Faye Kellerman: Blindman’s Bluff

“She has a car.”

“She didn’t notice the lack of guards in the guardhouse?”

Marge said, “She went around through the back gate at the service entrance. No guards are routinely stationed there. Ana has a gate access card. She gets in, parks her car, and goes into her room. She sees the body and starts screaming for help. At this point, it gets a little muddy. She apparently went upstairs and found the other bodies.”

“She went upstairs without knowing if there were still people in the house?” Decker asked.

“I told you, her story’s a little confusing. Once she saw the bodies, she called Kotsky and he reported the crime…I think.”

“I’ll talk to her again. She’s Spanish speaking?”

“She is, although her English is pretty good.”

Decker said, “On to the guards. Do you know who arranges their schedules?”

Oliver said, “Kotsky makes the assignments but doesn’t arrange them. That’s done by a man named Neptune Brady who is the Kaffeys’ head bodyguard. Brady has his own bungalow on the grounds, but for the past few days, he’s been visiting his sick father in Oakland.”

“Has anyone contacted him?”

“Kotsky called him up and told us that Brady chartered a jet and should be here soon.” Marge paused. “We did take a brief peek inside his bungalow just to make sure no one else was dead. I didn’t rifle through his room. We’ll need a warrant to do that.”

“Let’s put in for one in case Brady’s uncooperative.” Decker looked around the room. “Ideas on how this played out?”

Oliver said, “Gilliam was sitting in front of the fireplace, sipping wine and reading. Marge and I think that she went down first. She’s still slumped on the couch, her book is a few feet away, covered in blood. See for yourself.”

Decker walked over to the scene. Sprawled on the couch were the remnants of a beautiful woman.

Her blue eyes were open and blank, and her blond hair was matted with caked blood. The woman’s torso had been nearly bisected at the waist by several shotgun blasts. It was sickening, and Decker involuntarily averted his eyes. There were some things he’d never get used to.

“This is carnage,” he said. “We’ll need lots of photographs because our memories aren’t going to be able to process all of this information.”

Marge continued, “The disturbance of someone entering the room must have drawn the attention of the father and son. We figured they went down next.”

Oliver said, “There are two Kaffey sons. The one who was shot was the older one, Gil.”

“Does he have immediate family who need to be notified?” Decker asked.

“We’re working on it,” Oliver said. “No one’s called any police station to ask about him.”

“What about the younger brother?” Decker asked.

Marge said, “Piet Kotsky told me that the younger son’s name is Grant and he lives in New York. So does Guy’s younger brother, Mace Kaffey.”

“Who is also in the business,” Oliver pointed out. “Both of them have been notified.”

“By who? Kotsky? Brady?”

Marge and Oliver shrugged ignorance.

“Back to the crime scene,” Decker said. “Any idea what Guy and Gil were doing?”

Oliver said, “They could have been talking business, but we didn’t find papers.”

Marge said, “Guy Kaffey probably stood up and saw what was happening to his wife. Then he was blown backward. The son was a little quicker and started running away when the bullets caught him.

He went down a few feet away from one of the doors out of here.”

“And the shooters didn’t bother to check to make sure he was dead?”

Marge shrugged. “Maybe something distracted the shooters and they fled.”

Decker said, “We have one, two, three…six doors in the room. So we could have a band of shooters with each one coming in from a different door and overwhelming the couple. Any idea of what could have sent a posse of murderers out of the ranch without finishing off the son?”

Oliver shrugged. “Maybe an alarm, although we haven’t decoded the system yet. Maybe the maid coming into the house. But she didn’t see anyone leave.”

Decker thought a moment. “If everyone was drinking and relaxing, it probably wasn’t too late: after dinner but early enough for a nightcap-around ten or eleven.”

“Around,” Marge said.

“And the groomer and the groundskeeper,” Decker said, “were they in the house when you arrived?”

“Yes.”

“You said that they live here?”

Oliver said, “In the bungalows on the grounds.”

“So how did they find out about the murders? Did someone get them or were they awakened by the noise or…”

The two detectives shrugged.

“We’re going to be camped out here for a while.” Again, Decker massaged his aching head. “Let’s let CSI, the photographers, and the coroner investigators do their things here in the library. We’ve still got a couple of other crime scenes and witnesses to interview. Where are the other bodies?”

Marge showed him the area on her map. Decker said, “I could use one of those.”

Oliver gave his to the boss. “I’ll get another one.”

“Thanks,” Decker said. “You two take over the other crime scenes, and I’ll talk to the witnesses, especially the Spanish speakers. I’ll see if we can piece together a time frame and a chain of events.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Marge said. “Ana is in this room.” She showed him on the map. “Albanez is here and Karns is here.”

Decker marked the rooms on the map. Then he wrote each name on the top of a piece of paper in his notebook. There were a slew of players. He might as well start the scorecard.

CURLED UP IN a chair, Ana Mendez had just about disappeared. She seemed to be in her late thirties and was diminutive in size-under five feet-with almond skin stretched over a broad forehead and pronounced cheekbones. Her mouth was wide, her eyes round and dark. Her hair had been clipped into a pageboy, giving her face the appearance of someone staring out the window with two black drapes on the side and her short bangs being the valence curtain.

The maid had been sleeping, but woke up when Decker walked into the room. She rubbed her eyes, swollen from crying and squinting in the bright artificial light. He noticed that her white housekeeper’s uniform was smeared with brown stains and made a mental note to give the clothing to CSI.

Decker asked her to start from the beginning. This was her story.

Ana’s day off went from Monday evening to Tuesday evening. Usually she returned to the ranch earlier in the evening, but last night was a special function at her church, including a short midnight prayer service. She left afterward, around 12:30, and drove back to the ranch, arriving around an hour later. The mansion was entirely enclosed with heavy, wrought-iron fencing that had spikes on top, so most of the gates were unguarded. She had a card key for the gate closest to the kitchen.

After she entered the premises, she drove to the service lot, parking her car behind the kitchen. She walked down a flight of steps to the service wing and used her bedroom key to get inside the building. When Decker asked about an alarm, she told him that the servants’ quarters was alarmed, but it wasn’t connected to the main house. The mansion had its own security system. This way, the help could go in and out without disturbing the Kaffeys’ safety system.

Her eyes swelled with tears when she described what she saw in the bedroom. She had turned on the light and there was blood everywhere-on the walls, on the carpet, on the two twin beds. But the worst part was Alicia: she was lying on her back and wasn’t moving. Her face had been shot off.