The manager scrunched his face as if flipping through the days. “Four days. Saturday morning. She said she had an appointment. Sometimes she’s gone for days at a time on business, so I didn’t worry.”
“What about her mail?”
“Post office boxes are in the lobby. They’re around a corner. You can’t see them from the main entrance.”
“Do you have access to her mail?”
The little man leveled his shoulders. “I have a spare key. ”
“Would you mind getting the key for me?”
His brows furrowed. “Seems kinda wrong going through her stuff. ”
“It needs to be done.”
“What’s going on?” Nerves heightened the pitch of his voice. “What’s wrong with Ms. Black?”
“She was murdered.”
The older man’s face paled three shades and his lips quivered. “How?”
“Can’t say right now. Can you get that mail key?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” He fished a trembling hand into his pocket, pulled out a ring of keys and handed two keys to Garrison.
“You might need the other key. Each unit has a storage shed off the patio.”
“Thanks.”
The detectives moved into the apartment. Each pulled on rubber gloves and unfastened the clips to their gun holsters. Garrison, right hand on his weapon, flipped on the lights.
A large picture window dominated the main room, decorated in a sleek and modern style. Twin bleached couches and sparkling glass end tables rested on a soft white carpet that iced the pale wood floor. All the furniture faced an enormous fireplace hand crafted with white marble and scrubbed so clean Garrison doubted it ever held a fire. Mirrors hung on the walls, but no plants, flowers or personal touches warmed the room.
“She’s got a thing for clean,” Malcolm said. “Maybe she felt just a tad dirty.”
Garrison nodded. “Could be.” He let his gaze roam the room, trying to understand Lisa Black. But the sterile room offered him little. “Let’s have a look at the kitchen and bedroom.”
“I vote kitchen first. Can tell a lot about a person by looking at their kitchen. Heart of the house.”
“What does your kitchen tell us about you?”
Malcolm kept his gaze locked ahead and alert to the unexpected as they moved into the kitchen. “Me? I love to cook. Cabinets are stocked with all the basics for a killer marinara and the freezers have steaks. One thing I can’t stand is a bad meal.”
Garrison reached the end of the hallway first. Malcolm hung back, ready to react to any nasty surprises as Garrison flipped on the overhead lights. Florescent lights flickered on, reflecting off top-of-the-line stainless-steel appliances, white marble countertops and shiny silver gourmet pots hanging from a pot rack. As sterile as the rest of the condo, the kitchen appeared just as unused.
Malcolm opened the refrigerator to find five bottles of champagne and three cartons of cottage cheese. “The breakfast of champions.”
Garrison shook his head. “Even I do a better job than that. ”
“What? Beer and cold cuts?”
“And eggs and cheese. When I want a real meal, I head to my folks’ house.”
“Amen to that.”
Malcolm checked the drawers, stocked with a set of glistening Shun knives. “Damn, it’s a crime this stuff hasn’t been used.”
The pantry was barren and the counters and floors perfectly clean. “It’s like she never lived here.”
“Or was one hell of a neat freak.”
Garrison opened and closed the drawers. “She might have used the place as a base of operation.” In the last drawer he found a packet of matches. Embossed in gold on the black cover was Moments, Washington, D.C. “One of her haunts?”
“Could be.”
They moved into the bedroom, which like the rest of the condo lacked any personal touch. A round oval bed with a white satin coverlet covered the room’s center, while mirrors reflected from white walls above the headboard. When the sun was up, the mirrors caught the morning light from large sliding glass doors, which faced east. On the west wall, a smooth dresser displayed neatly lined up antique crystal perfume bottles.
Garrison opened the closet door and switched on the light. The closet was filled with all types of clothes from sleek business suits, to leather skirts to costumes that ranged from Snow White to a pirate. “Interesting collection.”
“My, my,” Malcolm said, standing in the doorway. “Whatever her man wants.”
“Clearly she hooked up with a lunatic.”
“But where?”
“That’s the question. But I’d like to check this place out.” He tossed the matches to Malcolm.
Malcolm snatched the packet out of the air. He unfurled his fingers. “Moments.”
“It’s swanky, from what I remember.”
“Sure.” Malcolm glanced in the closet. “The costumes appear to be the only variable. The rest of the place has no personality.”
“Even the costumes represent make-believe personalities.” Garrison glanced out onto the patio. “Manager said the unit had a storage closet.” He pushed open the sliding glass door and found the key that fit the lock. He opened the door and pulled on the light string. “Shit.”
“What?”
Both stared into the five-by-five closet. The walls had been painted a pale blue and were covered in bright posters featuring foreign cities. Rome. Paris. Madrid. And on the ceiling, Zurich. A plush mattress warmed the concrete floor. Blue sheets, several down pillows and a handmade pink and white quilt made the space almost cozy. Nestled between the mattress and the wall was an eight-by-ten-inch hand-painted wooden box. On top of the box, rhinestones spelled out the word LISA.
Garrison ran his hand over the back of his neck. “She lived in the storage closet.”
“The one place that was all her own.”
Images of the frail, badly mutilated body found behind the shelter flashed in his mind. She’d suffered a horrible death but clearly demons haunted her for some time. “Hell of a life when you feel at home in a storage closet.” He reached into the room and grabbed the box. The box was filled with dozens of personal mementos. A child’s diary, complete with a little lock. A handful of pictures featuring a younger Lisa with unidentified friends. A silver cross on a delicate chain. And buried on the bottom was a diary.
He opened the book and discovered the entries appeared to be gibberish. The letters made no sense. “She keeps her journal in code.”
“Interesting. What’s so scary you have to hide it so thoroughly?”
“I don’t know.” Garrison thumbed through the pages of precise handwriting. Just as he reached the end, a pendant shaped like a four-pointed star fell to the ground. He picked it up. “What do you think?”
Malcolm studied the pendant. “Looks a lot like the brand.”
The star’s rhinestones caught the shed’s light, which dangled and swayed as if an imaginary hand had just nudged it. Specks of light danced on the wall. “It does.”
“It’s nothing all that special. Looks like a department store buy. I’ve a couple of sisters who had jewelry boxes full of that stuff.”
Garrison’s sister had loved her baubles too. His parents had buried her with a red sparkly heart that he’d bought her a couple of weeks before she died. “It meant something to her, otherwise she’d have tossed it like she did with everything else personal in her apartment.”
Time had chipped away some of the star’s glass stones. “Whoever gave this to her did so a long time ago.”
“Must
have been very personal, otherwise it wouldn’t be hidden away. I thought her killer might have been one of her boyfriends, but now I’m not so sure.”
Garrison shook his head. “At this point, hell if I know. But we need to get this journal code broken and figure out what Lisa Black didn’t want the world to know.”
A knock on the condo unit’s front door had Garrison crossing the condo to answer it. Mr. Pemberton stood on the threshold, holding a stack of mail in his hand.
Garrison frowned. “I said I’d get the mail.”
“Found another key. Thought I could help. I want to help.”
Garrison took the mail, a muscle in the side of his jaw tensing. He had no way of knowing if Pemberton had removed anything from the box.
Garrison sailed through the traffic that snarled where I-95 intersected with the Beltway. Locals called it the Melting Pot, which despite billions of dollars of road improvements, always clogged with commuter traffic even on a good day. Toss in a fender bender, or bad weather, and the line of cars slowed even more. But at nearly nine in the evening, the traffic was light.
The thick scent of bleach greeted them when they pushed through the metal doors of the medical examiner’s autopsy room. The tiled gray floors had a dull polish and florescent bulbs cast an overbright light on the room.
Dr. Amanda Henson, a tall, slim redhead, stood next to a stainless-steel table, which held Lisa Black’s nude body. Under the harsh lights the star brand looked redder and angrier. Dr. Henson had just cut the Y incision into the body’s chest and with pliers snapped through the first rib.
Only in her mid-thirties, Henson wore her auburn curls in a tight bun generally favored by much older women. Dark horn-rimmed glasses framed vivid blue eyes and offset a splay of freckles over her cosmetic-free face. She always wore white Dansko clogs and no jewelry. A high slash of cheekbones, full lips and a trim silhouette under her shapeless scrubs kept her from looking plain and men wondering what she looked like dolled up.
“Just in time, gentlemen.” A rib snapped.
Malcolm slid his hand into his pocket, doing his best to look relaxed but Garrison had come to recognize the move as a mental bracing. “Would hate to miss the show.”