Shadow Of Pretense (Margot Harris 2)

She reached her destination without any more cars arousing her suspicions. It was a gated community. The gang graffiti on the yellow stucco wall surrounding it wasn’t a good sign. Enough people were going in and out that Margot didn’t have any problems getting in. In Margot’s experience, this was the kind of walled-in community that made thieves think there might be something worth stealing while doing nothing to keep them out.

Margot found the unit they lived in; according to what Randy gave her, they were the only ones living there. There was no car in the driveway, but the unit had a garage so that didn’t mean anything. The garage didn’t have windows so Margot couldn’t check. The curtains on the ground floor window were pulled closed so there was no way to look inside the unit either.

She rang the doorbell and waited. No one answered and she didn’t hear anyone moving around inside. She knocked and got the same result. Margot stepped back, thinking she should go try to track down the boyfriend and then come back later. She was turning to leave when she saw the stain on the sidewalk.

This was the kind of place where a stain on the cement wasn’t exactly unusual. Margot gave it a second look anyway. It was brown, the color of blood dried in the sun, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t something else. As she looked, Margot noticed another similar stain on the faded stucco. While the stain on the sidewalk was a blotch, this one appeared to be in the shape of a hand. Margot looked down the sidewalk and saw there were more stains, each a few feet apart.

If someone had spilled something, it was unlikely they would have left a trail, but if someone has been bleeding, they certainly would. The trail led to her car. She walked around into the street and couldn’t pick up more of the trail. A walk both ways on the sidewalk didn’t reveal any more bloodstains.

If Choe or Chrissie had a visitor who had somehow been hurt, this was the closest parking space. Margot walked back to the front door, kicking herself for not noticing the potential blood trail before. A closer look at the area around the door revealed what could have been another handprint. Whatever had happened, it looked a lot like someone had stumbled out of the unit leaking fluid and had then gone and got into a car parked out front.

Margot rang the doorbell and knocked again. This time she called out for both Jennifer and Chrissie. No one answered. The bleeding person stumbling out the front door wasn’t necessarily either Chrissie or Jennifer. The way they seemed to have gotten in a car parked on the street out front, instead of one in the garage, pointed to it not being either of them. That didn’t mean they weren’t hurt. Violence often goes both ways. Margot was becoming concerned for their safety.

She tried the front door and it was locked. They had a quality deadbolt and the door looked solid: Margot wasn’t getting in that way. The townhomes all had a little backyard area. Margot walked around the back and found their backyard. It had a redwood fence around it and no gate. Unlike some of her neighbors, Jennifer hadn’t stained or replaced hers. Margot worried the rotting wood would fall down if she climbed it, but she didn’t see a better choice.

She could call the police, but the chances they would break-in based on some stains on the sidewalk seemed unlikely. Margot looked around and didn’t see anybody watching her. She vaulted the fence, going as quickly as she could to avoid both being seen and having the old fence topple over.

The small back yard, just a patio really, was kept up as well as the fence. There had been a little garden area, but it was nothing but weeds. The cracked cement patio contained nothing but a rusted out barbeque grill. The neglected back area made it look like they’d been gone for months.

There was a sliding glass door in the back. Like the window in the front, the blinds were pulled shut and, like the front door, it was locked. Unlike the front door, the lock on the slider was just a latch. Margot took out her credit card that wasn’t a credit card; it was made of metal instead of plastic. She couldn’t buy anything with this card, but it was good for flipping locks.

Thirty seconds later she was sliding the door open and stepping inside.

The living room was a mess but what caught her eye wasn’t the dishes and clothes strewn about the room but the dead man on the sofa. He was well dressed in a suit and tie and he looked to be in decent shape. She got closer and saw the blue suit was shinier than normal business attire. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like sharkskin to her. His mouth was open, revealing two rows of gold teeth. Since half the top half of his head was missing, it was hard to tell anything else about him. The blood- and brain-splattered wall behind him seemed to indicate someone shot with something powerful, likely at close range.

The dead man in the blue sharkskin suit wasn’t Jennifer or Chrissie and unless he left and came back inside to get shot in the face, he wasn’t the person who left the bloodstains out front. Margot pulled her short-barreled Smith and Wesson out of her purse. She chambered a round and moved closer to the body on the sofa.

Getting closer didn’t reveal much except to show he was starting to smell and draw flies. She noticed there was a pistol at his feet, below his lifeless right hand. Margot bent down and saw it was a Beretta, nine millimeter. If he was using hollow points, it certainly could have done the damage to his head himself. He could have shot himself or maybe he and the person leaving the blood trail exchanged bullets. Maybe it wasn’t even his gun.

Margot held her weapon out in front of her as she checked the rest of the house. She found that the blood trail she had seen out front started in the living room. She learned neither Chrissie nor Jennifer were much for putting dishes or clothes away, but other than that, there wasn’t much to learn going through the townhome.

She didn’t find any suitcases, but that could be because they didn’t own any, not that they packed them and left. She found a laptop in Jennifer’s room but not in Chrissie’s. She didn’t find any phones.

She found a photo of Jennifer and Chrissie posing together in front of the waves at the beach. She recognized Jennifer from Lefty’s, but other than seeing her there slinging drinks, Margot didn’t remember anything about her. She took a photo of the picture just to have something to show around and then thought about deleting it. Whatever happened to Jennifer and Chrissy, this was going to be a murder investigation.

She looked in the garage and found it empty. It looked highly possible the two women left on their own. Margot debated it but decided to go out the front door to call the police. She feared the fence couldn’t withstand another vault. She covered her hand with her shirt so she didn’t leave any fingerprints and opened the door.

Margot froze as the dark blue sedan cruised slowly by. It looked like her maneuver a few blocks back hadn’t really fooled them; it had just let them know she knew they were following her. She stayed still as the sedan cruised by slowly. If they saw her, they didn’t give her any indication. Margot reminded herself it could have been a different blue sedan but still closed the door and called the police from inside the house.

Chapter 3

“What is it with you and dead bodies?” Detective Ames asked as they stood by Margot’s car and waited for the crime scene crew.

Margot wasn’t sure how to answer that one so she didn’t. She and Ames were never friends, even when they were both cops. Her relationship with Mal made sure they never would be. There was a time when she felt he was out to get her, but he had saved her life not too long ago.

“How about you tell me why you’re here?”

In the past, Margot might have exercised her right to remain silent but keeping in mind that Ames had saved her life, she replied, “Missing person case. The kid’s aunt was worried. I’d say the mom is missing as well.”

“Is that dad inside?”

“Not as far as I know. He’s supposed to be out of the picture.”

Ames’s young partner Radcliff asked, ‘What do you think happened?”

“Does it matter?”

Radcliff smiled at her. “You were a cop, I respect your opinion.”