See No Evil (2 page)

TWO

A
MURDER,
as well as a possible attempted suicide.

Detective Will Hooper was working the case alone. His partner, Carina Kincaid, was on a well-deserved vacation with her fiancé, but he missed having her here to bounce around ideas and theories. They made a good team.

But murder doesn’t take a vacation.

He arrived at the crime scene at the same time as the crime lab director, Dr. Jim Gage. The high-profile crime brought out the big guns in the department.

The murder vic was a judge, Victor Montgomery, which meant that right away they had politics and brass in the middle of the case. As soon as the press got wind of it, they’d be slithering all over the crime scene. But for now it was only the responding officers, Gage and his two techs, and Will.

A female teen, Emily Montgomery, had been taken to the hospital, an apparent attempted suicide. Will didn’t want to make any assumptions, though she’d obviously been drinking—a lot—and the responding officers found a half-empty bottle of Xanax. Her stomach would be pumped and the doctor would formally determine whether she had, in fact, tried to kill herself.

The fact that Judge Montgomery had just sentenced Herman Santos—the closest thing San Diego had to a Mafia don—to death by lethal injection for his role in a three-year-old execution-style murder of two cops also couldn’t be overlooked.

“Why didn’t we know about the girl when the nine-one-one call came in?” Gage asked Will as they met outside on the circular driveway at the base of the wide front stairs that led to large double doors, now open and guarded by two uniformed officers. Though late, the evening was warm enough to leave his jacket in the car.

“The wife found her husband’s body when she returned from a meeting. She ran to the neighbors to call and never said anything about her daughter. Diaz found the girl upstairs when he did a walk-through.” Will motioned for Diaz to approach. “Good to have you on the job.”

Officer Diaz gave a half smile. “Two days back and I feel human again.” Last month he’d been shot in the line of duty in a gang initiation stunt, but made it through and recently received medical clearance for duty.

“What happened with the girl?” Gage asked, glancing at an upstairs window.

Diaz checked his notes, cleared his throat. “We arrived on scene at ten-fourteen, nine minutes after the nine-one-one call came in. We checked the perimeter, attempted entry, but the door was secure. Mrs. Crystal Montgomery then approached from her neighbor’s house”—he gestured north—“and let us in with her security code. She remained in the living room while we inspected the ground floor and verified the deceased.” He looked up, a little pale. “It wasn’t pretty.”

Gage motioned for him to continue. Will and Gage certainly weren’t expecting a pretty crime scene.

Diaz said, “We asked if anyone else was home and she then told us her sixteen-year-old daughter, Emily, was supposed to be home.”

Will interrupted. “What was Mrs. Montgomery’s demeanor when she informed you of her daughter’s presence?”

“It was an afterthought.”

Her daughter, an afterthought. “Go on.”

“We called in the homicide and searched the house. Knocked on her bedroom door, which was locked, and when there was no answer we broke in. She was lying next to her bed in a robe, unconscious. We ascertained that she was alive, called for an ambulance, monitored her vitals. Weak. The room smelled of alcohol and we found an empty pint flask in the bathroom next to the bathtub. The tub was wet, there were damp towels, and a bottle of some prescription medication on the floor.”

“What did you touch?”

“Other than Emily Montgomery—we pulled a blanket from her bed to keep her warm—we didn’t touch anything else. There was blood in the girl’s room, but no visible wounds on her.”

Gage said, “I’ll send one of my people over to the hospital to collect evidence.”

“Where’s Mrs. Montgomery now?” Will asked.

“In the living room.”

“Thanks, Diaz.”

After Will and Gage entered the house, Gage instructed a tech to inspect every entrance and window. Another tech followed Will and Gage with a camera to photograph the crime scene.

Judge Montgomery had a large, high-ceilinged home office, dark and distinguished. Just the sort of understated elegance you’d expect from a respected jurist. A pen set, small clock, and a picture of his wife decorated a large desk otherwise devoid of clutter.

The thick white carpet was spattered with blood. Arterial spray covered Judge Montgomery’s chest, but there was no visible evidence of a wound. His eyes were open, glassy, unfocused. Dried blood coated his swollen mouth and face, dotted his full head of graying blond hair, and peppered the bookshelves behind him.

Gage walked behind the desk and stopped short, staring down. Will looked over his shoulder and the blood drained from his face.

Montgomery’s pants and boxers were pushed down to his ankles. His legs were spread, his groin a bloody mess. His penis had been removed in a brutal manner, resulting in severe muscle and tissue damage.

Gage said, “I’ll send one of my people over to the hospital to collect evidence.”

“Holy shit.” Will instinctively put a hand over his crotch.

“Don’t worry, dude, your package is still there,” Gage said with a half smile. “It’s only the judge who’s missing his.” Gage looked closer, motioning for the tech to take pictures from specific angles. “Look here. See this striation?”

Will swallowed uneasily and focused on the area Gage indicated.

“No.” All Will saw was pulp.

“It looks like something sharp,” said Gage. “Double edged, like heavy-duty scissors.”

“Can you cut off a dick with scissors?” Will asked, incredulous.

“If they’re sharp enough. But it looks like it took several cuts to remove it.”

That was more information than Will wanted to know, especially staring at the result of the killer’s handiwork.

Will looked around for the missing organ. “Did the killer take it with him?”

“Look in his mouth.”

Montgomery’s penis was shoved partly down his throat. His mouth wasn’t swollen, it was filled.

“See the arterial spray?” Gage pointed out the long lines of blood that had splattered across the desk, floor, and victim. “To get the spatter this far indicates that blood was pumping. He was alive during the amputation. This is the kind of spray we’d see from a partial decapitation or a stabbing where a major artery was pierced.”

“But he didn’t have his throat slit or his heart stabbed.”

“Right. I’d guess Judge Montgomery was in the act of sex or fellatio when someone snipped him. We’ll know for sure during the autopsy—a flaccid penis would be cut like rubber—multiple incisions until the scissors tore through the muscle. An erect penis would show different marks.”

Will could handle the most brutal of crime scenes with professionalism, but this one was particularly gruesome and unusual. He was glad his partner wasn’t here to see it. Not because she couldn’t handle the gore, but because she would be full of penis jokes for months.

“No guy is going to sit still while someone slices off his dick,” Will said. The judge was physically fit, tall. There was no visible means of restraint.

Gage walked carefully around the back of the chair and looked at the bookshelves. “Blair,” he ordered his assistant, who was still taking pictures, “grab my kit from the hall and get the black light and slow film out of the van. I’m going to Luminol this place. I think I know what happened.”

“And?” Will prompted. “What do you think happened?”

“Come here.”

Gage stood on the other side of the vic’s chair. “Do you see what’s different about the blood spatter on this side and the blood spatter on your side?”

“There’s no blood on this side. Like someone was standing here.”

“Exactly. And look at Montgomery’s shirt.”

It was open at the collar, which was virtually bloodless. “I see.” Will stood behind the chair. “Someone was restraining the judge by wrapping his arms around the neck while another someone did the dirty deed.”

“That’s why we have this pattern. But why would he get aroused? If your life is on the line, sex is the furthest thing from it.” Gage thought. “Maybe they restrained him, then pulled down his pants.”

“Or maybe he was in the act of oral sex when the killer came in.” Will frowned. “Then where’s the woman? The killer wouldn’t just let a potential witness go. She’s either dead or an accomplice.”

Gage didn’t say anything but glanced at the ceiling. “Let’s see how much blood is upstairs.”

“The daughter? That’s sick.”

“
Step
daughter.”

“It’s still sick.”

“Time of death?”

Gage inspected the body. “Less than seven hours, more than four.”

“Three-thirty to six-thirty. That’s a big window.”

“The coroner is on his way. He’ll narrow it down. We’re still in the twelve-hour window.” The sooner a body was discovered, the better the time-of-death estimate.

“Santos was sentenced last week,” Will said. Just saying this cop-killer’s name made him tense.

“I was thinking about that. Santos has enough people on his payroll to pull off something like this.”

“But why the theatrics? Wouldn’t a bullet in the back of the skull be more his style?”

“That’s beyond my expertise. I’ll collect the evidence, you figure out who did it. But,” Gage continued, glancing at Will, “Santos might be sending a message of some sort.”

“I’ll talk to some beat cops and see if there’s something personal in the delivery.” Will frowned. “But I still don’t see him going to this trouble.”

When Gage’s assistant came back, he instructed her to finish the photographs and start mapping out the crime scene. They had purchased a state-of-the-art forensics program last year when they had a onetime budget increase. It was amazing that the lab pinched pennies when ordering common supplies and couldn’t hand out more than nominal pay raises, but could purchase a multimillion-dollar computer system simply on the whim of state politicians.

“I’ll be back to work with the black light after we finish upstairs.”

Gage and Will left, both carefully looking for potential evidence on the floors. “Where are the drops of blood?” Gage asked. “Being that close, the killer would have been slick with it.”

“Maybe they had an extra layer of clothing and removed it.”

“That would take planning.”

“Premeditated murder makes for a much longer sentence,” Will said.

At the base of the stairs, on the bleached wood railing, a bloody handprint stood out.

Will and Gage proceeded upstairs to Emily Montgomery’s bedroom. They walked slowly, carefully observing. The marble stairs were carpeted with sea blue Berber, keeping with the ocean theme of the mansion. Where the carpet met the marble were several drops of dried blood. Two more drops were closer to the top. Another faint, dark red handprint was pressed into the carpet, left of center, this one smeared.

“There doesn’t seem to be a lot of blood,” Will said, “which holds with the idea that maybe the weapon and clothing were put in a bag or disposed of.”

On the radio, Gage asked his second assistant to methodically go through every room looking for blood, no matter how small, and to start processing the garbage.

Gage said, “Logically, there was more than one person involved. The accomplice could have left with the weapon and clothing.”

Will didn’t know why it made him feel better to think that Emily Montgomery hadn’t been the one to do her stepfather’s amputation, though being an accessory was almost as bad.

“But they didn’t make any effort to clean up the stairs.”

“Panic? Fear? Diaz said the daughter’s room smelled of alcohol.”

Emily Montgomery’s room was the first door on the right, as evidenced by the slight splintering of the doorjamb when Diaz had broken in earlier.

The room was in disarray, partly from the paramedics who had worked to stabilize Emily before transporting her to the hospital.

Nothing stood out to the cops. Again, the carpets were white, but the decorations were more in line with the tastes of a teenaged girl: dark purples, black, and red rather than the subdued, cool elegance of the main house.

But in the bathroom, one towel had blood smeared on it, and the sink faucet had another smear.

“I’m going to have to call in a larger team, or processing this house is going to take all night,” Gage said, making the call.

Will noted the empty flask and the pill bottle. “What type of pills?”

Gage bent down and picked up the bottle with gloved hands. “Xanax. Prescribed to Emily Montgomery and refilled two weeks ago. Empty.” He stood, pointed to pills all over the floor. “There are at least twenty on the floor. She could have had half a bottle, or almost full. The prescription reads
‘Use as needed. No more than two in a twelve-hour period.’
” He opened the medicine cabinet.

“This kid’s pharmacy is bigger than mine,” Will commented.

Eight or nine prescriptions, all prescribed by Dr. Garrett Bowen, lined the top shelf. Two bottles were on their sides, and another three were unopened on the floor. “Another Xanax, but an older prescription. Antidepressants. Tylenol.”

“Tylenol in a prescription bottle?”

“Prescription strength. And here’s Imitrex, primarily for migraines.”

“Sixteen and has more legal drugs in her cabinet than I’ve taken in my entire life,” Will muttered.

Gage frowned. “Some of these shouldn’t be taken together. Someone needs to talk to this Bowen doc and see what’s up.”

Will made a note. “I’ll talk to the mom first.”

“Until we’re done processing the evidence, there’s nothing for you to do here. I’ll let you know what we find.”

“I’ll be downstairs with Mrs. Montgomery.” Will paused. “What’s your best guess?”

“At this stage, I can’t possibly guess.”

Will stared at him. “I need something to go with.”

Gage shook his head. “Theory, but only theory: at least two perpetrators, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were three. No sign of forced entry. Someone let them in. One or more known to the vic or to the stepdaughter.”