Chapter One #3
She often imagined the gods, having a particularly good day, decided to create something sublime, something that would set hearts fluttering, and so had sculpted that face with its perfect cheekbones, sharply defined mouth, then added a mass of black silk for hair.
That face rarely looked shocked, but it did now.
“He had a really bad day,” she said.
Roarke’s gaze shifted to hers. “And yours just got longer and more complicated.”
“Looks like.”
“I’ll seal up.”
“Do that, but I could more use a McNab than a Peabody, so you can take the role of e-man. Doors and windows locked from inside. We’ll see if there’s another way in and out, but I can’t see it.”
“I’ll check the security.”
“It’s one of your systems.”
“I noticed, yes. I’ll see to that.”
And she’d see to the victim.
She hunkered down beside the body, lifted one hand, felt the broken bones shift like shards of glass in water.
“Victim’s identity is confirmed as Lawrence Chu, mixed-race male, age sixty-four of this address. First responders report victim was found in his home office by his wife, who, concerned when he didn’t respond, retrieved a key to unlock the door.
“Both windows and the office door were locked from the inside. The victim has been beaten severely. Visual exam shows broken fingers, both hands, broken left arm, broken right ankle. The shirt is blood-soaked, and the victim appears to have multiple broken ribs. Extreme facial injuries. Nose, cheekbones, eye sockets, jaw, teeth.”
The face, she thought, a mask of blood. Barely recognizable as a face.
“I can see gray matter from head wounds, blood that had seeped from the ears. I believe the beating continued after death. ME to confirm.”
She took out her gauges.
“Time of death, seventeen-forty-two.”
She sat back on her heels. “Okay, he’s wearing a high-end wrist unit. Busted to shit and back now.” She reached in pockets of blood-soaked suit pants.
“On his person, the victim had his ID, an ID and swipe for Banner-Wyst that lists him as director of bioengineering science, a ’link, which appears damaged, a money clip, silver, holding .
. . three hundred and twenty-three dollars in cash, a small silver case containing five pills. Look like blockers, lab to analyze.”
She blew out a breath. “The data and communication center, smashed. The attack involved most of the room, as there’s blood, there’s breakage on opposing walls, around the workstation.
This is overkill. It’s rage. Possibly underlying motives, but rage.
Victim was five-eleven, a hundred and seventy-five pounds.
Unless medical shows otherwise, that’s fit.
Sweepers will take samples from all blood spatter.
We should have some of the attacker’s on scene. ”
She got to her feet. “Did you let him in, lock the door? How did he get out? Did he come in a window, leave the same way? Jam the security? Maybe the wife’s statement’s bullshit. We’ll find out.”
She contacted the morgue—and flagged this one for Morris, the chief ME. She contacted the sweepers.
And looked at the body again.
“This kind of beating, it’s rage, it’s personal, it’s a madness of fury. Takes muscle, too. Even if they used a weapon, and it doesn’t look like that to me, but even if they used a weapon, it takes muscle and fucking endurance to do this kind of damage to a human body.
“If you can get in and out of a locked room, and want him dead, you bring a weapon, use it, and get the hell out. That’s not this.”
“I can tell you how he got in and out of a locked room.”
Roarke moved like the cat burglar he’d once been. Soundlessly. Eve accepted she’d never get used to it.
“Jammed your system, popped the locks on a window.”
“He didn’t, no. He shut down the system of this room, and this room only, at sixteen-fifteen.
He disengaged the lock on that window, and that window only, at sixteen-eighteen.
” Roarke gestured toward the one on the left.
“He reset the window lock at seventeen-fifty-eight, then reengaged the security for this room at eighteen-oh-one.
“He did all of that remotely, using your victim’s security code.
Very slick, very smooth. A male, recognized by the system as Allen McKay, the victim’s houseman, left the residence at sixteen-oh-two.
They have a house droid, who confirms this is McKay’s usual departure time.
Your victim arrived, alone, at sixteen-fifty-two.
The house droid inquired if Chu wanted a refreshment.
Chu declined, stated he had some work to deal with, and as he and his wife had an engagement later in the evening, the droid could shut down. ”
“Which it did?”
“Yes.”
“A woman arrived at eighteen-twenty-three. The system recognized her as Rachel Chu, the spouse.”
“Which indicates Chu was already dead and his killer gone before she got here. TOD’s seventeen-forty-two. That puts the killer in there . . .”
“For one hour and forty minutes,” said the math whiz. “Assuming the killer went directly in after disengaging the locks, and the victim went in directly upon his return home—shave off a minute or two on both sides? The killer lay in wait about a half hour.”
“If he’d wanted something from the office, he had time to get it.
If he’d wanted something on the comp, he should’ve had time.
Or he could’ve forced Chu to give him access.
But this? This is destruction. He didn’t just kill Chu, he broke him to pieces.
He erased his face. The D and C unit? That didn’t just fall off the desk, get knocked off.
It got destroyed. Stuff fell off the wall, broke, but that wasn’t enough.
He stomped on several. See the paperweight on the floor?
The way it looks, he heaved that into the wall screen. ”
She gestured across the room. “A wall shelf over there, stuff shoved off. Blood smears tell me the killer did that. Likely wearing gloves or sealed up, but the sweepers will check that. Hurt, kill, destroy. Except.”
“Except?”
“On the workstation.” She pointed. “A framed photo of the vic with his family. Wife, two adult sons, their spouses, and three grandchildren. Lying facedown, but undamaged.”
“What does that tell you?”
“Maybe it fell over. Maybe that’s all there is to it. Or maybe the killer didn’t want the family to see him beat Chu to death.”
“A bit fanciful for you, Lieutenant.”
“Not me, but maybe the killer. I need to talk to the wife. Second widow today. You could be Peabody now.”
She looked very tired, he thought, as she cleaned blood off her sealed hands. As she dragged one of her hands through her short cap of hair that held every shade of brown down to hints of blond.
And his long, lanky cop likely hadn’t eaten in hours.
He wanted to hold her a moment, to press his lips to the headache he could all but see brewing behind those focused, whiskey-colored eyes.
But she’d object rather than appreciate the gestures on an active crime scene.
However, he did, as they walked out, take her hand below the scope of her recorder and give it one supportive squeeze.
“Officer Regel, Crime Scene and the morgue are on the way.”
“I’ll watch for them.”