In His Thoughts, page 3
“Why? You think these murders have got something to do with the recent development of Callo?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow at Eve as he pulled out the second slab. This one contained the corpse of Selma Vishni. Like the other, Vishni’s body was cold, stiff, and uncovered.
“Can you show me evidence that both of these women’s deaths are murder?” Eve responded to the coroner’s question with another question of her own. “How do you know they didn’t drown by accident?”
“As you can see,” the coroner said, snapping on a pair of white rubber gloves before touching the skin of Vishni’s neck, “this woman suffered contusions to the neck and shoulders as well as chemical poisoning, although the actual cause of death was drowning. The stage of the bruising suggests the attack happened moments before she drowned.”
“Hold on,” Thompson cut in, “Did you say chemical poisoning? I didn’t see that on the report.”
"You wouldn't have," the coroner replied with an undue note of smugness, "We only just discovered it a quarter of an hour before you arrived, but it serves to place the scene of the murder beyond a shadow of a doubt. We know for a fact she was attacked in the same pool she was found in because the water in her lungs had an abnormally chlorinated chemical signature. This is likely responsible for the dry, scaly condition of the epidermis. The water contained far more chlorine than is typically used in swimming pools, even to clean up after there’s been a septic accident. The water of the athletic pool where she was found was tested and proved to match the water in her lungs.”
“You think somebody spiked the pool water with enough chlorine to knock her out?” Thompson asked, looking at Eve with an inspired expression on her face.
“If it wasn’t strong enough to kill her on its own, it was certainly enough to make her loopy. Easy prey for an attacker waiting on the sideline.”
“What about Macey?” Eve asked, “Was the water in her lungs also over-chlorinated?”
“It was, as a matter of fact,” the coroner replied, stepping over to the second body and turning the head to expose the bruised neck to the overhead light. “The first victim suffered essentially the same injuries – bruising to the neck, chemical damage to the skin, and finally critical aquatic asphyxiation.”
“So he got a practiced feel for it in the backyard pool before trying it out on the public scene?” Eve tried the theory out.
“I don’t know anything about motives,” said the coroner, “But what I do know is that whoever over-chlorinated the water of these pools used the same chemical treatment. We traced the compound to the patent license. It’s something called Shock-Bright.”
“Found in every home department store, too, I bet,” Eve said with a note of discouragement in her voice.
“You don’t know how right you are,” the coroner replied, “It’s one of the most common pool products on the market today, used by commercial as well as private pool-cleaning services.”
Eve and Thompson both looked up, first at the coroner, then at each other. They were having the same thought, and both knew it. Eve turned back to Brusse with a new spark of pursuit alive in her eyes.
“That pool…” she mused aloud, “You think it’s still open to the public?”
CHAPTER THREE
“What do you mean there aren’t any security cameras?” Eve demanded, her eyebrows high with disbelief.
The young man cowering behind the counter of the athletic club’s pro shop looked as if he were trying to swallow a golf ball. He glanced at the badge, which was still resting on the counter as if to verify that it, as well as the armed agents standing before him, were real.
“I,” the young man started, then cleared his throat and tried again, “It’s like I told the police already. We have two cameras covering the parking lot, but something must have happened to them during the day. There’s no footage stored after 12:00 p.m.”
“Until when?” Thompson asked.
“Until…never?” the young man answered uncertainly, “The cameras were destroyed.”
“How?” Eve asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied, “They were just gone -- nothing left but some frayed wires sticking out of the wall. Nothing on the tapes afternoon the day before that woman was murdered, as I said."
The agents looked at each other, then back at the clerk with a shared exhale.
“Were you working that day?” Eve asked. He shook his head.
“No, but I was working the next morning when she was found. I was the one that called the police.”
“I see,” Eve said, scooping her badge off the counter and tucking it away with a casual motion. “By the way, do you know what kind of treatment they use on the pool after something like this has happened? You know, to make it safe and sanitary for the public again?” She tried to throw the question off with nonchalance, but she was watching for the young man’s reaction with hawk-like scrutiny.
“What kind of treatment?” the young man scratched his head, “I don’t know. Chlorine, I guess. To be honest with you, I don’t think I’d go swimming in there after seeing that poor lady floating in the water. It wasn’t a pretty sight in the gloomy dawn, let me tell you that. I think I’m going to quit and find another job.”
“Do you know where they keep the chemical supplies?” Eve asked. The young man gave a half-shrug. He looked lost in his own ghastly recollection.
“The custodial staff will know,” he replied, giving his head a shake as if to clear it and blinking at Eve as if just waking up from a long dream. “Do…do you think it’s safe to be here? The management won’t say anything about what happened except that the authorities are looking into it, but I know that another woman was found dead in her pool a week or two ago, and now there’s you two…is there some kind of psycho-killer running around somewhere?”
He looked back and forth between the women’s faces with pitiable fear painted across his youthful features. Eve sucked in her cheeks.
“Based on the evidence so far, that appears to be the case,” she said, “If you want my personal advice, I’d tell you to stay inside as much as possible and try not to go out alone, especially after dark, until we’ve got all this sorted out.” She gave the young man her best attempt at an encouraging smile. “Agent Thompson and I are going to get to the bottom of this.”
“Your bedside manner could use a little work,” Thompson called after Eve, hurrying to catch up as they left the pro shop.
“Never had any of that,” Eve replied with a shrug, glancing briefly back without breaking her stride, “Besides, he wasn’t in bed.”
“Funny,” Thompson replied flatly. They were walking between the two long, detached locker rooms, beyond which the surface of the pool sparkled like a sapphire in the sunlight.
“Nice place,” Eve commented, pausing where the narrow alley between the locker rooms opened up into the broad, paved deck of the pool area.
On the eastern side of the pool, surrounded by high fences, Eve could see several empty tennis and basketball courts. A patio containing rows of loungers and small tables was shaded by the wide frond of lavish palms to the west. The place emanated an aura of health and wealth – all except for the police tape running around the perimeter of the athletic pool.
The uniformed officers and crime scene photographers had all since gone away, leaving the crime scene abandoned for the agents to inspect – or so they thought. As they emerged from the buildings, however, they were greeted immediately by an elderly man wearing a khaki uniform and a ten-gallon Stetson with a sheriff’s badge on the front.
“Hold it, now, ladies,” the man said with a West Texan drawl, smiling at the agents and holding one hand up in a casual halt. The other, Eve noticed, rested on the butt of a revolver that looked older than the man wearing it. “I’m Sheriff Heinlen, and this here’s a crime scene. Pool’s closed for the day.”
“Pleased to meet you, Sherrif," Eve said, giving the old cowpoke a stare that could have withered a saguaro as she reached for her badge, “I’m Special Agent Hope, Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is my partner, Special Agent Thompson, PhD. We’re taking over this crime scene and your case.”
“Okay, now just hold your horses a minute while I get out my readers,” the Sherrif said. Eve expected him to reach for a pair of glasses, but instead, he simply took the badge from her hand and held it two inches from his eyes. He looked up at Eve, then back at the badge as if it were written in an alien language.
“Ah, hell,” he said, slumping his old, tired shoulders as he handed the badge back. “The feds just have to come riding in and take over once things start picking up around here. Nobody’s got any faith in the old sheriff anymore, huh?” He looked like he’d just given up the Alamo. "Well, I hope you girls like handfuls of nothing because that's what we've got here. Just a dead woman and a duffel bag with a change of clothes, her personal effects, toiletries, medication, and a dry towel. All that’s been taken into evidence already.”
“So, what are you doing here?” Thompson asked callously.
“Same as you, I reckon,” Heinlen said, tipping his hat back an inch or so, "Looking at the scene of the crime and trying to figure out why somebody would want to murder this innocent woman."
“Thanks, Sheriff,” Eve said, giving the old man a brief nod, “We’ll take it from here.”
"I'm sure you will," Heinlen muttered and ambled slowly off towards the pro shop.
Eve walked out to the side of the pool, stopping where the red crime scene marker indicated the woman’s body had been found. She gazed down into the water. Her solemn reflection stared back.
The aisle between the two locker rooms led, if one walked in a straight line, to the center lane of the athletic pool – lane five, according to the number inlaid in the diving block. The marker indicated that the woman had been floating in lane four. If she’d come out alone to swim late at night, she would have likely taken the center lane out of convenience. Had she been swimming with somebody else?
Eve's eyes landed on the lane divider – a string of blue buoys, each about the size of a softball. She squinted.
Was there something floating in the water on the fourth buoy from the wall on the divider between lanes four and five? The sunlight on the surface of the water made it hard to tell, but Eve thought she saw a thin line of something white – perhaps a hair or thread – waving from the link of the lane divider.
Eve snapped on a glove. Kneeling by the edge of the pool, she could just barely reach the tail end of the thread. She seized hold of it and pulled, submerging her hand in the pool water to do so. The string gave, and a moment later, Eve was holding up her dripping hand with triumph.
“Uh, what are you doing?” Thompson asked as she joined Eve by the poolside. Eve showed her the thread.
“This was stuck in the lane divider,” she said, “I’d bet that blind old sheriff simply didn’t see it. Listen, why would there be a thread stuck in the pool? Have you ever seen a swimsuit with loose threads on it? I say we send it to the lab for analysis. My guess is somebody jumped in with his clothes on. Do you have an evidence bag on you?”
“Lucky find,” Thompson said, reaching into her pocket for a tiny clear bag and holding it out. Eve squinted at her partner as she dropped the wet thread into the bag. It stuck to the side, and Thompson zipped it shut. “I wonder what else the sheriff missed.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Eve said, her eyes scanning the perimeter of the pool and the patio beyond. If the woman had been swimming in the center lane and seen someone approaching from the west, logic dictated that she would have swum in the opposite direction. The killer, Eve theorized, had come from the direction of the patio, not from the pro shop between the locker rooms. Was there a gate she’d missed? If there was a side entrance, was it possible there was a security camera covering it that the killer hadn’t noticed?
Without a word of explanation, Eve walked off in the direction of the patio, leaving Thompson to ponder her own watery reflection in lane four. She picked her way swiftly through the palms and loungers, her eyes scanning the perimeter. The whole country club, including the patio lounge, was surrounded by a high black iron fence densely overgrown with crawling ivy. She couldn’t see a gate anywhere among the thick foliage, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
Eve came to a stop in front of the ivy-covered fence. She could only see a few flecks of daylight through the gaps between the lush vines and the iron bars. Following the perimeter of the fence, she came to a gap in the ivy that hadn’t been visible from the pool or patio area. Almost exactly as she’d suspected, there was a secondary entrance to the patio hidden in the ivy, although it didn’t appear to be guarded by any kind of gate or barrier.
“Curious,” Eve mused, poking her head in.
The gap in the fence led into a narrow, hedged-in alley running along the outer edge of the country club. The light filtering through the thick, heavy foliage was shaded a heavy, dim green. The air in the hallway felt more humid and organic than the over-sterilized air around the pool.
At the end of the leafy alley, Eve saw a white metal door. There was a sign posted on the door, but time and the elements had left it illegible.
“Curiouser,” Eve said, stepping all the way into the narrow passage.
The leaves of ivy brushed her on either side, and she shivered as she wiped a spiderweb off her face. She reached the door at the end of the leafy alley, squinting at the old metal sign in the dim, filtered sunlight. Only now that she was closer could Eve make out the faded impression of the long-since peeled-away printing.
Maintenance Staff Only – Keep Out
Below the words were a set of equally faded warning symbols. Eve made out the electric shock and toxic chemical emblems from the decrepit sign. She reached for the doorknob, which looked dented and tarnished but more regularly maintained than the sign posted above it, and found that it was unlocked.
Eve pushed open the door. The earthy air around her was cut by the sharp scent of chemicals. The room within was dark and windowless.
Just as she was about to step inside to search for a light switch, she heard a shout rip through the sky.
“Hope!”
Eve turned her head sharply, trying to peer through the vines. The shout came again.
“Agent Hope!”
Somebody was calling her name. It sounded like Thompson.
Yanking her service pistol from her underarm holster, Eve sprinted back down the narrow maintenance path. The ivy whipped her face as she charged for the gap in the fence.
CHAPTER FOUR
Eve hit the corner with a controlled skid, her eyes scanning the patio for her partner or any sign of trouble. There was nothing. The palms swayed gently in the breeze. A distant dove cooed and subsided.
As Eve turned, she was almost hit by Thompson, who was running up from her left. She jumped back just as the other agent came to a grinding halt.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Eve asked her pistol still out but leveled at the ground as no threat immediately presented itself. Thompson said nothing.
Looking at her partner, Eve could see that Thompson’s eyes were wide and panicked, like a spooked horse. She stared at Eve for a bewildered instant, her mouth hanging slightly open. Then, suddenly, her jaw clenched shut, and something seemed to switch off in her eyes.
“You shouldn’t disappear like that,” she said, her voice sounding robotic and emotionless.
“Christ, Thompson, I thought you were being attacked,” Eve said, the suddenly unnecessary adrenaline quickly turning into frustration in her blood, “I was ready to start shooting.”
“I’m sorry,” Thompson replied in the same wooden tone, “I didn’t mean to alarm you. It’s just that…well, I’ve lost someone before – lost them and found them dead.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Eve said uncertainly. There was pain in Thompson’s face. “I’m guessing that’s when you took your practice out of the classroom?”
Thompson barely managed a nod.
“In the future, please let me know when you’re slipping off on your own,” she said in a slightly irked tone of voice. “It’s my assignment to keep an eye on you as well as solve this murder. So, please, don’t make my job any harder.”
Eve looked at the agent with a cockeyed squint.
“You’d better keep up, then,” Eve said, controlling her temper with a deep breath and forcing a false smile across her face. She shoved her pistol back down in the holster a little harder than necessary. "I found where they keep the pool chemicals – in this maintenance shed around the corner. Follow me.”
Without giving Thompson a chance to respond, Eve turned and ducked back down the leafy passage. Like it isn’t hard enough to solve a double homicide without this paranoid babysitter, she fumed to herself as she marched back towards the white door. She could hear Thompson’s footsteps following behind her.
The white door was still open. Eve and Thompson peered inside together.
“Dark,” Thompson commented.
“I was about to go looking for a light switch when you started screaming bloody murder,” Eve said, stepping into the dark room and groping along the wall. She found the switch and flicked it on. A fluorescent tube sputtered to life, bleaching out the room with sudden illumination. Eve blinked.
She was standing in a room roughly sixteen by twenty feet, with shelves and hooks mounted in the pegboard walls from floor to ceiling. There was an identical metal white door on the other side of the shed. Eve eyed it cautiously, noting that the bolt was locked before moving her attention to the rest of the room.
Looking around, Eve saw tools, hoses, coils of wire, bottles, jugs, eyedroppers, weed whackers, and pruning shears. The plethora of potential weapons and poisons surrounding them was staggering.
And yet, Eve reflected, the victims had been strangled and drowned. What did that mean?
