BREE STONE STOOD ALL ALONE on the roof of the Nineteenth Street house, staring at the spot where the sun had baked Brian Kitzmiller’s blood to a cracked black stain. All the wrong questions were running through her head: Did you suffer much, Kitz? Were you blindsided? Did you even have a fighting chance? Any chance at all? Did you know who did this?
They were inevitable questions, human ones, but also unhelpful to this investigation. She needed to focus on the killer’s methods and then trace any evidence he might have left here.
Tonight, Bio-Tec was coming in to clean the “yellow house.” The homeowners would be back in town tomorrow. This was the last walk-through, her final chance to find some shred of evidence that everyday life would soon erase.
Every indication was that the killer had come up through the roof hatch and had exited by the scaffold in the back, two houses over. Kitz’s postmortem had shown abrasions under the arms and fibers on his shirt where he’d been hauled up with a strong nylon rope, or a cord of some kind. Nonfatal levels of chloral hydrate were in his bloodstream, indicating he’d been unconscious, which was the only good news so far.
No blood was found inside the house, at least none that mattered. Kitz’s throat had been cut right here on the roof, not long before the police arrived. The killer probably could have timed it any way he wanted.
The bastard chose the close call, didn’t he? He planned everything about this, including that Kitz should die soon after we arrived.
Bree pressed her knuckles into the back of her neck. The pulsing headache she’d woken up with was turning into an all-day event. And the dark shirt she was wearing was a really bad call. It was already soaked through with sweat.
She walked toward the scaffold, past a litter of cigarette butts and half-crushed tall boys that hadn’t been there before, which meant that somebody had been. “Psychotourists,” Alex liked to call them, pathetic creeps drawn by a serial-crime scene. And hell, this was probably the most sensational case in the last ten years, unfortunately for everyone involved.
Bree looked straight down from the roof. The parking area below was mostly empty at this time of day. That’s where Kitz’s white Camry had been found in one of the resident spaces.
The killer either left on foot or had another vehicle waiting for him.
That is . . . if he left the scene at all.
Had he?
Or had he stayed awhile to watch and collect memories?
Did he always hang around afterward?
The actual murder had taken place in private, an interesting departure for DCAK. The audience was bigger but also more abstract—out there in TV land somewhere. Bree wondered if he’d wanted—needed—to check out the “live” crowd gathered on Nineteenth Street. She’d be willing to bet her shield that’s exactly what the bastard had done.
And what about the woman who’d been his accomplice in Baltimore? Had she been here too? Was she part of everything from the start? What was the deal with the two of them? Lovers? Former inmates at some asylum? And what connected them to Kyle Craig?
Bree sat on the edge of the roof, then finally let herself down the scaffold, carefully, because she was feeling a little shaky right now—too much stress, not enough sleep, not enough Alex either. Seconds later, she was on the ground.
From there, she forced herself to follow the killer’s most likely path, up the alley to A Street and back around to Nineteenth.
It was quiet now, especially compared to two days ago. A single MPD cruiser was parked in front of the house. Howie Pearsall, the officer she’d brought with her, was leaning against the passenger side. Howie was a good man, a friend of hers, just not the most ambitious guy in the world.
Bringing him was a safety precaution but not one that Bree took seriously. She was more likely to protect Howie than the other way around. He stood up straight and brushed something off his shirt when he saw her coming.
“At ease, soldier. Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Sorry I took so long, Howie.”
“How’d it go in there?” he wanted to know.
“Howie, it didn’t. Hold on, I’ll be right back.” She went up the front walk and tore the police notice off the door. So much for the crime scene.
“Excuse me. Detective?” The guy behind her on the lawn seemed to have come out of nowhere. What the hell was his deal?
“I’m Neil Stephens with the AP. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
Chapter 94
NEIL STEPHENS, OR RATHER DCAK, wanted to shoot Bree Stone full of holes right there in front of the house. Pull the .357 out of his vest. Bam. Dumb cop dead on the front walk. Get the uniform sloppily moping around by the squad car too.
But no. This wasn’t even a rehearsal, much less a performance. Maybe it was groundwork for later on, though. And a little bit of fun too. Detective Stone was, after all, a stone-cold fox. And she was Alex Cross’s girlfriend, wasn’t she? That made this very cool. Gave it stature and importance in his mind.
Stone kept moving toward the cruiser. “No comment,” she said, not even making eye contact with him.
So she was a bitch on wheels as well as a mediocre detective! Figured. Cops weren’t much of a challenge. Maybe collectively they were.