Alone (Bone Secrets, #4)(32)

Seth took a long look at the furnishings of the little kitchen. “He lived alone?”

“His wife died six years ago,” stated the female cop.

“Yesterday in our interview, he didn’t mention that. He talked about his life as if his wife was still alive,” Lusco said. “We haven’t been able to get ahold of any family yet, and the neighbors don’t seem to know anything about his sons. I’m a bit surprised. He acted like they were all very close.”

Callahan nodded in agreement.

The home showed the touch of a woman, but of a woman who hadn’t been around in a long time. The floral prints of the sofa were faded, the picture frames showcased thick dust, and the ashtray overflowed. The house was utterly quiet. It had an aura of waiting for someone. Maybe waiting for the grandkids to pay an overdue visit. Or waiting for the female heart of the house to return.

“I still have guys questioning the neighbors,” said the female cop.

Seth took a closer look at the policewoman. Her badge was Portland Police Department and read Goode. Callahan and Lusco were with the state police. There were some police politics at work here. No doubt this had been Portland’s crime scene and investigation until someone had discovered the victim had been interviewed by the state police. Goode was keeping her hand firmly on the scene, but allowing state to have its look.

Seth knew from experience that most local departments didn’t care to have a different agency step in to lend a hand or take over a case, whether it was the FBI or a state police agency. Callahan had told him that the Forest Park teenage girls’ case had been turned over to OSP, but it’d mainly been a matter of timing. The Portland Police Department was recently overwhelmed with a gang war that had consumed their local resources. OSP didn’t have the gang expertise that Portland did. But they knew murder.

Seth’s gaze went back to the small plate of ashes on the tiny table in the corner of the kitchen. He sniffed at the body. The usual overwhelming odor of a smoker didn’t emerge from the body. “Did you find cigarettes in the home?”

“No. I looked for those,” Goode answered. “No cigarettes in the cupboards or drawers of the kitchen. Bedside table drawer is empty. That’s a dish from an old china set in the cupboard, not an ashtray. A smoker would have several ashtrays in the house.”

Callahan walked over to the ashtray on the table. Seth noticed it didn’t have butts left in the pile of ash. Who removes the butts? Goode was right; it wasn’t an ashtray. It was a thin china saucer with a bit of worn gold trim on the edges.

“What else did you notice?” Callahan asked Goode.

“He lives alone,” she said. “He eats like a bachelor. Lots of white flour and white sugar products. Red meat and frozen dinners. Tons of family pictures on the walls, but they’re old ones. Going by the hair and clothing styles, no new photo sessions in at least two decades. He reads Louis L’Amour and Tom Clancy. Sinks were dry when we arrived. No one appears to have cleaned up their bloody hands at them. Hand towels are hanging neatly in place along with bath towels. Same with the kitchen towels.”

“What’s the room temperature?” Seth asked as he pulled out the thermometer.

“Sixty-five degrees,” said Goode.

No heating vents blew directly on the body. Seth did some fast math in his head. “I’ll estimate ten to seven hours ago for your time of death. I can narrow that with the lab work. Got all his front photos?” he asked the tech, who nodded. “Help me roll him onto his side.”

The two men shoved and pulled to balance Lorenzo on his side. Seth did a quick scan of Lorenzo’s back. The tech backed up and snapped more photos of the purpling back tissue. Seth pressed a gloved thumb against the darkened skin. “Livor mortis is fixed.” No surprises there based on his time-of-death estimate. The back had no stab wounds.

Seth leaned over the body, distracted by the colored plastic in the corpse’s ear. A hearing aid? The color was awfully bright… and the shape was wrong. He reached out with the end of his ballpoint pen to carefully move some of the blood-stained hair out of the way. And froze.

His pen matched the color of the plastic in the man’s ear.

“Is that—”

“Yes, I think that was a pen.” Callahan bent beside Seth. “I was looking at that. Looks like he jammed a pen in his ear and then stomped on it to drive it in farther.”

“Holy crap.” Seth was speechless.

His ears suddenly ached.

“Someone was angry,” he muttered.

Callahan raised a brow at him. “No kidding. This killer would be a profiler’s dream. They’d be itching to dissect his brain.”

“It’s so different from the girls,” Seth commented. “That scene was peaceful, almost otherworldly. This is simply brutal. I’d have a hard time believing they were committed by the same person.”

“It might simply be someone with two distinct killing motives. Two different reasons and rationales,” said Callahan. “I’m not disregarding any theories.”

This was a hard, stark scene out of a gore-fest film. The girls in Forest Park belonged in an ethereal fantasy movie, misty and soft.

“This isn’t the result of a botched robbery,” said Callahan grimly. “Lorenzo Cavallo was murdered deliberately and with a lot of anger. Whether or not it’s tied to our girls remains to be seen. But considering he offered insight into the old crime yesterday, I have to consider that someone wasn’t happy that he’d volunteered information.” He pointed at the pen fragments in the old man’s ear. “That’s punishment.”