Protector (18 page)
Authors: Laurel Dewey
Tags: #Police Procedural, #Denver (Colo.), #Mystery & Detective, #Psychic ability, #Women detectives, #Crime, #Suspense, #Women Sleuths, #Children of murder victims, #Fiction, #Occult & Supernatural, #Espionage
“I guess this brings the stars inside,” Jane said.
“That’s nothing. The kid’s got this projector called Starlight Starbright. They found her with it in the closet. It was turned off but when you put it on, these ethereal sounds come out of the speakers and it projects a revolving display of stars across the walls and ceiling. It’s quite impressive.” Weyler smiled. “Emily’s very covetous of it. She carries it around in a little navy blue case.”
Suddenly, a swath of dark blue flashed in front of Jane’s eyes. It was the exact fragment of navy blue she’d seen before in the staccato blast of images. But this time she could clearly make out the outline of a carrying case. Jane closed her eyes, pressing the heel of her hand against her forehead.
Weyler observed Jane. “What’s wrong?”
Jane kept her eyes closed, realizing that a fragmented connection had been made; a connection between a split-second of color and the accompanying image it belonged to. Jane felt her heart beat faster. At that moment, she was certain she was slipping out of her body and into a precarious dark hole where one questions their sanity. She opened her eyes, still feeling as if she were balancing between two realities. “It’s nothing,” Jane uttered, flicking on the bedroom light and turning to a side door. “That’s the closet?”
“Yes.” Weyler opened the closet door to reveal a single row of tightly packed clothing on one side, a neat line of shoes underneath and a bevy of oversized bed pillows scattered on the floor. “The door was slightly cracked. Emily was found completely buried in the center of the pillows. The patrol officer who came on scene didn’t see her at first. He had his gun drawn as he searched the house. When he opened the closet, he had to look twice before he saw Emily staring straight at him with, what he called, a poker face. No emotion at all on her part. A box of coloring pencils were strewn across the floor right here.” Weyler pointed to the front of the bedside table. We believe the perps caused that to happen when they bumped against it. If you go into that closet and hunker down and crack the door just exactly like it was when they found her, it’s possible to assume she had clear line of sight on their faces.” Weyler directed Jane’s attention to a three-inch square of pink carpeting in front of the table that had been removed. “Right here is where we found drops of blood that fell off one of the knives. We theorize the perp was standing still when the blood dropped from the knife tip. In other words, there could have been a good ten, fifteen, maybe twenty seconds of him standing in one spot in direct line with where Emily was hiding. Enough time for her to clearly see the perp.”
“That’s just wishful conjecture,” Jane replied in a dismissive tone.
“It’s a possibility, Jane.”
Jane felt herself thankfully slide back into her body. She could now be all business again. “From what you said, the individual or individuals did not leave a trace of their presence, right?”
“Correct.”
“So that means they probably covered their shoes to hide footprints, wore gloves and most likely covered their face with something to prevent us from finding sweat and hair and getting a DNA sample.”
“That’s what we’re thinking up to this point.”
“Okay, then you have to assume that certain things follow. First, they are professionals. They know the drill. They know what cops are gonna look for at a scene. Second, the killer or killers knew Emily existed or why would they bother to come upstairs? Oh, and by the way, Chris really fucked up when he told the media that Emily was in this house during the murder! That’s the kind of information the perps don’t need to know! That’s also the kind of info that’ll keep that kid in protective custody for a lot longer!”
“Point noted, Detective,” Weyler said wearily.
“So the killer or killers come up to this room. But Emily’s not in her bed like she should be and it doesn’t follow to them that she’d be anywhere else in this room. They figure the kid’s not here. She’s at a friend’s house. End of story. They’re hyped up. They just killed two people downstairs. They’re flying a million miles an hour. Neither one of them is going to stand still after all that and contemplate what he just did, even if he thinks he’s alone. They want out of here! But let’s just say for the sake of argument that the killer or killers did stop for five or ten seconds. And, as luck would have it, they just happened to stand still right in line with Emily’s point of view. So what? They’re wearing masks! They could have stood in front of this door for hours and it still wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference because she couldn’t see their faces anyway. In my opinion, I think the whole thing is far too speculative.”
“It’s only speculative if you’re not willing to think outside the box. Remember, Detective, Emily’s prints are on the staircase. And her bloody footprints trailed blood from the head of her mother’s dead body, up those stairs and into this closet.” Weyler waited for a response but was greeted with stony silence. He leaned closer to Jane. “She stood in their blood, Jane!”
“She saw her parents! That doesn’t mean she saw the killers! Those two pieces of information don’t fit together!”
“You just don’t want them to fit.”
Jane held firm. “They don’t fit because they don’t fit. Are we done in here?”
Weyler straightened his body and stared at Jane. “Let’s go downstairs.”
Jane followed Weyler down the stairs and into the living room. She spotted two rolled sleeping bags in the corner of the entry hall—one adult size and one child size. “Who was Emily going camping with?”
“Chris noted that. The neighbors said that Emily and her mother had just returned on May 22 from a nine day camping trip to Moab, Utah.”
“They decide to go on a nine day camping trip in the middle of May while school is still in session?”
“Perhaps they wanted to avoid the summer rush of tourists.”
“Why didn’t David join them?”
“Maybe it was one of those mother/daughter bonding experiences.”
Jane stared at the sleeping bags, feeling a nagging sense of something being off creep into her psyche. Weyler stood near the front door. “The front door was wide open when the next-door neighbor found the scene the following morning. Based upon the lividity of both victims, estimation of death is put between nine and eleven the previous evening. Both victims were dressed in street clothes and from all appearances, opened the door quite willingly to the suspects. So did the Lawrences know the perps? It’s after nine in the evening. You’re typically not going to open your door at that hour to somebody you don’t know or you don’t trust. Thus, we throw out the idea that this is a random crime.”
“Okay.”
“Take a look at the scene,” Weyler pulled out several color photos from the large envelope and handed them to Jane. “The living room was in shambles. Lamps broken and overturned, there was an overstuffed chair that sat over there that was cut open with one of the knives. That white fluff in the one photo is the polyester filling from inside the chair. Most of the glass vases and knickknacks were either chipped or smashed. The scene was totally disorganized and trashed. Then of course, there’s this.”
Weyler handed a photo to Jane. It was a close up of the coffee table. A mound of five ounces of cocaine was piled on the table. Jane examined the photo closely then handed it back to Weyler. “That’s convenient,” Jane said with a smug look.
“How’s that?”
“Look closely. It doesn’t fit into the scene. It isn’t affected by any of the surrounding debris. If this is a drug deal gone bad, the coke is already going to be on the table before the carnage starts. If it’s already sitting there and all hell breaks loose, the coke is not going to stay in a neat little mound! I’m telling you, after all the shit went down, the coke got put there to throw us off.”
“I’ll have to think about that one.”
“Hey, boss, I’m thinking outside the box!” Jane rejoined.
Weyler looked tiredly at Jane, aware she was sarcastically referring to his earlier remark. “We questioned the neighbors about the Lawrence’s overt behavior. They all reported the same thing. Nice couple. He liked to drink a lot at block parties but none of the conspicuous late night drug pickups were ever witnessed. And believe me, these people watch each other.”
“There’s a Hazel in every neighborhood . . .” Jane said.
“But take a good look at this.” Weyler held up a large color photo of David Lawrence sprawled facedown across the living room floor. His throat is deeply slashed, exposing muscles and bone. “You tell me a hyped-up drug addict didn’t carve up that man?” Weyler dropped the crime scene photo of David’s bloody body onto the floor. “David fell here. Patricia was here,” he dropped her photo less than three feet from the other one. “David was stabbed over ten times with a double edged knife. The first cut was to the throat, obviously to disengage him from saving his wife. The final kill was to his heart. Patricia Lawrence was stabbed with a single edged knife approximately seventy-five times. Her first cut was also to the throat. Not enough to kill her, but enough to knock the fight out of her. Half of her seventy-five stab wounds were to her face. This photo here shows how the knife entered her left eye and popped part of it out.” Weyler layered the close-up photo of Patricia’s face on top of her full body photo. Jane regarded the photos with cool detachment. “You want to hear Chris’ theory?”
“Sure.”
“One of the killers was a woman. The final kill to the heart on David Lawrence and the mutilation of his wife’s face led him to that possibility.”
“Both of those MOs can reflect a female killer but each was killed with a different knife. So, is Chris saying that two women did this?”
“He speculated it could be a jealous woman and a man.”
“Oh, sure. David’s having an affair with the woman and he won’t divorce Patricia. So his lover hauls ass over here in tow with her boyfriend or husband who conveniently just found out about the tryst and together they decide to take care of business in between snorts of cocaine. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Or how about this? Maybe it’s like a roaming Bonnie and Clyde duo? If so, ‘Bonnie’ must have the upper arm and wrist strength of a Romanian weight lifter to plunge that knife in Patricia’s eye and pull it partly out of her head. Not to mention that Bonnie continues this onslaught seventy-five times on Patricia or over ten times on David. Now, there’s a broad you want to have on your office softball team!”
“You can drop the sarcasm. What’s your point?”
“A woman played no part in this murder. This is a professional kill. How many male/female teams are out there? I’m not saying that can’t happen. I’m just saying it didn’t happen here. The other reason I don’t think a woman was involved is that pile of cocaine. If this was a drug deal gone bad—and I’m telling you it wasn’t—no woman is going to forget what she came here for!
“So, it’s two men.”
“I don’t know. Is it two men who know enough about the MO of a female killer that they consciously create the outward appearance of female involvement? And if so, why? That’s on par with premeditated manipulation. Manipulation of us who are standing here and trying to figure out what the fuck happened! Boss, I know you don’t want to hear this, but nothing fits in my opinion. The whole thing feels purposely disjointed. It’s like three or four different murders that DH has investigated, but suddenly they’re all wrapped up into one house. Is it a man making it look like a woman? Is it one person making it look like two? Is it two making it look like one? I don’t know. All I know is that whatever it turns out to be, it’s not at all what it seems.” Jane’s eyes rested upon the desk in the front hallway.
“What is it?” asked Weyler.
“My mother had a similar desk.” Jane crossed toward the desk, gently skimming her finger against its rolled edges. “You don’t see a lot of these.”
“Are they worth a lot?”
“I don’t know. They were more a novelty item. I used to call it the ‘riddle desk.’ ”
“Why’s that?”
“That’s where the novelty part comes in. Every time you think you’ve found a drawer or cubbyhole, you get tricked. I’ll show you. They must have hired world-class artists to do the three dimensional designs because they’re so lifelike. See these drawers?” Jane pointed to a series of four slender drawers aligned on the top left of the desk. “Try pulling one of them out.”
Weyler reached over and tried to grab on to the knob but then realized it was only painted on. “Humph!”
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