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Blood Evidence
Chapter 1
The deaths began again that night.
Catherine McGee lay dying in a hospital bed in a strange town. Cancer had cracked fragility into her spine. To keep the pain at bay, she lay as still as possible. But neither the lack of motion nor the morphine offered relief. Far deeper than the unrelenting pain was a sharper knowledge of the crime that engulfed her. At three a.m., she reached for the plastic button clipped next to her head.
The nurse arrived and honored the patient's request for company. Over the last few days, the patient had found such solace in the company of the midnight nurse that she knew it was time to talk.
Telling the harrowing story did not calm the dying woman. For so long she had needed to confess, and now she did not have the energy to fully describe the events that burned in her bones. She did the best she could. Softly she told the sympathetic nurse who sat by her, held her hand, and cried with her.
1990
Blood
Evidence opens with a
confession. The woman confessing is dying. Her
death is the novel's first. It is not the last. It
sets in motion a twisted journey through one of
life's oldest dramas - revenge. Thirteen years
later, a grisly murder pits San Francisco
detectives Eric Fong and Anna Brusci against a
tightly woven web of family loyalty, alliances,
dalliances, complicated hate, steamy love and
murder that reaches back in time as they race to
solve the crime and stop the killer while the body
count grows.....
THIRTEEN
YEARS LATER
AUGUST 23 2003
To honor the dead under his care, homicide
Detective Eric Fong dressed with the utmost respect
each morning. So when he walked into the chaotic
corridor outside the crime scene, the young
lieutenant lent the proceeding an air of dignity.
His charcoal Armani Suit covered a body honed into
restrained power by two decades of Wing Chun
karate. Except for the remnants of acne on his
cheeks, Fong could have been a model.
But neither his looks nor his powerful analytical mind had propelled him into prominence in the San Francisco police department. Instead the department’s rigid traditions exiled Fong to work cold cases and murders of the homeless. But after three years of doggedly working through prime vacation times to increase his chances of grabbing a real case, today Fong’s golden opportunity lay one room away. An hour earlier the housekeeper had called in the trussed body of a famous San Francisco doctor. With the precinct virtually deserted in late summer, Fong drew the case. And luckier still, Fong’s incompetent partner was gone for the week. A very bad day for the deceased Dr. Phillip Madison was a very good day for Lieutenant Eric Fong.
Standing in the hallway, Fong prepared to enter the dead doctor’s penthouse. He tucked his tie into his shirt, snapped on his latex gloves, and covered his shoes.
As he stepped forward, he heard a familiar woman’s voice shout, “Wait for me.”
Lieutenant Fong turned to see curly-haired Sergeant Anna Brusci hop out of the elevator. Wearing a green blazer and crumpled reddish slacks, the tall detective looked like she had snatched her clothes from a rack at the Salvation Army.
“Why are you here?” said Fong, not wanting to know the answer. His former partner was careless and undisciplined. She had even been officially reprimanded for contaminating a crime scene.
“The Chief sent me to help you out since we’re both without a partner.”
This is not help, thought Fong. This is a setup. He hated the seven months he had spent working with Anna Brusci. She never shut up. Unhelpful as his current partner was, at least he never said anything.
“So who’s the vic?” Anna stuck her hands into her baggy jacket like an awkward teenager.
“You will treat Dr. Madison with the respect he deserves.” Fong said curtly. He handed her a pair of paper booties, he turned on his heels and followed the designated path into Dr. Madison’s large living room.
The morning sun streaming through the skylight illuminated the bloody corpse pinioned by duct tape to a functional Scandinavian chair. The rigid sixty-year-old physician sat pale as milk. His wrists had been sliced apart by numerous precise cuts. Rivulets of congealed blood had oozed from the slices, flowed onto his hands and drenched his thighs. A truncated bit of bloody plastic protruded from one wrist. Blood on the doctor’s neatly ironed shirt came from the gash on his head. That wound bled onto his cheek, neck, and chest. A sacrifice to an angry god, Fong thought.
Studying the crime scene, Fong was oblivious to the flashing light bulbs and bustling crew. Instead he saw a bloody bowl lying upside down on the wood floor. Fong connected the bowl to two small bloodless circles on Madison’s thighs. Before falling off the dead man’s lap, the bowl had been placed on each thigh collecting Madison’s blood as it poured from his wrists. Fong bent over the small tube sticking out of the doctor’s wrist. The plastic tapered and became narrower where it penetrated the skin: the bottom of a miniature pen set.
Fong stepped backward and shook his head. The precise cuts and the nub of pen used to keep the blood flowing indicated premeditated control. The repeated slices suggested impatience. And what of the gash on the doctor’s head that had bloodied his trim white hair? The impact ripped open Madison’s scalp before his death, thoroughly soaking his shirt. That blow spoke of rage. Fong knew he lacked understanding of many human emotions—but anger he understood. He wondered what kind of killer lived with such complex textures of rage.
Behind Fong, Anna tried to be inconspicuous, not easy given her height. She knew Fong didn’t want her and she didn’t want to be here either. She’d been up all night babysitting her partner as he underwent emergency surgery. The idiot had blown a disc playing rugby with guys half his age. She was exhausted and had no patience for Fong’s rudeness. Two years ago, it had taken her months to melt his reserve. No sooner had she gotten Fong used to her then the chief split them apart to partner her up with Rourke, the Chief’s incompetent cousin.
“Focus,” she told herself. She’d make the best of her situation. What kind of guy had this hacked-up doctor been? Her glance slid over the harsh edges of the modern furniture. Towering glass bookcases held antique medical volumes and tomes on philosophy: Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind. No plants, no pictures of people. More an office than a living room. She wouldn’t have liked this man. But she knew Fong had hated the way she jumped to conclusions, so she kept her mouth shut.
Anna crouched as close to the well-dressed corpse as she could without contaminating the scene. She tried to absorb from the dead doctor’s opaque eyes and rigid muscles what he had felt right before his death. A rush of indignity filled her. She filed away the feeling. She let other sensations flow in. She sensed annoyance. What was that about? She’d leave the crime scene details to Fong. She’d work on figuring out the people.
Looking at the victim again, Fong saw light glint off something embedded in the head wound. He turned to the pathologist, Dr. Ghazi Nadel. Fong’s voice sounded stiff as he instructed Nadel to protect the wound. The detective had stuttered as a child. Singing lessons had cured his impediment, but left him with flattened speech.
Fong continued to prowl amidst the crime scene technicians, relieved that Anna was leaving him alone. He spotted a dull patch of floor behind the puddle of blood. That spot lacked the waxy sheen of the rest of the hardwood. He pulled off his glove to feel the area: recently cleaned, absent of grit, dust or visible blood splatter. Someone had mopped, not vacuumed, the region. His asthmatic mother had taught him the difference. What had the killer been trying to hide?
Fong moved back to the area in front of the victim. As he studied the silver rug in front of the doctor’s expensive chair, he saw three faint, postage stamp sized dents. Marks left by a chair. The killer had sat before his victim. To leave these marks on the rug, either the killer had been heavy or had sat in front of his victim for a long time. The killer had then picked up the chair and stepped on the fourth indentation, erasing the mark. Fong spotted the killer’s seat: a metal chair sitting before the doctor’s massive desk. He ordered a technician to confirm his suspicion with a tape measure.
The technician turned his back to Fong and continued what he was doing. The other technicians talked a little louder.
Anna watched as the silent rebellion against Fong began. The top brass was old school. They followed the Irish cop conviction that only they were tough enough. You had to prove yourself by years of pounding pavement or taking a bullet. The rest of the force followed their lead. She’d felt a similar prejudice, but having a famous cop for an uncle had greased her entry. Besides, she was tall, had battle scars, was a crack marksman, and only a sergeant.
In the department’s eyes, even worse than being Asian, Fong could hardly shoot and he dressed too pretty. Then there had been that stuttering episode in front of the cameras a few years back. The Force dismissed Fong as a sop to affirmative action.
“Check the chair against the dents in the carpet,” Fong repeated.
“Sorry, sir, what did you say?” The young technician kept his back to Fong.
“Officer!” Fong waited until the man turned. The other technicians paused to watch. “Return to the station. You are done here.”
The technician slammed his metal case closed and left. The rest of the team got the point. They began to hustle. A man with a shaved head measured the chair and confirmed it as the one.
Anna silently cheered Fong’s win. She saw Dr. Nadel nod in agreement. She reflected that the crew didn’t mind the pathologist being a Pakistani. Pathologists were so weird, and dealt with the hardcore gristliness of death, cops and techs were happy they were a different race.
Dr. Nadel plucked the large thermometer from under Madison’s ribs. “Died between midnight and three a.m.,” he said.
“Thank you, Dr. Nadel.” Fong trusted Nadel. He was one of the least ambitious men Fong had met.
Fong turned toward Dr. Madison’s desk - the presumptuous centerpiece of the room. An onyx paperweight and gold letter opener sat on the left side of the marble surface. A Mount Blanc pen sat to the right. Blood splatters framed the top, bottom, and left edge of the desktop. At the time of the assault, something had covered the desk, presumably a blotter. The murder had begun to choreograph itself.
Fong kept moving. Under the CD cabinet, he spotted another sliver. After a technician videotaped its position, Fong picked up the yellow-white fragment with tweezers and placed it in a small paper bag. He moved over to the other end of the cabinet. He used the tweezers to grab a piece of paper underneath. With Anna looking over his shoulder, he stood and read the faint photocopy of what looked to be a handwritten page from a notebook.
Finally Mrs. Flynn let me see you. As we sat there she brought us tea. I was so scared. But you were kind and reassuring. You took my hands in your strong hands, treating me like I was a relative just off a train.
I remember your exact words. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. It’s your choice but you have nothing to worry about. Together we’ll keep this terrible disease at bay.” When I walked out I felt safe.
But now I’m home. My children cry when they see me. I am falling into hell. You lied to me. I must go back and make you listen.
I crave the smell of formaldehyde. I long for that terrible smell. I can’t look in the mirror anymore. I see my death there.
Fong felt Anna’s stale breath on his neck. He stopped himself from brushing it off. At least she knew to open a cellophane bag for him to slip the page in.
He forced his mind back to the crime. Despite the viciousness of the crime, the room was too clean. Too orderly. Offended by the killer’s mixture of rage and meticulousness, Fong moved into the hallway and tossed his gloves into the pile of police waste. Turning, he almost collided with the burly officer coming toward him, a small older woman in tow.
“Sorry sir, but the maid, Mrs. Garcia wants to go home now,” said the young policeman.
Fong saw a middle-aged woman, neatly dressed in a white blouse, partly hidden behind the burly cop. Mrs. Garcia moved carefully, as if another terrible thing might occur at any second.
With the crime scene details sorting themselves out in his mind, Fong had no patience for the maid. “Sergeant Brusci, find out what Mrs. Garcia can add,” he snapped.
Relieved that Fong had finally included her in something useful, Anna came over to the woman, meeting her unsteady gaze sympathetically. “Mrs. Garcia, what you’ve been through is terrible, but I know you can help us.” To seem less imposing, Anna stooped as she led Mrs. Garcia over to a bench by the elevator. Fong hung back, but stayed within earshot.
Mrs. Garcia put her hand out to touch the bench as she lowered herself. To create intimacy Anna sat next to her. “I know you’ve told lots of people this but please tell me just one more time what happened.”
Mrs. Garcia haltingly related how she let herself in as usual at eight a.m. She found the dead doctor, then retreated to the kitchen to call 911. “While I wait for police to answer—it took a long time—I got sick and made the sink a mess.” She pulled an ironed handkerchief from her pocket and twisted it. “I clean it after, but maybe that was wrong. I’m sorry. The police told me stay there. I no want to wait. I call Mrs. Madison. They no live together no more, but I call. She say to me leave.”
“What did Mrs. Madison say to you when you called her?”
“Mrs. Madison very quiet. She like that. She say to get out quick in case anyone around to hurt me. I go outside and wait for police,” said the small woman.
“Was the door locked when you went in?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think hard, Mrs. Garcia,” Anna said. She could hear Fong shift impatiently behind her.
Mrs. Garcia closed her eyes and thought. “No dead bolt. I use only one key.”
“Do you know where Mrs. Madison was when you called her?”
“She live in Bolinas with the children,” Mrs. Garcia said. Anna knew the bohemian town north of the city. The residents routinely removed the road signs to dissuade tourists.
“I work for her many years. The doctor, not so long. I go home now please?”
“One more minute please. Would you know if something in the apartment was different?” Anna asked.
“I think so. He never change house.”
“Please come back in with me and look.” Anna stood and offered her hand to Mrs. Garcia.
“Mrs. Garcia, I just need to remind you when we go back in—don’t touch anything,” Fong said briskly, cutting in.
God, Anna thought, Fong’s just as clueless as ever.
“I already touch things. But I do no more,” said Mrs. Garcia. With trembling fingers she patted back strands of hair slipping from her bun.
Once back in the penthouse, Mrs. Garcia remarked that a hand broom and mop were missing. When she came to the marble desk, she pointed to the right corner. “There used to be a head there like doctors have.”
“A head? You mean a skull?” asked Fong.
“Cranéo, yes. Skull,” she nodded. “Everything else perfect like before. No skull.” She retreated to the front door. She wanted out.
“What was on the desk? A blotter?” Fong demanded, following after her.
“He never have nothing on desk. Maybe new. Now I go, okay?”
“Fine,” said Fong. He ordered the stocky officer to drive Mrs. Garcia home.
Anna said “Many thanks, Mrs. Garcia.” She put her card in the woman’s hand. “Call if you need anything or think of something else.”
As the maid left, Anna admired the maid’s presence of mind. She wondered if she had come from one of the war-torn Central American countries where daily horrors were common. Then Anna turned and gazed back over the room, still ripe with last night’s killing.
But neither his looks nor his powerful analytical mind had propelled him into prominence in the San Francisco police department. Instead the department’s rigid traditions exiled Fong to work cold cases and murders of the homeless. But after three years of doggedly working through prime vacation times to increase his chances of grabbing a real case, today Fong’s golden opportunity lay one room away. An hour earlier the housekeeper had called in the trussed body of a famous San Francisco doctor. With the precinct virtually deserted in late summer, Fong drew the case. And luckier still, Fong’s incompetent partner was gone for the week. A very bad day for the deceased Dr. Phillip Madison was a very good day for Lieutenant Eric Fong.
Standing in the hallway, Fong prepared to enter the dead doctor’s penthouse. He tucked his tie into his shirt, snapped on his latex gloves, and covered his shoes.
As he stepped forward, he heard a familiar woman’s voice shout, “Wait for me.”
Lieutenant Fong turned to see curly-haired Sergeant Anna Brusci hop out of the elevator. Wearing a green blazer and crumpled reddish slacks, the tall detective looked like she had snatched her clothes from a rack at the Salvation Army.
“Why are you here?” said Fong, not wanting to know the answer. His former partner was careless and undisciplined. She had even been officially reprimanded for contaminating a crime scene.
“The Chief sent me to help you out since we’re both without a partner.”
This is not help, thought Fong. This is a setup. He hated the seven months he had spent working with Anna Brusci. She never shut up. Unhelpful as his current partner was, at least he never said anything.
“So who’s the vic?” Anna stuck her hands into her baggy jacket like an awkward teenager.
“You will treat Dr. Madison with the respect he deserves.” Fong said curtly. He handed her a pair of paper booties, he turned on his heels and followed the designated path into Dr. Madison’s large living room.
The morning sun streaming through the skylight illuminated the bloody corpse pinioned by duct tape to a functional Scandinavian chair. The rigid sixty-year-old physician sat pale as milk. His wrists had been sliced apart by numerous precise cuts. Rivulets of congealed blood had oozed from the slices, flowed onto his hands and drenched his thighs. A truncated bit of bloody plastic protruded from one wrist. Blood on the doctor’s neatly ironed shirt came from the gash on his head. That wound bled onto his cheek, neck, and chest. A sacrifice to an angry god, Fong thought.
Studying the crime scene, Fong was oblivious to the flashing light bulbs and bustling crew. Instead he saw a bloody bowl lying upside down on the wood floor. Fong connected the bowl to two small bloodless circles on Madison’s thighs. Before falling off the dead man’s lap, the bowl had been placed on each thigh collecting Madison’s blood as it poured from his wrists. Fong bent over the small tube sticking out of the doctor’s wrist. The plastic tapered and became narrower where it penetrated the skin: the bottom of a miniature pen set.
Fong stepped backward and shook his head. The precise cuts and the nub of pen used to keep the blood flowing indicated premeditated control. The repeated slices suggested impatience. And what of the gash on the doctor’s head that had bloodied his trim white hair? The impact ripped open Madison’s scalp before his death, thoroughly soaking his shirt. That blow spoke of rage. Fong knew he lacked understanding of many human emotions—but anger he understood. He wondered what kind of killer lived with such complex textures of rage.
Behind Fong, Anna tried to be inconspicuous, not easy given her height. She knew Fong didn’t want her and she didn’t want to be here either. She’d been up all night babysitting her partner as he underwent emergency surgery. The idiot had blown a disc playing rugby with guys half his age. She was exhausted and had no patience for Fong’s rudeness. Two years ago, it had taken her months to melt his reserve. No sooner had she gotten Fong used to her then the chief split them apart to partner her up with Rourke, the Chief’s incompetent cousin.
“Focus,” she told herself. She’d make the best of her situation. What kind of guy had this hacked-up doctor been? Her glance slid over the harsh edges of the modern furniture. Towering glass bookcases held antique medical volumes and tomes on philosophy: Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind. No plants, no pictures of people. More an office than a living room. She wouldn’t have liked this man. But she knew Fong had hated the way she jumped to conclusions, so she kept her mouth shut.
Anna crouched as close to the well-dressed corpse as she could without contaminating the scene. She tried to absorb from the dead doctor’s opaque eyes and rigid muscles what he had felt right before his death. A rush of indignity filled her. She filed away the feeling. She let other sensations flow in. She sensed annoyance. What was that about? She’d leave the crime scene details to Fong. She’d work on figuring out the people.
Looking at the victim again, Fong saw light glint off something embedded in the head wound. He turned to the pathologist, Dr. Ghazi Nadel. Fong’s voice sounded stiff as he instructed Nadel to protect the wound. The detective had stuttered as a child. Singing lessons had cured his impediment, but left him with flattened speech.
Fong continued to prowl amidst the crime scene technicians, relieved that Anna was leaving him alone. He spotted a dull patch of floor behind the puddle of blood. That spot lacked the waxy sheen of the rest of the hardwood. He pulled off his glove to feel the area: recently cleaned, absent of grit, dust or visible blood splatter. Someone had mopped, not vacuumed, the region. His asthmatic mother had taught him the difference. What had the killer been trying to hide?
Fong moved back to the area in front of the victim. As he studied the silver rug in front of the doctor’s expensive chair, he saw three faint, postage stamp sized dents. Marks left by a chair. The killer had sat before his victim. To leave these marks on the rug, either the killer had been heavy or had sat in front of his victim for a long time. The killer had then picked up the chair and stepped on the fourth indentation, erasing the mark. Fong spotted the killer’s seat: a metal chair sitting before the doctor’s massive desk. He ordered a technician to confirm his suspicion with a tape measure.
The technician turned his back to Fong and continued what he was doing. The other technicians talked a little louder.
Anna watched as the silent rebellion against Fong began. The top brass was old school. They followed the Irish cop conviction that only they were tough enough. You had to prove yourself by years of pounding pavement or taking a bullet. The rest of the force followed their lead. She’d felt a similar prejudice, but having a famous cop for an uncle had greased her entry. Besides, she was tall, had battle scars, was a crack marksman, and only a sergeant.
In the department’s eyes, even worse than being Asian, Fong could hardly shoot and he dressed too pretty. Then there had been that stuttering episode in front of the cameras a few years back. The Force dismissed Fong as a sop to affirmative action.
“Check the chair against the dents in the carpet,” Fong repeated.
“Sorry, sir, what did you say?” The young technician kept his back to Fong.
“Officer!” Fong waited until the man turned. The other technicians paused to watch. “Return to the station. You are done here.”
The technician slammed his metal case closed and left. The rest of the team got the point. They began to hustle. A man with a shaved head measured the chair and confirmed it as the one.
Anna silently cheered Fong’s win. She saw Dr. Nadel nod in agreement. She reflected that the crew didn’t mind the pathologist being a Pakistani. Pathologists were so weird, and dealt with the hardcore gristliness of death, cops and techs were happy they were a different race.
Dr. Nadel plucked the large thermometer from under Madison’s ribs. “Died between midnight and three a.m.,” he said.
“Thank you, Dr. Nadel.” Fong trusted Nadel. He was one of the least ambitious men Fong had met.
Fong turned toward Dr. Madison’s desk - the presumptuous centerpiece of the room. An onyx paperweight and gold letter opener sat on the left side of the marble surface. A Mount Blanc pen sat to the right. Blood splatters framed the top, bottom, and left edge of the desktop. At the time of the assault, something had covered the desk, presumably a blotter. The murder had begun to choreograph itself.
Fong kept moving. Under the CD cabinet, he spotted another sliver. After a technician videotaped its position, Fong picked up the yellow-white fragment with tweezers and placed it in a small paper bag. He moved over to the other end of the cabinet. He used the tweezers to grab a piece of paper underneath. With Anna looking over his shoulder, he stood and read the faint photocopy of what looked to be a handwritten page from a notebook.
Finally Mrs. Flynn let me see you. As we sat there she brought us tea. I was so scared. But you were kind and reassuring. You took my hands in your strong hands, treating me like I was a relative just off a train.
I remember your exact words. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. It’s your choice but you have nothing to worry about. Together we’ll keep this terrible disease at bay.” When I walked out I felt safe.
But now I’m home. My children cry when they see me. I am falling into hell. You lied to me. I must go back and make you listen.
I crave the smell of formaldehyde. I long for that terrible smell. I can’t look in the mirror anymore. I see my death there.
Fong felt Anna’s stale breath on his neck. He stopped himself from brushing it off. At least she knew to open a cellophane bag for him to slip the page in.
He forced his mind back to the crime. Despite the viciousness of the crime, the room was too clean. Too orderly. Offended by the killer’s mixture of rage and meticulousness, Fong moved into the hallway and tossed his gloves into the pile of police waste. Turning, he almost collided with the burly officer coming toward him, a small older woman in tow.
“Sorry sir, but the maid, Mrs. Garcia wants to go home now,” said the young policeman.
Fong saw a middle-aged woman, neatly dressed in a white blouse, partly hidden behind the burly cop. Mrs. Garcia moved carefully, as if another terrible thing might occur at any second.
With the crime scene details sorting themselves out in his mind, Fong had no patience for the maid. “Sergeant Brusci, find out what Mrs. Garcia can add,” he snapped.
Relieved that Fong had finally included her in something useful, Anna came over to the woman, meeting her unsteady gaze sympathetically. “Mrs. Garcia, what you’ve been through is terrible, but I know you can help us.” To seem less imposing, Anna stooped as she led Mrs. Garcia over to a bench by the elevator. Fong hung back, but stayed within earshot.
Mrs. Garcia put her hand out to touch the bench as she lowered herself. To create intimacy Anna sat next to her. “I know you’ve told lots of people this but please tell me just one more time what happened.”
Mrs. Garcia haltingly related how she let herself in as usual at eight a.m. She found the dead doctor, then retreated to the kitchen to call 911. “While I wait for police to answer—it took a long time—I got sick and made the sink a mess.” She pulled an ironed handkerchief from her pocket and twisted it. “I clean it after, but maybe that was wrong. I’m sorry. The police told me stay there. I no want to wait. I call Mrs. Madison. They no live together no more, but I call. She say to me leave.”
“What did Mrs. Madison say to you when you called her?”
“Mrs. Madison very quiet. She like that. She say to get out quick in case anyone around to hurt me. I go outside and wait for police,” said the small woman.
“Was the door locked when you went in?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think hard, Mrs. Garcia,” Anna said. She could hear Fong shift impatiently behind her.
Mrs. Garcia closed her eyes and thought. “No dead bolt. I use only one key.”
“Do you know where Mrs. Madison was when you called her?”
“She live in Bolinas with the children,” Mrs. Garcia said. Anna knew the bohemian town north of the city. The residents routinely removed the road signs to dissuade tourists.
“I work for her many years. The doctor, not so long. I go home now please?”
“One more minute please. Would you know if something in the apartment was different?” Anna asked.
“I think so. He never change house.”
“Please come back in with me and look.” Anna stood and offered her hand to Mrs. Garcia.
“Mrs. Garcia, I just need to remind you when we go back in—don’t touch anything,” Fong said briskly, cutting in.
God, Anna thought, Fong’s just as clueless as ever.
“I already touch things. But I do no more,” said Mrs. Garcia. With trembling fingers she patted back strands of hair slipping from her bun.
Once back in the penthouse, Mrs. Garcia remarked that a hand broom and mop were missing. When she came to the marble desk, she pointed to the right corner. “There used to be a head there like doctors have.”
“A head? You mean a skull?” asked Fong.
“Cranéo, yes. Skull,” she nodded. “Everything else perfect like before. No skull.” She retreated to the front door. She wanted out.
“What was on the desk? A blotter?” Fong demanded, following after her.
“He never have nothing on desk. Maybe new. Now I go, okay?”
“Fine,” said Fong. He ordered the stocky officer to drive Mrs. Garcia home.
Anna said “Many thanks, Mrs. Garcia.” She put her card in the woman’s hand. “Call if you need anything or think of something else.”
As the maid left, Anna admired the maid’s presence of mind. She wondered if she had come from one of the war-torn Central American countries where daily horrors were common. Then Anna turned and gazed back over the room, still ripe with last night’s killing.