James Patterson - The 8th Confession

“Forced entry?” I asked Noonan.

“No, ma’am. Anyone entering the house had to have an alarm code and a key. Those five people over there? That’s the live-in staff. They were all here last night, didn’t hear or see anything.”

I muttered, “Now there’s a shock.” Then Noonan introduced us to the head housekeeper, Iraida Hernandez.

Hernandez was a wiry woman, immaculately dressed, late fifties. Her eyes were red from weeping, and her English was better than mine. I took her aside so we could speak privately.

“This was no suicide,” Hernandez announced defiantly. “I was Isa’s nursemaid. I’m raising her kids. I know this whole family from conception on, and I tell you that Isa and Ethan were happy.”

“Where are their children now?”

“Thank God, they spent the night with their grandparents. I want to be sick. What if they had found their parents instead of me? Or what if they’d been home – no, no. I can’t even think.”

I asked Hernandez where she’d been all night (“In bed, watching a Plastic Surgery: Before and After marathon”), what she saw when she opened the Baileys’ door (“They were dead. Still warm!”), and if she knew anyone who might have wanted to hurt the Baileys (“Lots of people were jealous of them, but to kill them? I think there’s been some kind of horrible accident”).

Hernandez looked up at me as if she were hoping I could make the bad dream go away, but I was already thinking over the puzzle, wondering if I’d actually taken on some kind of English-style drawing-room whodunit.

I told Hernandez that she and the staff would be getting rides to the station so that we could take exclusionary prints and DNA. And then I called Jacobi.

“This wasn’t a break-in,” I told him. “Whatever was going on in this house, the staff probably know about it. All five had unrestricted access, so -”

“So chances are good that if the Baileys were murdered, one of them did it.”

“There you go. Reading my mind.”

I told Jacobi that I thought he and Chi should do the interviews themselves, and Jacobi agreed. Then Conklin and I ducked under the barrier tape and logged in with a rookie in the foyer who directed us to the Baileys’ bedroom.

The interior of the house was a wonderland of tinted plaster walls, elaborate moldings and copings, fine old European paintings and antiques in every room, each chamber opening into an even grander one, a breathtaking series of surprises.

When we got to the third floor, I heard voices and the static of radios coming from halfway down the carpeted hallway.

A buff young cop from the night tour, Sergeant Bob Nardone, walked into the hall, called out to me as we came toward him.

I said, “Sorry about having to take over, Bob. I have orders.”

For some reason, I expected a fight.

“You’re joking, right, Boxer? Take my case, please!”

CHARLIE CLAPPER, head of our crime lab, was standing beside the Baileys’ bed. Clapper is in his midfifties, and having spent half his life in law enforcement, he’s as good as they come. Maybe better. Charlie is no showboater. He’s nitpickingly thorough. Then he says his piece and gets out of the way.

Clapper had been at the scene for about two hours, and there were no markers or flags on the carpet, meaning no blood, no trace. As techs dusted the furniture for prints, I took in the astonishing tableau in front of me.

The Baileys lay in their bed, as still and as unblemished as if they were made of wax.

Both bodies were nude, sheets and a comforter were draped over their lower trunks. A black lace demibra hung over the massive carved-mahogany headboard. Other clothing, both outer- and underwear, was scattered around the floor as though it had been tossed there in haste.

“Everything is as we found it except for an opened bottle of Moët and two champagne flutes, which are headed back to the lab,” Clapper told Conklin and me. “Mr. Bailey took Cafergot for migraines, Prevacid for acid reflux. His wife took clonazepam. That’s for anxiety.”

“That’s some kind of Valium, right?” Conklin asked.

“Similar. The directions on the bottle were for one tablet to be used for sleep at bedtime. That’s minimal.”

“How much was in the medicine bottle?” Conklin asked.

“It was nearly full.”

“Could clonazepam have a lethal interaction with champagne?”

“Put her to sleep is all.”

“So what are you thinking?” I asked Clapper.

“Well, I look at the positions of the bodies and hope that’ll tell me something. If they were holding hands, I’d be thinking suicide pact. Or maybe something a little more sinister.”

“Like the killer staged the scene after the victims were dead?”

Clapper nodded, said, “Exactly. Some kind of forethought or afterthought. But here are two apparently healthy people in their thirties lying in natural sleeping positions. There’s semen on the sheets but no blood, no other substances. And I don’t see any signs of struggle, no marks or wounds.”

“Please, Charlie, give us something, ” I said.

“Well, here’s what it’s not: carbon monoxide. The fire department did a thorough sweep, and it was negative. Also, the Baileys’ dogs slept here,” Clapper said, pointing to the dog beds near the window, “and both are alive. According to the housekeeper, the dog walker came for them at eight, and when she brought them back, she told Hernandez that the dogs were fine.”

“Lovely,” I said. “Perfect, really.”

“I’ll get back to you on the prints and leave the rest to the ME when she gets here. But you’re right, Lindsay. This crime scene is too clean. If it is a crime scene.”

“And that’s all?”

Charlie winked. “That’s all. Clapper has spoken.”

THE BAILEYS GOT the best of everything, even in death. We got search warrants without a grilling. First time ever. Then Deputy DA Leonard Parisi came by and asked for a tour of the so-called crime scene.

His presence told me that if this was homicide and there was a prosecutable suspect, Red Dog was going to try the case himself. I showed him the victims, and he stood silently, respectfully.

Then he said, “This is ugly. No matter what happened here, it’s grotesque.”

No sooner had Parisi left when Claire walked in with two assistants. I briefed her as she took photos of the Baileys: two shots from each angle before she touched the bodies.

“Any thoughts you can share?” I asked as she pulled down the bedsheets, took more pictures.

“Hang on, baby girl. I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking yet.”

She harrumphed a few times, asked for help in turning the bodies, said, “There’s no rigor. Lividity is blanching. They’re still warm to the touch. So I would certainly put time of death at twelve hours or under.”

“Could it be six?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. They’re rich, thin, beautiful, and dead.”

Claire then gave me the usual disclaimer: she wouldn’t say anything official until she’d done the posts.

“But here’s what’s unusual,” Claire told my partner and me. “Two dead folks, the rigor is pretty much the same, the lividity is pretty much the same. Something got these people at the same time, Lindsay.

“Look at them. No visible trauma, no bullet wounds, no bruising, no defensive wounds. I’m starting to think of poisoning, you know?”

“Poisoning, huh? Like maybe two homicides? Or a homicide-suicide? I’m just thinking out loud.”

Claire shot me a grin. “I’ll do the autopsies today. I’ll send out the blood. I’ll let you know what the labs come back with. I’ll tell you what I know as soon as I know it.”