Blood Silence

by Roger Stelljes

  “Given all of this—looking at it like this, Lyman, with the finishing shots to the head—does that sound like the act of an angry, emotional, scorned wife?” Mac asked, his face bright with the discovery.

  “No,” Lyman answered, a creased smile on his face. “That looks like the act of a professional. The eleven shots are window dressing. The kill shots to the heads say professional.”

  Mac lay on the bed for a minute. “This is possible, but how to prove it? I mean, the prosecution will simply say Sterling saw Meredith and dove to save Gentry. In fact, they will counter that he could have easily gotten out of bed and tried to talk you down.”

  “But I wouldn’t listen and started firing anyway,” Meredith replied, following along.

  “And Sterling jumped on top of Gentry in a futile effort to save her, which is how she was hit six times to begin with.”

  Meredith sighed, plopping down into the soft chair in the corner. “I got hopeful there for a second.”

  “Don’t give up so easily,” Mac teased, smiling, now more intense and enthused with this discovery. “I said that’s the counter to what we’ve seen. It doesn’t mean we’re wrong or that some people on a jury might not agree with our view of it. Acquittals are made of alternate interpretations. They create doubt – reasonable doubt,” he continued as he pushed himself off the bed, now a bounce in his step with this discovery. “Okay, so let’s say we are right—there’s another thing that bothers me. Say this is a pro—how does he or she get into the house? We have no evidence of forced entry.”

  “Would a pro leave any evidence of their entry behind?” Lyman asked.

  “Yes!” Mac and Lich answered in unison.

  “You just have to figure out how he got in,” Lich finished.

  “I don’t believe in perfect crimes,” Mac added. “There is always something to be found if you look hard enough for it and spend enough time visualizing what happened.”

  The group reconvened in the living room of the house, wanting to get away from the blood. Mac and Lich were digging their noses back into the investigative report.

  Lich shook his head. “There was just no evidence of forced entry, at least not that the forensics team found.”

  “Because the police suspect Meredith came in the front door, because the deadbolt was open when the police arrived. But a hitter wouldn’t come in the front door,” Mac said as he walked to the back of the house. There was a sliding glass door out the four-season porch, the security bar still in the track. “So the killer didn’t come up through the porch.”

  Next, Mac and Lich went down the steps to the basement to find another sliding glass door on the back of the house. As with the four-season porch, the security bar was still in the track. A check of the crime scene photos showed that the security bars were secured in both sliding-glass doors when the police arrived.

  “So how would you get in?” Lich asked.

  “Not through the sliding-glass doors. Besides, they’re both wired into the … security system.” Mac’s eyes lit up as he rushed back up the steps to the main level. “Meredith, the door into the house from the garage is on the security system, but what about the door out the back corner of the garage?”

  “That door is not part of the system, as far as I know.”

  Lich waved for Mac to follow him to the garage and the back door. Mac glanced right. “Is that an old-school wood speedboat?”

  Sitting on a trailer, hidden under a canvas cover, looked to be a vintage speedboat. Mac saw that the cover on the left side of the stern was loose. He looked underneath and could immediately see the shine of the wood and the chrome edging. “I bet she’s a real beauty. Just the condition of the wood tells me he took great care of it.”

  Lich reached the rear door, where he found it locked and dead bolted.

  They both hunted around the door, and there was no sensor for it. Dick opened it, and Mac crouched down to look at the lock and dead bolt.

  “See anything?”

  Mac shrugged. “If he picked it, he probably knew how, so could you really tell? The lock is probably twenty, thirty years old. Heck, it could be as old as that boat.”

  “Lyman could hire a private forensics expert to give it a look.”

  “Yup,” Mac answered as he looked to his right out the door at the small, four-foot by four-foot cement slab that sat between the edge of the garage and the tall arborvitaes that marked the edge of the property line. Stepping out onto the slab, he looked right, back toward the front of the house and, could see the edge of the driveway. To the left was the backyard, which sloped gradually down to the lake. To the north of the backyard was a large, wooded lot, through which Mac could see the street leading to a small cul-de-sac. He thought it odd that someone had not developed the wooded lot as it led down to the lake.

  “Find anything?” Lyman asked, Meredith in tow behind him.

  Mac shook his head as he walked back into the garage and checked out the boat again. “Meredith, does this boat ever end up in the water?”

  She nodded. “Frederick would put it in a few times a summer. Given its age, he never liked to have it sit in the water for too long, so he rarely slipped it down on the dock. He would launch it and then re-trailer it.”

  Mac nodded as he looked down the left side of the boat, which was parked a few feet away from the side of the garage. He thought it was odd that the canvas cover back toward the stern was loose. “Hmpf,” he snorted as he slithered his way down the wall a few feet.

  “What?” Lich asked.

  “It seems to me that if you’re going to store a beauty like this and maintain it to perfection, you would make sure the cover was secured tighter. The knotting for the cover is undone over here.” Then he noticed a small streak of mud along the side of the boat and a footprint on the base of the otherwise pristine white Shoreline trailer. He lifted the cover a bit more and peeked into the boat.

  “Meredith, was your husband meticulous in his care of this boat?” Mac asked, still underneath the canvas cover, sensing he already knew the answer.

  “That would be an understatement. He loved this thing more than life itself.”

  “So, any chance he’d leave chunks of mud in the boat?”

  “None.”

  “You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure?”

  “Not a flippin’ chance.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Mac answered as he lifted the canvas cover off the back of the boat. Everyone walked around to the other side, standing between the Jaguar and the boat. In the back seating area of the boat, were chunks of mud lying on the floor.

  “There is no way Frederick would leave that in the boat. He just wouldn’t. It would ”—she searched for the word—“offend him. I’ve cleaned, polished, buffed, and vacuumed this thing out after a two-hour boat ride on a Sunday. He would never leave the boat stored like this. Never.” Then she had a thought. “And I’m not the only one who would know this. Lots of people have seen his anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive psychosis with this boat. They all gave him endless shit about it.”

  “You’re sure?” Mac asked.

  “Absolutely positive.”

  “Then write all those names down,” Mac answered and then asked, “When is the last time he had it out?”

  Meredith thought for a moment. “It was Labor Day weekend. The weather was nice. We had some company out on Sunday, and he put it in. On Monday, he stayed out here after I left, to clean the boat and cover it.”

  “Any chance he had it out since then?”

  Meredith shook her head.

  Mac looked at Lich. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Which is what?” Lyman asked.

  “The killer hides in here,” Mac answered. “Otherwise, how does the mud get here? Your husband is freakishly meticulous about this boat, so there is no way he leaves this mud in here, so it was someone else. Why not the killer?”

  “So he hides in the boat?”
<
br />   Mac nodded. “I’m betting he knew that Sterling and Gentry were coming here because … the killer has been watching them, just like Biggs. I bet the killer scouted the house because, after all, they were coming out here. Heck, the killer might have even gotten inside another time and searched the house and found—”

  “The gun,” Lich finished the thought. “I’m with you.”

  “So that night, the killer picks the lock on the back door to the garage, slips in here, and hides in the boat.” Mac was rolling now. “Sterling and Gentry get here. The killer hears them, maybe gets the idea they’re amorous. So he lets them get inside and lies in wait for nearly two hours. Then, the festivities probably over, the two of them in bed, sleeping, he then slips inside the house, grabs the gun from the master bedroom, and then walks into the room and smokes them both.”

  “Then, to complete the setup, he escapes out the front door,” Lich suggested.

  “So no evidence of forced entry—he leaves the front door unlocked so it looks like Meredith came in the front door,” Mac added as he pushed the button to open the garage door.

  “And he runs out the front door to the car that is parked to the north of the house.”

  “Why do you say to the north?” Lyman asked.

  Mac flipped open the investigative report. “Because the neighbors living in the two houses to the south called 9-1-1 to report shots fired. They also both reported seeing the Mercedes drive by their houses to the south.”

  Lich smiled. “Mac, that’s two pieces that make this look like a setup.”

  “I’d say. There is no reason for Meredith to hide in the boat, and in fact she couldn’t, based on the timeline. You’d only hide if you beat them out here, and she was at the reception when the alarm for the house was shut off,” Mac suggested. “Plus, there is a footprint on the boat trailer. It’s a tread for what I’d imagine is a hiking boot.” Mac walked to Meredith, kneeled down with a tape measure, and measured the width of her foot. He then went back to the boat and measured the width of the print on the trailer. The trailer print was a little over an inch wider than Meredith’s foot, and she was wearing boots.

  “Mac, the killer came in that side door, loosened the cover of the boat, climbed up inside, and waited,” Dick concluded.

  Mac shuffled his way back along the wall of the garage to the front of the boat. He went to the inside door, slowly opened it, and then closed it. He moved slowly forward and then stopped as he emerged from the back hallway into the main body of the house and living room. The floor of the house was wood, all the way back to the bedroom. “Would you leave your boots on?” he mumbled to himself. “Those would not be quiet on this floor. You’d slip them off.” He turned back to the floor mat and looked down. There were chunks of mud. “Dick!”

  Lich pushed the door open. Mac explained what he was thinking.

  “I agree,” Dick answered, nodding. “Good call.”

  Everyone else approached, and Mac pointed out the mud on the mat. “We need pictures of this. We need it logged. We should have that mud tested to match it up with the dirt around the house,” he suggested.

  “I’m going to hire my own forensics expert based on what you found,” Lyman stated. One look at Lyman’s face, and you could see a defense strategy forming.

  “Do that,” Mac suggested and looked over at Lich, whose nose was back in the investigative report. Then Lich walked outside and down to the end of the driveway. He looked north and then south and then back toward the house. “What is it, Dicky Boy?”

  “So the 9-1-1 log says the first call came in at 1:33 A.M.”

  “Right.”

  “Then the second call at 1:34 A.M.”

  “Okay.”

  “And both neighbors indicate that … it took them a minute or two to make the phone call. They weren’t sure if the sounds were gunshots because—”

  “Something like that doesn’t happen around here often,” Mac replied but could tell his partner was on to something. “Keep going.”

  “After the neighbors made the 9-1-1 call, it was then that they both saw the car go by. They both saw the car after the 9-1-1 call.”

  “Right,” Mac answered and then smiled. “It’s like this thing is happening in slow motion, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Dick agreed. “They hear the shots fired, they thought at 1:30 or 1:31. It takes a minute or two for the shots to register. The calls to 9-1-1 are at 1:33 and then 1:34. Then they are up, probably turning on the lights, looking out the windows, and then they see the Mercedes streak by, and one neighbor said they thought that was at 1:35 A.M.”

  “Does it take four to five minutes from shots fired to get to the car and drive away?”

  “It shouldn’t,” Lich said. “Now you’ve explained some of the delay.”

  “Putting his shoes back on,” Mac stated.

  “But that doesn’t take but a few seconds, especially if you’re in a hurry of any kind.”

  “Unless you’re not,” Mac suggested with a smirking grin.

  Lich nodded. “Sterling’s house here is the last on the block. After the wooded area to the north, the street turns left and dead-ends down in that small cul-de-sac. No way out in that direction, so the only way out is south and past these houses. It shouldn’t take five minutes from shots fired to get to the car. The only way it takes five minutes is if—”

  “Maybe, just maybe, you wanted to make sure someone saw you,” Mac finished, putting his hands on his hips and looking around.

  “How did the sheriff’s investigators miss this?” Lyman asked, shaking his head.

  “Because they focused on Meredith right away, because she checked all the right boxes—scorned spouse, prints on the gun, no forced entry, no alibi, huge motive, yada, yada, yada. So they didn’t flyspeck their investigation. We are.”

  “And they missed some shit,” Dick said with a satisfied grin and then looked at Mac. “God, I miss working cases like this with you.”

  Mac grinned. “Right back at you, partner.”

  • • •

  Three hours later, with their sweep of the lake house and interviews of neighbors complete, Mac stuffed his backpack into the back of his Yukon and closed the gate. A text from Riley said a group was meeting at the pub around 9:00. It was almost 8:00 P.M., and he could use a belt or two.

  Mac looked up, and Meredith approached as Lyman and Plantagenate headed for his Escalade.

  “I just wanted to say thanks,” Meredith said, stopping ten feet short. “Watching you work today. That was”—she struggled for the word and then settled on—“Interesting.”

  “We found some things today.”

  “It still doesn’t prove me innocent,” Meredith stated, doubt in her voice, looking down.

  “No,” Mac answered, shaking his head. “But this is a start. Think of it as we’re building a wall brick by brick. We found some bricks today.”

  “Is this how most of your investigations start?”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Mac answered after a moment. “In some cases, the killer’s identity is clear. Someone saw him or her do it, and it’s simply a matter of tracking them down. Others, like your case, you don’t know who it was. So it’s a matter of picking away at the case, looking at things, and talking to people until you find a thread, and then you start pulling on it to see what shakes out. Personally, I like those cases better. They’re more challenging.”

  “Glad I’m creating some recreation for you.”

  “Sorry, Meredith, I didn’t mean to suggest …”

  Meredith gave a small smile. “I’m teasing, Mac. I’m not serious. I got what you meant. You always liked puzzles. So what are you doing next?”

  “Tomorrow, I start looking into your husband’s law files.”

  “Dick’s not helping?”

  Mac shook his head. “He’s going back to the day job tomorrow.”

  “So what do you hope to find in Frederick’s files?”

  “You were set up. I believed that bef
ore today. I know so now. I think the by whom of that will be found in your husband’s life, which is largely his law practice.”

  “And in what he was doing for this Callie Gentry?”

  “Maybe. Or possibly she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  A cold look washed over Meredith’s face. “Oh yes, she was in the wrong place at any time.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Maybe we can get rid of McRyan, without getting rid of him.”

  For three days, Mac worked the case as he’d work a normal homicide investigation, which meant around the clock. In three frustrating days, he’d learned little about his case but plenty about Sterling’s law firm. Unfortunately, the only thing he’d really learned was that it was a craven place without a soul.

  How else could you explain a place that just kept on humming as if nothing had happened, as if J. Frederick Sterling, a man who’d devoted nearly twenty-five years of his life to the firm, made it millions upon millions of dollars, had never existed. Here it was, a Friday night at 8:00 P.M., and the place was still a hub of activity.

  A lot of legal work is pure drudgery, and while that is also true of other professions, those other professions don’t require eighty-hour-plus weeks as a demonstration of fealty to the profession. There was no way all these lawyers were working on matters requiring around-the-clock attention. The courts were not open on Saturdays, nor were most other professionally based businesses where executives would expect to contact their lawyers. Instead, the young lawyers were simply doing what young lawyers were expected to do in large law firms—work around the clock in a show of commitment to the practice, to show they were worthy of future promotion and eventually the holy grail—partnership. Mac had no doubt many of these people would be back at their desks Saturday morning, grinding away while the rest of the world enjoyed a much-deserved day off.

  What truly struck Mac, however, was how many partners, including many senior partners, were still working at this late an hour, and on a Friday, no less. Didn’t they have families? Didn’t they have friends? Didn’t they have interests outside of work? Didn’t they want to go to dinner, a play, or a game? His impression was that after a long career spent at their desks or in courtrooms, these lawyers simply didn’t know how to function outside the office. The job was all they had. The job was really all they knew how to do. It was their social sphere, comfort zone, and native habitat.