John Lutz - Darker Than Night

“You’re playing detective,” Quinn said.

“That’s okay,” Nift said. “You can play medical examiner.”

Quinn ignored him and stuck to business. “Did she die early or late in the game?”

“The pattern of bleeding suggests she died with the last stab wound, to the heart.”

“He wanted her to suffer,” Pearl said.

“What about time of death?” Quinn asked.

“Early morning,” Nift said. “One or two o’clock. Three, three-thirty at the outside. I’ll be able to make a closer estimate later.”

Quinn had moved to get a different perspective of the room, which was well furnished and looked freshly painted. Most of the furniture looked new.

“They live here long?” he asked nobody in particular, getting into the mode of command again. An assumption of authority that had become part of him. He sent a look Fedderman’s way.

Fedderman understood and left the bedroom to talk to one of the uniforms who’d taken the call and were first on the scene. Nobody said anything until he returned a few minutes later.

“The Grahams moved in three months ago. Neighbors didn’t know much about them. Guy next door said they argued a lot. He could hear them through the ducts.”

“We oughta find out what else he might have heard through the ducts,” Pearl said.

Quinn seemed not to have heard her. He was studying the room, the way the dead man lay, the closet door hanging open and how the clothes were draped on the hangers, the way the wife was sprawled on her back with her nightgown up so her breasts showed. What had happened to her breasts. He felt his stomach turn and he swallowed bile that rose bitterly at the back of his throat. All these years on the job, and he still didn’t understand how people could do this kind of thing to each other.

He made himself walk over and look more closely at the wife, and at the area around her body.

“Looks like our killer was hiding in the closet,” he said, “and surprised the husband when he opened the door. After stabbing the husband, he went for the wife.”

“Killer musta gotten blood on him from the wife,” Fedderman said.

Quinn wasn’t so sure. Someone expert enough with a knife knew how people bled, and could avoid being marked.

“No sign of him having washed up,” Pearl said, “but we can check the drains for traces of blood to be sure.”

“Maybe she had a lover on the side, and Hubby came home unexpectedly,” Fedderman said. “The lover hid in the closet, but maybe made some noise the husband heard and went to investigate. Bad things ensued.”

“Hubby must have had time to get undressed and ready for bed,” Pearl said with an edge of sarcasm.

“Could have gone that way. The wife’s lover mighta been trapped in the closet for hours, hoping for an opportunity to leave before daylight.”

“Like in those French bedroom farces,” Pearl said.

Nift laughed.

Quinn and the others looked at him.

“Detectives!” Nift said. “Your theories are all bullshit.”

Quinn cocked his head at the little man. “Why so sure?”

“You didn’t look close enough at the husband. He’s still gripping the knife he used to kill his wife, then to stab himself through the heart.”

Quinn returned to the husband and got down on one knee beside him. He could see the end of a knife handle in one of the dead hands drawn close to the husband’s midsection. He moved an arm slightly to peer at the knife, which appeared to be a paring or boning knife with a long, thin blade.

“Murder-suicide,” Nift said.

Quinn nodded. “Looks that way, Detective Nift.” He glanced at Pearl and Fedderman and made a slight sideways motion with his head to signal they were leaving. “We’ll give you a while, then get back to you about exact time and cause,” he said to Nift.

“It’ll all be in the autopsy report,” Nift said. He looked down at Marcella Graham and shook his head sadly. “Damned shame, great rack like that.”

Quinn didn’t look at him as he left the bedroom, Pearl and Fedderman following. They made their way through the techs who were busily luminoling the living room, nodding to a few they knew, then went into the kitchen.

“Some blood on the soap,” said one of the techs, a curly-haired guy about Nift’s size, leaning over the sink. He was slipping a small bar of white soap into a plastic evidence bag. “Looks like somebody washed up here. There’ll be more blood residue in the drain.”

“If any of it’s the killer’s blood, we got this asshole’s DNA,” Fedderman said.

“Then all we’d need is the asshole himself,” Pearl said, “and we’d have a match.”

“Knife come from there?” Quinn asked, nodding toward an open drawer above one of the base cabinets.

“Probably,” said the tech. “That’s the drawer where the knives were kept, and it was open like that.”

Quinn walked over and peered into the drawer. It had one of those plastic dividers. He saw an elaborate wine cork puller, spatulas, a long-tined fork, and lots of knives with wooden handles. Like the knife in hubby’s hand.

He turned away from the drawer and looked at the refrigerator. It was large and appeared to be fairly new. There was a big clear bowl on top, probably for salads, and next to the bowl a slender glass vase with a yellow rose in it. “Fridge been dusted?”

The tech nodded. “Not that it matters. The way the prints are smeared and overlaid, I can tell you somebody was in here recently wearing gloves.”

“Why would Ron Graham have worn gloves?” Pearl asked Quinn and Fedderman.

But it was the tech who answered. “I’ve seen this before, when it was somebody in the kitchen doing cleaning while wearing rubber gloves. Some women protect their hands that way.”

Everybody’s a detective, Quinn thought. But the tech was right. Not too much could be made of the gloves. Still…

“Found any rubber gloves in here?” he asked the tech.

“Not so far.”

“Uh-huh.”

Quinn went to the refrigerator and used two fingers to open it. Pearl and Fedderman crowded close to peer inside with him.

“Nothing unusual,” Fedderman said in a disappointed voice, feeling cold air spilling out around his ankles as he looked at milk and juice cartons, condiment jars and bottles, soda and beer cans.

Pearl, who’d been standing very close to Quinn, opened the meat drawer, then the produce drawer.

“Cheese,” she said, as if about to be photographed.

Quinn and Fedderman looked where she was pointing, near a head of lettuce. There were four large wedges of white cheese there, identical except that one of them was half gone, with the plastic wrapper tucked around it. The labels said the cheese was NORSTRUM GOURMET and it was imported from the Netherlands.

“Look at the price of this stuff,” Fedderman said.

“That’s why it’s gourmet,” Pearl told him. “It’s probably delicious.”

“Four wedges. Or almost four. Stuff must last a long time, and it’s pretty costly to be buying it four wedges at a whack.”

“And there’s no sign the Grahams were planning a party.”

Quinn was listening to them, pleased by their acumen and absorption. They were into the case all the way now, as he was. It was much more than a job.

“Dust the cheese for prints,” he said.

The tech grinned. “You kidding? Cheese doesn’t-”

“The wrappers,” Quinn said. “Dust the plastic wrappers.” He nudged the refrigerator door shut and glanced at Pearl and Fedderman. “Let’s go downstairs.”

He didn’t say anything while the three of them were in the elevator, waiting till they were outside on the sidewalk and out of earshot of anyone in the building.

“I think it’s our guy,” he said.