False Prophet (2 page)

Gomez looked around the room. “You could tell the difference?”

“It’s the perp’s mess, not yours.” His back ached from kneeling. He sat on the floor. “Lilah, I’m Sergeant Decker. I’m here to help you. Can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can.”

No response.

“Lilah, Miss Gomez—”

“Teresa.”

“Lilah, Teresa and Eddie are going to take good care of you. They’re taking you to the hospital. Everything is going to be okay.”

There was no hand squeeze, but tears leaked from under closed eyes.

“Lilah, I know you can hear me, but I also know you’re too weak to talk. Don’t even try. I’m going to try to find out what happened to you. When you’re feeling better, I’ll come to the hospital and talk to you. You just hang in. I have to take my hand away now, so the paramedics can get you to the hospital.”

But as he pulled his hand away, she tightened her grip.

Eddie said, “You can hold her hand.” His voice was tinny. “We can work around you.”

Again, Decker tried to extricate himself. “Lilah, I’d like to look around your house. It will help me find out what happened.”

Her hand remained affixed to his, fingers digging into his flesh. “Just hold her hand, Sergeant, while we load her,” Teresa said. “No sense upsetting her.”

Decker cooperated, but felt uncomfortable about it. Such
desperation
in her grip — and
strength
. Eerie because Lilah looked so beaten and weak. Maybe it was adrenaline reserve. He whispered, “You’re safe now, Lilah. No one is going to hurt you. You’re safe.”

“Lilah, we’re getting ready to move you,” Teresa said. “I’m just bracing your neck. You’re going to be okay.” She turned to Decker. “As long as you’re here, slip your hand under her back and help us load her.”

Decker nodded.

“Count of three,” Eddie said. “One… two… three, go!”

Like well-oiled machinery, the three of them loaded Lilah onto the gurney, her hand still gripping Decker’s. But at least now he was able to stand, roll his shoulders to loosen his back. Again he tried to take his hand away, but Lilah wouldn’t ease up.

Teresa craned her neck to look up at Decker. “From the grip she has on you, at least we know there’s no spinal break… from the waist up, that is.”

Eddie said. “Lilah, can you wiggle your toes?”

There was a slight response.

“Good, Lilah,” Decker said. “That was
good
. Can you understand me? Squeeze my hand if you can.”

A light squeeze.

“That’s great, Lilah! The paramedics are going to take you to the hospital now. You’re in excellent hands. The doctors are going to help you, run a few tests to make sure you’re okay. I want them to examine you very carefully for me. Is that all right? Do you understand me?”

Another squeeze.

Decker turned to the paramedics and said, “Where are you taking her?”

“Sun Valley Memorial,” Teresa said. “That okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Ask for Dr. Kessler or Dr. Begin and tell them it’s for Detective Sergeant Peter Decker. They’ve both done pelvics in these types of situations and are familiar with what I need for evidence collection. The usual — all the fluids, a good pelvic- and head-hair combing, nails cleaned, the debris slided for the lab — fingernails and toenails.” He stroked the hand that was clutching his. “Lilah, at the hospital, is it okay if someone takes pictures of your injuries? If I have pictures of your injuries, it will help me catch and convict the monster who did this to you. Do you understand me?”

She let out a muffled sound.

“Lilah, squeeze my hand if it’s okay?”

Another squeeze.

“Good, Lilah.” He faced the paramedics. “Tell the docs that I’ll be sending down a police photographer. I’ll also need her clothes and any other personal effects bagged. Please ask them to use
gloves
. I’ll pick her stuff up myself and send it to the lab.”

“You got it,” Teresa said.

Decker regarded the manicured hand, long slender fingers laced around his. “Lilah, this is Sergeant Decker again. I’m going to ask you a question. Squeeze my hand if the answer is yes. Do you know who attacked you?”

No reaction.

“Okay, I’m going to ask you the same question. Squeeze if the answer is yes. Do you know who attacked you?”

Nothing.

“You
don’t
know who attacked you? Squeeze if you don’t know who attacked you.”

Decker felt light pressure around his fingers. “Okay, that was great. I promise you, Lilah, you’re safe. You’re going to be all right. I have to let go now.”

Her fingers tightened around his.

“Lilah, I have to let them take you to the hospital and I can’t come with you.” He wrenched his hand out of hers and as he did, she let out a low moan. “I’ll be back, Lilah. I promise I’ll come back and talk to you.”

She moaned again, water trickling down her face. As they carried her out, Decker saw her hand stretching outward, reaching out to him. And those
moans
. He felt as if he were abandoning her and hoped she wouldn’t hold anything against him when he came to question her… if she’d even remember him. Assault victims were sometimes afflicted with amnesia, especially if the ordeal was particularly vicious.

Decker stretched his long spine, then ran his thick hand through carrot-colored hair. Looking over his shoulder, he noticed the maid at the entrance to the room. She was still trembling, her hand on the doorpost for support. He told her to sit down in the kitchen and pour herself a cup of tea. He’d be with her in a minute.

From his coat pocket, he pulled out an evidence bag and slipped the blindfold inside. With a grease pencil, he roughly outlined Lilah’s position on the floor. Then he unhitched his hand-held radio and asked to be patched through to Detective Marge Dunn. While waiting for her to respond, he took out a pen and his rape checklist and began to make detailed notes.

Tucked inside the
rear corner of the bedroom’s walk-in closet, the freestanding safe was open and empty. It was a waist-high, green-colored block, lined with three inches of high-grade solid steel, and contained an inner safe that was bare as well. As Benny the printman dusted the vault, Marge Dunn danced around shards of glass as she drew a layout of the bedroom and divided it into grids for evidence check.

The place had been tossed; furniture had been knocked over. Old-looking pieces: the skinny, austere stuff without curves or embellishments. Could have been replicas, but were probably antiques. Lots of embroidered pillows and doodads, doilies in garish colors, were mixed in with the mess. Lilah had a four-poster bed, the rumpled spread made out of chenille. Like the spread Granny used to have, Marge thought, white and full of little pompons. She smiled, remembering how she picked at them until the knots fell apart.

A couple of baby uniforms named Bellingham and Potter were hanging around, not really getting in the way but not doing anything productive either. There were already a few blues outside securing the scene so the young ’uns weren’t needed here. Marge called them over.

Nice-looking babies — tall and trim with well-scrubbed faces, eyes that seemed eager to work. Their enthusiasm made Marge feel old. Depressing, since she’d just turned thirty.

“Why don’t you two canvass the area?” she suggested. “See if anybody or anyone heard anything?”

Bellingham rubbed a spit-polished shoe against the floor. “Sergeant Decker told us to wait here. The nearest neighbor is the spa and he didn’t want us questioning anyone without him. But if you want us to go, Detective, we’ll go.”

Marge thought for a moment, fingering strands of blond hair. Pete was right. These kids weren’t savvy enough to handle the Vulcanites.

“I noticed a stable out back,” Marge said. “Why don’t you check that out? See if anyone’s hanging around, if anything looks suspicious. Count how many horses the stable holds.”

“Sure thing, Detective,” Potter said. “Should we report back to you or Sergeant Decker if we come up with anything?”

“Either one,” Marge said. “And don’t spend too much time on it. Just look around, jot down some notes, and report back. Then get on with your patrols. You two together?”

“Yes, ma’am… er, yes, Detective…” Bellingham blushed. “Sorry.”

Marge smiled, slapped him on the back. “Get your butts out there.”

After they left, she was glad to have some elbow room. The photographer had just finished, leaving Benny in the closet. The lab boys were checking the doors and windows in the front section of the house, and Pete and the maid were in the dining room.

“Detective?” Benny called out.

“Coming.” Marge squeezed her large frame inside the closet. Not an easy trick with Benny occupying most of the space. The man was big and blocky, just this side of fat. Today he was dressed in a starched white shirt and razor-pressed pants; not a spot of dust dared sully his clothes. Definitely the neatest lab man she’d ever worked with. “What’s up?”

“We got some beauties.” Benny’s voice was basso pro-fundo. “Unfortunately, they’re repeats. See right here… this is a right index, it shows up twice. Here we got a partial palm and two right thumbs on the dial. A middle over here. On the inner dials we have the same palm and index. You can see how small they are. Female. I’ll transfer them but I’m betting they belong to the lady of the house.”

“Anything else?”

“Not so far.”

Marge shrugged off the lack of progress. Most perps just didn’t leave calling cards, but almost all left evidence transfer. Even if she couldn’t find anything else, there was the semen. Marge could smell it as she approached the bed. She’d bag the sheets after she sifted through the mess on top of them.

She wandered into the master bathroom. Its walls were ceramic tiles of mint and hunter green in immaculate condition. The taps were old-style fixtures but the chrome was high-polished and scratch free. There was a beveled mirror on the back of the door. Open glass shelving served as the medicine cabinet. The racks held pottery crocks labeled in calligraphy — witch hazel, foxglove, mint, trefoil. No over-the-counter meds, not one prescription vial. The top shelf held a bowl of cinnamon-smelling pinecones and acorns. The bathroom window was clear glass, but obscured by a curtain of dangling crystal beads. They sent prismatic rainbows onto the walls.

Whoever messed up the bedroom hadn’t bothered with the bathroom.

Marge returned her attention to the bedroom. It was papered in something silky and cream-colored and dotted with a couple of dozen black-and-white photos of Lilah Brecht buddying up to celebrities. Or maybe it was the other way around. The stars looked
thrilled
to be in the snapshot. All the photos had been autographed.

To Lilah and Valley Canyon: With my fondest love, Georgina DeRafters
.

To Lilah Brecht: the only woman who has seen me without makeup. Keep that cellulite off my thighs. Love, Ann Milo
.

Georgina DeRafters and Ann Milo: old-timers who’d made strictly B movies. The As were probably hung on the spa’s walls. How did that make the Bs feel? Did they even notice? They were bound to; all actresses are narcissistic. What did Lilah tell them after they’d paid her hundreds a day and didn’t even see
their
pictures on the wall?

I keep my closest and dearest friends at home?

Marge shrugged. For every picture still on the wall, there were at least that many scattered about the room. The glass protecting the photographs had been deliberately smashed, as if someone had taken the pictures off the wall and smacked them with a hammer. One bull’s-eye in the center of each picture, broken seams radiating outward. The room twinkled with glass reflecting the bright midmorning light. The sunbeams coursed through two large windows — one on the eastern wall, one on the northern. Pete had found the bedroom windows locked: The lab men hadn’t found any pry marks on their sashes.

The nightstands flanking the bed had been pushed over, the table lamps crushed to dust. The impact of the lamps falling to the floor couldn’t have pulverized the ceramic bases to that extent. The table-to-floor distance was just not that great. Someone had smashed the suckers.

Someone had been
pissed
.

The dresser had been cleared of its contents, drawers pulled out and emptied, clothes tossed about carelessly.

Only Lilah’s bedroom had been trashed.

Maybe the perp was expecting to find something in the safe. When it wasn’t there, he’d searched the entire bedroom.

But then, why wasn’t the rest of the house tossed?

Maybe he found what he wanted.

Then he raped her.

Marge carefully fingered the broken glass on the bed with her gloved hand. She’d have Benny bag the pieces. Could be someone cut himself, leaving traces of blood. The lab man came out of the closet.

“I’m done inside, Detective. You want to search it for evidence, go ahead. I’ll start dusting the walls.”

“Find anything other than those female prints?”

Benny shook his head.

“Detective?”

Marge turned around. Officer Bellingham had returned, a very grave look on his face.

“We finished our interview with the stable hand. I think you’d better check him out personally.”

“Stable hand?”

“Yes, ma… Detective. He claims he lives there. There is a small hot plate inside one of the stables, some cooking utensils and work clothes. And there’s a chemical toilet just outside the barn. He
could
be telling the truth. But I don’t think the man has his full faculties.”

“He’s retarded?”

“Or very stupid, Detective. He answers in one-word sentences, won’t look you in the eye. Very suspicious. Of course, he
claims
he didn’t hear anything. And the stables are pretty far away from the house. But I think this man needs to be questioned. Officer Potter is with him now. Should we bring him here?”

“No, I’ll go out to the stables. You make sure no one unauthorized comes in the bedroom. This stable hand have a name?”

“Carl Totes. He says he’s worked for Miss Brecht for many years. Like I said, there’s evidence that he does reside inside the stables but I think he could be a suspect.”