The Dead Room Read Free Page B

Bloody footprints gleamed in the bright beam of light. She placed evidence cones next to one.
    ‘Don’t bother,’ Banville called from the porch. ‘The EMTs left them on the driveway, the walkway and the front steps.’
    Must be a hell of a lot of blood in there , Darby thought. She placed her kit on the grass and, watching where she stepped, made her way to the garage.
    No cars inside, just mountain bikes and a John Deere ride-on mower. Dark stains on the floor. Motor oil , she thought, until she moved the beam of her light and saw bloody footprints. A single set made by a narrow shoe – a sneaker or running shoe, judging by the shape of the tread marks.
    In the back of the garage she found blood smeared against a set of wooden steps leading up to a door.
    ‘When the queen shows up,’ a man said from behind the fence, ‘are we supposed to bow down and kiss her ass?’
    ‘When you get a good look at her you’ll want to do more than kiss her ass,’ a different male voice replied. ‘You’ll want to bury your face between her thighs and not come up for air. You ever see her up close?’
    ‘I’ve seen her on the news a few times,’ the first man said. ‘Looks like that English actress that always makes my pecker stand up at full attention and bark – the one from those Underworld movies, Christ, what’s her name?’
    ‘Kate Beckinsale.’
    A snap of fingers. ‘That’s the one,’ the first man said. ‘The McCormick broad is the spitting image of her but has that nice dark red hair. Wouldn’t mind running my fingers through that while she’s on her knees giving me a blow-e.’
    Laughter all around.
    Darby shrugged off the comments. She had learned early on that a good majority of men viewed women as nothing more than sexual objects – receptacles solely designed to satisfy a biological urge and nothing more. Pump em and dump em was the phrase she’d overheard around the station, when her male counterparts thought she was safely out of earshot.
    ‘Listen up, boyos.’
    Artie Pine’s voice sounding older, deeper and raspy – a voice ragged from too many cigars, too many late nights and booze. Hearing it brought her back to the long Saturday afternoon barbecues her father had thrown every other weekend right up until he was shot a few months shy of her thirteenth birthday. Pine, a big bowling ball with feet, would sit in a lawn chair and smoke what her father called ‘fives-and-tens’ – cheap dime-store cigars rolled into thin wrappers the size of a pencil, the odour so bitter and pungent it scared away the mosquitoes after the sun went down. Pine would sit in the chair all day, smoking and drinking and telling stories to an audience that always ended with wild eruptions of knee-slapping laughter. He’d ask kids to fetch him another beer from the cooler and always gave them a folded dollar bill.
    ‘That’s Big Red’s little girl you’re talking about,’ Pine said. ‘When she gets here, make sure you show her the proper respect.’
    Darby shut off the flashlight. She made her way back to the front and saw bright camera lights from far across the street. Belham police had corralled the small media crowd behind sawhorses.
    Coop stood on the porch talking to Banville. Darby examined the bloody footwear impressions on the blue-stone walkway. Two different sets of footprints. They matched the ones on the driveway.
    She joined them and said, ‘The footprints on the walkway and driveway are different from the single set I found inside the garage.’
    ‘I’ll get to work on it,’ Banville said, picking up his camera equipment. ‘I’ve already photographed the foyer and kitchen. Before you two head in, you’re going to need to change into one of these fabulous bunny suits.’
    ‘Awesome,’ Coop said. ‘It’s not like I’m sweating my balls off already.’
    ‘One other thing,’ Banville said. ‘The front windows facing the street? The shades and blinds were drawn when I got here. The