Strangled - Brian McGrory [2]
“This looks like a strange one,” Eldrich said, wrapping an arm over Foley’s shoulder as the two of them walked toward the town house building where a pair of uniformed cops stood guard at the front door. “It’s why I called you specifically. I didn’t want any schmuck on the rotation getting this thing and fucking it all up.”
The two of them paused on the sidewalk.
“Domestic?” Foley asked.
Eldrich shook his head. “There’s no domesticated guy in her life, what I’m told.”
“Then maybe it’s a guy who’s not domesticated who did it.”
Eldrich didn’t reply, so Foley asked, “Shooting?”
Eldrich shook his head again. “You’ll see in a minute.”
“Robbery?”
Another head shake. “Victim’s wallet was found in the apartment with all her credit cards and seventy-two dollars inside. And she was wearing a diamond necklace that’s still on the body. No driver’s license in the wallet, but we think we have a solid identification from other sources. Brace yourself. Pretty girl, approximately thirty-two years old.”
“This isn’t going to delay my retirement, is it?” Foley asked. If Eldrich had been paying closer attention, he might have noticed a tinge of hope in the question.
“Never saw a homicide you couldn’t solve in a week. You’ll get your man and ride off into the sunset. Like a Hollywood ending.”
“Yeah, sure,” Foley said, turning and walking toward the entrance. He exchanged greetings with the two cops at the door. He saw that the first floor of the brick town house was taken up by a realty office, with advertisements in the big display window for multimillion-dollar condominiums and houses in the neighborhood. Everybody had money but him.
The stairway, he noted, was steep, narrow, and dark — easy to fall down should someone be making a rapid escape. The walls were bare. On the second-floor landing, the apartment door was open, and he walked inside to what appeared to be the living room, where a few fingerprint specialists, a videographer, and plainclothes cops had already set about their work. All stopped when he walked in to offer a greeting. Maybe he didn’t have rank, and he certainly didn’t have much money, but old Mac Foley still garnered one hell of a lot of respect.
One young cop in uniform sidled up to Foley near the door and said, “Detective, the murder scene is in the bedroom. I’ve kept it clear until you arrived. I wanted you to have first crack at it.”
He said this, Foley noted, in a funny tone of voice, not funny like ha-ha funny, but as if he wasn’t sure what had happened and was absolutely uncertain about what was to come.
Foley asked him, “Anything of note yet, Sergeant?”
“There’s a lot of note, but you’ll see for yourself.”
Then the sergeant added, “Her roommate found her. She’d been away for the long weekend. Came in half an hour ago. Apartment was unlocked. There was a light on in the decedent’s room. She poked her head inside, saw the body, ran from the building, and called 911 from her cellular telephone. I’ve had operations pull the tape recording for you.”
The sergeant paused and added, “Why don’t I show you in, Detective.”
Beacon Hill apartments, Mac Foley knew, could be either stately or cramped, depending on whether the occupant was rich or nearly rich. This one was the latter. The living room, while neat, was small and dark. The kitchen, he could tell from a quick glimpse, looked like it hadn’t been renovated in twenty years. Obviously a single-family had been cut up into apartments a long time ago, and had barely been touched ever since.
The sergeant led Foley through the living room and down a narrow hallway, past a bathroom, toward the rear of the unit. Where the hallway ended, there were doors — one to the left and the other to the right — bedrooms both. The sergeant, stopping just ahead of Foley, motioned toward the left and said simply and flatly, “In here, sir.” Then he quickly