Shadows May Fall (15 page)

“Please tell me someone got pictures before they screwed with our scene?” Lou was pissed.

“It couldn’t be helped, Detective.” One of the specialists approached. “I was on the other case in palos Verdes, and I recognized the similarities the second I landed here. We didn’t get squat on that scene so I didn’t want to take any chance of there being something on that door that we could lose.” The lovely Jamaican woman turned and gestured to the opening. “It’s a tight squeeze, and there’s no way to guarantee we don’t ding something going in and out. The front door is bolted shut, and we haven’t determined if the victim always had it that way, or if that’s a new thing. We have a couple guys canvassing now to see if they know anything about the victim and if they have a clue on the front door.”

“Do the bolts look new or like the rest of the hardware?” Lou asked and was irritated she couldn’t see a name badge since the woman was wearing a clean suit.

“That’s why it’s on me.” She responded. “It looks like part of the door’s hardware, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I took over thirty pictures of the glass door for you first, and we have it sealed up in the back of the truck. You’ll see it as we found it back at the lab.”

“Understood.” Lou conceded it was a smart call. “Anything else we should be aware of?”

“There is a hell mess of blood.” The woman sighed. “It’s all over the place. My whole team has taken photos, made sketches and right now I’m having it scanned so if you can hold off for just a few more minutes, that would be extremely helpful.”

“We can talk to the first on scene. Care to direct us?” Lou really wanted to know who this woman was so she could have her on all her scenes.

“Head back the way you came but hang a right before you go through the gates. They should be with the cleaning lady who’s suckin’ oxygen on the stoop.” She grinned. “I’d be doin’ the same thing if I walked in thinking I had to clean this mess!”

Lou and Dillon both grinned with her. “Let us know when it’s okay for us to enter?” Dillon requested. “I’m sorry, I’m new around here. What is your name?”

“Sara Williams, Senior Criminalist.” She started to offer a hand but thought better of it with her gloves and all. “Good to meet you.”

“Good to meet you as well, Sara.” Dillon smiled and tossed Lou a knowing glance. “You know where to find us when it’s all clear.”

“You bet.” Sara, Senior Criminalist gave a nod then headed back to the scene.

“Thanks, partner.” Lou appreciated Dillon’s extreme perceptiveness.

“Not a problem.” He grinned. “I think we both were annoyed at not being able to see a name tag.” They followed Sara’s directions and quickly found Anita Perez sobbing next to two Deputies. Lou and Dillon’s arrival only seemed to make the woman cry more.

They only got a few minutes with the woman, but they learned enough to get a fix on the victim, Josh Rawlings, age forty-two at the time of his demise. No family that the woman knew of. Never had any guests that she ever saw. In fact, he was rarely ever home the two days a week that she came to clean. He was the manager of a private gentlemen’s club just about eight miles away and was an extremely private man, at least to Mrs. Perez. Rawlings had given her strict rules on times she was allowed to come and that the room over the carport was strictly off limits. Naturally, that was the first place Dillon and Lou wanted to go. As they looked for a way to get there Sara, Senior Criminalist waved them over to the removed glass door.

“Might want to refresh the booties.” She suggested, and pointed to another box on the back step. “If you don’t mind.” It was a smart idea. Both Lou and Dillon had forgotten they had them on when they trekked through the back yard and driveway. “I just got word that the Coroner is parking the van.”

“Good.” Lou was extra grateful Caroline was assigned the case.

It took a bit of acrobatics for Lou and Dillon actually to get into the house without disturbing any blood evidence. The majority of Josh Rawlings body sat on the red leather couch with his back facing the sliding glass door. There was a shallow console table against the back of the sofa with numerous drawers, a few object d’art and a stack of unopened mail. All of which were blood soaked. Even without an expert opinion Lou could see the trajectory of the initial blows. Rawlings arms were draped along the back of the couch and on the armrest, as if he were relaxing comfortably and never raised a finger to stop his attacker. There was a thick smear of blood on the top edge of the table, and then a few more on the ground which indicated to Lou, that is the path that Mr. Rawlings head rolled when it was finally detached from his body. She followed the dashed line to a pile of flesh and bone that had seeped into the track of the removed sliding glass door.

“Understand now why I needed that door secured?” Sara, Senior Criminalist asked.

“Completely.” Dillon replied as he headed around to the front of the couch, standing where Lou suspected their attacker had stood.

“Right there.” She agreed with his positioning. “That’s where she stood.”

“So you do think we are dealing with a femme fatal?” Dillon and she were on the same page.

“That would jibe with the cast-off.” Sara carefully walked around to join him. “May I?”

“By all means.” Dillon stepped back and let her have the spot. “How tall are you?” Lou asked her.

“Five seven, in these shoes.” Sara informed them.

“Must be nice.” Lou constantly wished she was just one or two inches taller. Three would have been heaven. Sara just smiled and stood as she thought the attacker would have stood, arms back as if she were swinging a baseball bat. She paused a moment and checked her positioning.

“Wait!” Caroline shouted as she walked in from the front of the house, surprising them all. “What?” She asked when she noticed them all staring at her.

“How did you get in?” Sara the Senior Criminalist asked.

“The Deputies let me pass. Was I not supposed to come in that way?” Caroline looked worried.

“I’ll check it.” Dillon volunteered.

“The door was bolted down from the inside when we got here.” Sara explained. “We didn’t know if the assailant bolted it or if it was part of the door.”

“Oh, well I don’t know.” Caroline said as she pulled something out of her case then handed it to Sara. “Dillon will find out. Use this laser to swing with so we can see how off the cast off is to your height.”

Sara took the laser and repositioned herself to where they estimated the attacker stood. With the laser on, she took a slow motion swing at the victim, and they watched the path of the red light in relation to the streaks and spatters of blood. With one more swing for good measure, Sara looked at Caroline.

“She’s shorter than I am, right?” Sara asked.

“Or it’s a really short dude.” Caroline looked at the blood trails and surveyed the distance from the wall, the ceiling, and the couch. “Not very scientific but I would guess whoever did this was no taller than five feet six inches.”

“That’s not very short!” Lou scoffed, making Sara and Caroline chuckle.

Dillon returned from the front of the house. “Apparently it was a secondary locking mechanism.” He lifted an evidence bag that appeared to hold an old iron key, like the one you would use to turn on a fireplace and adjust the gas. “The lock is on the inside, behind a bogus light switch.”

“That’s an odd security feature.” Lou noted.

“Not if you’re the Marquis de Sade.” A robust looking tech stood outside the back doorway. “We got the room over the carport open. You gotta see this for yourselves.”

There was no way they were going to wait to see what the tech was talking about until they were done with the primary crime scene. His statement was far too provocative to set aside.

“We can go through the breezeway from the master bedroom.” Sara suggested the alternate route rather than them trying to tip-toe through the blood and brain matter.

By the time they made their way, the young tech was waiting with another deputy outside the door. “It was a tricky two key system. Very Leonardo da Vinci.” The man was undoubtedly pleased with himself as he showed them the mechanism. “If you don’t tumble both locks simultaneously, that bolt up there drops and you’ll have to plasma cut that sucker to get it open.”

“Or hack the wooden door down.” The uniformed deputy suggested.

“No!” The tech pointed to a plate in the center edge of the door. “Steel reinforced. You’d need the plasma cutter for that too!” He was all too pleased with himself.

“Okay, so what’s he got in this vault...” Lou stepped in first.

“I wish I didn’t know.” The uniform grumbled. “We’ve been instructed not to go in or touch anything for forensic reasons.”

“Right!” The young tech perked up again. “With that much rubber, latex and leather, we are going to have a cornucopia of DNA to work from!”

“Thank you, Tim.” Sara stopped the man there. “I’ll yell when we’re done.” The dejected tech stepped aside, and the rest of them followed Lou in.

“Can you say fifty shades of eww?” Lou walked into the center of what appeared to be Mr. Rawlings’ naughty play room, or dungeon, whichever one preferred.

“I do not need to be here for this. I’ll be working on the body.” Caroline spun right back around and left the way she came in.

“I will never get this stuff.” Dillon shook his head as he looked around the room.

Josh Rawlings had spent a small fortune on his super secret play room. The coffered ceiling was inset with mirror, and the beam work was in keeping with the dark Spanish wood of the house’s architecture. That was where the appropriate decor ended. The walls were padded and covered in what appeared to be thick, shiny black rubber with a rail, not unlike a ballet bar that ran along three of the four walls. The far left corner housed a plush Victorian fainting couch done up in black lacquer and red velvet while the other corner housed some swing or sling apparatus that Lou did not even want to know about. There was a four poster bed standing in the center of the room, neatly made with hooks and eyes fixed all over the place as well as a handy dandy winch system. The entry wall was flanked with racks and racks of whips, chains, collars, cuffs, straps, slings and all sorts of paraphernalia that any self-respecting sadist would need. Lou didn’t even want to think about what was in the drawers and steamer trunk that was in another corner. It was no wonder Rawlings forbade his cleaning lady from the room; she would have run away screaming.

“So all three of our victims were seriously off.” Dillon concluded.

“I’m beginning to get an idea of who we are looking for, and why.” Lou was convinced more than ever that they were looking for a woman, who had a major issue with these men. Los Angeles was known as a liberal city, so their killer had plenty to choose from. If choosing her victims was indeed random.

“If your girl played in here, this is our best bet for getting DNA so let’s back out and we’ll start from the door jamb and work inward.” Sara swallowed hard, not looking forward to the mountain of work they had cut out for them.

“Good luck.” Lou snorted. “You’re gonna need it!” Lou and Dillon headed back to the primary crime scene where Caroline and two of her team were carefully collecting the scattered tissue. She had left the bulk of Mr. Rawlings on the couch, presumably to go over the details with them before she had him bagged up.

“Weapon here.” Caroline pointed to the side of the sofa. “Looks like the mortar and pestle system again.” She stood up and demonstrated. “Bare in mind I think our girl is about five feet, six inches maybe a smidge less but no more. She is either really fit or very patient and spent a lot of time here, which doesn’t seem likely by the vic’s body temp, and lividity is fixed so, I’m gonna give you a ballpark estimate that time of death is between one-thirty and two this morning.”

“That fits with the cleaning lady walking in right about eight.” Dillon said as he made notes.

“Rigor isn’t totally set so no earlier than that.” Caroline sighed. “This is some serious rage.”

“And some serious crazy.” Lou added as she wandered into the kitchen and noted the bar was polished clean. “This is definitely our girl. Empty wine bottle, a nice Malbec too. I doubt she brought it though, too easy to trace. She cleaned up again.”

“I got a laptop!” Dillon shouted from somewhere. “Hardcore lock on this sucker.”

Lou followed the sound of his voice and found him in a lovely office set up. It looked like something Angela Landsbury would have used on the set of Murder She Wrote as opposed to an office belonging to a torturous freak.

“Hang on.” She told him as she dug something out of her pocket. “Pop this in and call Finn.”

Dillon took the innocuous looking thumb drive from Lou and did as instructed. Niko had given Lou a dozen or so of the devices and told her to use them when she needed to use Aegis as a tech consultant. It would allow them to connect remotely to whatever system they needed access to without having to physically be there. Having Dillon on the inside of things made life a lot simpler. Vinny would have raised an eyebrow and insisted on going through proper channels first. This was far more expedient, efficient, and involved a lot less guilt since Lou didn’t have to lie to Vinny about it.

The bookshelves were filled with lots of French literature and poetry, all the requisite classics from Brontë, Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and the full works of Tolkien for a little diversity. Quite impressive to someone who had no clue about the man’s proclivities. The facade painted was one of a sophisticated, sensitive gentleman while the real interior was anything but. That had to be the key to their victims. All three were the epitome of scumbags, and those types tended to run in the same circles no matter how large the city was. Lou needed to dig and dig deep into these mens lives, and it all had to have started after Medina moved to Los Angeles. That gave them a point of reference, but she was going to have to get the BHPD’s investigating officers on board with her looking into their case. Lou remembered Dillon mentioning she surely had messages since the file was emailed that morning. She checked her voicemail while she looked through Rawlings’ office drawers. There were several messages from a few different Beverly Hills Police Department personnel, two detectives, one captain and a commander. Lou called the commander back immediately.