Almost Dead (29 page)

Maybe Mr. Timms hadn’t been so lucky after all.

Sybil pulled the lapel of her suit jacket over her mouth and coughed a couple of times. “Ms. Hammersly?” she called. “Are you here? Elyse?”

Moving carefully down the hallway, Sybil felt a shiver chase down her spine. Elyse may have been coming and going for a while, but she clearly hadn’t been here lately. Last night, Tildy had said, but the old bat had to be wrong. No one could stand the smell without finding the rotted little corpse and tossing it out.

She checked through the upstairs rooms but found nothing to account for the odor. Stopping at the top of the stairs that led to the basement, Sybil called again, “Ms. Hammersly? It’s Sybil Tomini from Treasure Homes.”

No answer.

“Screw this,” she muttered, grabbing her cell phone again and calling Rich, one of Treasure Homes’ other partners, a real prick but at least the man possessed a brain.

Creeping down the stairs, Sybil kept one hand firm on the rail, the other pressing her phone to her ear. The basement was unfinished space, she recalled, with a wall that divided off one section that could be made into a bedroom or workspace. There was a narrow doorway to access it.

As she reached the bottom step, the smell reached out to her, nauseating. Horrible.

Sybil coughed some more, just as Rich’s supercilious voice invited her to leave a message. “Rich, it’s Sybil. I’m at one of our rental properties. The Berkeley cottage, and it’s…weird.”

Beep.
Rich’s phone suddenly cut her off. Didn’t even ask if she was satisfied with her message.

“
Damn
it.”

She clicked the phone closed but kept it in her hand as she stepped forward and spied a narrow, nearly secret, doorway to the closed-off area. Holding her breath, Sybil squeezed into the room.

She looked ahead, and all the hair on her body stood on end. In the bluish light of a television, she saw the back of a woman’s head. The woman was watching the news. She sat still as a statue.

“Elyse…?”

She eased around to get a better look at her, her fingers fumbling for the light switch. She snapped on the fluorescents. Illumination flickered uncertainly.

Sybil’s mouth opened in a silent scream.

The woman seated calmly in the chair had been sitting there for some time. She gazed at Sybil serenely out of blank eyeholes. Her face—all her skin—was being systematically eaten by insects and larvae. The dead body was putrefying, melting into the chair.

But it looked as if someone had recently given her a manicure.

Sybil backed away as if burned, her fingers scrabbling on the phone, searching for 9-1-1. Screaming like a banshee, she stumbled up the stairs, through the house, out the front door, and, in full view of Tilda Owens’s house, threw up that damned salad all over her cream designer suit.

Bayside Hospital
San Francisco, CA
Room 316
Friday, February 13
NOW

I can’t believe that no one has come in to check on me. I only wish I had one more chance to tell Jack that I love him…. But it’s too late…. I know it now. The doctor says it’s time to take me off life support, that it’s best to let me die and harvest my organs.

Oh God, no!

No, no, no!!! I’m alive.

I strain with everything I’m worth. Panic spurts through me. Certainly it registers on those damned monitors, right? Can’t they see my heart rate soaring into the stratosphere? Don’t they know I’m responding?

For the love of God, check me! Shine that bloody light into my eyes and watch me flinch, my pupils react.

Give me time. I’m waking up. You’re giving up too quickly.

I struggle to move, to show them I’m alive, but nothing happens.

Stop this madness. Think of me.

Through all my fear, I hear the doctor say resignedly, “It’s time. I’ll call the family….”

Paterno had seen a lot in all of his years on the force.

He’d witnessed man’s inhumanity to man, seen the effects of abuse, addiction, and rage. He’d never been surprised by how sick people could be to each other, but this…what he was viewing now, was something he couldn’t imagine.

He’d gotten the call from a Detective Lee in Berkeley, who had responded to a 9-1-1 emergency call from a frantic landlord who had found a dead body in the basement of one of her rental units. The uniformed cop who had responded had quickly called his homicide department, and the cop there, Detective Lee, had put two and two together and rung up Paterno. Paterno had driven over the bridge at lightning speed, his guts twisting, acid roiling, as he walked through the cordoned-off bungalow. Already the place was swarming with cops and crime-scene investigators, and around the perimeter were news vans and neighbors, people who had been passing by but were now standing outside the roped-off area, hoping to get a glimpse of what was happening.

“Detective Paterno?” a female voice called, and he looked over his shoulder to see Lani Saito, the attractive Asian reporter from KTAM with the glossy black hair who’d confronted him earlier. Her cameraman was with her, training the lens of his shoulder cam at Paterno. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but they’d already set a big lamp near the van to illuminate the area. “Could I have a word with you? Is it true that Marla Cahill is in this house? Is she alive?”

Paterno glared at the woman. How could she get information as fast as he could? “I just got here.”

“This one’s out of your jurisdiction, and since you’re working on murders in which Marla Cahill is a suspect, I’m guessing that’s why you’re here. Is Marla Cahill in the house?”

“I don’t have anything to say right now, Ms. Saito, but I’m sure the Public Information Officer will make a statement later, once we know what’s going on.” He forced a grim smile and managed not to snap the woman’s head off. Jesus, what did the press want from him? Turning his back on her and her cameraman, Paterno walked to the perimeter of the crime scene and flashed his badge at a uniformed cop. “Paterno, SFPD, Homicide. Detective Lee called me.”

“She said you’d be here. She’s inside. Probably in the basement. Just put these on.” The uniformed cop handed him a pair of shoe covers.

Paterno slipped the disposable covers over his shoes, then walked up the front steps to the little house that resembled all the other houses on the street. The yard was shaggy with winter, the shrubs needing a trim, the curtains drawn.

Inside, the living room was virtually empty. A couple of folding chairs and a small table sat on a scratched hardwood floor. No other furniture. No beds in the two bedrooms, no towels hanging in the bathroom, the bathtub home to spiders, and the stench permeating through the place was overwhelming. The minute he’d crossed the threshold, he’d been assailed with the scents of solvent, pine and air-fresheners, but beneath it all, overpowering in its intensity, was the unmistakable smell of death.

Carefully he picked his way around the techs who were dusting for prints, scanning for blood, picking up trace evidence and examining every nook and cranny of the little post–World War II cottage. Through a kitchen with a cracked linoleum floor from the fifties, Paterno made his way downstairs to a musty, dank basement that reeked—the scent of rotting flesh nearly choked him. He pressed on.

Evidence of flooding was visible in the cracked cement walls, and he noticed the washer was rusted. Cell phones rang and radios crackled as he made his way to an open doorway, a shelf pushed aside to expose a small room from which the horrible smell was emanating. He locked his jaw so he wouldn’t gag and stepped inside.

He nearly retched anyway.

Sitting in a chair in front of a television with the volume turned low was the decomposing corpse of a woman. Her eyes were missing, and there were gaping holes in her face, exposing blackened muscle and bone. “Jesus,” he whispered, his stomach ready to toss everything inside. The ME was examining her, and a small, fortyish woman was waving the beam of her flashlight over the twin bed pushed into a corner. “I’m looking for Detective Lee.”

“That’s me.” She offered her gloved hand. “Susannah Lee. I go by Suze.”

“Anthony Paterno.”

“I figured.” Seemingly unfazed by the grisly sight or the horrible smell, Lee said, “We think this is Marla Cahill, though it’s hard to tell in her current condition. But race, height, size are consistent. This place was rented a few weeks before Marla escaped, right after the holidays. Look at it. Is it weird or what? The bed’s been made and used, there’s evidence of the body being in the sheets, body fluids, insect larvae and eggs, that sort of thing. So someone moved her. And someone did her hair, check it out.” Lee shined her flashlight over the dead strands of the corpse’s hair. Combed and styled. “Look at her fingers.” She shined the light on the rotting fingers, and, sure enough, the nails were polished. “Toes too.” She focused the beam on the toes peeking out of sandals. “Someone’s been here. Recently. Look in the wastebasket. Food from a local burger shop. What’s left of the burger hasn’t been here as long as the dead body.”

Paterno glanced around the room. There were pictures on the wall, photos of Marla Cahill as a girl, and a comb and brush next to a silver baby cup…the cup that Cissy reported missing from her house.

Detective Lee was right. The person rotting in front of some game show was Marla Cahill, and, from the looks of her, she’d been dead for quite a while, probably killed soon after her escape.

“Cause of death?”

“Beneath the perfectly coifed hair…” she said, then shone the light on the back of Marla’s head to reveal a bullet hole. “Looks like she was executed.”

“Here?”

“We don’t know that yet. Still looking for blood splatter. Whoever killed her went to a great deal of trouble to make her comfortable. A bed with sheets and an expensive coverlet, homey pictures, a television? What kind of nut job are you tracking, Detective?”

“Good question.” He glanced at Lee. “Who found the body?”

“Sybil Tomini. She’s with Treasure Homes. Her firm rented the bungalow to a woman by the name of Elyse Hammersly.”

“Marla didn’t rent it?”

“Don’t think so. Ms. Tomini’s in my squad car. I thought you might want to ask her a few questions. I’ve taken her statement, so once you’ve talked to her, she’s free to go. She’s been making noise about that for nearly an hour. And there’s one other thing: we found this.” She held up a scrap of blue material.

“What is it?”

“Looks like part of a piece of clothing, possibly ripped off when someone passed by.” She held the flashlight’s beam on the plastic bag. “But the weave’s loose, and the material’s fuzzy. Maybe part of a blanket. A baby blanket?”

“Jesus,” Paterno whispered. He thought of the Holts, dealing with the FBI, who had set up shop in their living room, worrying themselves sick about their kid.

“I’ll have the lab analyze it, and then you might want to take it to the Holts. See if they recognize it.”

His jaw tightened at the prospect. “No one found a baby here,” he said, though he was certain he would have been informed immediately if B.J. Holt or his body had been located.

She shook her head. “No baby. No body. Even this”—Detective Lee held up the scrap of material—“might prove not to belong to the kid.” She met Paterno’s gaze, and they had an understanding. They both felt B.J. Holt had been here with his decomposing grandmother.

Lee glanced at an officer near the door. “Would you show Detective Paterno to my car and Ms. Tomini?”

The young uniform nodded. “You got it.”

“I’ll send you my report,” Detective Lee said, turning back to the bed as Paterno and the Berkeley cop walked through this tomb of a basement to climb the rickety stairs once more.

Outside, night had fallen. Paterno breathed deep of the rain-washed air, but the rank stench of death lingered in his nostrils, and he knew it would take days, and more than a few hot, steamy showers, before the odor would leave. It clung. For days. What the hell was going on?

It looked as if Marla’s accomplice had murdered her. A friend? Deadly enemy?

Or both?

Did the killing make any sense?

Why risk springing her from prison if the intent was to kill her? What had been the motive? Had Marla’s death been an accident?

A fight?

Premeditated?

A bullet to the back of the head screamed intent to kill.

But there was more to it than murder. Why not dump the body in the woods outside the city or the bay or
anywhere
and get the hell away? Why go to all the trouble of renting a house, hiding the corpse, and, for God’s sake, dressing it and combing its damned hair? And what about bringing a baby here?

What kind of sicko would do that?

And why?

Sickos don’t need reasons.

Marla had been dead for weeks from the looks of her. Why expose a child to the horror of a decaying body? The kid’s own grandmother, for God’s sake.

Maybe that’s the point. Get the baby. But then why kill Eugenia, Rory, and Cherise? Why not Cissy?

Who
was
this person?

He shoved his hair from his eyes and noticed an old woman standing in the window of the house across the street. She was staring at the place while holding a big cat with a long tail.

Scratching his jaw, Paterno followed the cop across a patch of lawn and thought about the murder weapon. A gun. He figured the slug retrieved from Marla’s rotting body would match the bullets found in Cherise Favier and Tanya Watson, all victims of the same demented killer. All from a .38, but not matching any other bullets found in any other crimes in the Bay Area.

Until now.

Paterno had little doubt what ballistics would turn up.

“This is Detective Lee’s vehicle,” the policeman said, but there was no one inside. Instead, a woman with blunt-cut, sleek dark hair, her cream suit stained orange and smelling like vomit, leaned against the hood, sucking vigorously on a cigarette as if the nicotine could obliterate the nightmare she’d so recently witnessed. The officer introduced them. “Ms. Tomini, this is Detective Paterno.”

“About time!” Sybil took a long drag. “Did you see that…that thing inside the house?” Smoke streamed from her nostrils. “Awful…just awful. Can I go now?”

“In a few minutes. I just want to ask a few questions.”

“I’ve answered dozens of them already. All I know is that the neighbor, Mrs. Owens, Tilda Owens, she’s a widow and lives right across the street…” Sybil waved her cigarette toward the house with the older woman and the cat. “She complained to me about my tenant nearly running over her cat, so I decided to talk to Elyse.”

“Elyse?” he repeated.

“Yes, Elyse Hammersly. She’s my tenant, has been since the first of the year.”

“You’ve met her? Talked with her?”

“Yes.”

“And she’s not the woman downstairs.”

“That dead thing? No…oh, no, I’m sure not.” But she didn’t sound convinced. She took another drag of smoke and glanced down at her soiled suit, wincing a bit. “I mean, it’s hard to tell.” Shuddering, she shook her head, disbelieving that the moldering corpse could be anyone she’d actually seen or talked to.

“You’ve seen pictures of Marla Cahill, the escapee. Was she the woman who rented this place?”

“No. I rented it before she escaped, I’m sure. And I’ve met Elyse, and she’s not Marla Cahill.”

“I’d like to see the lease. You have a copy?”

“At the office, yes.”

“Do you take any references or ID before you lease your property?”

“Of course.” Sybil bristled.

“Can I see the records?”

“No problem. Again, they’re at the office.”

“I’ll drive you there, and, when we’re done, I’ll bring you back here.”

“I could just drive myself.”

“Just in case Detective Lee or the FBI have any further questions.”

“The FBI?” she repeated and sucked on her cigarette until the ash reached the filter tip. “Oh, dear God.”

Paterno’s thoughts exactly.

“I need to see you,” Elyse said into the phone. On the other end, her lover was balking.

“I can’t. People will get suspicious. I’m being watched, you know.”

“We need to talk.” She was desperate, her heart pounding as she drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. Traffic was thick, people pouring out of the city in rush hour, and she could barely think. Her head pounded, and she told herself she just needed to get home, to see him again, to…to…

The car in front of her slammed on his brakes, and she did the same, nearly plowing into the trunk of the red Pontiac. Her tires skidded on the wet pavement. “You cretin!” she yelled, though she could only see the back of his head as the wipers slapped away the rain. The driver was a teenager on a cell phone, and of course he couldn’t hear her. The thrum of huge speakers and rap music pulsed through the night. And still he was on his cell.

“What?” her lover said breathlessly as if he’d been climbing stairs or running.

“Just meet me. Tonight.”

“I’m telling you it’s impossible.”

“You show,” she insisted as the stupid baby started crying again. The damned kid was driving her crazy. “I need some help, damn it, and we’re in this together. It was your idea.”

“Not all of it.”

“You were the one who said we could do this, now for God’s sake be a man.” She was irritated, biting the inside of her cheek nervously, her fingers so tight around the steering wheel they felt fused to the plastic and metal.

“You’re taking too many chances.”

“I don’t have a choice!”

“We need to cool it for a while.”

“Cool it?” she said, her voice increasing in pitch, rising to a near screech. “Are you crazy? We can’t cool it now.”

“You’re the one acting crazy!”

“Because I’m the one who’s taking all the damned risks. If you knew what I put up with, dealing with that bitch! Just get your ass to the house,” she insisted as her Taurus inched over the bridge.

“For Christ’s sake, get a grip.”

“I can’t!” she yelled and heard the anger, the panic, in her own voice. She caught her reflection in the mirror and was surprised to see that her hair was frazzled and unkempt, her makeup running, her eyes staring as if she were freaked. Holy God, what was wrong with her? Nothing. Not a damned thing. It was everyone else. Yes, she was a little wired and nervous, but who wouldn’t be? She was just under a tremendous amount of pressure, and he, the wimp, wasn’t helping. Where was the strong, intelligent, sexy man she’d fallen for? “Listen, lover boy,” she snarled sarcastically. “You damned well better meet me, or you’ll never see the boy again. End of story.” She clicked off, swore at the driver in front of her, and, when the phone rang and she saw it was Jack calling her back, she ignored it. Let him stew in his own juices.