Chapter Eleven Holly
Chapter Eleven
HOLLY
Something about Mark Li’s tone-deaf emotional range pushes a switch inside of me. I feel the familiar thought processes slide into place. Data. Details. I seize them gratefully. Data is a lot easier than grief.
To the back of the famous ballroom is a stage. The long tan curtains are partially closed. In front of them is more crime scene tape. Now we’ve got sufficient proximity to the stage, we can see them.
Three white wedding dresses, hanging. Turning slowly in the partial light.
They are soaked with blood.
‘Three dresses,’ I murmur, glancing at the crime scene image, and back again.
‘Victim in the middle dress.’ I swallow.
Falling into an analytical state of mind is helping.
‘The killer cut her hair,’ I say grimly, looking to how Simone’s dark hair has been hacked away in clumps.
Close enough to the scalp to draw blood in several places.
Emotion rears up. I fight it down, forcing myself to look at the details.
I glance around the stage. ‘Did they find the missing hair?’ I ask Mark quietly.
He shakes his head.
I swallow, nearing the scene. Despite my natural human revulsion, the forensic part of my mind is already whirring. Blood splatter, trajectory. Were the dresses like this when they were hung up, or afterward?
Considering how Simone was found, with all her hair cut away, the latter suggestion hardly bears thinking about.
I match the picture on my phone to what’s been left on the scene.
From the looks of things, the pool of blood under her body has been scrubbed, but there is tape marking out where she fell.
I take in the wider stage. Forensics have tagged places where blood splatter has been found.
Then I see something that doesn’t show in the pictures. Flowers and candles have been arranged in a circle around the stage. Almost like a religious altar.
Interesting …
I turn to Mr Cohen, who has stepped back into the ballroom.
‘Did the police compile a list of who could have gotten in and out of this room?’ I ask him.
He clears his throat, looking anywhere but the stage.
‘The ballroom has four different exits. One directly into the kitchen. Another is a goods entrance. Then we have two public entrances, which filter into different parts of the hotel. The ballroom area was closed off for the Kensingtons. But the lobby and other areas of the hotel were in regular use.’
‘You’re saying anyone staying as a guest in the hotel could have gotten inside?’
‘Not just hotel guests,’ he says. ‘We have several restaurants and bars that are open to members of the public. Not to mention a high volume of deliveries arriving at the goods entrance. We monitor what arrives, of course, and we have security cameras in the lobby and elevators. But not in the kitchens or outer corridors.’
I map the ballroom. Four entrances. ‘So more or less anyone could have gotten into the ballroom through the staff areas, without being caught on camera?’
‘Not easily. But it would be possible.’
I consider this, tapping my lip piercing thoughtfully, and turning my attention back to the hanging dresses.
‘Simone was hung up in the first dress,’ I say, thinking out loud, and removing my phone to re-examine the photo and confirm this.
I notice something else. ‘Simone’s ring is missing,’ I say. ‘She always wore the same gold ring on her little finger.’ Tears fill my eyes and for a moment I can’t speak.
Mark is watching me closely. His eyes drop to the circle of candles and flowers around the dresses. ‘You think that’s like a ritualistic thing?’ he asks nervously.
‘Could be,’ I admit. I look back at the photograph.
‘Could it be … like a warning to Adrianna?’
‘Why would you think it would be a warning?’ I catch my curving body and darkly painted eyes in one of the many mirrors.
‘Dri has enemies,’ admits Mark.
‘Like who?’
He makes a strange kind of laugh. ‘Let’s just say she likes to keep her enemies close.’ He avoids my gaze.
‘Mark,’ I say carefully. ‘You called me here to help you. But if you’re keeping something from me—’
He shakes his head quickly. ‘It isn’t that,’ he says. ‘I just … Sometimes I think Dri isn’t telling me everything.’
‘Do the police have a theory as to how the victim died?’ I ask, unable to bring myself to say her name just yet.
Mark nods slowly. ‘She was beaten with something heavy,’ he explains. ‘Multiple times. Close range. Likely she knew her attacker.’ He pauses.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘The police are working half on facts and half on media hearsay,’ he continues. ‘You know how Adrianna is portrayed by the media.’
I do. Adrianna Kensington is characterized as bratty, entitled and difficult, to use some of the nicer words.
Something occurs to me. ‘The pictures you sent to my phone were official hard copies from NYPD,’ I tell him. ‘Do you have their preliminary report?’
He hesitates.
‘I won’t ask how you got it,’ I add.
Mark breathes a halting sigh. ‘In my car. Parked out front.’
‘Can we get out of here?’ I ask. ‘I need to read the report and take a look at those pictures in daylight. I have a feeling the police have missed something important.’
Something about this whole scene doesn’t sit right at all, and I’m fairly sure the hard copy images and a shot of caffeine are going to bring it all into focus.