Christopher Smith - Running of the bulls

Hines reached into his pants pocket, produced a key attached to a yellow evidence tag and unlocked the front door. He pushed it open. Marty followed him inside.

The entryway was small, dim and opened to a larger room with cathedral ceilings. Hines went into the gloom, but Marty remained at the door, looking around, the damp, heavy air enclosing him like a fist.

“There was no forcible entry,” Hines said in the foyer. He turned on a desk lamp and the room took shape, exposing mahogany-paneled walls and a sweeping staircase that curved to the second floor. A layer of dust coated everything. The air smelled of old books and leather. “The alarm didn’t malfunction, either.”

Marty looked at the keypad on the wall beside him, saw the flashing red button that indicated the alarm wasn’t in use, and then glanced up at the high gray ceiling, where a video camera was trained down on him. The system was one of the best on the market. “You’ve viewed the contents of the DVR?”

Hines nodded.

“What was on it?”

“Just Wood coming home and deactivating the alarm, which cuts off the camera.”

“She didn’t reset it?”

He shook his head. “Let’s just say she wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“What time was this?”

“Oh five hundred hours,” Hines said. “The time and date’s imprinted on the footage.”

Marty nudged the front door shut with his elbow and stepped into the foyer. “She was just getting in at five in the morning?”

“That’s right.”

“From where?”

“No idea. But wherever she went, I’d say she had one hell of a time. You should see her on the DVR. She could barely work the alarm. By the looks of her, I’d say she was crashing hard from whatever drug she was on.”

“Can I see the footage?”

“Absolutely. I’ll get a copy to you later.”

“What about her neighbors?” Marty asked. “Anyone see anything?”

“The people in this neighborhood would rather eat off Chinet than talk to the police, Marty. They shut us down with the standard B.S. about seeing and knowing nothing.”

Unfortunately, Marty knew that was true. This area of Manhattan was a haven for old money and older secrets. If they could avoid it, few people here would get involved in a any kind of police investigation. Still, he would try on his own. People tended to open up to him.

“What about work?” Marty asked. “Wood ever go in?”

“Are you listening to me?” Hines asked. “She was in no condition to work. And besides, she had the day off. I’ve seen her calendar. Wood took every third Friday off.”

Hines took a step back toward the winding staircase, anxious for Marty’s reaction to the bedroom. But Marty didn’t move. He looked through the shadows at Hines. “Who found her? If the alarm wasn’t set when she returned home, then someone must have called it in.”

Hines started climbing the stairs, his back to Marty as he spoke. “You and I both know who it was. The same person who severed Wood’s head dialed 911 with the news. We got here in five but Wood’s head was already missing. You want to see the rest, then I suggest you follow me.”

Marty followed. “The person who dialed 911-man or a woman?”

“Whoever called used a device that altered their voice. We’re looking into it.”

Wood’s bedroom was at the top of the stairs, to the right of the balustrade, through a door that had been left open. Hines stepped inside. Marty remained in the doorway.

The human body contains six liters of blood, enough to paint a small apartment. Over the years and through countless investigations, Marty had come into the homes of strangers and seen just that-blood covering the walls, blood slicking the floors, blood staining the furniture, blood everywhere.

But Wood’s bedroom was different in that she had died hours before decapitation. Her blood, thick and cool and pooled in the well of her buttocks, had remained mostly in her body. Only a small amount leaked from the wound at her neck, staining in an almost perfect black oval the bare, pale yellow mattress.

But it was not this that rooted Marty to the doorway. It was what was smeared in blood above Wood’s bed that caused him to pause and wonder about the human soul and all the darkness that could lurk within it.

November 5, 2007

NEVER FORGET!

Marty looked at the date and those words and wondered how they fit into the puzzle of Wood’s death. He looked over at Hines and saw on his face a range of emotions that mirrored his own-empathy for Wood, disgust for the person who had desecrated her body, irritation for his own limitations as a detective.

“Collins dusted this place twice,” Hines said, referring to Sharon Collins, the chief fingerprints examiner. “She found nada, nothing, zip. Wood must have been a fucking recluse by the looks of things. Except for a few partials, her prints were the only ones lifted.”

Marty stepped inside and shook his head. “Wood was no recluse,” he said. “She may have lived here alone, she may have refused company, but people don’t party alone, especially if they’re shooting heroin. On that crap, you want to be seen.”

He looked around the bedroom. It was here that Wood must have spent most of her time while at home. Her computer was here, as were her law books, a photocopier, a printer and a flat-screen television. There were two telephones, an exercise bike and even a small refrigerator, which sighed at him from the far corner of the room.

“All right,” Hines said. “Give it your best shot.”

“Wood was into kink,” Marty said. “We know that from the tattoo and the piercings. But where did she go at night? Why did she take every third Friday off from work? To recoup from every third Thursday night? That’s a no brainer.”

“So, she belonged to a club.”

“Absolutely,” Marty said. “But which one? This city is filled with underground clubs that feature an a la carte menu of anything you want. Some are public, others are private. Some even take food stamps, but you probably don’t want to go to those. Or maybe you do. The problem is that most are mobile-they rarely meet at the same place twice. They rent a space, have their fun, shut it down when they’re finished. Have you talked to Vice?”

“Not yet.”

“When you do, mention the tattoo. See if they can match it to anything in their files. If they can, you might get your club.” He nodded at the message scrawled in blood above Wood’s bed. “Maybe even the person who can’t forget November 5, 2007.”

Hines’ cell went off. He slipped his hand into his pocket and answered.

While he spoke, Marty looked at the bloody mattress that had become Wood’s final imprint on the world, thought of the tattoo and the piercing, and wondered how a federal court judge, that bastion of morality and justice, could have become engaged in something so far on the fringe. When had the balance of her personal judgment tipped?

He looked around the large room with its heavy velvet curtains and sturdy iron bed, its bookcases brimming with law books Wood either had memorized or written, the pale yellow wall smeared with its mysterious message, and wondered what secrets it held. What did this room know about Judge Kendra Wood that the world was only just now finding out?

Hines clicked the phone shut, turned to look at Marty. “Now this is getting interesting,” he said. “That was the chief. Remember Maximilian Wolfhagen? The guy who was busted a few years back for insider trading? The guy Wood sent to prison? Guess whose head just showed up at his room at The Plaza Hotel?”

Hines’s Charger was as neat as Marty had come to expect from a man who demanded order in everything. Together, they got inside, shut the doors and drove across town.