Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [105]
“Right.”
“It was a pretty straightforward case,” Cring said as they stepped inside, the house exhaling a breath of stale, faintly foul air.
“Straightforward how?” Hayward asked.
“Robbery gone bad.”
“How do you know?”
“The house was tossed, a bunch of electronics taken—flat panel, couple of computers, stereo. You’ll see for yourself.”
“Thank you.”
“It took place between nine and ten in the evening. The perp used a pry bar to get inside, as you probably noticed, and walked through this front hallway into the den, through there, where Blackletter was tinkering with his robots.”
“Robots?”
“He was a robot enthusiast. Hobbyist stuff.”
“So the perp went straight from here to the den?”
“It seems so. He apparently heard Blackletter in there, decided to eliminate him before robbing the house.”
“Was Blackletter’s car in the driveway?”
“Yes.”
Hayward followed Cring into the den. A long table was covered with metal and plastic parts, wires, circuit boards, and all kinds of strange gizmos. The floor below sported a large black stain, and the cinder-block wall was sprayed with blood and peppered with buckshot. Evidence marking cones and arrows were still positioned everywhere.
Shotgun, she thought. Just like Blast.
“It was a sawed-off,” said Cring. “Twelve-gauge, based on the splatter analysis and the buckshot recovered. Double-ought buck.”
Hayward nodded. She examined the door into the den: thick metal with a layer of hard soundproofing screwed into it on the inside. The walls and ceiling were also well soundproofed. She wondered if Blackletter had been working with the door open or shut. If he was a fastidious man—which seemed to be the case—he would have kept it shut to keep the dirt and dust out of the kitchen.
“After shooting the victim,” continued Cring, “the perpetrator walked back into the kitchen—we found spots of secondary blood from footprints—and then back through the hallway to the living room.”
Hayward was about to say something, but bit her tongue. This was no burglary, but it would do no good to point that out now. “Can we look at the living room?”
“Sure thing.” Cring led her through the kitchen to the entry hall, then into the living room. Nothing had been touched; it was still a mess. A roll-top desk had been rifled, letters and pictures scattered about, books pulled off shelves, a sofa slit open with a knife. The wall sported a hole where the supports to the missing flatscreen had been affixed.
Hayward noticed an antique, sterling-silver letter opener with an opal inlaid in its handle lying on the floor, where it had been swept off the desk. Her eye roved about the living room, noting quite a few small, portable objects of silver and gold workmanship: ashtrays, small casks and boxes, teapots, teaspoons, salvers, candlesnuffers, inkstands, and figurines, all beautifully chased. Some had inlaid gemstones. They all seemed to have been unceremoniously swept to the floor.
“All these silver and gold objects,” she asked. “Were any stolen?”
“Not that we know of.”
“That seems odd.”
“Things like that are very hard to fence, especially around here. Our burglar was most likely a drug addict just looking for some stuff to get a quick fix.”
“All this silver looks like a collection.”
“It was. Dr. Blackletter was involved with the local historical society and donated things from time to time. He specialized in antebellum American silver.”
“Where’d he get his money?”
“He was a medical doctor.”
“As I understand, he worked for Doctors With Wings, a nonprofit organization without a lot of money. This silver must be worth a small fortune.”
“After Doctors With Wings, he did consulting work for various pharmaceutical companies. There are quite a few in this area; it’s one of the mainstays of the local economy.”
“Do you have a file on Dr. Blackletter? I’d like to see it.”
“It’s back at the station. I’ll get you a copy when we’re done here.”
Hayward lingered in the living room. She had a vague feeling of dissatisfaction, as if there was more to extract from