It was not like shooting a gun from across the street. It would be more like running the Kentucky Derby, performing in the Super Bowl—hot and furious and deeply personal. What kind of person could summon that kind of energy, that kind of killing passion, twice in two days? April shook her head over their list of suspects. The trainer, who milked the victims for cash and knew their habits, hadn't left his apartment since last night when he got home from his police interview. He had to be ruled out for both murders. The disgruntled nannies who had just been fired—each acting alone or in concert with two husbands fed up with trophy wives—seemed unlikely murderers. But a mission killer? She'd been over it and over it, and prayed
that it wasn't someone off the police radar screen, hiding in the shadows, and waiting until tomorrow to kill again.
"I went upstairs. Ducci doesn't have anything. Rick doesn't have anything. What's holding things up?" April didn't have all year.
"We're going good on it. We're still processing." Chad glanced quickly at Woody.
• "When are you getting started? I need a time frame here."
"We are started," he replied coolly. "What do you need?"
"Cooperation. We're looking at the two homicides as connected. There are similarities in the crime scenes. You have to get with Igor."
"No problem."
"How far did you go in the Wilson house?"
"We did the usual."
"What about blood? Did you find any?"
Chad shrugged. "Not much. There were traces in the grout. Marble tiles, you know, are set much closer together than porcelain, but there were traces in the grout in the walls and floor."
"What about the drain?"
"She must have washed her hair in that shower. There was a lot of hair in the drain."
"Blood?"
He nodded. "In the hair."
"Anything else?"
"What are you looking for?"
"I'm not sure. Fibers from the killer's clothes. Hair from the head of the killer, or his body if he was naked in there with her."
"Was she sexually assaulted?" Woody asked.
"Damn." April had forgotten to ask the ME.
"Is that a yes?"
"We don't have a prelim yet," April said. "I don't know."
"So, what's the rush?" Chad scratched the side of his face. He had his own time frame.
April ignored the question. "What about mops, towels, cleaning things?" she asked.
"There was a bucket in the garage. It's filled with cleaning utensils, including a mop that had recently been used."
"Blood?"
"We haven't tested anything yet, but it did have a piece of plastic stuck to it."
April frowned. "What kind of plastic?"
"I'm guessing the kind they use for fold-up travel raincoats, or to cover outdoor furniture. It looks dried out, old. We'll check it out. I'd guess raincoat, though," he added, as if he were a raincoat connoisseur.
"Interesting," April murmured. "What about the knives?"
"We haven't started on that. As I said, we're still processing."
"Okay, thanks. We'll be in touch. Woody, meet me at the car in five minutes."
Deep in thought, April went upstairs to see Duke. He didn't turn around when her heels announced her presence. He was busy with his equipment.
"How are you doing?" she asked.
He pulled away from the hair he was studying and checked his watch for time. "I told you an hour. It hasn't been an hour yet," he complained.
"I can't wait. I have suspects to talk to," she said.
He softened. "Okay, pretty one, anything for you," he said with an indulgent smile.
"Here's what I can tell you now. The hair probably comes from a female. It's been dyed a number of times, probably every month, six weeks. You can see the stripes of color. As you know, hair grows at the rate of about a quarter inch a month and no matter how carefully the roots are done, there's always a color change. Type of hair, coarse, and I'd say it's probably dyed to cover gray. I can't tell you what brand of hair dye was used yet, but I'll work on it. Happily, there's a follicle on this one— enough to do DNA down the road, if you need it. But the provenance on this is not good since you lifted it from the scene." He shook his head.
"I told you CSU had another." April ignored the rebuke and considered the information. If the hair came from a gray-haired female, she had to be over thirty. It might be the cleaning lady or a guest from some time ago. If that was the case, it wouldn't help them.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"Yes, what color is it?"
He took out his color spectrum and showed her. While the single hair in the envelope had appeared to be light, like a blond or strawberry blond, or even ginger, the Duke made the head at unmistakably dark red.
"Are you sure?" she asked, disappointed.
"Yes, I'm sure. Are you okay?"
"Of course. Thanks, you've been a big help," she told him even though she hadn't learned a thing.
"You're welcome, and don't wait so long to come back next time," he said as she left in a hurry.
When April met Woody at the car a few minutes later, she was ready to search his photos for a redheaded woman, but she was not at all hopeful about finding one.
forty-one
Remy was on the sofa in the living room of Wayne's suite on the tenth floor at the Plaza Hotel when two detectives knocked on the door. Her backpack was beside her, ready to go, and she was watching the news about Alison's murder. The day before when she was questioned for hours by the police, her thoughts had been all over the place. Whenever things had gone badly for her in the past, she'd hit the road and taken off. A pretty girl with some college education and a way with food, she'd always' been able to get a job cooking somewhere.
Experience had taught her long ago that most people weren't very good, or at least weren't good for long—like her dad promising to stay off the bottle. So when things soured, she just moved on. She liked to think of herself as an actor in a movie, waiting for her real life to begin. Now the wish for a bus was strong, but she couldn't run away with so many people watching. She jumped at the knock on the door.
"Police, open up."
She pulled herself off the sofa and went to the door. Two overweight men she hadn't seen before were standing outside. They looked bloated from too many french fries and doughnuts and might have a stroke if they had to run after her. The thought that she could beat them in a race didn't comfort her.
"Remy Banks?" one queried.
"Yes. Could I see your identification?" she said with more determination than she felt.
She looked down the long empty hall behind them and considered bolting as they reached for their gold shields. She wondered if they would shoot her in the Plaza. Too late, the shields appeared, and they blocked her escape route as she studied them. "No one's here," she said meekly, as if there were the slightest chance they hadn't come for her.
"That's okay, little lady. We're going for a ride."
That was all they said. They herded her between them, like a criminal, downstairs and through the hotel lobby. She got into the backseat of a black sedan, and they drove. away with her as their hostage, not telling her where they were going or anything else. Rage and rebellion coursed through her. She wanted to kill them. At a police station on East Fifty-fourth Street, they marched her upstairs, through a space full of people, to a small room with a mirror that she knew was a viewing window. Her heart thudded as she thought of all the men outside watching her and making the kind of remarks she knew men made when they could get away with it. She didn't feel safe there at all. Since she'd found Maddy's body, time had slowed down. When she was left in the interrogation room, it stopped altogether. It seemed as if a week had passed before an angry guy who looked like a mobster opened the door.