—15—
Cabin fever was setting in. I had been back in the office for two days and not discovered a single lead. It was wearing us all down, morale was lower than I ever thought possible. We all walked around like the living dead, devoid of emotion as we stumbled through our days, trying to make sense of it all.
Time was closing in on us. And it felt like the walls were too. I could barely breathe, the office seemed smaller. Maybe it was the piles of documents and photographs, banker boxes filled with evidence, that were taking up the air in the room. Or maybe it was the guilt of still not having caught our killer, guilt that intensified every time someone else was found dead.
Life wasn’t getting any easier. I had the deaths of four women and an unborn child on my hands as well as another killing to try to solve.
Two days I’d been back and I may as well have stayed home. I was determined to believe that today would be different. The sun was cresting over our house when I pulled out of the driveway. Breakfast was beckoning but cereal just wouldn’t cut it today. I needed to treat myself, something greasy and fast handed through a window.
The thought was interrupted by my phone ringing.
“Detective Munroe.”
“Lincoln, it’s George.”
“Seriously?”
I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Although apparently George had found it funny.
“Yep, another one. Something different here, though.”
My hopes were rising. Today was the day.
“Perfect,” I said. “What’s changed?”
George paused. “You know what? I’ll leave it for you. Blank slate, eh?”
It was the way George taught me to look at a crime scene. No knowledge going in meant no preconceived notions. And the body was always the last stage of the crime scene. If the body was examined first, it coloured a person’s view, made them see nothing but the blood, or the stab wounds, or the bullet holes. View the scene first, collect any evidence, then examine the body.
“All right,” I said. “No hints?”
“When have I ever?”
“Right.”
I hung up from George and dialed Kara, catching her at home still.
“I was just getting ready to leave,” she said. “Where are we going?”
“Glencoe.” I gave her the address. “I can pick you up along the way if you want.”
“Don’t worry about it, I’m going out after work tonight so I’ll need my car. See you there?”
“Sounds good.”
The drive was short but it gave me time to visualize how to respond. It was mental training, preparing for a scene before arriving. With every possibility run through, there was little that could be a surprise.
Or so I thought.
Kara and I pulled in within a minute of each other. Must have been nice to have had an easier commute. George was standing outside, waiting patiently for our arrival. A constable was standing guard at the front door, and judging by the number of cruisers there was one at the back and two more inside.
“All yours,” I said to Kara. She looked at the house from the outside. It was an old farmhouse but I hadn’t seen a barn on the property when I pulled up. Either the house had been sold separately from the farmland or the current owners weren’t farmers and instead rented out the land to a neighbour.
The house was old, shingles showing signs of water and wind damage, paint peeling from the window frames, broken boards on the porch. The glass sidelight beside the front door had been broken, possibly a long time ago, and a board on the inside kept the weather out.
It was an odd looking house, a mixture of the old and new—a ranch house many years ago with a second floor addition put on later, in a different style. Either that or the original architect had a very eclectic sense of style. The lower half was done in brick, originally red but since painted in a fading yellow, the pallid colour of cooked chicken. The upper floor was done in gray siding, brown fixed window shutters adorning the windows.
A half-moon window in the front door and the decorative wood pieces on the porch and roof peaks lent the appearance of a farmhouse, the square windows and high peaked roof of the second floor looked like a house in the suburbs. I couldn’t help but laugh. Architecture was an interest of mine and this, this was like looking at a painting done in collaboration by Leonardo Da Vinci and Jackson Pollock.
“Nice place,” I said.
“Uh-huh.” Kara’s mouth was agape. “Is there anything in the Criminal Code for this?”
“Not that I know of. Bad architecture isn’t illegal yet. I’ll add it to the Bill I want to send to Parliament.”
Kara laughed. My ‘Bill’ was well known. If only I could get it passed. Being creepy, wearing clothes three sizes too small, and just being stupid would all be illegal.
Kara led the way into the house and I marveled at the choice of furniture. It was a perfect match to the outside of the house. Prints that never should have been within fifty feet of each other were touching—a floral couch and a striped sofa, pushed together at the corners. Another sofa and two recliners were crammed into the other corner of the room, no pattern alike. The furniture was all angled toward the TVs against the large wall. There were six of them, from a small LCD to a large projection style. Kara and I stepped carefully through the cluttered house. Every surface seemed to have some sort of artifact on it, a porcelain doll here, a snowglobe or a wooden craft there, all of it gathering dust.
I’d been in houses like this before. Hoarders. Just like on the documentary channels. People who couldn’t get rid of anything and collected everything. It was going to make finding evidence like jumping in a haystack and getting the needle in the rear.
The kitchen was no different. I probably could have put together table settings for five or six different families with pots and pans as well. Likely some to spare. The cupboards were overflowing with non-perishables, bought on sale in mass quantities and stored well past their ‘best before’ dates.
The fridge was much the same. Somewhat disappointing for me since there was nothing new to find, nothing new to learn about the residents. There was a strong smell in the fridge, something had gone bad, but finding it would have been impossible—I had never known there were so many different types of relish.
“This is insane,” Kara said, looking around in shock.
“First hoarder house?”
“Oh yeah. I didn’t think those shows were real, I figured they had to put extra stuff in there. You know, make it worth watching.”
“If only that were true.”
Kara and I walked down the hallway toward the bathroom and original bedrooms. The bedroom doors were both opened slightly but wouldn’t give as we pushed our way in. I stuck my head in one door and couldn’t believe my eyes. There wasn’t a piece of carpet visible and boxes were piled to the ceiling in spots. Boxes were stuck behind the door, giving me only about a foot to squeeze through. If I’d had anywhere to go.
I looked back at Kara who was just pulling her head out of the other bedroom.
“Let me guess,” I said. “No way to get in?”
“None at all. I guess we can rule out these rooms.”
“What about the bathroom?”
Kara took a few steps down the hall and opened the door. It bounced back at her immediately.
“I can see the mirror,” she said. “There’s no space in here either.”
“Hopefully the upstairs one isn’t as cluttered.”
“Either that or there had better be an outhouse.”
I nodded. “Upstairs?”
“Lead the way,” she said.
I gestured gallantly. “Ladies first.”
“You mean, rookies first.”
“Yeah, that too.”
I heard Kara mutter something under her breath. At least I knew she was just kidding.
We were greeted by a uniform when we reached the top of the stairs.
“Detectives. Standing room only.”
br /> There was a thin path through the hall toward the other rooms, nothing more, nothing less. If someone dropped a match in here, the place would be in flames in minutes and burn for months.
“Any space up here at all?”
“Just in the master bedroom, Sir. It’s actually clean, that and the ensuite.”
“I guess they needed somewhere to live,” Kara said. “Where’s the husband?”
“Out back with another officer.”
I nodded and followed Kara into the master bedroom. We breathed a collective sigh of relief. I felt like I could relax, I’d had to suck in what little gut I had just to weave through the house.
I thought back to what George had said, about there being something different. I thought he had been talking about the house.
Then I saw her.
Lying flat on her back in the bed. The other women had been found like this as well, moved down from a seated position by the husband or boyfriend when they tried to save them.
But this was different. George was right.
This wasn’t our killer.
“What do you see?”
Kara looked around. “It’s not him.”
I nodded. “Run me through it.”
“Right. Her throat is intact, ligature mark on the neck. Whatever was used was smooth, thin.” She glanced at the other side of the bed, to an orange cord sticking out from under the folded back comforter.
“There,” she said. “An extension cord.”
I nodded.
Kara walked over to the woman’s side of the bed. She lay there, nude and uncovered before us.
“Female, Caucasian, forty to forty-five. Average height, maybe five-foot-six. Heavy, probably two hundred pounds. Brown hair, brown eyes.”
Kara moved down to the woman’s hands and turned them over.
“Fuck, Lincoln. She’s warm.”
I took off my latex gloves and touched the woman’s skin. Kara wasn’t kidding. She was warm, for a corpse. The other women had been cold by the time we got to them. I looked at my watch. 7:15 a.m. Most of the killings happened around one or two in the morning.
Kara lifted the woman’s arm and we both watched as it fell back toward the bed, completely limp. Next, Kara started manipulating her fingers, bending the fingers of her right hand into a fist and back out.
“There’s no rigor. She hasn’t been dead long.”
Rigor mortis usually began to set in within three hours after death. The shortening of the muscles led to the joints and extremities becoming tense, almost immovable. Full rigor was reached at around seven hours and lasted for up to three days.
She’d been dead less than three hours, one if my uneducated estimate on the body temperature was correct.
“Look at the scar on the top of her wrist,” I said.
“Carpal tunnel surgery. Desk job.”
I nodded. “What else do you see?”
“The lividity. It’s faint but it’s there all down her right side.” She put her hands under the body and rolled it away from her. “More pronounced on the back. She was moved.”
I was proud of her. She really was a hell of a detective. The blood had pooled briefly on the right side, meaning that when she died she was lying on her side. She was later, and not much later, moved on to her back. The lividity in the back was darker, evidence she’d been left there longer.
“So?”
“Let’s go arrest the husband,” Kara said.
“We have enough?”
“No signs of forced entry, he had the opportunity.”
“Motive?”
“Not sure yet. Let’s go talk to him.”
I followed Kara downstairs and out the back door. The husband was sitting, his head in his hands.
His hands. On the edges of his hands, just below his pinky fingers, were bruises. The same shape and size as the bruises on the victim’s neck, just much fainter.
Kara saw it too.
“Sir?” Kara looked at the man, directly in the eyes as he moved his hands away.
“Morris, Morris White.”
“Mr. White, I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. “What was your wife’s name?”
“Brenda.”
“Was it him? Was it The Strangler.”
She didn’t even look back at me. She knew what she was doing.
“Morris White, you’re under arrest for the first degree murder of your spouse, Brenda White.”
“What? What the fuck are you talking about? I was at work, he killed her. It had to be him.” Anger, no tears.
“Please, sir. You’ll have your chance to speak. I need to read you some things.”
He was getting upset, frustrated, aggressive. I moved behind him and took hold of his hands, then clicked my handcuffs into place.
Kara read Morris his Right to Counsel and the Caution to Charged Person. It was the same thing as what was always on TV, just different words. You have the right to a lawyer. If you can’t afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you. We Canadians just felt the need to make it far longer than that, just to cover it all off and be polite at the same time.
Morris was still yelling, protesting his innocence as we dragged him out to a waiting cruiser. The officer took custody and secured him in the back of the car. The look on the officer’s face was priceless, not only was he tasked with the all-important job of transporting a murder suspect, he was dealing with one incapable of exercising his right to remain silent.
With a rap on the trunk of the car the officer left for the detachment. Kara and I followed the officer, my Mini and her Prius pretending to be official police vehicles.
* * *
An hour later Morris was booked into cells and on the phone with the lawyer of his choice. It was against the rules for us to ask about the conversation, lawyer-client privileges and all. It didn’t matter though, the gist of the conversation was always the same: shut up, don’t tell the cops a thing.
Kara wanted to handle the interrogation and I was more than happy to give her the chance to do so. As much as I loved making people sweat, and slowly getting a confession out of them, watching Kara in action was a thing of beauty. The Sergeant in cells, Jack Kristoff, was familiar with Kara’s near-legendary ability and it wasn’t long before he and I each had fifty dollars on the table. I gave Kara thirty minutes to crack Morris, he gave her only twenty.
Morris’s clothes had been seized once he arrived in cells so that they could be tested for DNA evidence. The next step was convincing him to give a DNA sample. It was something Kara could hopefully take care of in the interview.
I sat in the viewing room, watched the interview room on closed circuit cameras and prepared to listen to the interrogation.
A moment later the interview room door opened and Morris walked in, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, followed close behind by Kara. Morris’s handcuffs had been removed. He was in secure custody now and had calmed down significantly. If he was a threat, the cuffs would go back on before he even knew what was happening.
“Morris White, my name is Kara Jameson. I’m a Detective with the OPP homicide unit.”
Morris nodded.
“Everything in this room is subject to audio and video recording. Do you understand that?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve been afforded the opportunity to speak to a lawyer, is that right?”
“Yeah, I talked to him.”
“Good. I’m just going to review your rights again, okay?”
A grunt.
Kara read the rights and caution again along with a secondary caution, basically stating that if Morris had talked to anyone else in authority that it was not to influence him into making a statement. That way if the transport officer had told him he’d better talk or else, we were covered off.
“Right. I understand.”
“Tell me about yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because I
like to know who I’m speaking with. I want to understand how we could have gotten to this position. You’ve said you’re innocent, I want to believe you.”
“Okay. Umm, I’m forty-nine. I work in London at a high school as a night janitor. Been doing it for over twenty years. My wife worked at London Life, a secretary.”
Worked. Past tense.
“We’ve got no kids, tried but it wasn’t in the cards for us. So we travel instead, as much as we can. She likes to relax on a beach, I like to fish. I don’t know, not much else. We’re pretty simple people.”
“How was work last night?”
“About regular. Got there at ten, worked until six. Not much going on at the school, just the usual cleaning. When I came home I found Brenda dead.”
“Tell me about that.”
“She sleeps light. I snore so I stay up for a bit when I get home, until she gets up so I don’t bother her. Today I was really tired though, so I went up to get into bed. The light was on and the covers were back and she was… dead.”
He was getting upset, wiping at tears I couldn’t see.
“I saw the cord beside her and I knew it was The Strangler. I seen him in the papers and on the news. Said he strangles women when their husbands are at work.”
‘Seen’. One of my biggest pet peeves. It’s not about what you seen, it’s about what you saw.
“What happened to your hands?”
“Oh,” he said as he looked down. “That? Um, I was tying some things down with rope at work. Must have been tying too tight.”
“What kind of rope?”
“Kind? The thick stuff, triple-braid.”
He answered the question honestly. Triple-braid was likely the type of rope he used at work. It just wasn’t what he’d used last night.
“Doesn’t look like it was from triple-braid.”
“It was, I had gloves on so maybe that makes it look different.”
“Look, Morris. Time to level with me.”
She was going for the kill already. I was about to lose my bet.
“Okay,” she said. “You look like a smart guy, probably like to watch CSI?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“So you know what we can do, right?”
He looked away from Kara, put his hands on his knees to try to stop them from bouncing.
“I guess, yeah.”
“I bet those bruises are a perfect match to the cord found on your bed. I bet your DNA is all over that cord.”