Robert Ellis - Murder Season

Privacy was no longer an issue. If someone saw what she was doing and called 911, Lena would have welcomed the company. Still, the quickest way in was the deadbolt on the back door.

She fished out her tension wrench and short hook and took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves. The lock was so old that she could hear the pins clicking over the din of the neighborhood. Within forty-five seconds, she felt the wrench begin turning and gave the door a push.

She was standing in a small mudroom. The alarm hadn’t been armed, and she could hear the sound of a television cutting through the stillness. Stepping into the foyer, she noted the ceiling fan rotating slowly above the living room and a dining area that hadn’t been cleaned up from last night. There were two place settings on the table, along with two glasses of red wine that had only been partially consumed. She lifted the bottle up to the window light and saw that it was empty. When she set it down, she spotted the TV in the corner tuned to CNN and became aware of an odor. Some sort of cleaning product with a strong artificial scent.

Grapefruit, maybe. It seemed so odd and out of place.

She stepped back into the foyer, turned the corner, and entered the kitchen. There was a bucket filled with water on the floor. A mop leaned against the wall, and she saw a pile of rags and a bottle of Mr. Clean by the sink. When a phone started ringing, she flinched but caught herself. She spotted the cell phone on the breakfast table by Watson’s handbag but didn’t touch it. Leaning closer, she read the caller ID and realized that it was Watson’s office number. Her assistant was still worried, still trying to reach her boss.

Lena noticed the sun beginning to set outside and took two more deep breaths as she switched on the overhead light. It wasn’t working anymore. The churning in her stomach wouldn’t go away, the bad vibes following her from room to room.

She turned and looked on the other side of the refrigerator. There was a large cutting board on the counter and a set of hand forged chef’s knives from Japan. A photograph of Watson with a little girl riding a swing was leaning against the backsplash. On the wall beside the door, Lena found another alarm panel and realized that the door opened to the garage.

And on the floor-when her eyes finally drifted down to the tiled floor-she saw the blood that hadn’t been entirely cleaned up. The drag marks leading into the garage.

She took the jolt but steadied herself. Stepping around the blood, she opened the door and looked at the white Audi in the darkness. She took a whiff of the air and knew with certainty that her conversation with Debi Watson wouldn’t involve many words.

She hit the light switch, scanning the room for a corpse. The floor was clear and she gave the car a long look. Returning to the kitchen, she opened Watson’s handbag and fished out her keys. Then she stepped over the drag marks, hit the clicker, and tried to keep cool.

The car beeped and the trunk popped open.

The air in the garage changed quickly, becoming sour and harsh. Lena covered her mouth and nose and hurried around the car for a look.

And then she stopped.

She could see Watson’s body in the small trunk. Her face. Her curly blond hair. The dried blood that had trickled out of her mouth. The two bullet wounds piercing her abdomen and chest. She was wrapped in clear plastic. Her eyes were open, her palm pressing against the plastic as if she’d still been alive when she was packed up and left in the darkness. Nothing about her death looked easy.

Lena staggered back into the kitchen, the gruesome image still with her as she closed the door to the garage.

She took a moment to collect herself, then another before picking up Watson’s cell phone for a look at her recent call list.

Her last call out had been to Lena at 6:25 p.m. last night. Bennett had called her a half hour before that and the two had spoken for a couple of minutes. The next calls made to Watson’s cell phone began at 10:00 a.m. this morning from her office, and continued every hour until just a few minutes ago.

She set the phone down and thought it through.

The disposal of Debi Watson was still a work in progress. She was certain of this. The killer had wrapped her up and placed her in the trunk because he intended to dump her corpse somewhere else. But even more telling, the killer hadn’t finished cleaning up. The bucket of water, the fresh rags beside the bottle of Mr. Clean, the mop leaning against the wall-it seemed clear enough that he had every intention of returning. Because there were no signs of forced entry, it was a better than good guess that Watson knew her killer. That they shared dinner together last night with a bottle of wine. That the killer could come and go as he pleased because he had a set of keys. And that he would be back sometime tonight to finish up.

Could there really be any doubt?

She hit the stairs for a look at the master bedroom. On the chest of drawers was a photograph of Watson with Bennett. It looked like they had taken a day off and traveled south to the racetrack in Del Mar. They were sitting at a table with cocktails. Although Watson’s smile looked genuine enough, Lena couldn’t help thinking that even in this setting, Bennett appeared mean and vicious.

She set the picture frame down and stepped into the bathroom. There were two sinks. She saw the hair dryer and makeup, then spotted a shaving kit on the counter and moved down to the far sink. Nothing stood out as she sifted through the items except that the kit seemed so needlessly full. Checking the cabinet underneath, she found a number of empty baskets. From the stains in the webbing, she could tell that the baskets once held toiletries and that Bennett was making his move and packing up.

She could feel the tension building in her shoulders, a fresh load of adrenaline making a jagged run through her body.

She glanced at the large bed, noted the silk sheets, then yanked open the closet doors. The racks were filled entirely with Watson’s clothing. There was no room for sharing here. When she checked the drawers, she didn’t find anything that might belong to Bennett.

She hurried down the hall, found the guest room, and switched on the lights. As she entered, she saw two boxes of cleaned shirts on the bed and several pairs of men’s dress shoes by the chair. An open suitcase was set on the trunk by the window. She pulled the closet doors open and counted five business suits on the rack, along with one that was wrapped up and had probably come from the dry cleaners with the two boxes of shirts on the bed.

She was overdosing on the moment now. Choking on it.

She started to pull the plastic away from the suit. Slowly at first, then ripping at it with her fingers when she saw the pinstripes. Her face flushed with heat, her eyes reeling back and forth across the fabric until they zeroed in on the left lapel and found the mark.

Cobb’s mind was beginning to skip through time again.

He’d spent the last hour gazing at the sunset and daydreaming about a ribeye steak, a glass of Cutty Sark, and a night under the sheets with Betty Kim. After wasting the day watching Bennett fool around in his garage, Cobb thought he deserved a reward of significant proportions. If it came down to a single choice, he would have saved the food and whisky for later, and picked door number three. Betty Kim. But it was a Friday night; he knew his life was on the line, and he saw no reason why he didn’t deserve all three.

He dug the bottle of Tylenol out of his pocket and gave it a shake, but only one caplet fell out. Grimacing at the empty bottle, he popped the pill and knocked it back with what was left of his bottled water. His back hurt. He’d spent most of the day hiding in the brush overlooking Bennett’s McMansion with his elbows pinned to the ground.