The Museum of Desire: An Alex Delaware Novel(4)

Long walk to the back. At the end of my trek, I reached crime scene tape stretched across the drive. No one guarding the tape. I ducked under.

Given the dimensions of the frontage and the house, the rear of the property was surprisingly skimpy, much of it taken up by an empty Olympic-sized pool and a massive domed pavilion set up with cheap-looking outdoor furniture. At the far end, a wall of pines constricted the space further.

Another uniformed duo saw me and approached. Recheck of my I.D.

“Past the pool, Doctor.”

Needless direction; on the far-left side of the property was a crime scene tent big enough for a circus.

I headed for the main event.



* * *



—

The tent’s floodlit interior smelled of people. Lots of them, suited and gloved and masked, worked silently but for the rasp and clop of equipment cases being opened and shut and the snick-snick of cameras.

Everyone knowing their role, like a colony of ants swarming a giant larva.

The object of all the attention was as white and fat as a larva. A stretch Lincoln Town Car, its blunt snout pointed toward the house. Oversized red-wall tires, chrome reversed hubcaps, a strip of LED lighting running just under the roofline.

Party wagon.

The doors I could see were wide open but the interior was blocked by squatting techs.

Four heads rose above the roof on the other side of the car.

To the far right was Moe Reed, ruddy, baby-faced, blond, unreasonably muscled. Next to him stood a taller, freckled young man with a red spiky do: Sean Binchy. Leftmost was a handsome, ponytailed woman of forty with knife-edged features and piercing dark eyes aimed at the forensics symphony. Alicia Bogomil had tinted the ends of her hair platinum blond. Feeling secure in her new position as Detective I.

To the left of the three was the tallest man.

Bulky, slope-shouldered, full-faced and jowly, with pallid skin ravaged by youthful acne, a high-bridged nose, and a curiously sensitive mouth that tended to purse. His hair was coal black except where white had seeped from temple to sideburn. What Lieutenant Milo Bernard Sturgis calls his skunk stripes.

He saw me and walked around the limo. Brown suit, brown shirt, limp black tie, gray desert boots. The only splash of color, conspicuously green eyes brighter than the morning.

We go way back but this wasn’t the time and place for a handshake.

I said, “Hey.”

He said, “Big production, huh? First responders got here at six twenty-seven, fourteen minutes after the 911 call. Place is vacant, used as a party house, most recent party was a rave-type deal that started eleven p.m. Friday night and stretched to Saturday around three. The cleaning service didn’t send a guy until this morning and that’s who found it. He says he phoned it in right away. After throwing up. He’s in the FD van, getting looked at. Said his chest and tummy hurt. Addict with a long sheet, so who knows what’s going on.”

“He interests you?”

“Not as the main offender but I wanna have a chat with him once he’s cleared by the EMTs.”

I said, “Criminals clean up rich people’s houses.”

“Apparently. This prince calls himself Eno, full name’s Enos Verdell Walters. For the most part, his pedigree’s not violent. Weed, meth, crack, and all the crap that finances weed, meth, and crack: shoplifting, theft, forgery, fraud. But there was a knife ADW a while back, he cut some guy up pretty viciously.”

“You researched him right away.”

“Nothing else to do while the science majors do their thing.”

I pointed to a camel-colored splotch a few feet from the limo’s right passenger door. “That Walters’s breakfast?”

“Breakfast burrito.” He grimaced. “I think I’ll be off Mexican for a while. Maybe food, period—hey, here’s the miracle diet I’ve been hoping for.”

Patting the convexity of his gut.

I thought: I’m sure you’ll recover.

I said: “When can I take a look?”

“Right now if you’re up for it.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t,” he said, “make me answer that.”

He pulled out a set of rubber gloves and handed it over like a sacramental wafer.





CHAPTER


    3


The tech working the front of the limo was broad and male, the one at the rear smaller, probably female. Milo tapped the man’s shoulder softly.

The big tech looked over his shoulder and exhaled. A mask-muffled voice said, “Lieutenant.”

Milo said, “Sorry for sneaking up on you, George. This is Dr. Delaware. Can he take a brief look?”

George’s mask tented. Lips forming something that might’ve been a smile or a frown. “What you’d like is what we do, Lieutenant.” Sharp tugs at the edges of the mask. Definitely a smile. “Unless one of the pathologists comes by and contradicts you.”

“You expecting a doc?”

George stood and pulled his mask down on a face suited for a sitcom dad role: a bit soft at the corners, crinkly world-weary eyes. “I requested one but probably not. It’s psychotic at the crypt, big de-comp, stinks like you know what. Truth is, I was happy to get out of there.”

He frowned. “Even with this.”