Макс Коллинз: No One Will Hear You

“Or asleep. And in either case, he wouldn’t have been able to put up much of a fight.”

“Any idea about the weapon?”

Talbot shook his head. “Not until I get the body back to the lab, where I can get a closer look at the wounds and run some tests. Something with a big, long blade though.”

The coroner’s crew showed up with a gurney. Amari, Polk, and Ryan waited in the hall while Talbot and McCaffrey stayed in the room keeping watch on the evidence.

“I told the manager,” Amari said to Ryan, “that you’d be by to pick up the security video.”

Ryan nodded.

Polk said, “Lovers’ quarrel?”

Amari shook her head. “Nobody’s reported so much as a raised voice. I think this is something different.”

“Robbery got out of hand?” Polk suggested. “Thief is boosting the room, guy in bed wakes up, and...”

“And the thief takes out a big pair of scissors and stabs the guy twice, then cuts off his fishing tackle for the hell of it?”

“Maybe not,” Polk admitted.

“On the other hand,” Ryan said, “his wallet is gone. Watch and cell phone, too.”

“Any luggage missing?”

“We don’t know if the John Doe had any luggage,” Ryan said. “Plenty of people use this place just to hook up.”

“Right,” Amari said. “But why leave the wedding ring?”

The trio stood silent as a small honor guard of two from the coroner’s office rolled through a gurney with a body bag filled with Jeff Bailey or John Doe or whoever the poor bastard was. As the men rolled their cargo down the hall, the only sound was the whisper of wheels on carpeting.

Amari had just heard the elevator doors close when Talbot stepped out into the hall.

“You better come back in,” the assistant coroner said.

McCaffrey was on the far side of the bed, holding up a clear plastic evidence bag that appeared empty.

“Got something?” Polk asked.

“Red hair,” McCaffrey said. “Long one. Female?”

Amari said, “Vic’s hair was blonde, and short.”

Polk asked, “Could the hair be from a previous guest?”

Ryan said, “Probably not. Bailey checked in early yesterday afternoon. That would mean clean sheets. My guess is that this ...” He waved the bag around. “... belongs to the killer.”

“A hair isn’t much,” Polk said.

“But it’s something,” Amari said with an enthusiasm she didn’t really feel. “No sign of break-in — so can we assume this is an assignation gone very wrong? Victim willingly brought his killer into this room.”

“Or let him in,” Polk said.

“Right,” Amari said. “And whatever weapon the killer used to make those huge wounds came with him.”

Polk frowned. “But the killer couldn’t have hauled a bulky murder weapon in with him, if he and the victim had hooked up somewhere, hotel bar or whatever...”

Amari nodded, “And even if the victim was someone the killer knew , and it wasn’t just a casual pickup, how do you bring along a weapon like that?”

Polk was caught up in the theorizing. “So maybe the killer left after the sex, came back, with his weapon this time. And the victim went to the door, and opened up for his lover. Who is holding the weapon behind his back or something.”

“Reasonable scenario,” Amari said. “Dink, can we establish that the victim had sex shortly before he died?”

Talbot laughed harshly. “With the genitals gone, and the bed covered in blood?”

Polk gave Amari a look. “Sounds like another one of those rhetorical questions.”

Amari was thinking, prowling the small space. “This is cold, methodical, planned . Almost... ritualistic.”

She stopped and turned to the longtime coroner’s assistant.

“Dink — I know you don’t traffic in opinions. But if I said I thought this death was more a beginning than an ending, would you disagree?”

“I wish I could,” Talbot said.

Something special was on the docket for the Crime Seen group that regularly went out for lunch on Monday — with the exception of co-host Carmen Garcia, these were the “superstar” forensics experts of the show’s Killer TV segments.

Carmen had chosen Doreen’s on Sunset, one of her favorites, for a couples’ lunch where she would introduce her coworkers to Vince Clay, whom she’d been dating for several months now.

Jenny Blake would bring Chris Anderson (the computer geek-ess and the Mississippi scientist had their own kind of chemistry going now) and Laurene Chase would be there with audio tech Nancy Hughes (they had hooked up shortly after Kansas).

The other guys had their own lunch plans, Billy Choi and Michael Pall off somewhere eating meat, no doubt, while Harrow never intruded on his team’s luncheons, though he’d have been welcome.

Not long ago Carmen had been a PA in T-shirt and jeans; now the slender young brunette, so loved by the camera, was an on-air personality and co-producer in a well-tailored blue business suit, running late.

She knew Vince would be understanding. They’d only been on half a dozen dates, but Vince was always thoughtful to a fault. When he didn’t kiss her till after their third date, she’d asked if something was wrong, and he’d only said, “I just know what you’ve been through. I’m fine taking it slow.”

The world, or anyway that part of it who watched Crime Seen , was well aware that Carmen Garcia had been held hostage at the climax of the team’s first investigation — broadcast live. She appreciated Vince’s consideration — particularly since he couldn’t know that he was the first guy she’d gone out with, since that traumatic time.

Perhaps five years older than her, Vincent Clay had a small but thriving insurance agency in Westwood (a “boutique business,” he called it, handling well-off clients personally). Laurene had given her a good amount of grief for dating somebody with such a boring job, until Carmen told her how many of Vince’s clients were in the entertainment industry.

“Everybody in this town’s in the entertainment industry,” Laurene had said, but Carmen knew she was impressed.

The über-shy Jenny, on the other hand, did not join in with the laughter, nor the ribbing, however good-natured.

Privately, Jenny had said, “Carmen, never mind them. Whatever makes you happy.”

This two-sentence speech indicated just how much Jenny had come into her own lately, in part due to her TV exposure but mostly to the blossoming romance with Chris.

Vince was waiting out front, with the valet pre-tipped and ready. Insurance man or not, Vince might have been posing for an Armani ad in that cream-colored suit, light blue shirt and no tie.

A few inches taller than the in-heels Carmen, Vince had short brown hair, a hawkish nose, high cheekbones, and pale blues eyes that jumped out of his deep tan.

Carmen turned her Prius over to the valet, and Vince opened his arms for a quick hug. She gave him a peck on the cheek.

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting,” she said. “Something came up at work. Should’ve called...”

“It happens. You’re worth waiting for.”

“You’re a figment of my imagination, aren’t you?”

“You must have a good imagination, because this figment is famished.”

They passed arm in arm through the open wrought-iron gate into the enclosed outdoor portion of the restaurant. The other women and Chris Anderson occupied four of six chairs around a circular wrought-iron table in a back corner near a brick wall.

Carmen found Doreen’s unpretentiously classy — linen tablecloths, bone china, polished silverware, elegant water glasses, a chichi ambience but with all-American comfort food. Huge umbrellas ran down through the center of the glass-topped tables nearer the sidewalk.