Takeover - Lisa Black [2]
Paul used the man’s keys to open the lock—no sense in breaking the door if it wasn’t necessary—and it cemented their theory that the deceased man was Mark Ludlow.
“Wait,” Theresa said before the three officers could step over the threshold.
“You were dying to get in here.”
“Just hold on a sec.” She crowded in beside them and aimed the flashlight at the glossy wooden floor of the foyer. If a trail of blood lay there, she would make the officers go in the back door. But the inside floor appeared as clean as the concrete front porch. “Okay, go ahead.”
“Wait here,” Paul and Frank told her in unison.
“Count on it.” Prowling through rooms that could hold a murderous assailant was so not her job, and the whole situation had her nervous enough already. The police did not often call her to fresh crime scenes; usually the murder had occurred days before by the time she got there to spray luminol or collect items for DNA testing. Even if the body remained, the scenes felt empty—whatever destructive collision of personalities had taken place had passed. The aggressors had moved on to damage control, covering up, running. It usually felt as if even the victim had lost interest by that point.
This seemed different. The conflict that produced this death had not been resolved. Bodies were still in motion. It might be preconnubial jitters, but she felt a need to be especially alert, especially observant, especially vigilant.
Frank reappeared at the end of the hallway, where the rising sun flooded the kitchen with light.
“Can I come in now?” she asked.
“Sure. There’s no one here. No sign of any murder either.”
“Can the patrol officer stay with Mr. Ludlow out here? I don’t want some passerby wandering up to our body.”
The young man stood guard over the corpse while Theresa photographed the neat suburban home. Two things quickly became clear: There were no indications of a bloody assault, and Mr. Ludlow did not live alone. He had a wife and a very young son, and there was no sign of what had happened to them.
Forty minutes later Theresa knelt on the kitchen floor, her head held at an angle to the surface, as Paul spoke from the doorway.
“This must be her.” He held up a framed photo of the deceased man with a young blond woman. A towheaded toddler sat between them, the boy’s cherubic face turned toward his mother.
“Yeah, I saw the picture. If that man died in this house, I have yet to find any evidence of it. There are no signs of cleaning up, no wet spots on the carpeting. There’s a mop up against the stationary tub downstairs that’s damp but not soaking. She cleans with bleach, which kills DNA, but so do I. This floor has a layer of grit on it, so it’s not a freshly cleaned surface. Maybe he was attacked outside. I’d just feel better if I had more blood on that sidewalk.” One of her knees let out a protesting creak as she got to her feet. “And a weapon would be nice, too. I did find this.”
He joined her at the sink, peering at three specks of dark red that traveled in a line up the tan ceramic tile behind the counter next to the sink. “It’s blood.”
“Not much of it.”
“Exactly. It could be the only three spots left after a superb cleanup job, or it could be an artifact from last night’s steak dinner. I’ll take a swab, of course.”
“Any scraps in the garbage?”
“No, the bin is clean except for a few paper towels and a tea bag.”
After swabbing the blood, she and Paul canvassed the home once more. Toys spotted the living room, along with a TV Guide and a half-finished crewel project in colorful yarn. Areas of the master bedroom indicated his and hers; his tastes ran to career-development books and vitamins, hers to paperback romances and matching organizer trays. The baby’s room held yet more toys, clean clothes, and a prodigious supply of diapers. If the family had a dark side—a drug