“Don’t you want to check out any of the other rooms up here?” Roger asked.
“Not particularly. Everything else happened downstairs, didn’t it?”
“That, we’re pretty sure of. Don’t you think it’s a little strange that Marsha Bradley’s assailant chose the kitchen to rape her in, instead of one of the bedrooms?” Roger said as he led the way out of Tommy’s bedroom.
“I think all of this is a little strange, to be quite honest,” Sam replied. “I’m still having trouble with the murderer locking Tommy up in that closet. Think about it, Rog. What are the odds of this bastard making a ‘lucky guess’ that Tommy’s closet is the only room in the house that can be locked and unlocked only from the outside? I’ve been through this house before, and I’m pretty sure that all the doors, including the bedrooms and bathrooms, lock only from the inside, just as they are intended to. Yet the killer seemed to miraculously know right where to put little Tommy to keep him out of the way.”
Roger paused at the top of the stairs and glanced back at Sam. “What are you driving at?”
“I’m not sure, really. Except that it’s starting to look more and more like the murderer knew the layout of this house pretty damn well, and in fact seemed to know a whole hell of a lot about everything. I think he might have not only planned this whole thing out carefully in advance, but that he also thoroughly cased the house out prior to the night of the murder… from the inside. It’s got to be either that, or he’s been a guest here at some point in time-and most likely more than just once.”
Hagstrom shrugged his shoulders and started down the stairs. “Could be. You’re right about the locks-even the door to the basement has a two-way lock, which I thought was a little odd, I might add. But it wouldn’t have been very hard for the perp to notice the lock on Tommy’s closet door when…”
“C’mon, Roger!” Sam interrupted. “I don’t care how calm and cool this asshole might have been – the odds of him ‘just happening’ to notice that there was a lock on that door are slim to nil. Imagine the scenario you’ve just presented: he’s got a weapon of some kind, a gun, pointed at Marsha and a kid he has to get out of the way-quickly-because Tommy is probably already screaming and carrying on when he sees a stranger threatening his mom’s life. Let’s even suppose that the three of them are in Tommy’s room, with a fucking light on, no less. That closet door is in the far corner of the room with a little button on the doorknob facing away from the entrance, and is completely obscured from view by a dresser standing against the wall adjacent to it. The only way the killer could possibly have seen that little lock button would be for him to stand directly in front of the closet. Do you really think that he would sashay all the way across the room, through all that shit scattered around on the floor, just to see if the closet door, by chance, had a goddamn lock on it? Why would he even bother to? Nobody locks their shit up in a closet!”
Roger grinned at him, visibly impressed. “Okay, Sherlock… or is it Watson? You’ve just made an interesting observation-something I’ve overlooked, I must admit. It must be that photographic eye of yours, I reckon. But what does this all mean, may I ask, if you’re right?”
Sam reached the foot of the stairs and watched Roger as he took another sip of Jack Daniels. “Well, I think it’s pretty obvious that the whole thing was premeditated to the letter ‘T.’ And I don’t think Marsha’s murderer was a stranger. I think he was a local man.”
Sam could tell by the way Roger was eying him that he wasn’t buying the last part. “Hmmm,” was all he said before turning and making his way into the living room.
Sam followed him over to where Marsha’s body had been found lying on the living room floor near the sofa. The police had removed the black tape outline of her body, but he could still see the exact location and her body position clearly in his mind from viewing the police photos. Her nude body had been lying spread-eagle on the carpet just to the left side of the sofa, her head not far from the end table. Sam stood where he was and surveyed the living room, which was enormous like every other room in the house. There were two doorways besides the one leading to the foyer-one to his left in the corner, which led into the kitchen, and one to the right of the sofa, which led into the study. Roger had already gone into the kitchen and awaited him in the doorway. “Do you want to see where the rape took place?” he asked Sam.
Sam nodded. “Okay.”
He strode over and entered the kitchen. Roger led him over to the island in the center and pointed to a spot on the floor. “This is where he did the deed. Marsha’s clothes were placed neatly on this counter-yet another indication that she’d been quite cooperative with this bastard. None of her clothes were torn or even wrinkled-just placed on the counter here in a tidy little pile. We suspect that her assailant told her to remove them since there wasn’t any evidence that he’d done it for her.”
“How do you know he raped her here?” Sam asked.
“We found pubic hair and small traces of semen right here on the floor and nowhere else in the house. The housekeeper had just cleaned and put fresh sheets on the beds earlier that day, which made our work a lot easier,” he added.
Sam looked around the kitchen, stared down at the cold linoleum floor and wondered the same thing Roger had: why here, of all places?
Roger resumed. “My guess is that he ordered Marsha to face the counter, place her hands on it like so, then proceeded to enter her from the rear. We found fresh fingerprints, Marsha’s, where she’d grasped the overhang of the counter, so that pretty much corroborates that theory.”
Sam found it hard to conceive that Marsha Bradley could allow this to happen without putting up some resistance. Either she was the most iron-willed woman imaginable, or there was more to all of this than met the eye… As a matter of fact, none of this was making much sense the more he thought about it.
“After he was done in here,” Roger resumed, “Marsha’s assailant apparently ordered her to go into the living room-why the living room is anyone’s guess. At any rate, not long afterwards, he strangled her to death. Again, from behind.”
“How do you know she was strangled from behind?”
“The coroner’s report. He determined from the angle and size of the wound on her neck along with all that other technical shit that the murder weapon had been a fairly thin cord of some kind-about the same gauge as ordinary lamp cord-that had been pulled around her neck from behind.”
“Suggesting that she was unaware of what the killer was doing-like she was taken by surprise,” Sam said.
“Exactly. You’re really catching on to all this police work, Watson. I’m proud of you,” Roger chuckled.
Sam forced a weak smile, but for the moment had lost his sense of humor. There was one thing about Roger Hagstrom that he found annoying at times, and it was one of the reasons he was there right now with him at the Bradley house. He didn’t know if it was the effects of alcoholism or just plain lethargy, but his friend had a real problem with following through on things. He’d seen it happen on a few occasions before when he had tagged along with Roger during an investigation. If a crime wasn’t solved quickly and easily, he tended to just give it up, or simply let it get away from him. It wasn’t intentional, of course. It just seemed to sort of happen that way sometimes.
But this wasn’t an auto theft or a burglary. This was a murder case-and the victim just happened to be a very close friend of his and Ann’s. He was going to lean on Roger Hagstrom all the way through this investigation until the murderer was caught and convicted-even if it strained their friendship in the process.
“How long was the murderer in this house?” Sam asked.
Roger sipped and replied, “It’s hard to say exactly. Dave left at six-thirty to go to Matt Timmonds’ and returned at about nine-fifty. The autopsy indicates that the time of death was between eight and eight-thirty. My guess is that he didn’t stay long-just long enough to get Tommy out of the way, rape Marsha and strangle her; all of which could have taken between fifteen minutes and half and hour-depending on how quickly he worked, if you know what I mean. Tack that time onto her approximate time of death and that would put him in the house somewhere between the hours of seven-forty-five and eight-thirty.”