"What are you getting, Abby?" he asked me as I stepped away from the now screened window.
"The murderer removed the screen and got in through this window."
Dutch gave me a humoring smile and said, "Abby, this window was locked from the inside. Plus the door was padlocked and the killer kicked it in from the hallway. He couldn't have gotten inside to murder Allison from here."
"No, you're missing it. He didn't get in to murder Allison from here, he got in to murder Alyssa from here."
Dutch regarded me for a long moment, the muscles in his jaw bunching and unbunching, before he moved to the window and surveyed the screen. Next he moved around to the side of the house and poked at the area where I'd found the screen next to the bush. Finally he finished and walked past me toward the house. "Come on," he said.
"Where are we going?" I asked, trotting behind him.
"Back to the station. We're going to look through Alyssa's file."
Forty-five minutes later we were sitting at Dutch's desk on the second floor of the Royal Oak Police Station, facing Officer Shawn Bennington, a barrel-chested cop with sloping shoulders, fat belly, sloppy food-stained uniform and murky attitude. He seemed to have little respect for the detective in front of him, and I suspected that, given his attitude, he probably treated everyone with authority the same way.
"Thanks for meeting us, Shawn. Sorry to have to pull you off patrol."
"Uh-huh. Well, here's her folder. I had to dig through all sorts of shit to find it. Misfiled as usual," he said, rolling his eyes as he pushed a dark brown legal file in front of us.
Dutch accepted it, seemingly oblivious to the scowl shooting out from the officer's beady eyes. Bennington continued, "We don't normally keep evidence from suicides, but we wrote this one up as an S.P.F.I."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"Suicide Pending Further Investigation," he explained.
I thought it was curious that he hadn't even asked who I was and why I wanted to know such things. "In other words," he continued, "it means that all the evidence of a suicide is there except the powder burns on the vic's hands. Tough to shoot yourself with a gun if there aren't any powder burns on your trigger finger."
Dutch raised his eyebrows. "Do you know why this information was never turned over to our department for follow-up?" he asked.
"Like I said, Detective, it got misfiled and probably never made it up here. Either that or you guys got it and sent it back downstairs to get lost."
Dutch's jaw tightened. Even I could see the delicate dance Bennington was tiptoeing, just to the right of insubordination. "Thanks, Shawn, we'll take it from here," Dutch said firmly, dismissing the officer.
"What's his problem?" I asked.
"Passed over for detective half a dozen times, but he's been here long enough that no one has the balls to get rid of him. His work is so sloppy it's no wonder the file never made it up to us. My guess is that it wasn't misfiled at all, but probably sat at the bottom of a pile on his desk for the past couple of months."
"You're kidding!" I said.
"I wish I was," Dutch answered. "Unfortunately, it's happened before."
I looked again at the retreating back of Officer Bennington and felt anger sweep over me. What if Dutch was right and Bennington had mishandled the file? What if Dutch had been able to look into Alyssa's death? Would he have found her killer in time to save Allison? As my mind wandered to such dark thoughts, Dutch squeezed my hand, pulling me back. "Hey," he said gently, and I turned to look at him. "We need to focus on this, okay? We can't waste our time pointing fingers right now. I'll take care of Bennington later."
I nodded at Dutch and he opened the file. He spread it on the table in front of us, and my eyes darted over the pages of notes and pictures. There were several fairly graphic crime scene photos, and my stomach rolled over when I looked at them. I steeled myself, though, and forced myself to keep going. Alyssa had been shot under her chin at point-blank range but I noticed in one of the photos that her head was turned oddly in relation to the position of her body. It looked as if she'd been leaning slightly to one side, but after she was shot, her head had turned all the way to the other.
The gun had been left on the floor, and Allysa's hand dangled over the side of the bed, hovering in midair over the weapon. There were other photos of the room: a single shot of what was clearly a wedding dress that lay torn and crumpled in the corner; a close-up of the suicide note left on the dresser; and a long view taken just inside the doorway of the bedroom. Something struck me about that particular photo and I gripped Dutch's arm. I pointed to the window that had had the missing screen. The window was wide open, and curtains that were no longer hanging in Alyssa's bedroom had been sucked through the opening by the wind. The other window on the wall was also open, but the screen was clearly in place, preventing the other set of curtains from being pulled through.
Dutch looked for a long moment at the crime scene photos, his features unreadable. Finally he turned to me and said, "Abby, I think you might be on to something. This whole scene looks contrived."
We focused again on the file. Dutch turned to the back and retrieved a small Baggie containing two pieces of paper. One was the suicide note; the other was a shopping list. I looked curiously at the Baggie and asked, "Why is a shopping list in here?"
"Handwriting analysis. We would have wanted to compare the letter left at the scene with something we were sure was Alyssa's handwriting."
I did a quick comparison through the Baggie and could tell immediately that the handwriting was identical. Alyssa had written both notes. I was waiting for Dutch to pull out the suicide note so we could study it more closely, but before he did, he got up and walked over to a nearby desk, where he opened a drawer and took out a large pair of tweezers. Coming back to his desk, he carefully opened the Baggie and with the tweezers took out both notes. He laid them gently on his desk blotter. The script was big and loopy, and on the suicide note it began at the top of the page. I leaned in to read over Dutch's shoulder.
this marriage can't work. I've tried to be faithful to you, I've tried to be honest, but I don't think we're meant to be together. This has to end
now, and I need to go away, I just want my freedom. Please just let me go. I'm so sorry about all of it. Please forgive me.
Love always,
Alyssa.
Dutch used the tweezers to turn the short letter over, but nothing was written on the back. It started simply and ended simply, and that simply didn't make sense. Why had a woman who had apparently ripped her wedding gown to shreds written a suicide note only five sentences long? The fact that she tore up her gown indicated rage, and yet the note spoke only of regret. As I scanned the suicide note, my eye kept wandering to the top of the page and I focused on that for a minute. Then something dawned on me and I sucked in a breath of surprise.
"What?" Dutch asked.
Excitedly, I pointed to the top of the page at the first word, "this," and said, "Dutch, look at this word. It's lowercase. Alyssa starts every other sentence with a capital, but she begins the letter in the lowercase. And it is a lowercase t, because this sentence here"— I pointed to the fourth sentence down—"this one starts with a capital T. I don't think that's a mistake, Dutch. I think this beginning sentence is actually the end of a sentence from another page and this is the last page of a longer letter!"
Dutch looked closely at where I was pointing; then, with the tweezers, he held the note up to the light and studied it, and there were indeed some indentations there, but whether they were from a longer letter or something else wasn't clear. Next he checked the file and the photos and found no evidence of any other pages. He flipped to the initial interview with Marco right after he had come upon the body. According to the report, Marco had been so overcome with grief at finding Alyssa that he hadn't been aware that she'd even left a note.
"See? I told you so!" I said triumphantly. "Someone else murdered Alyssa, someone she knew intimately.
Allison must have suspected it and told the killer that she was going to the police, then he killed her to shut her up!" I was full of adrenaline and had gotten up from the table so I could pace back and forth, doing my best Perry Mason.
"Abby, you're drawing a pretty big conclusion there," Dutch said patiently. "At the moment all we have is a suspicious crime scene. I'll agree with you that it looks contrived, but I'm not ready to call this a murder scene just yet."
His statement popped my balloon. "Oh, for Pete's sake, what the hell do you need?" I asked testily.
"Short of a confession?" he asked. "Overwhelming evidence. I'm going to get this file over to the lab and have them run some tests on the note to see if we can make out any of these indentations. You could be right and this could be the last page of a longer letter, or you could be wrong and it's something unrelated like a grocery list. I'll let the crime techs do their job and then we'll see what turns up, okay?" With that he closed the file and stood up, then motioned for me to follow him.
"How long will that take?" I asked, grabbing my purse.
"Couple weeks…" he answered, walking down the staircase with rapid movements.
"What? What do you mean, weeks? We don't have weeks!" I yelled as Dutch reached the bottom.
Moving to the door, he finally turned to me and asked, "Abby, what do you want me to do? The lab is backed up to the time of Moses; everything has to wait its turn. We'll be lucky to get an analysis by Christmas."
My mouth fell open. He had to be kidding. "Five months?! "But I can't wait that long! I have to catch this bastard!"
Dutch looked at me with empathy. I'm sure he had faced the same sort of impatience from the families and friends of the victims whose deaths he investigated. "Abby, listen to me," he said. "There is an order and a protocol to detective work that I can't ignore. I have to follow the rule book; otherwise, the bad guys would all get off on a technicality. Now, I will admit that you've opened up some things here, but I'm still going to follow the evidence where it leads me. If it leads me in a different direction and I discover someone else is to blame for Allison's murder then I'll have all my investigative efforts to back me up."
"But, Dutch, we're running out of time," I said without really knowing why I said it.
Dutch sighed and wiped his face again in the same frustrated gesture I'd seen earlier at the dealership. "Listen, I'm starved. How about we go to lunch and talk about it there? What do you say?"
My stomach gave a Pavlovian growl at the word "lunch," and I let my shoulders slump a little. "Fine," I said and walked out with him to get into his car.
"Good girl," he said, patting my head as I clicked the seat belt. As we pulled out of the lot I wondered if I should stick my nose out the window and pant like an obedient little terrier.
Dutch drove to a local Royal Oak favorite called Pronto's! He parked and we got out, opting to eat inside instead of in the baking sun. Pronto's! is the place where those who like to ogle congregate when the weather won't cooperate. Formerly an almost exclusively gay hangout, it now welcomes everyone in the loving embrace of delicious comfort food. The menu is gourmet deli, and I had never had a bad meal in my life from the place. As we walked in, the flamboyant male host gave Dutch an appraising look that began at his feet and worked its way slowly up, stopping at his roguishly handsome face. The final conclusion must have been good because he flashed Dutch a beaming smile and sang, "Right this way!" I might as well have been invisible.
As the host led us to our table, I couldn't help but notice all of the heads that turned as Dutch walked by. He had that effect on people; he was someone who quite literally exuded virility, and like a scent in the air it tickled the noses of everyone interested. A flutter of insecurity tickled my tummy, and I wished for not the first time that day that I had put more effort into my appearance before leaving the house.
We settled at a table and picked up our menus. After the waitress took our order, Dutch turned to me and said, "Your boy 'Mr. Hardbody' checked out okay." I looked at him with a question on my face, not following his train of thought, so he continued. "During the time Allison was being murdered Dirk was filling his hard drive up with porn."
"Ewww," I said, making a face. That was a visual I didn't really want to entertain.
"You're lucky the guy turned out to be harmless, Abby. What if he was the killer? You could have put yourself in real danger."
I rolled my eyes and replied, "I told you, my radar never lies, Dutch, and if it says someone's harmless, then they're harmless. I guess it was just morbid curiosity on my part. I wanted to see what kind of guy Allison would go out with, you know, maybe it could tell me something about who killed her."
"You think whoever killed her was involved with her at some point?"
I thought about that for a minute, and played it across my radar. It didn't quite fit but it was close. "I'm not sure. Maybe not involved per se, but I think someone from her past came back and wanted to shut her up. I mean, you saw that crime scene. He didn't just eliminate her quickly and quietly. He hated her. Why? What had she done that caused such rage?"
"Marco's someone from her past," Dutch offered.
I gave him an exasperated look. "Oh, please. Why would Marco kill her? What was his motive?"
"According to several people we've talked to, Allison caused quite a scene at Alyssa's funeral, blaming Marco for her sister's death. She humiliated him publicly. Maybe she taunted him. Maybe she was so upset over the death of her sister that she harassed him, even invited him to dinner, taunting him to the point that he snapped."
Our food arrived and I stared at it for a long moment before picking up my fork. It looked and smelled delicious, but my thoughts were far away. Finally I said, "Dutch, I just know he didn't do it. He blames himself for Alyssa's death, and he thinks that somehow he provoked her into it."
"All right, then, let's follow that line of thinking for a minute, Abby. Maybe Marco was responsible for Alyssa's death. Maybe he popped her while she was sleeping and arranged the whole scene to look like a suicide and Allison found out about it."
"But why, Dutch? What was his motive for killing Alyssa? Everyone thought they were happy together."
"Actually he had a very good motive. For starters, Alyssa named Marco as the beneficiary in her will. The girls inherited a couple of million from their parents, and upon her death Marco was entitled to half her parents' estate. The kicker is that Allison named Alyssa her beneficiary, so now that she's dead her half also falls to Marco. I think that sets the table quite nicely for murder, don't you?"
For the first time a ripple of fear traveled down my back. I could see it clearly through a jury's eyes. It made sense in a brutal, barbaric sort of way, and I knew that Marco, riddled with guilt over his fiancée’s death, wouldn't fight back very hard. In fact, he would probably embrace a guilty verdict. He felt responsible for Alyssa's death and would probably see a murder conviction as penance. I couldn't let that happen.
"Okay, Detective," I said, cocking my head, "Riddle me this, then: Why would Marco go through all the trouble of climbing in through a window to murder Alyssa? He had a key. Why wouldn't he just use the front door, let himself in, shoot her, and go off and dial 911 saying he'd been in the living room when he heard a gun go off?"
Dutch sighed heavily and shook his head. "You're still assuming the screen was removed the day Alyssa died. What if one of the girls removed it earlier and forgot about it? Why did it have to be removed on the day of Alyssa's death? Also, I think you're right about the suicide note being a longer letter. What if Marco has the rest of the pages? It's possible it wasn't a suicide note at all, but a Dear John letter. He reads it, gets pissed and offs her. Everything keeps turning back to Marco."
Okay, he had me there. I scratched my head and grimaced. I hated knowing that I was right but not knowing the why or the how of it. I sat moodily in thought until Dutch paid our bill and we got up to leave. We drove back to the station in silence, and as Dutch dropped
me off at my car he offered, "Listen, Abby, because I think you may have something about Alyssa, I'll keep looking into it, but I want your solemn vow that you will butt out from now on. Capiche?"
"Capiche," I said flatly and turned to my car. I hadn't exactly taken a vow now, had I? I just said I understood, and in a foreign language at that.
I drove home and greeted Dave, who was packing it in for the day. He was making some good headway on my floors, and I asked him about his shoulder.
"It's still sore, but hey, I'm not twenty-one anymore. I'll muddle through."
I wrote him a check and sent him off with instructions about moist heat and anti-inflammatories. I then made Eggy's dinner and paid some bills, but my mind was still on Marco. I needed to talk to someone who would understand my point of view, so I called my sister.
"Hey, Abby, how are you?"
"Good. Cat, you got a minute?"
"Always sweetie, what's up?"
And so I started from the beginning not leaving out a thing. I finished with the visit to the crime scene and all that I detected there, and how I was still convinced that Allison's killer was out there, lurking
All the way through my long speech, Cat remained oddly silent, but when I'd finished, an ear-piercing string of words formed themselves into a rapid, machine-gun sentence. I suddenly knew that I'd inadvertently awakened my sister's alter ego—Howler Monkey.
"YOU WHAT?! You went on a date with someone who could have murdered your client?! Are you insane?!!"
Oops. Maybe I should try some damage control. I started with the calm down, it's really no big deal approach. "Cat—"
"And then you decide taking chances with one possible crazed psycho isn't enough so you go looking for another?!!!"