Patricia Cornwell - The Bone Bed

The windowsills are lined with vintage bottles and pop-top cans that are collectibles, Coca-Cola, Sun Drop, Dr Pepper, and a mucilage glue and jar of paste that I remember from my childhood. Items tossed when someone cleaned out the attic, and I imagine Howard Roth rescuing them from the trash and placing them on display in his house like trophies, like treasure.

“What about the TV? On or off when his body was found?” Benton stares into the carpeted hall that leads to the back of the house.

“It was off when I got here,” Machado says, and I’m interested in the two forty-ounce Steel Reserve 211 malt liquor bottles and three screw caps on the floor by the recliner.

I wonder how long they’ve been there.

“What about when his friend got here? What’s his name? Jerry?” Benton opens the bathroom door.

“According to his version of things? The front door was unlocked, and when Howie didn’t answer, he walked in and called out to him. Says it was about four in the afternoon.”

“Sunday afternoon?” Benton steps into the doorway that leads to the basement.

“Right. And I got here about four-fifteen.”

“Did this guy Jerry have a reason to hurt anyone? Maybe they’re drinking cheap malt liquor together, maybe arguing, maybe something got out of control?”

“Can’t imagine it,” Machado says from the front doorway. “But I got his prints, swabbed him for DNA. He couldn’t have been more cooperative, says Howie never locked his door. Jerry says he was used to just walking in.”

The remote is on top of the TV, neatly placed exactly in the middle, and I suggest to Machado we might want to collect it. He sounds dubious but says that’s fine, and I package the remote as evidence and hand it through the doorway to him.

“I’m just curious why you might think someone touched it,” he says, and Benton has walked down the hallway to the bedroom.

“He may have been drinking beer in the recliner, in his underwear and socks, possibly with the TV on, and he fell asleep there.” I notice that one of the garbage bags tucked under the counter is twisted shut with a tie but none of the others are. “I’d like to look inside the kitchen cabinets, if you don’t have a problem with it.”

Under the sink are nine boxes of commercial can liners, a hundred to a carton, heavy-grade and not inexpensive, and I wonder where Roth got them.

“I don’t think he bought these.” I reach inside for an open box and pull out green plastic ties exactly like the one twisted around the bag under the counter.

I suggest to Machado he may want to check with Fayth House and see what brand of industrial waste-can liners they stock. I tell him that a carton this size with bags of this quality can cost thirty or forty dollars, which is considerably more than what Roth was going to get for the recyclables he placed inside them.

Maybe his buddy Jerry who works maintenance at the nursing home was keeping Roth well stocked, or maybe Roth was taking the bags when he was in and out, still working the occasional odd job there. I remind Machado that we must find out if Peggy Stanton volunteered at Fayth House.

“A careful, cautious woman who had an alarm system and didn’t want her address and phone number on her checks wasn’t going to let just anybody in her home.” I collect the open carton of liners. “She must have had some connection with him; she must have felt safe with him if she let him do any sort of work inside her house or even on her property.”

“Unless whoever killed this guy planted the check in his toolbox as an alibi.” Machado takes another evidence bag from me.

“Why?” I wander back to the TV.

“We find it and assume Howie killed her. Case solved. Sort of like the way he set up Marino, right? It’s what this son of a bitch does, right?”

I don’t believe he’s right at all, but I listen to him spin his theory as I let him know I’m untying the garbage bag under the counter because it’s peculiar that it’s the only one closed. All the other ones are open, and maybe Howard Roth left them that way because he rinsed out all the bottles and cans and jars and left the bags open so everything would dry.

I point out to Machado that there’s a garden hose outside, and most redemption facilities require recyclables to be emptied and rinsed, and I also haven’t noticed any odors. I tell him that if he doesn’t object I’m going to see what’s in this one bag and then I’m going to look for blood.

“Thing is, we find the check and bingo.” Machado continues to describe what I don’t think is possible. “Some lowlife who killed Peggy Stanton. Her handyman did it and then died in a drunken accident. The killer sets that up and we think case closed.”

“And where does the killer think we’ll assume Roth kept the body after he supposedly murdered her?” I inquire, as I untwist the tie. “Where might he have kept it long enough for it to begin to mummify? Certainly not in this house over the summer, and are we supposed to believe Howard Roth had a boat or access to one?”

“Maybe the killer assumed she wouldn’t look mummified,” Machado says. “Maybe he thought she wouldn’t look dehydrated after she was in the water for a while.”

“Mummified remains don’t reconstitute like freeze-dried fruit. You can’t add moisture back to a dead body.”

I open the bag, and the bottle is right on top of other bottles and cans and jars. It’s right there where the monster placed it.

“But would the average person know that a dried-out body wouldn’t rehydrate?” Machado asks.

The forty-ounce Steel Reserve 211 bottle is the same as the two empties by the recliner, each with a price sticker from a Shop Quik.

“I’m not going to do anything with this here,” I say to Machado, as I hold up the bottle in my gloved hands, turning it in sunlight shining through a window. “I see ridge detail, and I see blood.”

thirty-three

I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY A KILLER WHO HAS ELABORATE fantasies and premeditates and seems meticulous makes so little effort to hide evidence that matters. In fact, I’m baffled, I tell Benton.

“You’ve got to focus on his priorities,” he says, as he drives us through mid-Cambridge. “You have to get inside his head and know what he values. Neatness, tidiness, everything exactly the way he likes it. Restoring order after he kills. Showing he’s a nice guy, a decent guy, someone civilized. I’m suspicious the flowers in Peggy Stanton’s house were from him. When he returned her car and entered her house he left flowers to show what a sterling fellow he is.”

“Any luck finding a record of a delivery?”

“Not any of the florists in the area. It’s been checked.” He glances at his phone, and he’s been glancing at it a lot. “I think there was no card because there never was one, that he walked in with a spring arrangement like a thoughtful son stopping by to see his mother. It’s very important to this person that what he believes about himself is reasserted after he’s killed. A great guy. A gentleman. Someone capable of meaningful relationships.”

“What he did to Howard Roth wasn’t exactly gentlemanly, and he certainly didn’t leave him flowers.”

“Howard Roth had no value.” Benton glances at another text message, and I wonder if it is Douglas Burke who is writing to him every other minute. “He was an object no better than the trash he dug through, and the killer assumed you wouldn’t value him, either. He assumed it would be a case that wouldn’t merit your attention.”

“Me specifically?”

“What it tells me is whoever he is, he doesn’t know you personally. I retract what I said earlier about my worrying he knows you, knows Marino. He knows about you, about your office, but he doesn’t know you,” Benton says, as if there can be no doubt about it. “He’s getting it wrong. He’s making mistakes. Maybe you could text Bryce to let them know we’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”