Blind Rage (11 page)

He reached around the doorway, fumbled along the wall, and flipped on the hallway fixture. It didn’t cast enough light for him to work the crossword puzzle, but it did allow him to notice something strange.

The bathroom’s globe-shaped light fixture was so filled with water, it could pass for a fishbowl. The floor under the light was wet, too. He glanced up at the ceiling and frowned while scratching his crotch. Crazy bitch upstairs was up to her old shenanigans again. He should have guessed something was amiss when earlier that night he’d looked out the window and caught a glimpse of her coming up the walk with a man. Then while he was using the facilities for one of his many postdinner pees, he’d heard them overhead banging and thumping and making all sorts of godawful racket. They were probably doing the dirty deed in the tub.

Because she was such a head case, he and the other tenants had grown accustomed to her crap the last couple of years and pretty much ignored it. When she was having one of her hyper episodes, she’d have the television and the stereo blaring. She’d be dancing and hopping around like someone had plugged her full of quarters. At two in the morning, she’d start running the vacuum and moving the furniture. Sometimes she’d bring home armloads of shopping bags filled with clothes and shoes and purses. Bringing boys home to bang was not out of the ordinary for her either. He swore he never saw her with the same one twice.

Her hyper episodes had made her down days seem almost pleasant. She’d be dragging her sorry butt around the building like it was the end of the world, but at least she was quiet. She did have that one day when she brought the cops to the building after swallowing a bottle of baby aspirin or some such shit. It was a weak-ass suicide attempt, but it seemed to get her the help she needed. Her up-and-down episodes weren’t nearly as frequent after that.

This water damage told him she was up to her old tricks, however. Come sunrise, he was going to phone the super and complain.

Carefully avoiding the area directly under the dripping ceiling light, he padded over to the john. With a sigh, he dropped his boxers and lowered himself onto the stool. He grabbed the puzzle book and pencil off the top of the toilet tank. Holding the book open on his lap, he squinted in the weak light thrown into the bathroom from the hallway. There was enough light to make out the empty blocks but not nearly enough to read the clues. Still, he flipped through the pages once just out of habit, then put the book back on the toilet tank.

For lack of anything better to do while he sat, he counted the drips from the light fixture as they hit the puddle on the floor. It was going to be a long night, and it was that crazy bitch’s fault. With any luck, the super was going to kick her nutty ass out onto the street by week’s end.

Chapter 11

WHILE TALKING ON THE PHONE WITH GARCIA, BERNADETTE
looked over at Creed, and he shook his head solemnly.

“Who found her? When?”

“Downstairs neighbor noticed water dripping from his bathroom ceiling last night and left a message for the building caretaker this morning. Caretaker goes upstairs this afternoon, knocks on the girl’s door, doesn’t get an answer, lets himself in. Finds her dead—faceup in her own bathtub.”

Bernadette reached for a pen and a pad. “Same profile as the other victims?”

“Pretty much. Name was Kyra Klein.”

“Kyra Klein,” Bernadette repeated, looking at Creed. He scratched down the name.

“Early twenties,” Garcia continued. “Undergrad student at the U of M. Lots of problems. Tried to off herself a couple of years ago by swallowing some pills. She’s been seeing shrinks for…”

Bernadette heard some papers shuffling on Garcia’s end. “Let me guess. Depression? Anorexia?”

“Here it is…bipolar disorder.”

“Bipolar disorder,” she repeated, so Creed could keep up with the conversation. “That’s where people have big-time mood swings, right? They go from the highest high to the lowest low?”

“Something like that,” he said. “She was being treated with lithium.”

“Lithium, huh? I’ve heard of it.” She looked over at Creed, and he shrugged. “But we’re not…I’m not sure what that does exactly.”

“It’s serious shit. You don’t want to take too much.”

“Are you saying she overdosed?”

“Crime scene found an empty bottle in the medicine cabinet,” he said.

Bernadette tapped her pen on the pad. “So this could be a suicide.”

“There are restraint marks on her body and bruises on her legs, just like with the other bathtub victim,” he said.

“The killer slipped her a mickey to make his job easier, but she still put up a fight.”

“There was an empty glass with traces of wine in it,” he said.

“I’ll bet the lab finds traces of lithium, too.” She clicked her pen. “I want to talk to the doc who prescribed the stuff. Got the bottle handy?”

Paper shuffling on Garcia’s end. “I’ve got the name of her therapist.”

“That won’t do me any good,” she said. “They can’t prescribe drugs. I need the psychiatrist.”

“I’ll get his name off the police.”

“Did anybody see anything? Hear anything?”

“The downstairs neighbor, the fellow with the place right below her place, heard banging last night. Figured she was up to her old manic ‘bullshit,’ as he put it. He did see her enter the building earlier with a man.”

Bernadette looked over at Creed and said: “The neighbor saw her with someone? With a man?”

“Big blond man. That’s all he can give us. All the neighbor basically saw was the top of the guy’s head.”

“A big blond dude in a state filled with big blond dudes,” she said. “That’ll get us far.”

“Plus it was dark out, so who knows if he even got the blond part right.”

“No one else heard or saw anything?”

“Police are doing their usual. Going door to door. So far, nothing. Apparently Miss Klein was the village eccentric, and folks stopped paying attention to her comings and goings. Her gentleman visitors. I’ve been told she had a lot of those.”

“Was she hooking?”

“No. I think the sexcapades might have something to do with her manic spells.”

“I
really
need that doctor’s name.” She clicked her pen a couple of times.

“I said I’ll get it,” said Garcia.

“How much of this is being released to the media?” she asked.

“Police are withholding her name until they can reach her brother. He lives out in Seattle.”

“Her parents?”

“Both dead.”

“What
is
being handed out to the press? What are we saying about this?”

“We aren’t saying squat. Like I’ve been telling you—”

“This belongs to the Minneapolis cops. I know, I know. What are they telling the reporters?”

“Not much. Woman found dead in her home. Possible OD. That’s it. They aren’t even mentioning the tub. They know we need to keep a lid on these deaths until we know what’s going on.”

“Sounds like everything is under control,” she said evenly. “What’s left for me to do?”

“I’d like you to spend your time working this case in a way that the police and our agents can’t.”

Her eyes drifted over to her wall of yellow Post-its, but she knew that that wasn’t what Garcia was talking about. Unlike her previous bosses, Garcia was blunt about asking for her sight, and she found that validating. Creed didn’t approve of her ability, however, and she didn’t want him to overhear. She swiveled her chair around so her back was to her office mate. “I need the scarf, unless there’s something else we think the killer touched. Did he leave anything behind with this victim? Was there anything he obviously touched, something portable you can grab?”

“I don’t know. Crime scene is still inside. I’m calling from my car.”

She wondered if Garcia was embarrassed to have someone overhear his end of the conversation with her, and then told herself to stop being paranoid. “I’d like to join the mob. While I’m there, maybe I’ll see something I can use.”

He gave her the address. The apartment was on the west bank of the campus, while the previous victim’s home had been on the east. “Make it quick,” he said. “There’s a lot of stuff here, and they’re going to town with the bagging.”

“What do you mean, a lot of stuff?”

“You’ll see.”

OPENED CAT FOOD
cans and pop cans. Empty Kleenex boxes surrounded by wads of tissue. Half-spent rolls of toilet paper and paper towels. Empty cigarette packs. A coffee mug filled to overflowing with cigarette butts. Spilled bags of potato chips. Banana peels and orange peels. A bowl of shriveled grapes. Cans of whipped cream. A massive collection of Chinese takeout cartons. Unopened mail and rolled-up newspapers with the rubber bands still wrapped around them.

The odors—the strongest came from the cat waste and the rotten fruit—made Bernadette nauseous. Keeping her hand over her nose and mouth, she walked deeper inside. Even in the middle of the day, the drapes were drawn. With the lights out, it would have been as dark as a cave. As dark as Klein’s mood, she imagined.

“Hi,” she said to one of the crime scene crew.

“Want a mask?” one of them asked through his mask.

She shook her head and continued gawking at the mess. She was well aware that people with emotional and mental problems let their housekeeping go to hell, but this was stunning.

Weaving around the men and the garbage they were picking through, she went into the kitchen. Dirty dishes were mounded in both sinks and it stank like sour milk. Each of the stove’s four burners was topped with a saucepan; she didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to check what was inside them. The dishwasher was open and the bottom rack was pulled out. A lone plate covered in tomato sauce sat in wait. Was it a feeble attempt at starting the cleanup, or was it the last housekeeping chore the young woman managed before falling into some sort of emotional abyss?

When she went back into the living room, something brushed up against her shin. Looking down, she saw the furry source of the feline odors. “Cats,” she grumbled, and pushed the animal away with the side of her shoe. It detoured over to the Chinese takeout cartons sitting under the coffee table and stuck its head inside one of the boxes.

“Want to take him home with you?” one of the crime scene guys asked.

“No, thanks,” she said, snapping on her gloves. “Where’s the body?”

He pointed across the room to a closed hallway door. “Help yourself. We got what we needed out of there. Bedroom is all clear, too.”

“Anybody come up with any DNA goodies?” she asked through her hand.

“Nothing under her nails or anything easy like that.” He sat back on his heels and sighed. “Maybe we can come up with some people hair buried in all this stinking cat hair.”

She nodded and walked into the hallway. The instant she pushed the bathroom door open, a kitten scurried out. She was surprised to find the bathroom uncluttered and relatively clean, save for the smelly litter box tucked into a corner. Klein had allowed herself one tidy space. A refuge of sorts.

While pulling the gloves tight over her fingers, Bernadette ran her eyes around the compact bathroom. No signs of a struggle, but the floor was a lake. The guy in the apartment below must have gotten quite a shower. She went over to the side of the tub, a white rectangle that was built into the wall. It was short but deep. Deep enough to drown someone.

Klein wasn’t quite as emaciated as the first girl, but she was close. Instead of long red hair, she had a cap of short black hair. Bruises on her body. Feces in the water. No rose petals this time, but something floral scented the water. Again, her evening had started out as something pleasant and morphed into murder.

Down the short hall to the bedroom. The twelve-by-twelve space smelled like the inside of a wet tennis shoe. Clothes littered the floor and the mattress. The dresser and nightstands were covered with more dirty laundry, as well as tampon boxes, tampon wrappers, cans of body spray, cotton balls smeared with makeup, and a pizza carton containing crusts. Every drawer was pulled open and had bras or panties or nylons hanging out, as if underwear thieves had rifled through the place.