Chapter Ten
“What the ever-loving hell?” Genov gasped as he stopped in the doorway and looked around the room.
The technician sealed in the hazmat suit kneeling on the floor stopped bagging the victim’s hands and nodded. “You can say that again.” It was impossible to tell the person’s gender from the voice that rasped through the full-face mask.
Lamar shouldered Genov back into the hall, stepping up to the imaginary line that marked theprocessing team onlyarea to take a look.
The floor was littered with empty alcohol bottles. A couple of slices of limp pizza laid in an open cardboard delivery box. The bedding had been tossed in a pile in the far corner, leaving only the fitted sheet in place, stark white with the exception of the blood-red stain that had seeped out from under the dead man’s hips. The body seemed soft, suggesting that rigor mortis either hadn’t set in yet or had already begun to abate. His face was twisted in a morbid expression that could have been either pleasure or pain. The smell of sulfur was heavy in the air.
Lamar’s breath escaped through his teeth in a low whistle. “Damn.”
The sound of a voice clearing from behind him caught his attention.
“Hey, Dan,” Lamar greeted him, nodding to Genov. “You’ve met Trask’s fill-in?”
Dan Lovato, a longtime member of the homicide squad, nodded and pointed to the blinking red light in the corner of the ceiling. “The rest of the building seems to be clean. The security team is queuing up the footage from last night.”
“Damn. Someone had to be out of their head to do this with a camera just outside the door. Unless they used the window.” Lamar poked his head back into the crime scene long enough to confirm that the window was closed and intact. “Doesn’t look like it.”
They followed Dan through the winding halls until they reached the security office. As promised, a security guard sat before the large screen, the image frozen. When he realized that the man was fighting back tears, he was taken off guard.
“You seem upset,” Lamar observed. “Did you know the victim?”
The man shook his head and dashed his tears away with the backs of his hands. “No. I..it’s something I saw on the tape.”
“Start it up,” Genov suggested, shrugging at Lamar’s quizzical look. They watched the empty hall in silence for several seconds, but when a figure finally came into view, Lamar couldn’t hold back a gasp. Genov looked like he might be sick.
“Fuck me!” Genov groused as they watched Mandy lead the victim through the door and close it behind them. “Shit. That’s not the end of it, is it?”
“No,” the distraught security guard sighed, hitting the fast-forward button. “She’s in there with him for about three hours before she leaves alone.” He restarted the footage only to stop it as soon as Mandy stepped out of the room, enlarging the picture and tapping the screen with his pen. “It sure looks like she’s got blood on her cheek.”
“We’re going to need all of the footage from the last twenty-four hours,” Lovato instructed the security guard.
The guard nodded and reached into the desk for a portable hard drive. “It’ll take about an hour to download.”
“I’ve got time,” Lovato huffed, reaching into his front pants pocket for a battered smartphone and swiping the screen. “Hey, Joe. Yeah, we found something. Is that dominatrix still outside? Good. Take her in for questioning.” He listened briefly, shaking his head before he started talking. “No. Arrest her if you have to, the charge is first-degreemurder.” Shoving the phone back in his pocket, he shot Lamar a sour look. “Guess we’ll be working together.”
“Guess so,” Lamar agreed, holding back a sigh. “You need us here? If not, I want to head back to the station. I’m expecting a call.”
Lovato shrugged, the movement of his wide shoulders making his beer belly bounce. “Suit yourself. I’ll holler at you if anything out of the ordinary pops up.”
Settling his hand in the small of his partner’s back, Lamar began to usher Genov through the building and back out to the car.
“Would you quit that?” Genov finally snapped. “We’re not dancing, and I don’t need to be pushed along.”
“Sorry.” Lamar winced. “I didn’t mean to..I just want to get back to the precinct before they start questioning your slap-happy friend.”
Genov groaned. “I absolutely can’t believe that she did this. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Lamar agreed firmly. “And I think it’s time that we stop looking for a horse and start looking for a zebra.”
“The fuck?” Genov was staring at him.
“It’s a long story and I don’t have enough to go on yet,” Lamar sighed.
“Where does a zebra come in?”
Lamar snorted. “Oh. There’s an old saying that says if you hear hoofbeats and don’t see a horse, look for a zebra.” When Genov’s expression remained confused, he continued, “It means that sometimes the obvious answer isn’t the correct one.”
