Rite of Wrongs (2 page)

T
WO

Monday, 12:15 p.m.

“Decaf, triple, Venti, soy, no-foam latte. Add two Sweet’N Low packets. And I’ll take a blueberry muffin. All of it to go.”

Because, Miriam Rome mused, from her spot in line behind the customer placing the high-maintenance order, chemical sweetener and genetically modified milk replacement canceled out the muffin’s refined sugar and saturated fat.

She took a deep breath, inhaling the aroma of fresh-brewed espresso, of creamy warm milk, and breakfast pastries . . . cinnamon and sugar and sweet, sweet fruit. The indie jazz softly piped through the speakers should have soothed her, as should have the inviting club chairs in earth tones, the minimalist fixtures in brass.

But she wasn’t soothed. It was the last blueberry muffin. And that made it the muffin she was having for lunch. This was her day-off routine: yoga, Starbucks, a book to take her away. She’d finished the first, had come for the second, and had her Kindle in her leather crossbody bag ready to complete the threesome.

She gave Vikram, the barista, a look.

Worried frown. Worried pout. Desperate. Nearly pleading.

He tightened the press of his lips and repeated to the woman in front of her, “Decaf, triple, Venti, soy, no-foam latte with two Sweet’N Lows.” Marking her cup with her order, he stepped from the register to the pastry case, picked up the muffin, then returned it to the shelf with a shake of his head. “How about a slice of banana-nut bread? Or a morning bun? Half the bottom’s fallen off the muffin.”

The woman shook her head, her white-blonde extensions catching in the ruffled collar of her blouse and showing off her mud-colored roots. “Just charge me half price, then.”

This time Vikram tossed the muffin beneath the counter. Miriam cringed, imagining coffee grounds and napkins damp with spilled cream, but trusting the barista with her life. Or at least with her day off. “Best I can do is discount the latte.”

“Fine. I’ll have a . . . cheese danish.”

“Good choice.” He picked through the selection, settling on the largest, ooziest one glistening with the most glaze. “That’ll be five twenty-eight.”

The woman ran her card through the reader, then picked up the brown bag and pinched off a bite of the danish. Miriam’s stomach rumbled. Her impatience was wearing thin. A day off was supposed to be free of annoyances. Or she, at least, able to deal with them.

Especially after yoga.

Maybe it was time to switch gears, leave crimes against persons for property. Go home at the end of the day and close her eyes to pictures of smashed windows instead of smashed faces. Missing car stereos instead of missing front teeth.

That was the thing about electronics and glass. No blood.

By the time the woman hooked the strap of her Coach knockoff over her shoulder and turned to go, Miriam’s mouth was watering, and Vikram had stopped suppressing his deeply dimpled grin. “Large brew with room for cream,” she told him. “And I don’t care if the muffin’s in pieces by now. Just tell me it’s not in the trash.”

“Detective Rome.” Vik bagged the completely intact muffin and keyed in her coffee order. “How was yoga this morning?”

Miriam glanced down at the oversize T-shirt covering her sports bra and yoga pants, and hanging to midthigh. The cotton sagged with the weight of her sweat, much, she imagined, like the ponytail dripping down her nape. “Good enough that I feel no guilt over my consumption of refined sugar or saturated fat.”

She had plenty of guilt. Just not over what she ate.

“I keep expecting you to order vegan. Seems more in line with the yoga thing.” Vik’s dark eyes sparkled, his thick lashes sweeping down, then up. Dang, but the boy was cute.

“Not a chance,” she said. The yoga wasn’t about her mind or her spirit. It was an effort to counter stakeouts spent with bacon cheeseburgers and stress.

Handing her the coffee, he nodded toward her chest. Or really her T-shirt’s design. She stepped to the condiment bar to add sugar and cream to the cup. “I’ve never understood about the cat being dead or alive.”

Le chat dans la boitê. Dr. Erwin Schrödinger.
“Walk a mile in my Kevlar, and I think you’ll get it,” was all she got out before her cell buzzed with Dispatch’s tone.

She read the text as she reseated the cup’s lid, grabbed her bagged muffin, and headed for the door. She dialed the officer on scene as she walked, calling back, “Thanks, Vik,” on her way out, then, “Detective Rome,” when the patrol sergeant answered.

“Sorry to ruin your day off, Detective. We’ve got a suspicious death. Female.” He gave her the address in an upscale subdivision nearby. “No forced entry. No one else on scene. Husband discovered the body and called it in.”

She was eight minutes from her house, twenty from the station. Before hitting the bank, the post office, the pharmacy, and the eleven o’clock yoga class, she’d dropped off the extra outfit she kept in her SUV for the cleaner’s in-by-nine-out-by-five service. Even if Thierry had been home to meet her halfway with a change of clothes, she’d be delayed. It was either waste time going home or work the scene dressed as she was.

“Be there in five,” she said, tossing the muffin to the passenger seat with her crossbody and gulping down enough coffee to fuel her for the drive. Then realizing with a choking laugh as she swallowed that she hadn’t paid her bill.

She’d definitely make it up to Vikram later.

T
HREE

Monday, 12:30 p.m.

In reality, ten minutes passed before Miriam arrived on scene.

She guided the Nissan Juke she’d bought last year—in Red Alert, the perfect cop color—to the curb on Pennywise Lane, and though her surroundings whispered of peace, quiet, and privilege, she braced for the worst.

It was a habit, bracing.

After ten years spent working crimes against persons, aka CAPERS, with the Criminal Investigations Division of the Union Park, Texas, Police Department, she’d learned
face value
meant very little. Even if the face value of Union Park had lured her to suburbia after four years with the Houston PD.

Houston had been her first department out of the academy. She’d grown up in the city. She loved the city. Her parents and siblings still called it home.

Houston was gorgeous and ugly. Slick and sleazy. Progressive and brutal and dark. Big cities showcased the best and worst of humanity. They had the numbers to do so.

Houston, with a population just shy of two-and-a-quarter million. Fewer than thirty officers for every ten thousand residents. An untold number of crimes waiting to happen. Overworked responders hoping to get it right.

But Union Park . . . the city was the stuff of billboards. The lush green lawns! The exemplary schools! The hybrid SUVs and designer dogs and orthodontics!

Unfortunately, her time in Union Park had taught her that the degenerates in the suburbs were just as sick as those living the urban life. Sometimes more so.

It was early May, and by Texas Gulf Coast standards, it was already summer, though the official calendar date loomed six weeks away. Even without the morning workout, or the very hot coffee, she would’ve sweated through her clothing by now from the humidity alone. She spent most of her work hours sweating.

Not exactly the lifestyle her psychology degree had prepared her for.

Her GPS directed her to a two-story colonial in the posh Copper Acres. The lawn was sculpted within an inch of its life, and as green as a leprechaun hawking marshmallow clover. Oak branches, the trees planted at the curb on either side of the street, met in the middle to create a canopy, the roots making a mess of the communal sidewalks.

She pulled into the last five feet of the driveway, parking half in and half out of the street, and was just exiting her SUV when her phone rang. Acorns cracked beneath her soles like tiny firecracker shots as she walked. Since dead bodies were the easiest victims to keep from going anywhere, she glanced at the caller ID and accepted the call.

“Mom, sorry,” she said, as she answered. “I’m going to be late.”
If I get there at all . . .

There was quite the crowd in front of the house. Three patrol cars, as well as the van belonging to the scene technicians, not to mention the vehicles parked in front of hers in the homeowners’ driveway. Five bicycles sat racked inside the open garage door, two with pink-and-white streamers hanging from the handlebars. One with blue.

Miriam sighed, tucking her traveler’s notebook close under one arm. She was surprised the local news crews weren’t already here and broadcasting. Another ten, and they would be. Especially with the crime-scene tape snapping taut between the property’s trees.

“Late?” Her mother’s groan was exasperated. “I told you days ago what time to be here.”

Miriam pictured the older woman in the outfit she’d said she’d be wearing so they wouldn’t clash: skinny white jeans beneath a peacock-blue tunic, chunky jewelry circling her wrists and neck, a cloud of Burberry rising around her cloud of strawberry-blonde hair, flats in the same multicolors as the bracelets.

Yeah. Sweaty yoga clothes in black, orange, and yellow, hair a sweaty cocoa-brown tail. Miriam’s
eau de sweat
was clean at least. No jewelry, save for her Timex. No chance of clashing. “I know. I know. But it can’t be helped. The office is short-staffed today, what with sick leave and vacations and training classes.”

Evelyn Rome sniffed. “Little Lori will be devastated if her favorite auntie misses her birthday party.”

Little Lori was turning two. She didn’t know for devastated. And Miriam was her only true aunt, ergo, her favorite. “It’s work, Mom. It can’t be helped.”

“Oh, Miriam,” her mother said, puttering around in the background. The sounds of water running, the refrigerator door opening, and plates clattering reached Miriam’s ears. Sounds of home. Sounds she brushed off before they made her sad. Then she heard her mother calling to her father: “Cyril, talk to your daughter.”

Good grief. “Mom, I don’t need to talk to Dad—”

“Miriam.”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Caught a case?”

“Yep. Just now.”

“Be a hero. Love you.”

“Thanks, Dad. Love you, too.” From the distance came her mother’s “Don’t hang up!” just as her father hung up.

Man, she loved her dad.

Slipping her phone into her sports bra and making a mental note to buy yoga pants with pockets, she signaled toward two of the uniforms standing near the front steps. One came down the walkway to meet her, handing her a pen and clipboard. She scribbled her name while asking, “Who was first on scene?”

“I was, ma’am. Sergeant Robert Vince, ma’am.”

His eyes were big and as brown as his skin, and he made a formidable shadow. “Don’t call me
ma’am
. Call me Rome.”

“Yes, ma—I mean, Detective Rome.”

Close enough. “Do we have a warrant yet?”

“It’s on the way.”

Good. Until then . . . “Walk me through it, Vince.”

“Yes, ma—Detective.” Vince cleared his throat and flipped open his notepad. His voice was a deep, resonant bass as he ran through the particulars. “Female victim. Gina Gardner. Fifty-five. Appears she was surprised after her morning run, as she’s still wearing her workout clothes. This, according to the husband. He’s on his way to the station.”

Miriam hoped he hadn’t destroyed any evidence before they got him clear. “The husband’s the one who found her?”

Vince nodded, avoiding another awkward choice between
Rome
and
ma’am
. “Came home at lunch. Says it’s their daily routine. He’s a pediatrician. Dr. Jeff Gardner. Shares a practice with two others. Grocery bags of greens on the kitchen counter. I went ahead and called in the techs. There was enough evidence. Interesting evidence.”

Interesting.
Miriam hated that word. She also hated other people’s assumptions. She wanted to walk in to the scene without being told anything was apparent.

“Thank you, Sergeant.” She headed for the front door, stopping to don latex gloves and slip booties over her flip-flops, looking up at the second detective who’d just arrived and was snort-laughing at her footwear.

“I guess the rumors are true,” Ike Ballard said, bending to cover wingtips that cost more than her Kate Spade crossbody. His suit was pricey, too, and his tie, no doubt his socks and, uh, other things. He was a good detective, if a little too pleased with himself, though she wasn’t without faults of her own. Right now, all that mattered was her seniority.

She opened her notebook to a new grid insert, pulled her pen from the loop, and clicked it to jot a few keywords from Vince’s narrative, then dug her sweaty smartphone from her bra and readied the camera. “What rumors?”

He gave her a smirk. “That they’ll let anyone work a crime scene these days.”

“Appears so,” she said, as she looked him up and down, earning another snort. “You have the warrant?”

He patted his breast pocket. “Fresh out of Dropbox. Signed by Judge Parkman.”

Man, she loved technology. “Then let’s do this.”

Walking into the house, Miriam exhaled, only breathing in once she had her notebook in front of her nose to filter the smell. Blood was like that: rusty, metallic, strong. Blood was thick. Blood was her bête noire. And there was a lot of blood.

Most was pooled next to the body on a bright-blue industrial tarp a few steps inside the door. Convenient for evidence collection and the scene cleaners. Family photos lay scattered on the entryway floor, frames broken, glass crushed.

The victim was indeed wearing workout clothes—pink shoes, pink shorts, pink sports bra, and tank. Her dark hair was still bound with a pink elastic, though her ponytail appeared to have been loosened, whether by exercise or a struggle, hard to say. Her sunglasses were hooked on a pink lanyard. Their frames were pink.

The gash across her throat was the obvious source of the blood loss, as well as the most likely cause of death. There were spatters on her skin, handprints Miriam imagined belonged to the husband on her clothing, and what looked to be arterial spray on the foyer wall. Her eyes were wide-open, as if she’d been staring there as she died.

Miriam could understand why. The wall and the rest of the blood . . . okay. She’d give Vince interesting. On top of the spray—some of that smeared, droplets of the blood running like tears down the wall—were written the words:
Honor thy father and thy mother. Exodus 20:12

Except written wasn’t exactly right. They were painted in blood, the brushstrokes neat, the letters blocky and five to six inches tall.

Paint it red.

The thought played in her head like a Rolling Stones tune. Funny how the subconscious worked, picking up on the speed of her pulse and dissociating. Though the survival mechanism kicking in only served to remind her of why she hated blood.

She should just give this one to Ballard.

“Hey, Detective.” The greeting came from Karen Sosa, Miriam’s favorite tech, as she straightened from where she’d been shooting close-ups around the victim’s head. She was only five feet tall and swore that being close to the ground helped her see things other techs missed.

“The glass from the picture frames.” Miriam pointed toward the front door. “Was it crushed like that when you got here?”

“Yep, but not by the uniforms. Or so they say. I’m guessing the husband.” She gestured toward an evidence bag next to her gear kit holding a pair of men’s brown-leather dress shoes. “He hadn’t walked but from here to the living room before I got him out of ’em. Could be the suspect made the mess, though it’s doubtful there’ll be any trace if so.”

“But you’ll look.”

“I will look,” Karen said, and went back to work, her long black braid swinging as she swiveled to take more photos.

“Good woman,” Miriam replied, then turned as Vince appeared at her side. “What else?” she asked, and he led her to the kitchen.

“Victim’s purse is there on the counter where we found it.” Vince nodded toward a pile of mail, a cell phone, car keys, and the handbag. “We haven’t moved or touched anything.”

“And the husband?” Miriam asked, noticing the door leading out of the kitchen to the driveway and detached garage.

“Said he never made it past the foyer. Found the body. She was on her side. He was the one who rolled her to her back.”

Miriam thought about the vehicles in the driveway, the bikes in the garage. Her stomach tightened as she pictured her tiny little niece and her tiny little pigtails.

“Which car is hers?” she asked, though she knew the answer.

“The minivan. The Mercedes is his.”

Looking from the door to the stovetop back to the counter, Miriam jotted more notes. When Ballard stepped into the room, she moved past the granite-topped island to the door.

She tried the knob and the dead bolt. Each was locked, and she snapped pictures of both. Karen would photograph the scene for the record, but Miriam liked having her own reminder.

Ballard was the one to speak next. “So . . . she took the kids to school, bought groceries before working out, came home, unloaded the car . . . maybe went back to answer the front door? Was it locked when the husband got here?”

“Yes, sir,” Vince said, adding, “and according to him, that was her schedule, sir.”

“He came in from there.” Ballard frowned and gestured toward the front of the house. “He parked in the driveway but didn’t use the side door into the kitchen?” He nodded toward the one Miriam had just checked.

“No, sir. Said he always backs in and stops where the front walk connects. Said it’s quicker.”

“Huh.” It was Ballard’s only response. Then, “Did she go to a gym? To work out?”

“No, sir. She runs their dog, a shepherd-Lab mix, Bongo, on the trails at Copper Acres Park.”

“Where’s the park from here?” Miriam asked, thinking the weather too hot to leave the dog in the van while grabbing the groceries, and too hot to leave the groceries in the van while running the dog. Ballard had it wrong. “She dropped off the kids, grabbed the groceries, unloaded the car here, then went back out with the dog.”

Ballard grunted his doubt. Or maybe his annoyance with her contradicting him. “And just left the grub on the counter?”

“Greens, right?” she asked Vince, and he nodded. “They’re okay here, just not in the car. Where’s Bongo now?”

“Dog’s in the backyard. Park’s two blocks north, then six blocks west.” Vince gestured in the various directions. “Soccer fields. Baseball diamonds. Several hundred acres. County owns the property. Leases it to the various sports organizations.”

Miriam let that sink in. While Ballard dug through the grocery bags, she thought about the finger- and palm prints decorating Gina Gardner’s pink top. “The prints on the victim’s clothes . . . anyone here touch her besides the husband?”

“No, ma’am, Detective.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” she said, and left the kitchen for the rear of the house, climbing the stairs to the second floor and making her way down the hall.

There were three bedrooms: one with posters of David Beckham, Tim Howard, and Brian Ching. One with musical-note cutouts suspended by pink ribbons from the ceiling. One with a shelf displaying worn—collectible?—ballet slippers in multiple colors.

The gender divide matched that of the bikes. Two girls. One boy. The fourth room on the floor held three desks with laptops and lamps. Miriam wondered if the kids had a nanny, or tutors. Or if the victim had been the one to help with school projects and homework. She jotted a note to find out, then glanced at her watch.