The Antique House Murders Read online

  “Right.” Charley returned his grin. “Showoff. Marc, can’t I—”

  The front door opened, and Pamela Tate hurried in, Mitch on her heels.

  “What in God’s name is going on? This policeman wouldn’t let me in the back door.” Pamela halted, taking in the group and their grim expressions. “Charley? What are you doing here? Where is Calvin?”

  Charley stepped forward before Marc could speak. She put her hands on Pamela’s shoulders and spoke gently. “Pamela, something terrible has happened. I’m afraid Calvin has been badly hurt.”

  “Hurt?” Pamela’s eyes widened. “How is he hurt?”

  “You need to prepare yourself for a shock.” Charley’s hands tightened. “Calvin is dead, Pamela. I am so sorry.”

  Charley had figured her for a fainter, so she was ready. Before Charley had stopped speaking, Pamela Tate’s face went dead white. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she started sinking to the floor. Marc stepped forward and, between the two of them, they lowered her into a folding chair Dmitri quickly flipped open. Marc shoved her head between her knees. Mitch reached into a utility pouch on his uniform belt and pulled out a small ampoule. Cracking it open, he waved it under Pamela’s nose. Almost instantly she jerked her head aside, moaning. Mitch persisted with the ampoule until she raised a hand and pushed it away. Charley helped her to sit back, her arm around Pamela’s shoulders. She looked up at Marc.

  “I should stay.”

  “You should go. Cooper can handle it.”

  Mitch nodded eagerly. “I’m cross-trained as an EMT, Charley.” He blushed again, perhaps aware he’d stated the obvious. Oakwood’s Safety Department was fully integrated, meaning all personnel cross-trained in police, fire, and EMT duties, all officers rotating through the three subspecialties on a regular basis.

  “No!” Pamela gripped her hand. “Please, Charley, don’t leave me!”

  Given Pamela’s recent accusations, her request was surprising. Still, Charley would never abandon anyone in such apparent distress. She murmured her assent as Dmitri turned to go.

  “Gotta fly, princess.” He tapped his watch. “Duty calls. Speaking of, I’ve always got time for our boys in blue, Detective. You wouldn’t be my first regulation trim.” Marc hit him with one of his best cop stares, but Dmitri just smiled. “I’m sure I could fit you in later. Like, while you’re taking my statement?”

  “Go meet your client.”

  “Yes, sir!” Dmitri snapped a salute, blew Charley a kiss, and slipped out.

  Marc shifted The Stare to Charley. “You going to behave?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  Before he could reply, the door opened yet again, to admit Dr. Sharon Krugh, assistant Montgomery County Coroner. Sharon managed to look both competent and attractive in tailored trousers, black suede flats, and a leather trench coat. Her long, honey blond hair was pulled back into its habitual sleek tail. Two CSU techs followed, both lugging field kits.

  So ended the mystery of that hushed cellphone conversation, Charley thought darkly. Marc had put in a request for his favorite coroner. Charley knew that Marc and Sharon had dated briefly. Whatever. Ancient history. Sharon Krugh was a perfectly nice person. She was good at her job. She and Marc probably had loads in common. They were professional colleagues, after all.

  “Hey, Detective McDreamy.” Marc flushed. “And Charley Carpenter. What a nice surprise.” Sharon smiled sweetly at her. “Another homicide scene? You do get around.”

  God, she hated Sharon Krugh.

  Ten minutes later Charley and Pamela stood in the office doorway, Marc just behind them. Sharon had tented the body and the blood pool with a clean white sheet. Pamela nearly lost it again at the sight, but Charley kept her upright with one arm encircling her waist, the other hand gripping her shoulder, glad in her own right for the human contact.

  “I know this is difficult, but time is critical in cases of robbery.” Marc spoke in a calm, quiet voice. “If we can get a list of any major electronics or other valuables out to the pawnshops quickly, it increases our chances of apprehending the thieves.”

  “There were none.”

  “None what?”

  “Electronics.” Pamela avoided looking at the sheet, instead staring blindly at a row of empty shelves. “Calvin didn’t have a computer. It took me ages just to talk him into getting a cellphone.” She pointed with an unsteady hand. “That little radio was our only sound system. No TV back here, just him and his ledger books and card files. He’s—was, very old-fashioned. I was going to modernize; I have a laptop, and he was going to let me…”

  Pamela burst into tears, her thin shoulders heaving. Charley led her back out to the showroom, helping her into a chair, rubbing her back, and murmuring soothing words until the storm abated.

  “Ms. Tate.” Marc sat in a folding chair facing the two women as a technician prepared to take Pamela’s fingerprints. “We’re taking your prints for elimination purposes. Do you understand?” Pamela nodded. “Are you up to answering a few questions?”

  “I take antianxiety medications, and sometimes they make me faint. But I’m better now,” she said firmly. “I’ll do anything to help you catch whoever did this.”

  “You and Mr. Prescott were close?”

  “Like family.” She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “We both live alone, spend most of our time on the business. A couple of workaholics, you could say. Calvin treats me like a daughter.” She glanced quickly at Charley, then away. “I simply cannot comprehend that he’s…gone.” Her lips trembled as she gazed back toward the office. “You covered his face. It wasn’t his heart, was it?”

  “Did he have heart trouble?” Charley asked gently.

  “He’d been having a little shortness of breath—nothing serious, according to him. I know he’s seen a doctor.” Pamela’s expression was tragic. “ ‘Nothing serious.’ I should have dragged him to a cardiologist, made him cut back. Not that he would have. This place was his whole life. Our whole life,” she declared, clasping her hands in a dramatic gesture.

  Marc glanced at Charley, and then spoke carefully. “Mr. Prescott appears to have suffered a severe blow to the head. The coroner will have to determine exactly what happened, but as of right now, I am treating his death as a homicide.”

  Pamela gasped and paled again, swaying, and Charley gripped her hand to steady her. “Who would do that? Hurt him like that?”

  “Can you think of anyone with a reason to hurt Mr. Prescott?” Marc asked.

  “What? No, no one.” Pamela kept her gaze on Marc, avoiding eye contact with Charley. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Everyone loved Calvin.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to him?”

  “Sunday evening, about seven-thirty.” Pamela’s lips trembled. “He told me to take Monday off. He planned to stay late, finish up a few things, but that I should go home and get some rest….” Her words dissolved into a flood of tears.

  After a few more questions that produced nothing useful, Marc sent Pamela home, explaining that he would be in touch later to take a more comprehensive statement, hoping she would think of something that might provide a lead to Prescott’s killer. Charley hugged her, promising to call.

  She returned to the office doorway, where Marc stood surveying the wreckage. Someone had gone berserk, dumping desk drawers, emptying file cabinets, pulling books off shelves. Actually, it looked more like a search than robbery, or even vandalism, she thought. None of the books or papers were ripped; there was no graffiti, no smashed furniture. Everything had just been dumped on the floor.

  “You know what I think?” she asked.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any point in telling you to leave,” he said mildly.

  “None whatsoever. I think the killer is an amateur. An experienced thief wouldn’t waste time flinging everything all over the room. Our guy was in a hurry, maybe scared or angry. Besides, if there wasn’t anything worth stealing back here, then why—” She stopped abruptly. “What am I s
aying? No electronics doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything of value. Prescott’s deals in antiques, valuable paintings, heirloom jewelry, and the like. I bet the killer was after something like that. I wonder what it was.”

  “I wonder if he found what he was looking for.” Marc shook his head. “Pamela Tate will have to sift through this mess and determine what, if anything, is missing.”

  “Rigor’s come and gone. Based on that and liver temp, he died at least twenty-four hours ago, probably closer to thirty-six, maybe between seven and midnight on Sunday. I’ll try to narrow it down when I examine stomach contents.” Sharon slid a thermometer out of a small incision in Calvin’s abdomen. “Massive blow to the head is the likely COD. There’s brain fluid visible in the left ear, and we’ve got brain matter—well. I can’t say much about your weapon until I get him on the table.” She glanced around. “But you could start there.”

  Lying on the floor near the file cabinets was a royal blue and brown leather golf bag. It looked old, the leather cracked and faded. Protruding from the top were six or seven clubs, most with discolored metal heads, but two with bulbous wooden heads that looked to be in better shape, still glossy with whatever had been used to seal the wood. Varnish or polyurethane, Charley supposed.

  “You know anything about golf?” she murmured.

  “If you’re really good, they make you wear an ugly green sport coat.” Marc grimaced. “But I don’t think you’d need to know how to play to take somebody down with one of those bigger ones.”

  “Weapon of opportunity,” Charley agreed. “Our killer didn’t come here expecting to commit murder.”

  “Our killer?”

  “Fine. Your killer. Wait. That came out wrong.”

  “You think?”

  She watched as a tech, a stocky brunette with snapping black eyes, placed a boxy white device about the size of a canister vacuum cleaner on the floor in the center of the room. Her name badge read salvatore.

  “What’s that?” Charley asked. Despite her grief, her insatiable curiosity about all aspects of crime detection was on full alert.

  “Leica-10 3D scanner.” Salvatore popped open the top of the device and extended a stubby metallic arm about four feet high and topped with a glass knob. “We still take pictures and physical measurements, but this baby will make a three-dimensional record of, well, everything. Body, furniture, murder weapon, room dimensions, debris, every single object and its relation to every other object. Makes jury reconstruction a lot easier. Doctor?”

  Sharon joined Marc and Charley in the hallway. Salvatore clicked a remote control, the scanner whirred softly, and the metallic arm shot a narrow beam of red light that extended from floor to ceiling. Charley watched as it made a slow circuit around Calvin’s office, the light beam sweeping over his body, the desk, the walls, floor, and ceiling. When it was finished, Salvatore stowed the arm, moved the scanner into the hall, and produced a massive camera. She placed a red marker on the floor by the golf bag and began taking a barrage of photographs from various angles. Although she stepped carefully, it was clearly impossible to avoid the spilled papers covering the floor. Salvatore removed the clubs one by one, laying them out next to the bag and taking more pictures. The handles had royal blue leather grips that matched the bag. Charley wondered sadly whether Calvin played golf, or if he’d merely thought these old clubs had some value as antiques.

  “No blood or hair visible on any of these.” Salvatore cocked her head. “But at a guess, none are the murder weapon. Would you club a guy to death, then put the club back into the bag?” She snapped another picture.

  Charley swallowed. “The killer left here carrying a bloody golf club? Gross.”

  “Trust you to cut to the heart of the matter.” Marc gestured, taking in the entire office. “I’m going to need a full set of photos, as well as an inventory of everything you take downtown.”

  Sharon opened the back door to admit a pair of morgue techs with a stretcher bearing a neatly folded black vinyl body bag.

  “Extreme care, people,” she said briskly. “This office is so small, we’re compromising evidence just standing here.”

  As the techs maneuvered the corpse into position over the bag, Charley’s eyes stung. She bid a silent goodbye to Calvin, flinching slightly at the harsh rasp of the zipper closing over her friend.

  Marc’s fingers brushed her sleeve, and she felt his breath on her cheek. “You all right?”

  “Catch this bastard,” she whispered. “Just, catch him quick.”

  Sharon leaned against the wall, watching them. “I’ve got to say, for being right across from a cop shop, this little street sure sees its share of action.” Her smile was sly. “Not that I have to tell you that.”

  Chapter 4

  Marc headed down Park Avenue toward Slash, a cold wind whipping his hair into his eyes, Sharon’s remark about this street and its history echoing in his head. His gut tightened as he recalled the day in early December when the serial killer dubbed Lucy had held Charley at gunpoint in the back room of Old Hat. Dmitri St. James had taken a bullet disarming the killer; he had nearly died rescuing Charley.

  Not him, the cop, but Dmitri, the hair stylist. One of her best friends, now his good friend, too.

  He frigging hated that he hadn’t been the first one through that door. To his dying day he would never forget the heart-stopping terror of seeing Charley on the ground, her face ashen and twisted in agony. Although her pain had been the result of a dislocated shoulder rather than a gunshot wound, the memory still haunted him, jerking him awake, cold and sweating, in the middle of the night.

  And now she had stumbled into another murder, this one a close friend of the Carpenter family. Jesus wept. With a twinge he recalled her stricken expression as she left to break the news about Prescott’s death to her father. As Marc entered the salon, he was second-guessing yet again his decision not to accompany her. She’d been pretty upset, grief beginning to mix with anger. With Charley there was no telling what form such strong emotions might take. He’d seen her do some crazy redheaded shit when she was really fired up. Hopefully this time she’d work it out safely, perhaps on a gallon of ice cream, or maybe a good hard run.

  Dmitri leaned through a door in the rear of the salon and beckoned. Marc entered a tiny office much like Charley’s in Old Hat. Afiya Vickerson pressed a mug of coffee into his hand. Slash’s owner had recently begun dating Lawrence Whittman, Bobby Carpenter’s live-in caregiver, and Marc and Afiya had become friends. She wore a pure white dashiki and matching head wrap that contrasted pleasingly with her flawless café au lait complexion. Descended from Somali nobility, she was at least six two, making her and Lawrence the most imposing couple in any gathering. Charley had laughingly described witnessing their first meeting in a single word: “Kapow!” Marc invited her to stay, and they all settled into chairs, their knees practically touching in the cramped space.

  Dmitri had little to add to his description of the morning’s events. “I saw Mr. Prescott at the Mulbridge estate sale,” he said uncertainly. “Not that we talked or anything. Is that important?”

  “If it were, I’d have to question half the residents of Oakwood,” Marc reassured him. “I’d say your presence at both scenes is just an unfortunate coincidence.”

  Afiya regarded him solemnly. “Should I be concerned for my safety?”

  Marc knew that Afiya routinely walked to work from her tiny apartment on Harman Terrace, cutting through the long parking lot that ran behind the many businesses on Park, including Prescott’s, Old Hat, and Slash. Fee was a formidable woman, but a brutal killing practically on one’s doorstep was enough to give anyone pause.

  “It’s too soon to know whether Prescott was the intended victim. If he wasn’t, if his murder was a random act of violence, then yes, I’d say every resident and business owner in this area is at increased risk.” His reply was brutally honest; Afiya would see right through a sugarcoating. “Either way, there’s a killer out there. Keep your
eyes open.”

  Dmitri squeezed her hand. “Until you catch this lunatic nobody’s walking home alone, and that’s a promise.”

  Taking a raincheck on the haircut, Marc left Slash and crossed the alley toward Old Hat. Anticipation put an extra spring in his step, but when he burst through the shiny green door, he was met by Heddy Jones, Charley’s batty but dependable full-time sales clerk. He stifled his disappointment and made an effort to be polite.

  “She’s not yet returned, Detective,” Heddy apologized serenely. Dressed in her habitual weedy black, she seemed to float several inches off the gleaming oak floor. Heddy always gave Marc the impression of someone just returning from a visit to a distant planet. “I must say, when she left to see her poor father, Charlotte seemed quite distressed.”

  “Distressed?” Marc’s earlier concern returned full force.

  “She was pacing up and down—well, ‘stalking’ might be a better word,” Heddy mused. “Muttering and looking very dire. Her aura was burning like a pulsar. Most unsettling. I was quite relieved when she left, I’m embarrassed to say.”

  Marc tried her cell during the short drive to the Carpenters’ home on Hawthorn Boulevard, only to be shunted to voicemail. He called the landline. Lawrence confirmed she’d come and gone, declaring with pride that Bobby had taken the bad news like a champ.

  So, where the hell was she? Not at her shop. Not at home. Not answering her cell. His worry now growing exponentially, he stepped on the gas.

  Marc took the corner onto his own street with a squeal of tires. He spotted her car, parked at the curb in front of his modest brick house. The front door was unlocked, the interior in shadow as he entered.

  “Charley?” He groped for the light switch.

  Before he could find it, the door slammed. Practiced hands shoved him hard against the wall and, catching sight of the fire in the eyes of his attacker, he knew there would be no escape.

  —

  As he waited for the jackhammering of his heart to slow down, he contemplated the view. A slender foot, nails painted coral pink, rested on the pillow, the third toe encircled by a delicate gold ring. Why, he wondered, go to all that trouble to adorn a part of your body that no one was likely to see? It was the middle of winter, for Christ’s sake. Women.