday occurrences in Penns River. He picked up anything on or around Carol Cropcho’s body that might be evidence; never touched the body itself. Strict letter of the law, Neuschwander should have waited for the Medical Examiner, but the ME had to come from Allegheny County and time was wasting. It didn’t take House to know Carol was dead, half her brain on her face.
“How much longer, Noosh? My hands are starting to sweat in these gloves.”
“Take them off.” Neuschwander didn’t look up. “Just don’t come in here. Go talk to the husband or something.”
“Willie’s doing that. I’m waiting for you.”
“Go help Willie. Try some of that ‘good cop-bad cop’ shit. Get a confession.”
“You see anything makes the husband look guilty?”
Neuschwander eased a glass sculpture eight inches long into an evidence bag. The glass was caked with blood and hair and something Doc guessed was brain. “All I see is stuff. I don’t know what anything means until the tests come back from the lab. The husband called it in, though, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Isn’t the guy who called it in guilty about half the time?”
“Yeah, but—”
“And isn’t the husband usually who kills a wife?” Neuschwander sealed the bag, wrote something on the evidence tag.
“Right.”
“So you have at least a seventy-five percent chance he’s the guy and you want physical evidence, too? I thought you were supposed to be good.”
Doc peeled off the gloves, put them in his jacket pocket. “When should I come back?”
“I got most of what I need. Half an hour, assuming the ME drags his ass in here by then.”
Doc went downstairs to find the kitchen and get a drink of water. Willie Grabek leaned over the island, jotting notes. Doc took a glass from the drain board and filled it from the tap.
“How’s the husband?”
“About what you’d expect.” Grabek wrote a few lines in his pocket notebook, flipped back a few pages. “Thursday’s his night out. He works downtown, meets a couple of guys at Veltri’s for prime rib and a few beers after. They hook up with a couple other guys for a rotating Hold-Em game and he gets home around midnight. Done it almost every Thursday for three years.
“Tonight’s game was in Holiday Park, before you get to 380. The husband dropped twenty bucks. Got home about quarter to twelve. Thought it was funny the alarm was off and the lights were on upstairs. Said the wife was always asleep when he got home, he’d just slide into bed beside her. Went up the stairs, saw the mess, found her when he came around the side of the bed.”
“He mentioned he lost twenty dollars?”
“I asked.”
“How come?”
“Because I’m gonna ask his friends, too.”
A murmur of voices from the living room. Doc nodded in that direction. “Who’s with him?”
“Paramedics are giving him something. He’s pretty shook up.”
“Where’s he going to stay?”
“Brother’s coming for him.” Grabek checked his watch. “Should be here any minute.”
Doc finished his water, put the glass on the drain board. “You like him for it?”
“Not really. He called it in and he’s the husband. That’s two strikes, but his alibi’s too easy to check. You get a time of death from—what’s his name? Upstairs.”