Chapter 2
Kate walked into the decedent’s apartment building and stopped.
Even for a Saturday morning, a number of people moved in and out at a hurried but steady pace.
Some were from her team, and others appeared to be from other apartment buildings, looking to either get away or to see what was going on here.
It wasn’t chaotic but still way too many people for her liking.
She sent several uniformed officers to cordon off the area and to redirect any of the actual residents living in this building to use other entrances and exits.
Then she stomped her way up the stairs to the second-floor apartment of the recently deceased man.
She had no trouble finding the exact apartment because so many forensics personnel came back-and-forth.
As she stepped inside, she saw a familiar face, talking to another team member dressed all in white.
The coroner glanced over at her. Immediately the frown on his face increased in wattage—to the point that the associate he was speaking with stepped back hurriedly.
Kate just smiled at the coroner.
“This is hardly a smiling matter,” Dr. Smidge snapped.
“Nope, sure isn’t,” she stated agreeably. “And at the holidays too—or between them at least.”
Immediately Smidge’s shoulders slumped, and he nodded. “It’s always worse at the holidays,” he muttered. “I don’t understand why people do the absolute godawful worst things at a point in time when we’re supposed to celebrate life.”
“Some people are just wired that way,” Kate noted, shrugging.
He turned to face her. “You and I both know that has nothing to do with the holidays. That’s just people being people.” He snorted and turned his back to her. “This was not a suicide.”
“I wasn’t thinking it was,” she noted, her tone sarcastic.
“Are you being cute with me?”
“No, I’m not. And, from what I’ve seen and read, suicide doesn’t seem possible.”
“No, absolutely not possible.” Then he motioned with his arms and added, “Now that you’re finally here, we can get started.”
She laughed. “I came as soon as I could.”
“Yeah,” he replied, his tone hard, “so did I.” He led her to the bedroom, where the nude victim was in a very suggestive position, with his legs out, arms spread wide.
He must have been a gym rat if his sculpted body revealed anything.
A big red ribbon had been tied around his … manhood, as Reese had put it.
Kate shook her head. “Definitely an attempt at cheer.”
“As is the card,” Smidge muttered, pointing at the greeting within the big poinsettia on the small table in the bedroom.
She shook her head. “Why would you have a poinsettia in the bedroom?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, frowning at her. “That’s a good question. It’s not exactly a place where you would normally have it, is it?”
“I wouldn’t think so. There’s a coffee table and room for it in the living room. Poinsettias are big, and this one’s particularly huge,” she noted, staring at it admiringly. “It also needs better light than what this room offers.”
“You like them?” Smidge asked her.
“Not really,” she shared. “They always remind me of death.” Startled, he eyed her, and she shrugged. “Again, it’s a seasonal thing, isn’t it?” She frowned at the huge flower.
He studied her curiously. “Why so much interest in it?”
“It just looks very … fresh.” She reached out to check the soil. Sure enough, it was still damp.
He frowned at Kate and then touched the soil himself. “I hadn’t considered that. So, what then? Did our killer bring in this plant?”
“They can last for months, even longer with some extra care. Did our buff guy water this one? Or is it completely disconnected from the scenario we have here?” she asked, with a motion toward the victim, still lying on the bed. “And does the card match up with what’s going on here?”
“It doesn’t,” Smidge stated, with a wry look. “At least I don’t understand the connection. As long as this case is isolated, I’m okay,” he added. “Yet the minute there’s a second connected case, you know how I’ll feel.”
“You know how I’ll feel too,” she replied, glaring at the victim as if the poor hapless man were responsible for everything potentially to come.
Smidge snorted. “Yeah, I hear you. Anyway, I’m taking this guy away. I’ll give you a cause of death soon enough.”
“Nothing is obvious, other than the slightly blue lips,” she pointed out, looking back at the body. “We’re not talking about any major trauma. So, if not a natural death, and you’ve ruled out suicide, then we need a tox screen.”
“Forensics found no pill bottles and no obvious indication of any way that he could have done it to himself.”
Kate frowned and suggested, “Unless he took the drugs while he was still alive and moving around.”
“But we’ve checked the garbage,” Smidge stated, “inside and outside. So, unless he deliberately hid a bag of drugs somewhere else, that won’t cut it.”
She pondered that. “So, we’re looking at some drug then?”
“I’m assuming so,” he began, “but you and I both know …”
“Yep, I’ll wait for your autopsy report.”
He laughed. “If only I could believe that. You’ll be on my ass within days.”
“Hours,” she corrected. “This one’s hot. We need to get at it while we still have a chance to put it to bed.”
“Yeah, well, … you take care of your shit, and I’ll take care of mine.
” Smidge ordered his men to remove the body.
She watched, hoping to see if anything else showed up during that process, but she found nothing new.
As Smidge stood nearby, filling out a form, she asked, “Do you have a name, age, anything?”
“I do.” Smidge handed her a piece of paper. “Name’s here.”
“You have an address for him?”
“Is this not his place?” he asked, glancing around.
“Maybe, but what if it’s not?”
“Good thing we have you to figure that out. As of now, this is the address that goes down in my report, until you tell me differently,” he declared cheerfully. “Happy to have you take care of everything else.” And, with that, he turned and walked out.
She read the name on the greeting card. It was as unassuming as could be. John Smith.
She shook her head. “John Smith, if this apartment is leased to you, that would answer some questions.”
But not all of them. And then the question she needed to answer was, Why the red bow? If she hadn’t been a detective for so long, she would have immediately ID’d the killer as female, red bow and all. However, Kate knew better than to make that assumption too soon.
She needed something else to help her sort out who might have been John’s latest visitor and what actions brought this on.
Smith appeared to be in his mid-thirties and was extremely physically fit.
That physically fit part made her think drugs because how else did you take down this mountain of a man, without any bruises or defensive wounds, with no obvious signs of trauma anywhere on his body to suggest how and what he died of?
She found no needle marks on his arms. No needles were on the floor.
She had searched his night table—as had the coroner, Dr. Smidge—and saw no sign of any drug paraphernalia.
She slowly and methodically went through the bathroom.
There were condoms, so this was probably his apartment.
Also a shaving kit but nothing to suggest that he lived here full time with a woman.
In fact, nothing here suggested a woman had been around recently at all—or another man for that matter. She pondered that as Rodney raced inside the victim’s bedroom. She turned to him, and he was flushed, out of breath.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” he muttered. “I had … car troubles.”
She didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to get into that. “You just missed the victim.”
“Yay,” he muttered.
She knew the sentiment wasn’t celebratory, just that he wasn’t at all upset about it. Rodney found that part of the job more troublesome than interesting, so it made perfect sense. She smiled and shared, “Roughly thirty-six-year-old male, John Smith, no obvious sign of trauma.”
“Of course the red bow was just icing.”
“Yeah, the red bow was one indicator. And a huge—I mean, huge—poinsettia plant.”
At that comment, Rodney looked around, checking over the man’s bedroom.
“Forensics took it with them.” Kate added, “I’ve gone through the bedroom.”
“I’ll take a quick look, just in case—”
“I missed anything?” she teased, with a smile.
Rodney shrugged.
Kate pointed. “I’m heading to the living room and the kitchen.
Forensics was in there taking photographs, lifting fingerprints, and packing up a whole lot of other items that may or may not help solve this case.
” She was about to run out of time because those same forensics people would kick her out soon enough.
As she stopped at the coffee table in the living room, she noted a faint stain, outlining a potted plant, as if it had been watered, and some had leaked.
Yet another poinsettia plant was nearby.
As she stood in the doorway of the bedroom, she compared the size of the living room poinsettia plant and the size of its pot sitting on the coffee table to what had been in the bedroom—but seized by forensics.
Kate nodded. The only difference between the two plants was a big cheerful metallic wrapping around the outside of the living room pot.
So, if any water leaked there, it didn’t come from the pot in that metallic wrapping.
Maybe it came from the bedroom plant, with no protective foil around its pot. She frowned in that direction.
“Problems?” Rodney asked, as he came up beside her.
She sighed. “I just noticed the big stain on the coffee table. Seems a plant had been moved.”
“Except not that plant nearby because of the metallic wrap,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, exactly.”