Lisa Scottoline - Killer Smile

A motion detector! Bright light flooded the tiny lot, suddenly illuminating the back door, a window next to it, and a paralyzed lawyer. Mary sprang backward out of the brightness, then flattened in the shadow against the building, its coarse brick clammy beneath her palms. She edged sideways while the light remained on, and she could tick off the seconds with the sound of her own nervous breaths.

Rain hurtled down and she spent a fleeting moment wondering if she was about to commit a venial or a mortal sin, then reconsidered. THOU SHALT NOT STEAL didn’t necessarily encompass THOU SHALT NOT BREAK IN, and after all, someone had broken into her office, so turnabout was fair play. At least she was furthering the cause of justice, which should count for extra credit in the God Department.

Click! The security light went off in the next instant, and she waited a minute more, getting thoroughly drenched. Then she hurried back to the parking lot and the window, and when thunder shattered the sky, hopefully deafening the neighbors, she shoved her fist in her purse and put the entire assembly through the glass window, which broke easily. Then she climbed inside.

The window dumped her into darkness and she landed on her butt in what felt like a hallway, because her head was against one wall and her wet shoes against another, less than three feet away. She didn’t dare turn on a light, but she reached for her bag on the floor next to her, got out her trusty Montana penlight, and flicked it on. A pool of light roughly the size of a dime roamed uselessly over the walls of the hallway, and Mary got up. Shards of glass tinkled to the floor. She grabbed her bag and shook herself off, hearing more tinkling sounds, and aimed the penlight down the hallway, then hurried into the dark corridor. Frank’s office would be on the right, closest to the corner, and she turned.

Into a wall.

Clunk! She rubbed her nose and reminded herself not to go faster than she could see, then waved the penlight around until she found an open doorway and walked through, casting the flashlight around. It was the reception area, so she must have been near the front of the office building. Damn! She walked again to the right, looking for Frank’s office and after she’d tripped only twice, she found it. Partly because of the odor.

Mary wrinkled her nose. That smell, she knew from other crime scenes. It was blood, decomposing blood. The old Mary would have run screaming or maybe cried, but the new Mary scorned such lame-ass, estrogen-fueled responses, so she gritted her teeth and moved forward through the threshold she knew led to Frank’s office.

She cast the penlight around, watching it wander like a laser pointer over certificates and law degrees and finally, her own photo in the group shot of the old softball team. She experienced a pang of times lost, then of Frank. He was dead, someone had murdered him, and now she wanted to know who. She took a step toward the desk, and the scent of his blood intensified here, becoming part of the office forever. She became vaguely aware that she was avoiding whatever Frank’s desk looked like, since he had been shot there.

Lame, lame, lame. Grow up, cowgirl. Look.

The penlight found a splotch of brownish blood on the desk, where papers had been undisturbed, and Mary felt her stomach turn over. Or maybe it was somebody else’s stomach, since she was tougher now, and she walked around the desk, the primal smell filling her nostrils. She gasped when the penlight inadvertently found blood spatter against the wall behind the desk, blanketing the photos that hung there.

The penlight fell on Frank’s desk, which had been ransacked, every drawer pulled out and left on the floor. Bills, receipts, pencils, and pens spilled everywhere, just as they had in Mary’s office. She squatted on her haunches and aimed the penlight at the first drawer in the middle. The penlight seared a white circle into the drawer, and the lock had been broken, wedged completely out of the drawer, leaving even the walnut splintered like balsa.

Mary crouched closer and turned a sharp piece of wood over with the penlight, like a kid examining driftwood on the beach. The killer had taken whatever papers, if any, Frank had in the desk. The cops would think they were looking for money or petty cash, but she wasn’t buying that either. What could have been in there? She took one last look around at the debris scattered behind the desk but saw nothing that mattered. All the time, she was wondering, if Frank had papers relating to Saracone, where else would they be? Then it hit her.

A safe. Mary rose and started looking behind the certificates and photos. No safe. She remembered that Frank had mentioned a will vault. Was it literal? She searched his bookshelves, behind his books, and through the drawers in a credenza against the wall. No safe or vault. Then she realized she’d been going about it the wrong way. She should just troll the office and see what the killer had destroyed; if he’d found a safe, she’d found a safe. She took a slow once-over of the office again, trying not to breathe the horrible odor or see anything too upsetting, which was a neat trick at a murder scene. But there was nothing. No safe. No vault. Strike one.

She left the office and cast a light around the secretary’s area, then reconsidered. Frank had to have a file room, didn’t he? All lawyers had file rooms, and he had even mentioned one at their meeting. She hurried past the reception area, toward the hallway leading to the parking lot, but right before she got to the hallway was an open door. She flashed the light and walked in, where it smelled oddly rosy. She cast the light around.

A toilet, seat up, and on the back rested a can of pink Glade air freshener. Strike two. She went out again and cast the penlight around the hallway. There it was; another door, halfway open. She went inside and found herself in a room that even smelled tiny and cramped, the air stale with old coffee. She flicked the penlight around her, full circle. A wooden table held a Mr. Coffee coffeemaker and the usual array of cups, sugars, plastic stirrers, and powdered creamers. Mary scanned the file room, pivoting quickly on her heel, and noticed that the room had no windows. Good. She went back to the door, closed it securely, and found a light switch, which she flicked on. Fluorescent panels went on overhead, filling the room with harsh light, which was when she saw it.

A recessed frame in the wall near the baseboard had been completely demolished. White and gray plaster had been cut away, wire mesh wrenched out of shape, and wooden studs in the wall had been cut, as if with a crude saw. Mary knelt before it, examining it. Even an idiot could tell that a safe had been extracted from this spot, like a diseased tooth. Was it the will vault that Frank had mentioned? How had they carried it out? Put it on a dolly and wheeled it? Mary considered it. It would have made more sense than trying to bust it open here, and taking it away would clinch the police theory of a break-in.

Damn . She rose slowly, looking at the file cabinets next to the hole. Banks and banks of them; beige, standard-issue Hons in four-drawer stacks. She set upon the filing cabinet, pulling each drawer out and closing it again. Each drawer contained only case files in legal-size manila folders, suspended on Pendaflex hangers and filed by plaintiff’s name, and she went through the first few. There was nothing remotely suspicious about the files, then Mary had another thought.

She eyed the carefully hand-printed labels in the front of each drawer, starting with Ab-Ar . She took a quick look at the B drawer for Brandolini , but there was no Brandolini file for Amadeo or Theresa. But it was at least possible that there was a Saracone file. Mary scanned the drawers until she reached the S s, then yanked on the third drawer, fourth row: Sa-Su . Inside were more case files, starting with Sabella v. Oregon Avenue Painting and Plastering , and she thumbed through the case files until she reached where Saracone’s would be. There was no manila folder.