Chapter One
Eve Dallas looked at death. As the lieutenant of the Homicide Division, she lived with death, worked with it. She knew death intimately.
The body lay at the base of a set of stairs.
But the story didn’t begin there.
She thought it began with the overturned stepladder, the shattered lightbulb, the considerable blood on the kitchen island, the floor. The story followed the staggered trail of it leading to the open stairway.
Slipped on the ladder, she thought, head trauma when he hit the counter, stumbled around, dazed, dizzy, then fell down the stairs.
“What are the odds?” she muttered.
Despite the wife’s identification, Eve followed procedure.
She believed in procedure. When followed, fewer mistakes were made, and more facts were uncovered.
She took the Identi-pad out of her field kit, pressed one of the body’s thumbs to it. “Victim is confirmed as David Pressley, Caucasian male, age eighty-three of 522 East Eighty-Second Street.”
As she reached in her kit for her gauges, she tried to avoid getting blood on the boots she had no doubt her husband had paid an obscene amount for.
“Time of death, sixteen-forty-three. The victim sustained multiple injuries consistent with a fall down a flight of steps. In addition . . . let’s turn him, Peabody.”
Her partner stepped in. Detective Delia Peabody wore pink high-tops. She’d gotten them on sale, hadn’t paid an obscene amount, but also did her best to avoid the blood.
“Looks like he cracked his head falling off that ladder, then topped that off with a fall down the stairs.”
“Yeah, it does. But. We take the steps.”
He had a vicious gash on his forehead, a broken nose that had obviously gushed blood, a wound inside his bottom lip where the impact, most likely, had jammed his teeth against it.
“Left eye’s swollen under the head wound. Skin around it had just started to blacken, so he stayed alive long enough for that. He’s wearing his wedding ring, one house skid.”
Peabody tapped the sole. “No tread. No grip. The second one’s in the kitchen near the ladder, which,” Peabody added with a scan of the tidy basement, the organized tools, “I bet he got from down here. Didn’t bother to close the door, since he planned to take it back down.”
“Eighty-three, wearing old, slippery house skids, and he gets on a ladder.” She glanced up the stairs. “It sounds like his wife stopped wailing.”
“The mild sedative the MTs gave her must’ve kicked in, and the uniforms are keeping her calm.”
“Let’s go up. Call in the morgue, and the sweepers.”
She’d been a cop long enough to know the sweepers and the ME would confirm her conclusions.
But procedure.
They took the stairs to the main level of the townhouse, where the bloody mess of the kitchen opened into the neat-as-a-pin living area.
A floral couch and its many pillows and a couple of chairs stood empty in the light spilling in the front windows.
A massive screen shared wall space with a long, narrow electric fireplace.
Shelves, tables, cabinets held the doodads people collected as well as family photos. On a quick study, Eve concluded the victim and his widow had a couple of kids, then those kids had a couple of kids each, and those kids had started to procreate.
It made the world go round.
And explained the long table in the dining area. They’d need it if the horde came for dinner.
She noted the office/sitting room, organized if fluffily feminine.
“Pretty” was Peabody’s opinion. “If you look beyond the blood and breakage in the kitchen, it’s all pretty and homey.”
Eve nodded at the shopping bag on the table just inside the front door. “True Beauty Salon and Spa. She’s out saloning and/or spaing. Comes in, sets the bag down, starts to take off her jacket.”
It lay on the floor near what she took to be a coat closet.
“Sees the blood—counter, floor. Calls out for him, rushes toward the kitchen. Ladder, shattered glass, more blood. And there’s the open basement door.
Runs down. You can see the blood on the steps is smeared in a couple places.
She’ll have blood on the bottom of her shoes.
Calls nine-one-one at seventeen-twenty-eight. ”
“Sounds right.”
“If we’re cynical, she comes home, sees him up on the ladder.
Now’s my chance! Walks over, shoves him off.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t kill him right off, so when he staggers around, she gives him a boost down the stairs.
Goes down, checks it out. Got him that time!
Waits awhile to put more of a gap between when she’ll claim to have gotten home and TOD, makes the nine-one-one. ”
As they started to the second floor, Peabody frowned. “You’re not that cynical.”
“Oh, I absolutely am. I don’t believe that scenario, but we check home security to confirm when she came in, or in the alternate when she rushed out after killing him to buy something to cover her story.”
“That alternate would be really stupid.”
“People can be really stupid.”
They passed two bedrooms, a hall bath, and approached the main.
The widow sat on the bed, her outstretched legs covered with a throw the color of lilacs. Her hair made a shining halo around a face ravaged by weeping.
The female officer sat on the side of the bed facing her and speaking softly. A second uniform, male, stood at the foot of the bed.
And snapped to attention when Eve stepped in. Young, Eve thought, pretty much fresh baked out of the Academy.
“Sir.”
“Officer.” Eve gestured him over, kept her voice low. “The morgue and the sweepers have been notified. You can go down, wait for their arrival.”
“Yes, sir.”
As he left, the female officer murmured something to the widow, then rose and walked to Eve.
“Lieutenant, as I reported to Detective Peabody, Ms. Pressley was unable to give a coherent statement when we responded to the nine-one-one. The MTs, on their arrival, subsequent to examining the deceased, administered a mild sedative. I thought it appropriate to bring her upstairs.”
The uniform glanced back. “She’s somewhat calmer now, and I have her verbal statement on record.”
“Copy that to Detective Peabody for the file. Why don’t you stand by, Officer Arnette? The morgue team and the sweepers are en route.”
“Yes, sir. Ah, they were married sixty years. She told me that several times.”
“Understood. Peabody, take the lead.”
A quick blink betrayed Peabody’s surprise, but she stepped over to the bed.
“Ms. Pressley, I’m Detective Peabody. This is Lieutenant Dallas. We’re very sorry for your loss.”
The woman stared. Not a blank look, Eve thought, but a distant one.
She said, “Dave.”
“We understand this is a difficult time for you, but we need to ask you some questions.”
“I don’t understand. He shouldn’t have been on that ladder. He didn’t have to do that. DJ’s coming tomorrow, and he could’ve gotten on the ladder.”
“DJ?”
“Our son. He and Dave are going to the ball game. DJ’s picking him up, and they’re meeting Robbie and Curt and Jorge at the ballpark. Guys’ night. Dave’s looking forward to it. He didn’t need to get on the ladder. Haven’t I told him?”
She sighed it. That distant look, the vague voice told Eve the sedative had kicked all the way in.
“But he’s stubborn.” Smiling, she shook her head. “He’s always been stubborn. We’ve been married sixty years. We had a big party for our anniversary last June.”
“Why did Dave get on the ladder?”
“I don’t know, but he shouldn’t have been on the ladder. I’d have given him a good piece of my mind.”
“Where were you when he got on the ladder?”
“I don’t know. The salon?” She lifted a hand to smooth her hair. “It’s my salon day. Dressa did my hair, and Lulu did my nails. I bought some new product. Dressa said it’s good, and she never steers me wrong.”
“When did you go to the salon?”
“Oh, I guess I left about two-thirty. We had lunch first, then I left for my three o’clock appointment.
Dave said: ‘Don’t come home too dolled up, Marleen, my heart can’t take it.
’ He jokes that way. He said he was going to take a walk over to the dog park.
We don’t have a dog anymore, but he likes to walk over and watch the dogs and puppies.
But he’d be home before me, and maybe he’d make the spicy pasta we like for dinner.
It’s not really that spicy. Dave likes to cook every now and then, and I’m fine with that. ”
“What time did you get home?”
“Oh, I don’t know exactly. Um, oh, Lisa—she and Pilar live next door. Such a nice young couple. It’s good having a nice young couple as neighbors. Lisa was just getting home, so maybe she knows. We chatted for a minute, the way you do. She made me laugh.”
Marleen frowned now. “I can’t remember why, but I was laughing when I came in the house. I called out to Dave. I was going to tell him what made me laugh that I can’t remember now. And then I saw . . . I saw . . . No. God.”
“Take your time.” Peabody closed her hand over Marleen’s.
“Blood. There was blood, and I ran over. More blood, and the ladder, and glass broken. Lightbulbs. Why did he think he had to change the lightbulbs up there when DJ’s coming? Or we could ask Mike, right next door.”
“Lisa’s next door. Lisa and Pilar.”
“The other side, the other. But whenever I say he should wait for one of the boys, Dave gets huffy. Do I think he can’t take care of our home?
” Tears leaked again. “And I say: ‘Listen, old man, we’ve earned the right to tap the younger crowd.’ But I see the ladder, and I think I’m going to give him hell, but there’s too much blood.
So much. He must be really hurt. Maybe he ran to urgent care.
I think, and I think I’ll call his ’link, but then—then. ”