Sooner or Later (24 page)

Dan pushed open the door. He could smell violence even before he saw it. The dog was already stiff, its legs frozen in rigor mortis. The TV was blasting, and the computer cartoons still running, and the curtains billowed gently in the breeze from the open French window. He saw the pool of blood, the cane thrown to the ground. If he had doubted Ellie, he did no longer. He walked into the dressing room, saw Miss Lottie’s body, so pathetically small and frail. Her eyes were wide open and there was a cross carved into her forehead.
Nose to scalp, temple to temple.
He drew in a shocked breath. “Jesus God,” he muttered.

He was too experienced a cop to touch anything or try to move her; he would leave that to the local police, and the ME. He checked the closet, the bathroom, the balcony.

From the top of the stairs, he saw Ellie waiting in the hall, her hands clasped to her trembling mouth, looking at him. “Which room is Maria’s?” he asked. She pointed to the next room.

He found her body just outside the bathroom door. She had been shot several times in the chest. There was a lot of blood, but there was no cross carved into her head.

He went back and took another look at Miss Lottie, wondering about the link between her killing and the two hookers. The room had been turned over, the safe ransacked, but something was wrong. Two women were dead, each by different method. If it was not for the signature, he could have sworn this smacked of a ritualistic execution-type slaying.

“It’s okay,” Ellie told herself, watching him walk back
down the stairs toward her. “He’s going to tell me it’s okay….”

Dan shook his head. “We’d better call the police,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, Ellie, but there’s nothing much else we can do now.”

E
LLIE SLUMPED IN THE FRONT SEAT OF
D
AN
’
S BADLY
dented Explorer in front of Journey’s End. Oddly, with lights shining from every window, the house looked the way it used to years ago, when Miss Lottie was throwing a “little soiree,” as she’d called it. Which had meant three hundred people, dinner under a silk-draped tent on the spacious lawns, with the scent of roses and night-blooming jasmine on the soft summer wind. It had meant champagne, women in gorgeous evening gowns and jewels, handsome, suntanned men in black tie. And by the end of the evening, the charity auction Miss Lottie had organized would have raised a great deal of money for the local hospital, or for needy children, or some other cause dear to her heart.

Now, instead of the sleek Mercedeses and limousines, squad cars with flashing blue lights were parked in front of the portico and fire rescue service engines glittered through the swirling mist; ambulances with their doors agape waited for their new burden, and the detectives’ plain dark vehicles churned up the smooth green lawn.

Uniformed officers were stringing yellow tape around what they were calling “the crime scene,” and Ellie wanted desperately to tell them it wasn’t so. That this was their home, that Miss Lottie and Maria were upstairs with their feet propped on the green brocade ottoman with the bullion fringe that Bruno had chewed as a puppy, watching a sitcom on TV. Bruno would have his head on Miss Lottie’s knee, his eyes upraised longingly, and soon she would feed him a surreptitious cookie, “just to keep him happy.”

Dan was telling Detective Johannsen how he had found the bodies; that the crime scene was intact; and that the cross etched on the face linked with the hooker murdered in New York, and the one last week in L.A.

“I’m trying to figure out the connection between a robbery with violence and the signature serial killing of prostitutes,” he said, worriedly. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s an ugly scene,” Johannsen agreed. Detective Jim Johannsen had worked in the L.A. police department for many years before transferring to Santa Barbara. He was a veteran of violence, but there was something infinitely pathetic about the two old women and their dog, butchered so horribly. Still, he wasn’t about to discuss the case with a civilian. And a witness.

A police photographer was taking flash pictures of the bodies and of the room; officers were taking measurements; ringing the patches of blood with chalk, searching for spent bullets, dusting the safe for prints, the desk, the doors, every surface; detectives were bagging other items for later investigation by the crime squad: the cane, the bloodstained slippers. Every inch of the big house would be gone over with a fine-tooth comb.

The same procedure was taking place in the room
next door, with Maria. Even the dog would be taken to the morgue and the bullet extracted from its chest to be sent to ballistics for analysis.

The ME still knelt over Miss Lottie’s body, doing what he had to do to establish the cause and time of death. Later, he would perform an autopsy, see what other vital information could be established from any scrapings under her fingernails as she’d fought off her attacker: minute flakes of skin, hairs, fibers from clothing. He would estimate the size and weight of her killer from the imprint of his hands on her throat, and establish whether or not he’d raped her. There was no dignity for Miss Lottie, in death.

The TV set still played loudly. Ironically, it was
NYPD Blue.

Detective Johannsen was standing in front of the computer, looking thoughtful. He gave the mouse a shove, and Opus ‘n’ Bill flashed off. “What d’you make of this, Cassidy?”

Miss Lottie had been writing to a Rabbi Altman in Manchester, England. The letter was chatty and charming, and a bit vague, as though she knew she knew him but couldn’t quite remember.

Dear Rabbi Altman
, Miss Lottie had written.
Shalom. How pleasant to hear from you again, though I admit at this moment, I can’t quite recall where we met. However, old friends are always welcome here, at Journey’s End, and I feel from your letter, the goodness of your heart …
She had broken off at that point. Underneath in caps was the name
DUVEEN.
Except it wasn’t completed.

“Looks like her finger got stuck on the E,” Johannsen said. “Why was she writing Ellie’s name?”

Dan remembered Ellie’s story about her mother. “Her mind wasn’t what it used to be. She might have
been thinking of her daughter. Romany died in an auto accident years ago.”

They stared at the computer. “You dusting it for prints?” Dan asked. Johannsen threw him a skeptical look and he held his hands up, palms out. “Sorry, sorry. You’re in charge.”

“That’s right.” Johannsen’s tone was mild, but it put him in his place.

Dan guessed he’d outlasted his usefulness and now he could go. “Anything I can do”—he lifted his shoulders, mouth in a grim line—“just call me.”

“I’ll do that.” Johannsen was already striding across the room. “What I’d like now, is to speak to Miss Duveen.”

Ellie was afraid to close her eyes because then she would see Miss Lottie again, see the tiny size-three narrow feet she had always been so proud of, so white and infinitely pathetic as she sprawled on the rug, her arms outflung, her pretty silver hair matted red….
It’s not true, not true
, her own voice screamed in her head. Groaning, she hid her face in her arms.

“Ellie?” Dan was at the open window, looking anxiously at her. “Do you feel able to answer a few questions? It might help.”

“Okay.” Even her voice sounded different, hoarse, strange. Everything was different now. Life would never be the same….

Detective Jim Johannsen was older, a heavy man in horn-rimmed glasses, kind, sympathetic. He’d dealt with shocked relatives in sudden-death cases many times in his career, and it never became any easier. “I’m sorry, Ms. Duveen. Your grandmother was a great woman, a true character. They don’t make them like her anymore.”

She nodded, eyes cast down.

“If you could, Ellie, I’d like you to tell me in your own words, exactly what happened when you got to the house.” He waited, ballpoint poised over his notepad.

She didn’t even have to pause to think about it; each step was imprinted on her mind, each moment engraved on her heart. It took just a few minutes. Her voice had almost disappeared by the time she finished.

Johannsen threw her a speculative glance. “Do you know of any reason, or of any person who wanted Miss Lottie dead?”

Dan knew instantly where his questioning was heading. Ellie was a suspect until the real killer was found.

“No. No one.”

“Thank you. I know how hard this is for you.”

Ellie’s eyes followed him as he turned away, a bulky figure in a dark jacket and a gleaming white shirt. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t difficult at all, that she remembered it perfectly, that she would never forget. Her hands were shaking. She looked down at diem, surprised, as if they had a life of their own, and had nothing to do with her.

“It’s okay, we can go now.” Dan gripped her trembling hands in his. “I’ve got to get you to bed, get a doctor to give you a sedative.”

She shrank away from him. “I’m not leaving.”

“But you shouldn’t stay here, you need to get some rest.” Her face was ashen, her eyes dead with shock; even her hair seemed to have lost its luster and hung round her tortured face in lank copper strings. He knew she wouldn’t leave until her grandmother did.

The ME secured plastic bags over Miss Lottie’s hands and feet, and zipped her into a body bag to preserve any evidence. Then the old lady was bundled onto a gurney,
covered with a white sheet, and carried down the stairs. Miss Lottie was leaving Journey’s End for the last time.

The brilliant light from the magnificent Venetian crystal chandeliers in the hall illuminated the paramedics and the white-draped gurney as if they were players on a stage. Ellie’s tearless eyes, the pupils dilated with shock, were fixed on the slight shape under the sheet as she followed that precious burden into the waiting ambulance. Then the doors were slammed shut and the medics walked back into the house.

When they returned, she knew they were carrying Maria. Her shape was rounder under the sheet, sturdier. Ellie had never realized how short she was, really how tiny … it was as though, with death, people seemed to shrink….

The next time they returned, they had the dog on the gurney. Ellie had been unable to cry for Miss Lottie, unable to cry for Maria, but now tears stung her eyes. She was out of the car, running at him. “Bruno,” she screamed, “oh Bruno …”

She flung her arms round him, then stepped back with a shocked gasp.
He was stiff as a board.

“It’s rigor mortis, ma’am,” the medic explained. “It’ll wear off after a bit and he’ll be just like you remembered.”

She put a hand on Bruno’s soft fur, remembering when she and Miss Lottie had chosen him from the litter of seven.
“This is the one!”
she had said, picking him up triumphantly. So many years, so many memories, so much happiness was wrapped up in that poor stiff, furry body. Bending her head, she dropped a kiss on his sweet dog face. “I love you, Bruno baby,” she whispered.

The paramedics glanced at each other. “It would be better if you took a sedative now, miss,” one said. “It’ll help you get over the shock.”

Ellie shook her head, stubbornly. She wanted to be with Miss Lottie and Maria.
They needed her. She wanted them to feel her love, her energy, her sorrow.
Awake, she was with them. Drugged and sleeping, she would be in a limbo of nothingness.

“I’m taking you home now.” Dan’s arm slid comfortingly round her shoulders and she rested against him. It was an arm to be leaned against, a shoulder to cry on, a still-beating heart that offered her love and compassion.

She looked back, bewildered, at Journey’s End, lit as though for a party, half expecting to hear music wafting from the windows and the sound of laughing voices.
“But this is home,”
she whispered. Even as she said it, she knew it was no longer true. It was the end of an era, and she would never live in Journey’s End again.

M
UCH LATER
, E
LLIE LAY IN THE TUB WITH HOT WATER
almost up to her ears, attempting to get the ache out of her body. She felt as though she had traveled a long, hard journey, climbed high, difficult mountains, run across burning hot deserts. But there were no bruise marks on her body. The pain was all inside her, and she knew it was never going to go away.

Dan had brought her to Running Horse Ranch. They had offered her brandy, coffee, wine, hot tea. She had declined everything but the tea, yet even that had failed to melt the icy numbness.

The bathwater had almost grown cold when she finally climbed from the tub. Wrapping a towel around her, she caught her reflection in the mirror and saw a gray-faced woman, a woman from whose eyes the joy and sparkle had vanished. She would never be the same again.

Tugging on the Giants T-shirt Dan had given her, and his dark blue terry bathrobe, she ran a comb desultorily through her tangled hair.

The big pine bed piled high with pillows looked soft, inviting, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep, nor would she submit to a sedative. She needed to be awake, needed to keep her grandmother in her head, close to her. Wandering to the window, she looked out. A gray, sunless dawn was already lightening the sky.

There was a scrabbling noise at the door, then Pancho’s nose snuffled through the crack. Pushing it open, he bounced joyfully into the room, but instead of leaping all over her as he usually did, he sat quietly, gazing up at her.

Ellie suddenly realized that she was smiling. It was amazing, she thought, how animals and children had that universal ability to bring you back to square one, to realize that innocence still existed in this wicked world.

Climbing into bed, she lay back in the nest of pillows Florita had arranged for her. The sheets were cool against her skin and smelled of lavender, which was nicer than her own sheets that only smelled of Bounce.

The guest room was small, square and rather bare, with pegged pine floors and a tall, curtainless sash window, open to catch the breeze. There was a multicolored rag rug, an old green-painted dresser, a pine table next to the bed with a lamp in the shape of a bronze bear, and a large abstract print that took up a great deal of one wall. It was simple and basic, but comfortable. It felt like its owner, Dan.