Lost Lake Page 5

  I remembered Larry Bornstein’s words from the previous night, when he spoke of the Rayburn Diary curse: Someone will die.

  “Chloe—who’s the victim?”

  But I was already talking to a dead line.

  Chapter Six

  As I drove down the canyon and into town, I watched the sun slowly climb up a cornflower blue sky. Traffic was light, and I made good time. As I passed a local church, I slowed to read the message on their billboard. It asked “Going the wrong way?” and while it seemed as though there should have been more to the message, that was it.

  I was left with a hollow sense that maybe no one knew the answer to the question.

  I grabbed a quick breakfast from a gas station and ate it as I drove, immediately wishing I’d ordered a larger coffee. I was running on little sleep. It was ironic that prior to the last few nights, I had been sleeping more heavily than I had in years. Deep, dreamless sleep had been the not-entirely-terrible result of working full time and caring for an infant who blessedly slept through the night from an early age.

  In the parking lot, a reporter I recognized sat in a news van. Bryce Ventura wrote for the Valley Voice and was no doubt waiting for an official statement from our department.

  I wondered if he had heard chatter on the police scanner or if this killing, like so much of our police business, had already been leaked to the press.

  The officer lifted the lines of yellow tape that were strung up across the front door like nightmarish tinsel. I ducked beneath them, careful not to touch anything. The corridor was quiet, and I saw little evidence of the previous night’s festivities. The space had already been cleaned; the floor was mopped and the trash and recycling cans, which had been overflowing, were now empty. The lights were dim, and my footsteps echoed on the tile floors. Clear of the crowds and food and beverage stations, the museum felt larger, more cavernous, with too many shadowy alcoves and dim corners.

  Uneasy, I hurried up the stairs toward the sound of voices.

  Chief Chavez, three crime scene technicians, and another uniformed officer stood at the top of the stairs, near an open door, staring into the room beyond with pale, glum faces. I slowed my steps, noting the stockinged feet that stuck out of the doorway, the black high-heeled shoes that lay askew a few inches from them.

  Oh, no.

  I tried to prepare myself for what lay in the room, for what suffering the woman who wore the black heels had experienced. Staring death in the face, especially violent death, is like a punch in the gut: visceral, breathtaking, severe. I’ve spent time with cops who have forty years on the force, and with cops who have four months, and the one thing that everyone agrees upon is this: you can’t ever forget the dead.

  I reached the group, and Chavez stepped aside to let me take in the scene.

  I felt the gas station coffee and stale doughnut roll in my stomach. Chavez looked down at the body, his face dark with emotion. “What are your first impressions?”

  I crouched down and took a few minutes to do a cursory but thorough study of the scene. Betty Starbuck lay in the doorway of her office. Her gown was ripped and tattered at the hem and sleeves, suggesting a violent struggle. The mess inside the small room further supported this: drawers and cabinets thrown open, papers in shreds, a shattered lamp and overturned chair. In the middle of the floor was a paper bag from the Burger Shack, a cheeseburger and fries soaked with ketchup spilling from it. The ketchup had congealed into a thick, sweet-smelling paste.

  In her right hand, Starbuck gripped her necklace, the gold choker with the enormous opal gemstone. The chain was snapped, as though she’d ripped the necklace from her neck, and in the dim light the bright center stone twinkled like a portal to a strange and milky universe.

  Her neck …

  Her neck was a mess of bruises. Blood from the gaping wound on her left temple covered the side of her head. Near the body, stained with what was clearly bodily matter, was a broken ceramic paperweight.

  I stood up slowly, deeply disturbed. “I don’t get it.”

  “Go on,” Chavez prodded.

  “The room looks ransacked, which suggests that someone was looking for something … but what? The museum safe is downstairs, and the most valuable item the museum owns, the Rayburn Diary, is already missing. That necklace in Starbuck’s hand? It’s got to be worth at least a few thousand dollars. If this was a robbery, why damage and then leave the necklace? Look at her neck, the bruising, the beating.… It’s a very personal way to kill someone. But if this was an attack for personal reasons, why ransack the room?” I asked. “There’s a lot that doesn’t add up.”

  “Those were my thoughts as well.” Chavez nodded. “The poor woman. No one deserves this kind of brutality.”

  I took another look at Starbuck’s face. Mercifully, her eyes were closed. Though I’d only met her once, she’d struck me as an intelligent, dedicated woman, and I was sorry to see her become the victim of such terrible violence.

  The last time I’d seen her alive, she’d been arguing with three men: the contractor, Alistair Campbell; her employee, Dr. Larry Bornstein; and the rare books dealer, James Curry.

  Had their argument turned deadly?

  I stepped out of the room and stood in the hallway with Chavez. “Have any of the staff been informed? Dr. Bornstein, or the board?”

  “No,” the Chief said. “We’ll do family first. Betty had two sons. Kent Starbuck is the older. He’s been in and out of trouble for years. Last I heard, he was living in North Carolina. After Betty’s husband died, she was in a long-term relationship with a man from Avondale until he, too, passed away many years ago. Patrick Crabbe, her younger son, is the result of that relationship. You know him. He owns the Gas ’n’ Go station on Seventh and Canyon. Hell of a nice guy.”

  It was a disturbing coincidence that it was the same gas station I’d stopped at just thirty minutes before. I knew the place well; set back off the road, skirting the woods, it was routinely the target of vandalism. Over the years, Patrick Crabbe had called our department a number of times. Sometimes the vandalism was juvenile slurs scrawled across the bathroom mirrors; other times, it was more destructive—broken windows, smashed lights.

  Crabbe, a slim blond man with a meek demeanor and a tendency to avoid eye contact, was always apologetic when he called us, as though the actions of a few punks were somehow his fault.

  “I’ll inform him when we’re done here.” It wasn’t something I was looking forward to.

  Chavez nodded. “Good. Get an alibi for him, too.”

  “Patrick?” I gave the chief a look. “The man would keel over if you sneezed in his direction. You don’t honestly think…”

  “You said it yourself. This killing was personal. Odds are that Betty Starbuck knew her killer, perhaps even intimately. Who’s more intimate than family?”

  I started to answer, then noticed a young man sitting on the floor behind a pushcart of cleaning supplies at the end of the hallway. He was nineteen or twenty and wore jeans and a light sweatshirt. He sat with his back against the wall, his head in his hands. What looked like dried vomit bloomed across the front of the sweatshirt, and near his feet was a large puddle of brownish fluid.

  I turned to Chavez. “Who’s that and what’s with the spill?”

  “The spill with the lovely pine aroma is cleaning fluid. The young man is Jerry Flowers, the janitor. He found the body. Poor kid; it’s only his second week on the job.”

  Flowers glanced up at the sound of his name and stared at us with an intense and slightly nauseated look on his face.

  Chavez lowered his voice, turned away from Flowers. “Make sure his story checks out. He called it in, but who knows, maybe he arrived and saw Starbuck working late, thought she was an easy target.”

  “I’ll interview him. Calling in, that doesn’t mean much. We’ve seen it before, perps do the deed then call nine-one-one. They think it’s a diversion, that it throws suspicion off them.”

  “A play like that,
coming from a teenager? It’s enough to give me chills. Keep me updated, Gemma. I’m going back to the office to prepare a press release. Betty was well known in town. People are going to be asking a lot of questions, seeking reassurance. I want you to dedicate all your resources to this case. Offload your other work to one of your colleagues if you need to,” Chavez said. He checked his watch. “And bring Finn in on this as soon as he lands. I think his flight arrives around two. I’ve sent him a message to come into work this afternoon.”

  I was already looking forward to getting Finn up to speed. He was a solid investigator, albeit one with a few personality defects: he was chauvinistic and brash and ready to bend the law if it meant nabbing criminals.

  “I’ll keep you informed, Chief.” He nodded and turned away. I watched Chavez walk down the stairs, his shoes treading softly on the tiles, his head lowered. He had the kind of presence that took up psychic space—in a positive way—and his departure from the crime scene was jarring; the museum suddenly seemed both cavernous and claustrophobic. I looked around, taking in the minor details that made up the space: the high ceilings, the polished stair railing, the scratches on the floor from so many shoes moving to and fro.

  It had been a quiet spring; until yesterday, when I’d received the call out to Lost Lake, my plate had been relatively empty. Suddenly, I had three active investigations: the stolen Rayburn Diary, the missing Sari Chesney, and the murdered Betty Starbuck.

  I glanced around the space again. There was an edgy, unsettled feeling to the building, similar to what I’d experienced at Lost Lake.

  Yesterday, it was simply a museum.

  But now?

  Now it was where a woman had taken her last breath.

  Where a killer had taken a life.

  Chapter Seven

  I sat with Jerry Flowers in a small conference room next to Starbuck’s office while he gave me a formal statement. Every time he shifted in his seat, a fetid wave of vomit and sweat rolled across the table and hit me in the face.

  “I puked when I saw the body. Then I called the police,” Flowers said. He wiped his hands repeatedly on his jeans then finally stuck them in the front pocket of his sweatshirt. He sucked on the insides of his cheeks, breathing hard through his nose, staring at the table, the walls, the ceiling, everywhere but at me. It was obvious I made him nervous, and I leaned back in my seat, tried to adopt as casual a pose as I could under the circumstances.

  “You did the right thing, Jerry. Did you touch the body? Check for a pulse, see if she was still breathing?”

  “No way,” Flowers said. He shook his head emphatically. “I could see she was dead just by looking at her.”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry you had to be the one to find her. I understand this is your second week on the job. Had you seen Mrs. Starbuck here before, that early in the morning?”

  Flowers shook his head. “No, I’ve never seen that woman before in my life.”

  I was surprised. “She didn’t hire you?”

  “No. I work for my dad’s cleaning business. He’s contracted out by the city. They hired us.”

  “I see. Jerry, can you please walk me through your routine here? Help me understand what a typical morning looks like for you.”

  “Yeah, sure. Um, I usually arrive about five a.m. This is the first building on my rotation of places to clean. They gave me the alarm code, so I let myself in through the back door, mop the floors, do the bathrooms, and empty the trash. It’s easy work; the museum never gets too messy, and I can listen to my music. I got here early today, because I knew there’d be a lot of trash and extra cleanup from the party last night. I did the first floor, then went upstairs. And that was when I saw her.”

  “Was the alarm set when you arrived?”

  Flowers nodded emphatically. “Yes, definitely. I wouldn’t have entered the building if the alarm wasn’t activated. It’s protocol, and anyway I’m not stupid. I’ve seen way too many horror movies to make that mistake.”

  “Have you ever seen anyone else here? I mean, coming in that early.… Are you typically the only person here or are there others?”

  “Sure. That old guy who wears the bow tie and the sweaters. Larry B. He’s always here, hanging out in his office downstairs. He’s not working, though. I think he comes in early to start his day nice and relaxed; he’s usually got the newspaper and a cup of coffee,” Flowers said. He leaned forward and hugged himself. Another burst of the sour smell traveled my direction. “We sometimes chat for a few minutes. He likes to talk sports. Listen, can I get out of here soon? I don’t feel so good.”

  “Yes. Let me get your contact information in case there’s anything else I need from you.”

  He gave me his phone number and address, and I jotted them down in my notebook. A lot of cops took notes on their phones or tablets nowadays, but I liked the feel of the small notebook, the stubby pencil. They somehow felt more solid, more real, than the high-tech stuff.

  As Flowers turned to walk out of the conference room, I stopped him with one more question. “Jerry, when you arrived, did anything seem … strange? Different somehow, other than the murder, I mean?”

  The young man thought a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. There was a beer bottle on the stairs. I almost tripped over it. I’ve never seen a beer bottle in a museum before. It was a Corona. Half-full. No lime, though.”

  “What did you do with the bottle?”

  “I tossed it in the recycling,” Flowers said. “Downstairs, out back. There are big trash and recycling containers. I always empty my bags from the first floor before I come up to the second floor.”

  I made a note to check the recycling. Alcohol had been served at the gala the night before, but I hadn’t noticed if the beer was served by the bottle or poured. There was a set of restrooms near the stairs; the Corona may have simply been placed on the step by a guest who didn’t want to take it into the facilities, and then had forgotten to retrieve it.

  After speaking with Flowers, I spent the next two and a half hours examining the crime scene and watching the technicians as they photographed the body and room and flagged dozens of spots for evidence. The medical examiner’s team showed up early on. I was disappointed that Cedar Valley’s usual ME, Dr. Ravi Hussen, was temporarily out of the country on extended leave to visit family in Morocco. I enjoyed Ravi’s company and her quick wit, not to mention her insightful and thoughtful manner. Taking Ravi’s place was a quiet black man who introduced himself as Dr. Samuel Bonaire, from the Denver ME’s office. He was on loan to us for the month that Ravi was away.

  Bonaire spent several minutes walking around the body. He worked quickly, moving with the quiet confidence of someone who knows he does his job well. After some time, he knelt next to Starbuck’s head and gently touched her neck and skull with his gloved hands.

  I crouched beside him. “Find anything?”

  Bonaire looked at me. His eyes were an intense shade of green, and he spoke with a warm Caribbean accent. “We’ll do an autopsy, of course, but this poor woman died of asphyxiation.”

  “Not the head injury?”

  “Doubtful. The injury appears brutal but was a cursory blow. The vascular nature of the area has led to the severity of the bleeding, not the wound itself. No, I’m fairly confident we’ll find her hyoid bone fractured. She was struck, then manually strangled. Tragic.”

  He stood and went over to one of the techs and asked them a few questions. I took the opportunity to use the restroom and splash water on my face. Before returning to the crime scene, I stared in the mirror and gave myself a pep talk.

  The last murder I’d investigated had been just a few months prior. While confronting a suspect, I’d been attacked and nearly killed. I was far from gun-shy, but another killing in our small town, so soon after the last one, was jarring.

  Grabbing a handful of paper towels from the dispenser, I dried my hands and face and whispered a mantra to myself that I’d started saying every morning, when I woke.

 
; One step at a time, Gemma. Take it one step at a time.

  Bonaire was waiting for me back in Starbuck’s office. “Based on the body and room temps, the victim died about one, maybe two o’clock this morning,” he said.

  “That puts her murder soon after the gala ended,” I replied. “There was a security guard working last night. I wonder if he cleared the museum?”

  Bonaire shrugged and turned back to the body. I jotted down a few thoughts to follow up on:

  Killer at gala and hid? Or entered later?

  Did security sweep the building after the last guest left?

  Fast food—Starbuck left and came back. Why?

  Bonaire came back to my side. “We’re ready to move the body when you are.”

  “As long as the techs have what they need, that’s fine. I assume you’ll be doing the autopsy today? I’ll sit in.”

  Bonaire nodded. “Yes, I can do a preliminary examination this afternoon. Toxicology and final reports won’t be ready for some time, of course, but I’m fairly confident we can get you an official cause of death.”

  “Excellent. I’ll come by the medical examiner’s office after I notify the next of kin.”

  “That’s fine,” Bonaire said. “Try to have someone come in for the formal identification, if they are willing. If they’re not, I’ll request medical and dental records and we can go that route. Then we can move on to the autopsy.”

  I wrapped things up with the techs, then walked to the back of the building. I noted the alarm system—currently disabled—then I opened and examined the back door. The lock was intact. At the bottom of the door, on the interior side, were rubber marks from a nearby stopper, indicating the door had routinely been propped open.

  While I’d been inside, another spring shower had moved into the valley, and I walked out into a gently falling rain. I found the large recycling bin next to the dumpsters. Inside it were wine bottles, beer bottles, aluminum cans, and various scraps of paper. I counted at least fifteen Corona beer bottles, making it difficult to know exactly which bottle was the one Jerry Flowers had picked up from the stairs of the museum.