Postmortem (19 page)

Silence. I reminded myself there are millions of men in the country who are nonsecreters and sex slayings happen every year in almost every major city. But the parallels were jolting.

We had turned onto a narrow, tree-lined street in a recently developed subdivision where all of the ranch-style houses looked alike and hinted of cramped space and low-budget building materials. There were realtor signs scattered about, and some of the homes were still under construction. Most of the lawns were newly seeded and landscaped with small dogwoods and fruit trees.

Two blocks down on the left was the small gray house where Brenda Steppe had been slain not quite two months ago. The house had not been rented or sold. Most people in the market for a new home aren't keen on the idea of moving into a place where someone has been brutally murdered. Planted in the yards of the houses on either side were "For Sale" signs.

We parked in front and sat quietly, the windows rolled down. There were few streetlights, I noted. At night it would be very dark, and if the killer was careful and wearing dark clothing, he wasn't going to be seen.

Marino said, "He got in the kitchen window around back. It appears she got home at nine, nine-thirty that night. We found a shopping bag in the living room. The last item she bought had the computer-printed time on it of eight-fifty P. M. She goes home and cooks a late dinner. That weekend it was warm, and I'm assuming she left the window open to air out the kitchen. Especially since it appears she'd been frying ground beef and onions.

I nodded, recalling Brenda Steppe's gastric contents.

"Cooking hamburger and onions usually smokes or smells up the kitchen. Least it does in my damn house. And there was a ground-beef wrapper, an empty spaghetti sauce jar, onion skins, in the trash under the sink, plus a greasy frying pan soaking."

He paused, adding thoughtfully, "Kind of weird to think her choice of what to cook for dinner maybe resulted in her ending up murdered. You know, maybe if she'd had a tuna casserole, a sandwich or something, she wouldn't have left the window open.

This was a favorite rumination of death investigators: What if? What if the person had not decided to buy a pack of cigarettes at a convenience store where two armed robbers were holding the clerk hostage in the back? What if someone hadn't decided to step outside and empty the cat-litter box at the very moment a prison escapee was nearing the house? What if someone hadn't had a fight with his lover, resulting in his driving off in a huff at the exact moment a drunk driver was rounding a curve on the wrong side of the road? Marino asked, "You notice the turnpike's less than a mile from here?"

"Yes. There's a Safeway on the corner, just before you turn off in this neighborhood," I recalled. "A possible place for him to have left his car, assuming he came the rest of the way on foot."

He cryptically observed, "Yeah, the Safeway. It closes at midnight."

I lit another cigarette and played on the adage that in order for a detective to be good, he has to be able to think like the people he's out to get.

"What would you have done," I asked, "if it were you?"

"If what were me?"

"If you were this killer."

"Depending on whether I'm some squirrely artist like Matt Petersen or just your run-of-the-mill maniac who gets off on stalking women and strangling them?"

"The latter," I evenly said. "Let's assume the latter."

He was baiting me, and he laughed rather rudely. "See, you missed it, Doc. You should've asked how it would be different. Because it wouldn't be. What I'm telling you is if I was either type, I'd pretty much do it the same way - don't matter who or what I am during my regular hours when I'm working and acting like everybody else. When I get into it, I'm just every other drone who's ever done it or ever will. Doctor, lawyer or Indian chief."

"Go on."

He did.

"It starts with me seeing her, having some sort of contact with her somewhere. Maybe I'm coming to her house, selling something or delivering flowers, and when she comes to the door, that little voice in my head says, 'This is the one.'

Maybe I'm doing construction in the neighborhood and see her coming and going alone. I fix on her. I might follow her for as long as a week, learning as much about her, about her habits, as possible. Like what lights left on means she's up, what lights off means she's asleep, what her car looks like."

"Why her?" I asked. "Of all the women in the world, why this one?"

He briefly considered this. "She sets something off in me."

"Because of the way she looks?"

He was still thinking. "Maybe. But maybe it's her attitude. She's a working woman. Got a pretty nice crib, meaning she's smart enough to earn a decent living. Sometimes career women are snooty. Maybe I didn't like the way she treated me. Maybe she assaulted my masculinity, like I'm not good enough for her or something."

"All of the victims are career women," I said, adding, "but then, most women who live alone work."

"That's right. And I'm going to know she lives alone, going to make sure of it, going to think I'm sure of it, anyway. I'm going to fix her, show her who's got the power. The weekend comes and I'm feeling like doing it. So I get in the car late, after midnight. I've already cased the area, have the whole scenario planned. Yeah. I might leave my car in the Safeway parking lot, but the problem is it's after hours. The lot's going to be empty, meaning my ride's going to stick out like a sore thumb. Now, it just so happens there's an Exxon station on the same corner as the grocery store. Me, I'd probably leave my car there. Why? Because the service station closes at ten and you expect to see cars waiting for repairs left in service station lots after hours. No one's going to think twice about it, not even the cops, and that's who I'm most worried about. Some cop on patrol seeing my car in an empty parking lot and maybe checking it out or calling in a ten-twenty-eight to find out who owns it."

He described in chilling detail every move. Dressed in dark clothing, he stayed in the shadows as he walked through the neighborhood. When he got to this address his adrenaline began to pump as he realized the woman, whose name he probably did not know, was home. Her car was in the drive. All the lights, except the porch light, were out. She was asleep.

Taking his time, he stayed out of sight as he assessed the situation. He looked around, making sure no one spotted him, then went around to the back of the house where he began to feel a surge of confidence. He was invisible from the street, and the houses one row over are an acre away, the lights out, not a sign of anybody stirring. It was pitch dark in back.

Quietly, he approached the windows and immediately noted the one open. It was simply a matter of running a knife through the screen and releasing the latches inside. Within seconds, the screen was off and on the grass. He slid the window open, pulled himself up and found himself staring at the shadowy shapes of kitchen appliances.

"Once inside," Marino was saying, "I stand still for a minute, listening: Once satisfied I don't hear nothing, I find the hallway and start looking for the room where she's at. A crib small as this," a shrug, "and there aren't too many possibilities. I find the bedroom right off and can hear her sleeping inside. By now I got something over my head, a ski mask, for example . . ."

"Why bother?" I asked. "She isn't going to live to identify you."

"Hairs. Hey, I ain't stupid. I probably pick forensic science books for bedtime reading, probably have memorized all the cop's ten codes. No chance anybody's going to be finding my hairs on her or anywhere else."

"If you're so smart" - now I was the one baiting him - "why aren't you worried about DNA? Don't you read the newspapers?"

"Well, I'm not going to wear no damn rubber. And you aren't ever going to develop me as a suspect because I'm too damn slick. No suspect, no comparison, and your DNA hocus-pocus isn't worth a dime. Hairs are a little more personal. You know, maybe I don't want you to know if I'm black or white, a blond or a redhead."

"What about fingerprints?"

He smiled. "Gloves, babe. The same as you wear when you're examining my victims."

"Matt Petersen wasn't wearing gloves. If he had been, he wouldn't have left his prints on his wife's body."

Marino said easily, "If Matt's the killer, he wouldn't worry about leaving prints in his own house. His prints are gonna be all over the place anyway." A pause. "If. Fact is, we're looking for a squirrel. Fact is, Matt's a squirrel. Fact is, he ain't the only squirrel in the world-there's one behind every bush. Fact is, I really don't know who the hell whacked his wife."

I saw the face from my dreams, the white face with no features. The sun breaking through the windshield was hot but I couldn't seem to get warm.

He continued, "The rest's pretty much what you'd imagine. I'm not going to startle her. Going to ease my way to the edge of the bed and wake her up by putting one hand over her mouth, the knife to her throat. I'm probably not going to carry a gun because if she struggles and it goes off maybe I get shot, maybe she does before I've had a chance to do my thing. That's real important to me. It's got to go down the way I planned or I'm real upset. Also, I can't take the chance of anyone hearing gunfire and calling the cops."

"Do you say anything to her?" I asked, clearing my throat.

"I'm going to talk low, tell her if she screams I'll kill her. I tell her that over and over again."

"What else? What else will you say to her?"

"Probably nothing."

He shoved the car in gear and turned around. I took one last look at the house where what he just described happened, or at least I almost believed it happened exactly as he said. I was seeing it as he was saying it. It did not seem speculation but an eyewitness revelation. An unemotional, unremorseful confession.

I was formulating a different opinion of Marino. He wasn't slow. He wasn't stupid. I think I liked him less than ever.

We headed east. The sun was caught in the leaves of the trees and rush hour was at its peak. For a while we were trapped in a sluggish flow of congestion, cars occupied by anonymous men and women on their way home from work. As I looked at the passing faces I felt out of sync, detached, as if I did not belong in the same world other people lived in. They were thinking about supper, perhaps the steaks they would cook on the grill, their children, the lover they would soon be seeing, or some event that had taken place during the day.

Marino was going down the list.

"Two weeks before her murder UPS delivered a package. Already checked out the delivery guy. Zip," he said. "Not long before that some guy came by to work on the plumbing. He squares okay, too, best we can tell. So far, we've come up with nothing to suggest any service person, delivery guy, what have you, is the same in the four cases. Not a single common denominator. No overlapping or similarities where the victims' jobs are concerned either."

Brenda Steppe was a fifth-grade teacher who taught at Quinton Elementary, not far from where she lived. She moved to Richmond five years ago, and had recently broken off her engagement to a soccer coach. She was a full-figured redhead, bright and good-humored. According to her friends and her former fiance, she jogged several miles every day and neither smoked nor drank.

I probably knew more about her life than her family in Georgia did. She was a dutiful Baptist who attended church every Sunday and the suppers every Wednesday night. A musician, she played the guitar and led the singing at the youth group retreats. Her college major was English, which was also what she taught. Her favorite form of relaxation, in addition to jogging, was reading, and she was reading Doris Betts, it appeared, before switching off her bedside light that Friday night.

"The thing that sort of blew my mind," Marino told me, "is something I recently found out, one possible connection between her and Lori Petersen. Brenda Steppe was treated in the VMC ER about six weeks ago."

"For what?" I asked, surprised.

"A minor traffic accident. She got hit when she was backing out of her driveway one night. No big deal. She called the cops herself, said she'd bumped her head, was a little dizzy. An ambulance was dispatched. She was held a few hours in the ER for observation, X-rays. It was nothing."

"Was she treated during a shift when Lori Petersen was working?"

"That's the best part, maybe the only hit we've gotten so far. I checked with the supervisor. Lori Petersen was on that night. I'm running down everybody else who might've been around, orderlies, other doctors, you name it. Nothing so far except the freaky thought the two women may have met, having no idea that this very minute their murders would be in the process of being discussed by you and yours truly."

The thought went through me like a low-voltage shock. "What about Matt Petersen? Any chance he might have been at the hospital that night, perhaps to see his wife?"

Marino replied, "Says he was in Charlottesville. This was a Wednesday, around nine-thirty, ten P. M."

The hospital certainly could be a connection, I thought. Anyone who works there and has access to the records could have been familiar with Lori Petersen and might also have seen Brenda Steppe, whose address would be listed on her ER chart.

I suggested to Marino that everyone who may have been working at VMC the night she was treated should be turned inside out.