J. Bertrand - Pattern of Wounds

Before Cavallo’s husband went back to war, the newlyweds played house in a dilapidated Montrose cottage that must have seemed like a good investment at the time. A little sweat equity and they could flip it for a tidy profit. From the curb it looks like the sweat was invested elsewhere. Nothing has changed since my last visit apart from the wreath on the door and the jumble of unlit lights hanging from the rain gutters.

I step through the open door and call Theresa’s name. She walks through from the kitchen dressed in sweats and a v-neck shirt, a laundry basket balanced on her hip.

“Give me two minutes,” she says, disappearing down the hallway.

The nice thing about the cottage is that it’s never been updated. The floors, the wood trim, and even the windowpanes look original. I shudder to think what state the wiring must be in. Cavallo’s flat-packed furniture and rock band posters are an incongruous fit, and despite the passage of months, the place still feels like she’s just moved in. I sit on the edge of a shiny black sofa to await her return.

Five minutes later, she reappears, now dressed in jeans and a baggy sweater, her curly hair tied back into a ponytail. She sits cross-legged in an overstuffed chair across from me, the only piece that’s seen much use, and I fill her in on everything that’s happened since our visit to Dr. Hill’s place on Monday. When I finish, she shakes her head in amazement.

“You’ve had quite a week,” she says. “But I still don’t see what you want from me.”

I look at my watch. “An hour from now, I’ve got to sit down with this guy Lauterbach and compare notes. I’d like you there as a fresh set of eyes.”

“Wouldn’t you be better off with a fellow homicide detective?”

“Not particularly. Look, I want someone I can trust, and you fit the bill. Plus, you have a connection with Brad Templeton, thanks to his book on the Mayhew case, and that could be useful now that Brad’s got me in his crosshairs. Someone has to talk sense into him, and it might as well be someone young and pretty like you.”

“I’m flattered,” she says. “Though I don’t think I’m Brad’s type.”

“You can turn on the charm if you have to.”

“But what’s the real reason you want my help? It’s not like last time where I can go to Wanda and get her to sign off. You’ve gotta give me a good reason, March, or this isn’t gonna happen.”

“I’m asking you because you’re not in Homicide and don’t want to be. That means my bosses can’t put a word in your ear and turn you against me.”

“You don’t trust your colleagues?”

“Aguilar’s all right. Reliable. But he’s not going to stick his neck out.”

“But I will?”

“You won’t have to,” I say. “And it’s not like I’m asking you to work the case with me. It’s just this one meeting. All you have to do is sit there and take everything in, then afterward tell me what you honestly think.”

“And if it’s not what you want to hear?”

“When has that ever stopped you?”

We take my car downtown, parking on San Jacinto and walking the rest of the way. Cavallo tells me that the last time she spoke to Brad Templeton, he was agitated about his Hannah Mayhew book, The Girl Who Forgave Her Killer . Thanks to the case’s nationwide profile, the market had been inundated with competing accounts, most of them hitting the market sooner. Though they were slapdash affairs riddled with errors, these books soaked up most of the demand, leaving only a hardcore audience for Templeton’s definitive text. It’s hard for me to believe that just a few months ago we were on good enough terms to have hosted a book party at our house.

“The night of the party,” I say, “he must have already been working on this thing with Lauterbach. Did he drop any hints to you?”

She shakes her head.

We enter the six-story redbrick building and breeze through security, letting the first available elevator, half occupied, leave without us. The second one’s empty, so we take that.

“If Brad is responsible,” she says, “and he did all this behind your back, I can’t help thinking he has a reason.”

“He probably thinks it will make a great book.”

“That’s not fair. He believes in his work, March, just like you. I can’t see him undoing it unless he was really convinced he’d made a mistake.”

“You mean I’d made a mistake.”

“That’s the hard part for you. People thinking you were wrong.”

“I don’t know much,” I say. “Right now, I’m not sure what direction to move in. But I do know that this hayseed we’re about to sit down with is dead wrong.”

“How could he not be, going up against you?”

“I’m serious, Cavallo.”

“Oh, I know.”

Lauterbach eyes Cavallo from the other side of the conference table, then rises to take her hand. His smile strikes me as almost sinister underneath the drooping mustache. His Western yoke jacket is over his chair, giving us a prize view of the tooled leather holster and the gleaming Government Model on his hip. The laptop is already projecting onto a screen, and there are six tall stacks of paperwork down the spine of the table. He offers us our pick from the cluster of bottled waters on the sideboard.

“What?” I say. “You didn’t light any candles?”

“Have your fun,” Lauterbach replies. “I laid everything out for you as a show of appreciation. I know you think I blindsided you on this thing, but that’s not the case. Did I or did I not bring everything to you in advance?”

“You did not. One case, that’s all I got from you-and you pretended like you’d never seen Templeton’s book before, when the fact is he’s the one who drew the map for you. It was a slick move, I’ll give you that. But now you have my full attention.”

“Don’t mind him,” Cavallo says, inserting herself between us. She takes one of the water bottles and twists off the cap. “And don’t mind me, either. I’m just along for the ride.”

“I remember you now,” Lauterbach tells her, a twinkle in his eye. “You helped run the Hannah Mayhew task force.”

“That was me.” She gives a self-deprecating shrug. “Though it’s March who deserves the credit on that case.”

“That’s what he told me.”

Ignoring them, I start sifting through the reports on the table. All told, there are records on fifteen open homicides going back ten years. Scene photos, autopsy photos, an assortment of videos shot on-site by detectives and crime scene photographers. Out of curiosity and a deep-rooted morbid streak, I dig around for the macabre example Templeton cited to me, the severed head floating in the fish tank. There are things that strike a veteran homicide cop as darkly funny that would be horrific to anyone else. As far as I can tell, though, the beheading is not among these files.

Lauterbach goes for the light switch.

“Hold on a second,” I say. “You’re not gonna put me through another PowerPoint.”

“Not another one, no.” He flicks the light off. “Detective Cavallo hasn’t seen the first one, so I figured I’d catch her up.”

Sinking into a chair, I suppress my desire to moan. The Sheriff’s Department detective will not allow his inner showman to be denied. Cavallo tucks herself into a seat across from me, smiling at my discomfort. Spectators at old-fashioned bear baitings no doubt wore very similar expressions, anticipating the blood sport to come.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12 — 4:19 P.M.

Lauterbach reads aloud from a summary sheet while Cavallo and I follow along:

1999, Nicole Fauk, age 43

Kingwood housewife discovered in swimming pool. Probable 6” blade, not recovered at scene. [Suspect charged, convicted.]