Robert Ellis - The Dead Room

She was trying to soften the blow. Teddy knew that he’d flamed out. This wasn’t his world. He’d done the best he could to hang in and wasn’t about to beat himself up for it.

She held the checkbook out and smiled. “If you want a look, you better do it now,” she said. “It’s gotta go back with Detective Vega tonight. If you’re not feeling up to it, you can go down to the roundhouse in the morning and look at it there.”

Teddy was up to it and got rid of his cigarette. As he took the checkbook, Andrews strode out of the building with Vega. The district attorney looked as if he might hit Teddy with another wise crack, but the camera lights powered up as soon as he cleared the entrance and the man knew he was on. Andrews raised his arms in the air, fending off questions that hadn’t come yet and hustling down the sidewalk to the news vans. As he greeted the press wearing the look of concern Teddy had seen him practicing at the boathouse the other night, Teddy couldn’t help thinking of the flaw in Barnett’s plan. He’d thought it before, but it was even more apparent now. Andrews loved what was going on. The two bodies they’d spent the afternoon ripping apart were a godsend to the man. A leap forward, not two steps back.

“There’s a connection,” Andrews said in a dramatic voice to the reporters huddling around him. “A definite connection between the murders of Darlene Lewis and Valerie Kram. The medical examiner’s results won’t be in for a while, but let me tell you what I’ve got. The cause of death in both cases wasn’t from the wounds these two poor souls endured. The cause of death was strangulation. If I haven’t said it before, I’m saying it now. Our hearts go out to the families of both these young women.”

The man’s tone of voice was over the top, his pretense abhorrent. All afternoon he’d been dancing on their graves.

Teddy stopped listening and opened the checkbook. Glancing at the register, he noted that Holmes wrote checks on the first and fifteenth of every month without much variation. Between rent, telephone, insurance, and utilities, it amounted to only seven checks a month. His balance averaged about ten grand. Once a quarter Holmes wrote a check to an investment firm for two thousand dollars.

Teddy paged back to October. Unfortunately, Holmes kept to his routine. There were no entries made on the day Valerie Kram had been kidnapped-no checks written between the fifteenth of the month and November 1. Oscar Holmes didn’t have an alibi for the twenty-sixth, and trying to figure out what he was up to on that day seemed like a dead end.

He looked at Powell, hiding his disappointment. She was watching Andrews field questions, but he could tell she was thinking about something else. He wondered if she didn’t have a husband, even children to go home to. He glanced at her left hand and didn’t see a wedding ring. It had been a long day. Maybe she just needed a break, too.

“What about the ten others?” a reporter shouted, pushing his way toward the DA. “Families are worried. Our phones are ringing off the hook.”

Teddy turned sharply. Powell must have noticed because he could feel her eyes on him. To Teddy’s surprise, Andrews was ready for the question.

“We’ve isolated ten missing persons we think require a closer look,” Andrews said. “I’m meeting with their families in the morning to give them a full briefing. There’s no question that the investigation is widening out. But remember, Holmes is already confined to a cell. We’re saddened by what these families have lost. There’s no reason for anyone to jump to any conclusions. There’s no reason for anyone else in the city to panic right now.”

Teddy looked at the reporters’ faces and realized they wanted to believe the district attorney but were still frightened. He turned away, thinking about the ME’s initial conclusions.

Nothing he’d heard anyone say today discounted his own theory about what might have happened-the idea that in Darlene Lewis’s case Holmes may have interrupted someone else. In some ways the observations made in the examination room actually bolstered his theory. Darlene Lewis had been cut, the murderer waiting for her to bleed out. Then, for some reason, he strangled her. It had been a sudden act, a quick and powerful move, the kind of response someone might have if they needed to end things in a heartbeat because they were interrupted. It didn’t explain why the killer hadn’t kept the girl alive for a month as he did with Valerie Kram. Teddy knew it didn’t shed any light on why the murderer cut Lewis up at her home rather than stealing the girl away and wearing her down. Still, his theory had survived the autopsy, and he didn’t think he was grabbing at straws. The possibility that everyone was caught up in the details and missing what really happened-the chance that Holmes might actually be innocent-still had legs.

His mind was rolling. Teddy was thinking clearly again. When he looked up, he found Powell appraising him. She took a step closer, staring at him like maybe she’d been reading his mind. Teddy shrugged it off and handed her the checkbook. When he thanked her, she didn’t step back.

“Let’s go get a drink,” she said.

It had begun to snow. The restaurant was just off campus and nearly empty, and they were shown to a table by a window in the back. Powell ordered a Bombay martini, dry with three olives. Under normal circumstances, Teddy would have asked for a beer. But with the weight of what he’d seen that day still with him, he told the waitress to make it two.

As they waited for their drinks, Powell gazed out the window watching the snowflakes float to the ground without saying anything. Teddy realized that what Detective Vega had told him before the autopsies wasn’t necessarily true. Getting used to it was something a medical examiner might achieve, but for the rest of the world the prospect would take more than time. Even Powell, a seasoned prosecutor who’d probably attended a hundred autopsies, looked as if the afternoon was still preying on her mind.

The waitress arrived with their drinks. As she set them down on the table, Teddy couldn’t help but notice something was wrong. She stepped away quickly, her banter forced.

“It’s the smell,” Powell said when they were alone. “That’s why we got the window table in back.”

Teddy wasn’t sure what she was talking about until Powell sniffed her own blouse. On her cue he pulled his shirt to his nose and inhaled. It was the smell of death. The scent he thought he’d only been carrying around in his head. The odor had permeated their clothing.

“You’ll have to get your suit dry-cleaned,” she said. “It’s the only way I know to get it out.”

They sipped their drinks. The gin was smooth, rolling through him and sparking an immediate glow. He could feel his shoulders and neck loosening up and was glad he’d ordered the martini rather than a beer.

“There’s a problem with your story,” Powell said after a moment.

“What story is that?”

“The way you found Valerie Kram’s body at the boathouse. The reason you were there.”

She wasn’t grilling him. Instead, she appeared relaxed, and he thought he detected a faint smile.

“What’s the problem?” he asked.

“The assistant warden called and said you visited Holmes today. When he walked you out, he noticed you were carrying a picture of Valerie Kram. Obviously, you showed that picture to your client. You wouldn’t have done that if he’d already told you where she was.”

Nash had been right about her. She was smart. Even if she remained preoccupied by the physical evidence, she was still doing her job. Still searching and trying to understand. And she was also stunning. Teddy tried to ignore her looks, but the martini had a firm grip on him by now. His eyes kept drifting over her face.