by Mark Gimenez
"Brace yourself, boys."
Hank hit a switch, and bright lights illuminated the room like an OR.
" Jesus."
The blood took Scott's breath away.
The bedroom was stark white-white bed, white walls, white tile floor, white furniture, white curtains. The blood offered the only color. It was everywhere. It didn't seem possible that one human body contained that much blood.
"Didn't take luminol to find the blood at this crime scene," Hank said. "Knife cut his aorta, heart pumped till it gave out."
Scott stared at the bloody bed where his wife had had sex with another man… and where that man had died. He thought he had long ago come to terms with the fact that his wife had lain with another man. He was wrong. He was just now coming to terms with that fact-with that image-of Rebecca and another man-in that bed-having sex… and then someone stabbing that butcher knife into his chest while he slept. Had Rebecca been that someone? His face flashed hot. He couldn't seem to get a breath in the stale air.
"Scotty, you don't look so good."
"Use the bag!" Hank said.
Hank opened the French doors. The sea breeze blew in and freshened the air. After a few minutes, Scott could breathe again. He tried to block the image of his wife and Trey from his mind and to think like a lawyer instead of a man. But he couldn't help thinking, What the hell am I doing here?
"Bad time to quit smoking," Bobby said.
"Okay," Hank said, "here's the lay of the land." He walked over to the bed, stepping carefully to avoid the blood on the floor. "Trey was found lying on the far side of the bed, away from the deck doors."
Scott turned the pages of the murder book until he found the photos of the victim: Trey Rawlins lying naked in that bed, the butcher knife embedded in his chest, his body soaked in blood. Scott looked up from the photo to the bed. Nothing had changed, except the blood seemed a darker shade and Trey's body was gone.
"Your wife slept on this side, near the doors. Said she woke at three-forty-five Friday morning with a chill, said the doors leading to the deck were open. She got up to close the doors but went out onto the deck."
"Any blood on the doors or the door handles?"
"Nope."
"So the doors were open?"
"Yep."
"Prints?"
"His and hers." Hank motioned to them. "Come on… watch out for the bloody footprints. Hers."
They followed Hank out the doors and onto the white wood deck, stepping around more bloody footprints, and over to the far railing. Scott inhaled the sea air. Seagulls circled above the surf in search of fish. A shrimp boat headed into port with that day's catch, and an oil tanker headed out to sea. From the judge's house down the street came the sounds of Spanish and hammers. A lone jogger ran past on the beach below and gave them a wave. Little egrets darted after sea life stranded out of water as if they could care less that a human being had died in this house just five days before.
"Said she stood here at the railing," Hank said, "looking out to sea. Spray hit her, she wiped her face, felt wet, looked at her hands. Saw something dark, ran inside and turned the lights on." Hank turned to Scott. "You ready?"
"For what?"
"To go back in."
He wasn't. He did not want to confront the blood again. But he took a few more deep breaths and followed Hank back inside. Hank pointed at blood on the white curtains and the wall around the light switch.
"That's when she saw Trey. She called nine-one-one."
He pointed at the white phone. More blood.
"Cops came up the back stairs to the deck and through these doors, found her standing right here, holding the phone."
"She talked to the dispatcher the entire time?"
"Yep. Nine-one-one call's in the book. On a CD."
"She didn't do anything after she called?"
"Nope. Just before."
Scott viewed the photos of his ex-wife from that night, standing there in a short white nightgown soaked in blood and looking like a frightened child.
"Detective came out, questioned her, arrested her, took her to jail. They collected a blood sample and her clothes. It's all in the book."
"All the bloody prints-on the floor, the wall, the phone," Scott said, "they're hers?"
"Yep."
"No other prints in the entire room?"
"Not in blood. But we lifted the maid's prints and two other sets, both unidentified. Not in the system."
"Where?"
Hank pointed. "One set on the headboard, about middle of the bed-"
"Film this, Bobby."
— "like someone was holding on."
Bobby raised an eyebrow to Scott.
"No other prints?"
"Nope. And we dusted damn near every inch of this room."
"What about the other set?"
"In the closet."
Hank led them into the master bathroom. The center room featured a glassed-in shower and a Jacuzzi tub. Scott imagined Rebecca reclining in a bubble bath with a glass of wine after a hard day at Neiman Marcus, as she often had in their bathroom. Leading off each side were separate his and her vanities and dressing rooms.
"This one was Trey's," Hank said.
They followed Hank into a spacious dressing room with wood shelves and drawers, a leather sofa and chair, a full-length mirror, and a flat-screen TV on the wall. The racks were filled with men's clothes, mostly golf apparel and golf shoes.
"Right there," Hank said, "two full palm prints on the mirror. Probably female, from the size."
Hank was pointing at the mirror about six feet up. The prints were aligned in a way that suggested the person was leaning into the mirror with her hands spread out above, as if being frisked by a cop or…
Another raised eyebrow from Bobby.
"These unidentified prints," Scott said, "the ones on the kitchen counter, the bed headboard, and this mirror-they're all from different persons?"
"Yep."
"And no matches?"
"Nope. They're not in the FBI database. You get fingerprinted once, you're in the database forever."
"So we know at least three different people other than Trey and Rebecca and the maid were in this house at some time and none of them has ever been arrested?"
"Or worked in child care or as a school bus driver or a federal employee."
"What do you mean?"
"You want to work for the federal government or do anything with kids, you gotta get printed and pass a criminal background check first."
"Really?"
"Yep. When I started with the Bureau, I did background checks for federal agents, attorneys, judges… Pretty damn boring, so I transferred to the Drug Task Force, over in El Paso."
"When did you say the maid came?"
"Mondays and Thursdays."
"So she was here that same day?"
"Yep."
"Did she clean the surfaces where the prints were found?"
Hank frowned. "Good question."
"If she wiped those surfaces Thursday, then the prints would have been made between the time she left and when the cops arrived and sealed off the house as a crime scene Friday morning."
"Cops' prints are in the system, and everyone who entered the house wore gloves."
"Hank, those prints might belong to the murderer."
"Except only your wife's prints are on the murder weapon."
"You got the maid's number?"
"In the book."
Hank took the murder book from Scott and turned to the witnesses section. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. After a moment, he said, "Rosie Gonzales?… Hank Kowalski, with the district attorney's office… That's right, we spoke Friday. Rosie, when you cleaned the Rawlins house last Thursday, did you wipe the island counter in the kitchen?… With soap and Clorox and Pine-Sol?… Okay, what about the headboard in the master bedroom?… Unh-huh… And what about the mirror in Mr. Rawlins' closet?… Was anyone else in the house that day?… When did you leave?… O
kay. Thanks."
Hank ended the call and turned to Scott.
"She cleaned the kitchen counters Thursday, finished at noon, so those prints were put there sometime after she left and before the murder."
"What about the other prints?"
"She didn't clean the headboard or the mirror that day. Does that once a month."
"So those prints could have been put there in the last month?"
"Yep."
They returned to Trey's bathroom. Hank opened the cabinets, and Bobby filmed the contents, the usual male paraphernalia and several bottles of prescription pills.
"What was he taking?" Scott asked.
Hank held up one prescription bottle. "Viagra."
"Porn and Viagra," Bobby said with a smile. "Trey Rawlins endorsed more than just golf clubs and chocolate milk."
"CIA's bribing Afghan warlords with these blue pills," Hank said. "Most of the agents I worked with at the Bureau took them. Hell, most men I know take 'em."
"We don't. Do we, Bobby?"
"Well, uh…"
Scott turned to Bobby. "You take Viagra?"
Bobby shrugged. "I'm married to a woman ten years younger than me. There's a lot of pressure."
"What about all that 'I'm bald because I'm loaded with testosterone' stuff?"
"Hey, my first two wives left me. I'm not taking any chances with Karen."
Scott turned back to Hank. "What about the other pills?"
"One's a beta-blocker, blood pressure medicine. The other's Prozac."
"Isn't that for depression?"
Hank nodded. "My wife takes it. Says being married to me is depressing."
They followed Hank into Rebecca's dressing room, every square inch of which was packed with dresses, shirts, slacks, shorts, coats, sweaters, scarves, hats, and shoes-a lot of shoes.
"She sure likes shoes," Hank said.
"You should've seen her closet when we were married."
"A woman is an expensive habit."
"Why would she kill Trey and give all this up?"
"Maybe he was giving her up."
"He proposed to her that night."
"So she said."
"Rex said we could take her clothes."
Hank nodded. "I gotta watch what you take."
Scott stepped to a dresser and opened several long flat drawers. All contained lingerie. The sexy stuff. As if this were a Victoria's Secret showroom instead of a closet. In the top drawer were complete sets with the price tags still attached, apparently from her shopping trip that Thursday. He held one set up: black lace bustier… matching garter belt… black sheer hose with a seam up the back… and a matching black thong. Scott stared at the undergarment, imagining Rebecca wearing this outfit for Trey. He wasn't sure how long he had been staring before he snapped to the fact that he wasn't alone. He turned and saw Hank and Bobby staring at the tiny thong he was holding up. He felt his face flush. He dropped the thong into the drawer.
He was thinking like a man.
"Bobby, call Rebecca and see what she wants, okay?"
"Yeah, Scotty, I'll do this."
Scott walked out of the closet.
Thirty minutes later, Scott was outside leaning against the Jetta when Bobby and Hank appeared; each carried two oversized trash bags. Scott opened the back door. They tossed the bags inside the car.
"What'd she want?" Scott asked.
"Everything. We bagged up the entire closet."
They made two more trips into the house for her clothes. Then Scott and Bobby shook hands with Hank and climbed into the Jetta. Scott started the engine and turned the air conditioner on high. They sat in silence until Bobby said, "Jesus, that bedroom looked like a Tarantino movie."
More silence followed, then Bobby turned to him.
"Scotty, what are we doing here?"
Scott did not answer. Because he did not have an answer.
"Bobby, you thinking what I'm thinking, about those prints on the headboard and mirror?"
"Yep. They're from women. One holding onto the headboard, the other leaning into the mirror. Our all-American boy took Viagra, watched porn, and had sex with two other women in that house in the last month."
TWELVE
Miss SMU had worn a black bikini for the swimsuit competition-and she wore it again that day on the beach. They had found a secluded spot. He waded into the water and watched her perform a striptease on the sand. Then they had sex in the surf.
It seemed like yesterday instead of thirteen years ago.
An hour after leaving the crime scene, Scott sat on the back deck drinking a man beer. He needed one after learning that his ex-wife's fingerprints were on the knife that killed Trey Rawlins and seeing the bloody bed where he had died. His eyes were now alternating between the murder book in his lap and Rebecca and Boo on the beach down below-between Rebecca in the bloody nightgown and Rebecca in the black bikini she was now wearing. She was still a remarkably beautiful woman, and he still felt drawn to her.
But what was he doing here? Was he on a guilt trip, like Bobby said? And what if she were guilty? Defending his ex-wife who was found innocent would not hurt his chances for a federal judgeship. Defending his ex-wife who was found guilty of murdering the man she had left him for would kill any chance. He would have only one option in life. And when it came to Rebecca Fenney, could he ever think like a lawyer and not like a man?
He looked down at them again. Boo waved to him, and he waved back.
"I hated you."
"I know."
"Do you know how embarrassing it is for a girl my age?"
"What?"
"Mother, it was in the paper-everyone knows you ran off with the golf pro!"
"I'm so sorry, Boo."
"Pajamae and me, we thought maybe A. Scott could marry her mother-"
"Her mother? But she was-"
"Only twenty-four. Way too young for him. But she died." She paused. "Sometimes I wished you had died, too, so the other girls wouldn't tease me."
Boo had been really happy to see her mother again after almost two years, but a day later the anger had returned. She just couldn't keep it inside her. All the bad memories had come rushing back into her thoughts-the other kids teasing her, saying her mother was just a "ho"-now she wanted to hurt her mother like her mother had hurt her. So she tried to think of things to say that would hurt her mother the most.
"We sold all your clothes."
"Even my Jimmy Choos?"
"Every pair. And your Luca Luca dresses."
"I loved those clothes."
"Didn't you love me?"
"Of course."
"Then why'd you leave me? Was it my fault?"
"No, Boo, it wasn't your fault. The walls closed in on me."
" Walls? What walls?"
"Boo, you're too young to understand. When you're a woman, you will."
"I understand you're not supposed to leave your family."
"No. You're not."
"We don't have a mother to go on our field trips. A. Scott's the only father."
"He goes on your field trips?"
"Of course. The mothers are really happy when he comes."
"I bet they are."
"We cried a lot back then."
"You and Scott?"
Boo nodded. "We saw you on TV one time, at a golf tournament. I started screaming, 'There's Mother! There's Mother!' Then your boyfriend hugged and kissed you because he won and A. Scott turned the TV off and went outside and sat alone for a long time. I think he was crying."
Mother didn't say anything.
"That day you left, you said I'd be better off without you."
"And were you?"
Boo lied. "Yes."
Boo looked up and saw tears running down her mother's face, and she thought, Good. It's your turn to cry. She had wanted to hurt her mother, and she had, but now she felt bad for having done it. She took her mother's hand.
Louis's sudden presence startled Scott. How could a three-hundred-thirty
-pound man walk so softly? Scott had been focused on Rebecca and Boo down on the beach, walking hand in hand.
"I had a woman once," Louis said. "Loved her till it hurt. And that's all I got from her. A big case of hurt."
Man's need for love transcended race, color, creed, socioeconomic status, and size.
"What'd you find out at Gaido's?"
"They got good fried oysters."
"From Ricardo."
"Said Mr. Rawlins and Miz Fenney, they came there a couple times a week, when they was in town. Said he didn't see no strangers that night, just the locals. Said they was drinking and acting real happy that night, said they was pretty drunk time they left, which wasn't unusual. He never heard 'em fussing. Ever. Except-"
"Except what?"
"He said Mr. Rawlins had a fat lip that night, like someone hit him in the mouth."
"Did Ricardo hear Trey propose to her?"
"No, sir, said he didn't hear that. Said they got up to leave, so he went to the front door with them, then Mr. Rawlins, he went to the men's room. Ricardo said goodnight to Miz Fenney, went back to work before Mr. Rawlins come back."
"But he knew Trey had asked her to marry him?"
"Yes, sir. He knew."
"So when did they tell him?"
"Not they, Mr. Fenney. Her. She told Ricardo."
"We, me, us-why does it matter?"
"It matters, Rebecca, because we don't have a witness who heard Trey propose to you. It's just the word of an accused murderer."
"Scott, he asked me to marry him."
Scott had gone down to the beach and sent the girls inside to clean up for dinner. He and Rebecca were now sitting in low chairs under an umbrella on the beach facing the sea. She still wore the black bikini, but he saw the black lingerie.
"I believe you. But the grand jury's going to indict you Friday."
"But I didn't kill him! Just because I was sleeping next to him in his blood, that's not proof I killed him! Why do they think I killed him?"
"Because your fingerprints are on the murder weapon."
She turned to him with an incredulous expression. " What? How? "
"That's what I need you to tell me."
"I don't know."
"The knife was from your kitchen."
" Our kitchen?"
Scott nodded. "The matched set in the drawer. The police didn't tell you?"
