Cody McFadyen - The Face of Death

"Barry has a lady friend in the Hall of Records and also knows some woman in the phone company." I can almost hear Alan rolling his eyes. "To make a long story short, we find out that the house is currently owned by--get this--The Sarah Langstrom Trust."

"What?" The surprise in my voice is sharp. Callie shoots me a look.

"That's what I said. I figured, okay, maybe the parents were a lot better off than we thought. Maybe there's a future happy ending here, Sarah's going to come into a lot of money. Turns out that one is true, but the other isn't. The Langstroms did okay, definitely in the higher percentile of upper-middle-class. But they weren't rich rich, you know?"

"So?" I ask, waiting for the explanation-as-punch-line.

"So, it turns out that the trust was set up by an anonymous donor after the Langstroms were murdered. Someone who was supposedly a big fan of the late Mrs. Langstrom's work."

"Wow," I say, meaning it.

"Yeah. The trust doesn't have any physical location, just a lawyer named Gibbs who administers it. He won't give up the name of the donor right now, but he's not being an asshole. Just abiding by the rules of the bar."

"We'll have to get a subpoena," I say, still excited. "An art fan? That hits pretty close to home."

"That's what I thought. Anyway, Gibbs kept on proving he's not an asshole. He said that as long as we got something in writing from Sarah saying it was okay, and he could verify it with her on the phone, he'd let us into the house. We drove over to the hospital and saw her."

"How is she doing? How did she react to the news?"

An uncomfortable silence that communicates an uncomfortable shrug. "She was pretty shook up about it. She wants to see the house. I had to promise her we'd take her soon to get her to stay in bed."

I sigh. "Of course we'll take her."

"Good. So, we got her okay, got her on the phone with Gibbs, and then the lawyer brought us over here. Guess what?" He pauses for emphasis. "The place hasn't been entered since the Crime Scene Unit released it ten years ago."

"Are you kidding me?" I can't keep the disbelief out of my voice. Callie gives me another look.

"Nope. The only stuff missing are some things from what was Sarah's room. Maybe the perp came back and took some souvenirs."

"Give me the address," I say without hesitating.

I get it and hang up, excited.

"Tell me," Callie says, "or I'll sing the national anthem, here and now, with gusto."

This is a threat. Many things about Callie are beautiful. Her singing voice isn't one of them.

Malibu, I've always thought, is a mix of the rich and the lucky. The rich are the ones who can afford to buy homes in this desirable, notfar-from-the-ocean community today. The lucky are the ones who bought before prices put most homes out of reach of the average bear.

"Beautiful," Callie observes as we roll down the Pacific Coast Highway.

"Sure is," I reply.

It's just after lunch, and the sun has decided to make an appearance. The ocean is to our left, broad, blue, the world's immovable object and unstoppable force all rolled into one. You can love the ocean, and many do, but don't expect it to love you back. It's too forever. On the right the hills are crisscrossed by the snaky, windy streets that lead to various Malibu homes and neighborhoods. Lots of green as a result of the rains, I note. Not good news for the upcoming fire season.

We find our turnoff and after ten minutes and a few false starts, pull up to the given address. Alan and Barry have remained outside, Alan standing and listening as Barry leans up against Alan's car and smokes and talks. They see us and approach as we climb out.

"Nice," I remark, looking at the house.

"It's a four-bedroom," Barry says, consulting a notepad, his own Ned. "Three-thousand-plus square feet, three full baths. Bought twenty years ago for about three hundred thou, worth about a mil and a half now, and fully paid off by the mystery benefactor."

The home is a slice of America sans California. A large, whitefenced front yard, the requisite tree made for climbing, a hand-laid flagstone path to the front door, and a general sense of comfortableness to it. The home itself is painted in off-whites and beige, and appears kept up.

"I guess there's a management service?" I ask Alan. He nods. "Yeah. Gardeners come out once a week, brush clearing done before fire season, new coat of paint every two years or so."

"Two?" Barry says. "I do mine every five."

"Salt air," Alan explains.

"Where's the lawyer?" I ask.

"He got a call from a client and had to go."

"Do we have the key?" I ask.

"We do." Alan smiles, opening a huge hand to reveal a ring with two keys on it.

"Then let's go inside."

When I enter the home, that sense of disconnectedness rushes over me again. I'm back in the time machine.

The problem, I think, is that Sarah's story was too vivid. She gathered up everything she could still feel and used it to bring her story to life, to take us down to the watering hole.

I half expect Buster and Doreen to come running, and I feel a twinge of sadness when they don't.

The home is unlit. The sunlight creeping through plantation shutters provides a dusky illumination. I move to just inside the doorway, and my shoes touch a floor of rich cherry hardwood, layered with a patina of dust. The wood continues forward into the kitchen on the right. I make out granite countertops, well-matched cabinets, and dusty stainless steel. The left is dominated by a large open room--not a living room per se, but a place to entertain. Ten people could mill around in it comfortably, twenty if they don't mind brushing up against each other. The hardwood continues there. Past this room is more open space, edged on the right by the kitchen, leading to the living room proper, which is where the carpet begins. It's bold, a dark brown. I move forward for a better look and smile a sad smile. The brown is matched by the rest of the living room, from paint to furniture. Decorated by a dead artist with an instinctive understanding of color.

A hallway heads off to the left from the living room, leading to the rest of the house. On the right, past a large and very comfortablelooking couch, are a series of sliding glass doors, thick-glassed, leading into what looks like a large backyard. The house is silent, almost oppressive.

"Feels like a tomb," Barry mutters, an echo of my own thoughts.

"It is," I say. I turn to Alan. "Let's go through this step-by-step."

He flips open the case file--which I note is pretty thin--and consults it.

"No sign of forced entry," he begins. "Perp probably got a copy of the keys. Responding officers Santos and Jones entered through the sliding glass doors from the backyard. The bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Langstrom were found just inside." He nods his head toward the spot. We walk over and look.

"You weren't kidding about nobody being here since CSU," I mutter.

A square of the brown carpeting is missing, cut away by the Crime Scene Unit for the blood evidence it contained. They only took what they thought they'd need; dark splotches are still visible elsewhere, including spots on the wall and couch. Gunshots to the head are messy.

"Mr. Langstrom was handcuffed nude--they both were. Position of his body was facedown. Mrs. Langstrom ended up on her back, with her head resting right about where that missing piece of carpet is."

I gaze down, envisioning the tableau.

"The ME notes on-site that Mr. Langstrom's eyes show petechial hemorrhaging, and that bruising around the neck is consistent with strangulation. Autopsy confirmed."

"Did Mrs. Langstrom get an autopsy?" I ask.

As a suicide, she might not have.

"Yeah."

"Go on."

"Lividity confirmed that they hadn't been moved postmortem. They died as and where they were found. Liver temps put time of death at roughly five A.M."