The Kept Woman (Will Trent 8)

There was a lot of blood.

Sprayed on the ceiling, spattered and splattered on walls, glistening against the nearly black criss-cross of competing graffiti. The floor was flooded, like someone had opened the spigot on Harding’s carotid and let it run dry. Light danced off the dark, congealing liquid. Will could taste metal in his mouth as oxygen hit iron. Underneath it all he caught a whiff of piss that for some reason made him feel sorrier for the guy than the doorknob sticking Frankenstein-like out of the meaty hambone of his neck.

In policing, there wasn’t a lot of dignity in death.

Dale Harding’s body was in the center of the room, which was about fifteen feet square with a vaulted ceiling. He was flat on his back, a big, bald guy wearing a cheap, shiny suit that wouldn’t close around his ample gut, more like a cop of his father’s generation than his own. His shirt had come untucked on one side. His red and blue striped tie was split like the legs of a hurdler. The waistband of his pants was rolled over. His stainless-steel TAG Heuer had turned into a tourniquet on his wrist because his body was swelling with the various juices of decay. A gold diamond ring cut into his pinky finger. Black dress socks stretched around his waxy yellow ankles. His mouth was open. His eyes were closed. He obviously had some kind of eczema. The dry skin around his mouth and nose looked like it was speckled with sugar.

Weirdly, there was only a slash of blood on the front of his body, like a painter had flicked a brush at him. There were a few drops on his face, but nothing else, especially where you’d expect it, around the too-tight collar of his shirt.

‘These were found on the stairs.’

Will turned back around.

Faith was rolling the evidence bag in her hands so that she could read the labels on the contents. ‘BareMinerals. Mac. Light browns in the eyeshadows. Espresso-brown mascara. Chocolate eyeliner. The foundation and powder are a light medium.’

Amanda said, ‘So, probably a white woman.’

‘There’s also a tin of lip balm. La Mer.’

‘Rich white woman,’ Amanda amended. Will knew the brand, but only because Sara wore it. He’d accidentally seen the receipt and nearly had a heart attack. The balm cost more per ounce than a brick of heroin.

Amanda said, ‘So, we can assume a woman was here with Harding.’

‘And now she’s not,’ Faith said. ‘Doorknob to the neck sounds like something a woman would do.’

Amanda asked, ‘Where’s the purse?’

‘Inside the room. It looks torn, like it got caught on something.’

‘And only the make-up fell out?’

Faith picked up the other evidence bags and listed off the contents. ‘One car key, Chevy, model unknown, no keychain. A hairbrush with long brown hair in the bristles—they’ll get that to the lab ASAP. Tin of Altoids, spearmint. Various coins with purse fuzz. Pack of Puffs tissue. Plastic contact lens case. A tube of ChapStick, the poor woman’s La Mer.’

‘No wallet?’

Faith shook her head. ‘The photographer says he didn’t see one in the purse either, but we’ll look when he’s finished.’

‘So, we have a dead cop and a missing woman.’ Amanda read Will’s expression. ‘She hasn’t left the house. I talked to her an hour ago and checked in with the sheriff’s deputy who’s parked outside.’

Keisha Miscavage, Marcus Rippy’s accuser. Her name hadn’t been released to the press, but nobody stayed anonymous with the internet. Keisha had been forced into hiding three months ago, and she still had twenty-four-hour police protection because of credible death threats from several of Rippy’s fans.

Collier said, ‘What about all these gang tags? I’m counting two up here, at least four downstairs. We should get the gang taskforce on this, round up some bangers.’

Faith asked, ‘Should we round up all the unicorns, too?’

Amanda shook her head. ‘This is about the woman. Let’s assume that she was in this room. Let’s also assume she had something to do with the disposition of the victim, if we can call Harding the victim.’ She looked down at the contents from the purse. ‘This is a white, fairly wealthy woman meeting a dirty cop in a bad part of town in the middle of the night. Why? What was she doing here?’

Collier said, ‘Paying for it’s easier than marrying it. Maybe she was an escort, only he didn’t wanna or couldn’t pay and she got mad?’

Faith countered, ‘Strange place to meet up for a blow job.’

‘That’s a small tarp,’ Will said, because Amanda didn’t spend her weekends strolling the tarp section at her local hardware store. ‘Standard would be a five-by-seven, six-by-twelve, but the package outside was for a three-feet-seven by five-feet-seven, which is forty-three inches by sixty-seven. Harding’s at least a forty-inch waist, and around six feet tall.’

Amanda stared at him. ‘I need that in English.’

‘If the killer brought the tarp to the scene in order to dispose of a body, then the tarp he purchased was for a much smaller person.’

‘A woman-sized tarp,’ Faith said. ‘Great.’

Amanda was nodding. ‘Harding met the woman here to kill her, but she managed to get the upper hand.’

‘She’s injured.’ Sara came up the stairs. Her glasses were hooked on her shirt collar. She used the back of her arm to wipe the sweat off her forehead. ‘There are bloody bare footprints going up the left set of stairs. Likely a woman’s, probably size seven or eight, with a heavy strike that indicates she was running.’ She pointed back at the stairs. ‘Second tread down, there’s an impact point that indicates she fell and hit her head, likely at the crown. We found some long brown hair in the spatter, similar to what was found in the hairbrush.’ She pointed to the other set of stairs. ‘On the right, we’ve got more footprints, walking, and passive spatter leaving a trail toward the emergency side exit, then it disappears on the metal stairs. Passive spatter indicates a weeping wound.’

‘Ran up and walked down?’ Amanda guessed.

‘It’s possible.’ Sara shrugged. ‘There have been hundreds of people in and out of this building. Someone could have made the footprints last week and someone else could’ve left the drops of blood last night. We’ll need to sequence DNA on every sample before we can definitively say what belongs to whom.’

Amanda glowered. DNA could take weeks. She preferred her science more instantaneous.

‘Finished.’ The photographer started peeling off his Tyvek suit. His clothes were soaking wet. His hair looked painted onto his head. He told Amanda, ‘You can have the room. I’ll get the photos processed and uploaded as soon as I get back.’

She nodded. ‘Thank you.’

Sara pulled a fresh pair of gloves from her back pocket. ‘These shoeprints here—’ She pointed to the floor, which looked like it belonged in an Arthur Murray studio. ‘They’re from the first responders. Two sets. One went into the room, probably to see the face. The treads for both are nearly identical. HAIX Black Eagles. Police issue.’

Collier bristled. ‘They said in their statements that they didn’t enter the room.’

‘You might want to go back at them.’ Sara slipped on a fresh pair of shoe protectors as she explained, ‘There’s a lot of blood. They recognized the victim. He’s a fellow officer. That’s a lot to—’