4th of July (Women's Murder Club 4)

Chapter 74

JOE COOKED BACON AND scrambled eggs in the dazzling light pouring through the kitchen windows. I filled mugs with coffee, and Joe read the squint in my eyes for the unspoken question that it was.

“I’m here until I get the call. If you want, I’ll help you brainstorm the murders.”

We got into the Explorer with Joe at the wheel and Martha on my lap. I filled Joe in on the Sarduccis as we slowly cruised past their glass house beside the bay.

Then we headed up to Crescent Heights, taking the snaking dirt road to the door of the Daltrys’ abandoned little house.

If ever a house looked devastated by murder, this was it. The front lawn had gone to seed, boards had been hammered over the windows and the doors, and scraps of crime scene tape fluttered like little yellow birds in the bushes.

“Very different socioeconomic class from the Sarduccis,” said Joe.

“Yeah. I don’t think these murders have anything to do with money.”

We pointed the Explorer down the mountain and within a few minutes we entered Ocean Colony, the golf course–bordered community where the O’Malleys had lived and died. I pointed out the white colonial with blue shutters as we neared it. Now there was a For Sale sign in the front yard and a Lincoln in the driveway.

We parked at the curb and saw a blond woman in a pink Lilly Pulitzer dress exit the house and lock the front door. When she saw us, her face stretched into a heavily lipsticked smile.

“Hello,” she said, “I’m Emily Harris, Pacific Homes Real Estate. I’m sorry; the open house is Sunday. I can’t show you the home now because I have an appointment in town. . . .”

My face must have shown disappointment, and I saw Ms. Harris size us up as likely prospects.

“Listen. Replace the key in the lockbox on your way out. Okay?”

We got out of the car, and I linked my arm through Joe’s. Looking every bit the married couple shopping for our new home, Joe and I climbed the front steps and unlocked the O’Malleys’ front door.

Chapter 75

THE INSIDE OF THE house had been sanitized, spiffed up, and repainted—whatever it took to get top dollar for a very challenging property. I lingered in the center hall, then followed Joe up the winding staircase.

When I got to the master bedroom, I found him staring at the closet door.

“There was a small hole here, at eye level—see, Linds? It was patched.” He dented the still-malleable Spackle with his fingernail.

“A peephole?”

“A peephole in a closet,” said Joe. “That’s odd, don’t you think? Unless the O’Malleys were making home movies.”

My mind whirled for a moment as I grappled with a possible connection between homemade porn and the Randy Long variety. Had the cops seen the camera setup?

And if they had, so what?

There was nothing illegal about consenting adults at play.

I stepped inside the newly painted closet, batted the wire coat hangers aside, then grabbed them to stop their jangling.

That’s when I saw another patch of Spackle visible under the fresh paint.

I prodded it with a finger and felt my heart start to hammer. There was another peephole at the back of the closet and it went right through the wall.

I took one of the hangers off the rod and straightened it into a long wire, which I inserted into the hole.

“Joe, could you go find where this comes out?”

The wire felt like a living thing as I waited for the tug that finally came from the other end. Joe returned seconds later. “It goes through to another bedroom. You should see this, Lindsay.”

The room next door was still partly furnished, with a ruffled four-poster, matching vanity, and an ornate full-length mirror affixed to the wall. Joe pointed out the hole disguised as a floral detail in the mirror’s carved wooden frame.