Stephen White - Warning Signs

"That's it? Got any names?"

"Yes, sir. That's it. And no, sir. The woman was, like I said, incoherent. I think she said her name was Susan, or Suzanne. I had trouble understanding her. She was not able to give a last name. Neighbor a couple of doors down across the street says the family is the Peters. Only wit is the RP, guy named Bruce Collamore. He's waiting in one of the squads. Heard a scream a few minutes before ten. I don't think he's going to be much more help; he's already told us all he knows."

"Yeah, I've already heard all about Collamore. Got cut by the Bengals during training camp, if you can believe that."

"What?" VanHorn asked.

Purdy ignored her question while he went through a mental checklist and reached satisfaction that things were under control. Then he realized he'd missed something. "Coroner here yet?"

"Haven't seen anyone," she said.

Purdy made a note to have Lucy ascertain that Scott Truscott, the coroner's assistant, had been called. He said, "Good job here, VanHorn. You and Carpino managed this scene like you do it every weekend."

P urdy and Lucyfollowed VanHorn down the path to the backyard. Lucy snapped some photographs of the rear of the house before VanHorn introduced the detectives to Carpino. No one shook hands; Purdy and Lucy were busy pulling latex onto their fingers.

"The yard was like this? Nothing's been touched?"

Whiskers answered, "Just like you see it. No one's been back here but us since we arrived. Only things we touched outside were the doorknobs. We did that before we realized what we had."

T he search warrantarrived around twelve-thirty.

The crime scene investigators and the police photographers preceded the two detectives into the house. After about fifteen minutes, the CSIs reported to Purdy that they'd finished clearing and vacuuming the path to the living room and that he could enter.

Everyone pulled coverings onto their shoes. At Purdy's request, VanHorn led the way inside and pointed out the direction she had walked to get to the living room before she discovered the body. On this return visit she went no farther than the foot of the stairs, using the beam of her flashlight to direct the detectives the rest of the way to the deceased. "He's there, behind that couch."

"All the lights were off? Just like this?" Purdy asked as he carefully crossed the length of the room and lowered himself to a crouch a few feet from the body. The detective's feet were in a little clearing in the center of the pottery debris.

"Yes. We touched nothing in this room. I did feel the victim's wrist for a pulse and I tripped over some of the broken pottery when I got back up. The EMT was careful, too, when he confirmed the death. I watched him. That's it. Nothing else was touched down here. Upstairs was different. We tried to watch what we were doing, but moving that lady to the hospital spilled some milk. Couldn't be avoided. I've started making a list of everything I think was disturbed up there."

"Good. Finish the list and get it to me. We'll take it from here."

"Oh, I almost forgot, the dryer was on. Upstairs? There's a washer and dryer. When I first came in the house, the dryer was on. It finished its cycle just before I found the body. Made a loud buzzing sound."

Purdy took a moment to catch her eyes and smiled at her. "Scared the shit out of you, I bet, didn't it?"

She laughed. "Yeah. Scared the shit out of me." VanHorn didn't generally condone profane language. But the phrase seemed to fit the circumstances.

"That was when?"

"Ten twenty-five, ten-thirty, give or take a couple of minutes."

"Got that, Luce?"

Lucy raised her pen from her notebook but didn't look up. "Yeah, Sam. I got it."

"You can go, Officer. Good work."

Purdy stood up straight, took a flashlight from Lucy's hand, and swept the room with the beam, pausing a few times. While he perused the space, he took note of the temperature in the house, inhaled the aroma of the room, and digested how the shadows played with the darkness. He knew Lucy would be doing the same drill. In a few minutes, they'd compare impressions. When he finally stepped forward, he approached the corpse cautiously, noting the position of the lamp on the floor, treading carefully around the pieces of ceramic.

Lucy hung back; she was at least six feet behind him. Purdy could hear her breathing through her mouth.

"You okay, Luce?" he said.

She said, "Sure." But Purdy didn't quite believe her.

"You need a minute? Or are you ready?"

"I'm right behind you, Sam. I'm fine."

Maybe a stranger would have failed to recognize the catch in her voice. But Purdy heard it. "If you're going to puke, puke outside, okay?"

He expected her to curse at him in reply. Instead, she said, "I told you I'm fine, Sam."

Purdy once again lowered himself to a crouch, this time right beside the body. For a few seconds he focused on the injuries and on the blood, not on the dead person. A gestalt thing-figure, not ground. The head and face wounds that had been inflicted were severe. At least two deep crushing blows. Probably more. Blood pooled around the man's head like a lake on a dark night. The blood loss was copious. With the flashlight beam he traced a fan-shaped splatter that extended up the nearest wall all the way to the crown molding. The conclusion was obvious: The victim had been standing when he was hit and had lived long enough to bleed like a broken dike.

"Is he dead, Sam?" Lucy asked the question as though she didn't quite believe it was true.

Purdy didn't bother feeling for a pulse. He knew dead. "He's really dead, Luce. Bashed in the face and head with something heavy and hard. My money's on the lamp or this broken pottery."

She didn't reply.

Purdy asked, "Can you see outside? Has the coroner's van arrived?"

"I don't see it out there."

He thought she sounded funny.

Sam Purdy was a big man. He lowered one knee to the carpet so he could lean over and examine the undamaged part of the man's face. It took him maybe two seconds of focus to identify the victim.

"Holy shit. You know who this is, Luce?"

She swallowed. Her voice was hollow. "I can't see him from here. Just some blood. All I see is the blood."

Purdy said, "Whose house is this, anyway? Do you know whose house this is? Lucy?"

I t should have been my first clue.

For the first time since Grace's birth I put her to bed all by myself. Shortly after nine o'clock on Friday night Lauren had pulled the satiated baby from her breast and handed her up to me, smiling wanly. She asked if I'd give our daughter a bath. I was delighted to comply.

Grace and I moved swiftly over the familiar territory that led from bath, to diaper, to fresh sleeper, to my favorite part-bedtime stories in the big upholstered rocker in the nursery. I had no illusions that my little girl even knew what a book was, but I could find no reasonable argument for postponing her introduction to the wonders of the written word, and I could find a million reasons for not waiting. Each night we read a few books. Each night both of us loved it.

Lauren never jumped into the ritual that particular night, even when the usually irresistible trill of Grace's laughter echoed down the hall between the two bedrooms. I enjoyed the independence of it all and assumed that Lauren's request that I put the baby to bed was her way of giving me a vote of confidence. I also knew I'd have to get used to it; the following Monday Lauren was returning to work after half a year of maternity leave.

Once I'd kissed our daughter for the last time and placed her on her back in her crib, I stepped down the hall to the bedroom to find Lauren curled away from the door, asleep. A few minutes later I touched my lips to her inky hair before I crawled into bed beside her.