Deadly Web (16 page)

“I once caught an eighteen-pound shad not far from here,” Jacob said. “Could hardly get the thing out of the water, it was struggling so hard.”

Mitchell had never caught anything larger than a four-pound fish on his fishing trips. He frankly doubted anyone caught any fish larger than ten pounds in this bay.

The fishing rod suddenly jumped sideways, and the three men all shouted at once.

“Look at him go!” Blayze said. “I think this is the biggest one I’ve caught this trip! Caught two three pound mackerel yesterday. Cooked them over a small fire for dinner.”

Jacob and Mitchell exchanged glances. So this was Blayze’s alibi. Fishing. Only the fish could tell if he was lying or telling the truth, and the defense attorney would have a hard time finding a fish that would testify to it. Then again, the prosecutor wouldn’t be able to find any fish to deny the alibi either.

Mitchell looked back at the beach. Sure enough, he saw a sleeping bag next to the remains of a small campfire, but that proved nothing.

“I think we’ll be able to see it soon,” Blayze said. The rod shifted left and right frantically. They all stared hard at the the point where the fishing line met the water.

As it hopped around, Mitchell found himself straining his eyes, trying to spot the fish first. “There!” he suddenly called victoriously.

A silvery shape appeared at the surface for a moment and disappeared.

“It’s a big one!” Jacob said. “Six pounds at least!”

“More like seven,” Blayze said, grinning, slowly rolling back the line.

The fish broke out of the water, truly a beautiful catch. Mitchell doubted the seven pounds assessment, but he guessed about five. It flipped its tail and struggled to get free as the line swung toward them. Blayze deftly caught the line just above the fish, and almost effortlessly slid the hook out of its gaping mouth. The fish stared at them with bulging eyes, opening and closing its mouth, its gills moving, trying to get some water running through them.

For a moment Mitchell was struck by the image of Dona Aliysa’s face after she, too, had lost the ability to breathe.

Jacob handed the bucket to Blayze, who dumped the fish inside with a splash. The bucket was full of seawater, and except for this catch it was empty.

“Well,” Blayze said, his grin disappearing as reality sunk back in. “What about Dona?”

“I’m sorry to inform you that she was found dead in her home this morning,” Jacob said.

Blayze’s face crumpled. “What? How? Oh God, did she… did she kill herself?”

“Why would you think that she killed herself?” Jacob asked.

“She got into these moods… How did she die?”

“She was strangled.”

Blayze stared at them for a second. “Someone killed her?” he finally asked. “Why? Who would… How did this happen?”

“Mr. Terry, did anyone see you here last night?”

“You think I did this? I would never kill Dona! I love her!”

“We have to follow all possible leads,” Jacob said. “I’m sure you understand. But perhaps it would be best to continue this interview at the station. I’m sure you need some time to calm down. Would you like to ride with us to the station? We could collect your car later.”

Blayze’s eyes seemed unfocused. “No,” he said slowly. “I can answer your questions right here.”

“You were here last night, right? Did anyone see you?”

“No,” Blayze said numbly. “I was alone on the shore.”

“How would you define your relationship with Dona?”

“How would I define it? She was the love of my life, that’s how I would define it.”

“Did she feel the same way?”

“Of course she did! What are you implying?”

“I just want to get the facts straight,” Jacob said softly.

“Look, Detective, I get it. You see the boyfriend, you see my criminal record, you think I’m your guy. But you’re wrong. I would never do anything to harm Dona. Hell, I would never do anything to harm anyone. I got arrested for burglary. I served my time, but I never hurt anybody.”

“You had a gun on you when you were arrested.”

“Only for intimidation! I would never kill another person! Please, do what you have to rule me out. DNA tests, fingerprints, whatever. I mean… My fingerprints are all over her apartment but that doesn’t have anything to do with it…”

“Can you think of anyone else that might harm Dona?”

“Anyone that might harm her? Why would anyone want to do that? Hell, I don’t even think I can name anyone else who
knows
her. I mean, she had a sister, and her parents, but she kept to herself. She didn’t work, didn’t go out. She’d stay at home all day and play computer games. I was the only one she… saw…” Blayze became quiet. “I’m not really helping myself here, am I?” he said, his voice barely audible over the wind.

“How did you meet Dona?”

“An online forum. A sort of mutual help group for people who are depressed.”

“Are you usually depressed?”

“I was. I was just out of prison, in a boring, low paying job, and I was struggling with alcoholism.” Blayze lifted his hand, his finger and thumb nearly touching. “I was this close to falling off the wagon. Yeah, I was not in a good place. And she helped me. And we began to talk. First on the forum, then we started chatting privately. We chatted for hours every day. I was already falling in love with her. She was so warm, and innocent, and…” Tears began flowing down his cheeks, but he kept talking. “Eventually I convinced her to meet me. At the time, I didn’t know how incredibly rare that was. Dona never met anyone. I mean
anyone
. We started meeting up almost daily. She made me feel happy again. I didn’t need the forum anymore, all I needed was to see her. And I think she was improving as well. She was talking about getting a job. She started walking around the neighborhood every morning. Short walks, but it was an amazing step for her.”

“Did you notice anything else different lately with her?”

“Besides those walks? Not really. She was still spending most of her day playing Dragonworld on the computer. She had the same extreme mood swings. I got to her place on Saturday, and she was in bed, crying her eyes out for no reason. Took me two hours to get her to eat something and calm down. I know that sounds irregular, but it really wasn’t. Dona was suffering from intense depression. That’s why I asked if she killed herself. I think she had tried to do that twice before. But I would never imagine that anyone—” His voice cracked.

Jacob waited a second, then said, “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Terry. If you want, we can go to the station right now and get your full statement, just to speed things up.”

Blayze took a long breath. He looked at the bucket, the fish gaping within. It was too large to swim inside; it would die soon. “No, thanks,” he finally said. “I changed my mind, Detective. You want to ask me any questions here? No problem. But I’m not coming with you to the station, and I won’t give you anything without a warrant.”

“This is not helping your case, Mr. Terry,” Jacob said, his voice hardening.

“I thought it was Dona’s case you were investigating, Detective,” Blayze said. “But unless I’m under arrest, I prefer to stay here. I’m not under arrest, am I?”

“No.” Jacob said.

Not yet, Mitchell thought.

Blayze sat on the sand, looking at the waves.

“Thank you, Mr. Terry,” Jacob said. “I assume that if we need to talk to you again we’ll be able to find you at home?”

“Yeah, sure, I guess,” Blayze said. “You can try my phone as well. When I’m not fishing, I answer every call.”

The detectives turned to leave. As they walked past the remains of the campfire, Mitchell put his hand just above the ashes. They were still hot.

“What do you think?” he asked Jacob.

“Well, I can’t really tell,” Jacob said. “But he deeply loved her. And deep love turns to hate very fast in the right circumstances. It’s almost always the boyfriend, or the husband, or the lover.”

They walked in silence for a few more minutes.

“Besides,” he said. “We have no other suspects.”

Things became even more incriminating on their way back to the city. Matt called them to say there were five different sets of prints taken at the crime scene. One set belonged to Blayze, one belonged to Dona. He assumed the rest belonged to her sister and parents. The door handle and the snack bowls on the table didn’t have any prints on them, which meant whoever was there last had wiped them clean. That could mean anything.

The computer wasn’t password protected. Matt had accessed Dona’s e-mail account. She had no social network accounts as far as he could tell, which was obviously unusual. Her e-mail account was almost empty, just some promotion e-mails related to the computer game Dragonworld or to the Buoy Forum, which was a mutual assistance forum—probably the one Blayze had mentioned. Dona had stopped visiting the forum four months ago, which narrowed down the people who talked to her routinely even more.

There were some online searches for Buffy memorabilia in her browser history from the last couple of days. At first Matt had assumed she’d been shopping, but then he’d realized the searches matched the items in her possession. She’d been checking out prices on eBay. He thought she was considering selling her collection. Her collection’s worth, according to Matt, was above seven thousand dollars.

“She had in her closet a jacket worn by Sarah Michelle Gellar during one of the episodes,” Matt said. “Worth more than three thousand dollars. The knife replica on the night table is the knife Faith used—”

“Who?” Jacob asked.

“Faith. She’s a big deal in the Buffyverse. The knife’s worth two hundred dollars. Several jewelry pieces inside her dresser that were used on the set and were worth a couple of hundred each.”

“Okay,” Jacob said. “What about the anonymous phone call to dispatch? Did you check it out?”

“I heard it,” Matt said. “It was pre-recorded with a text to speech application. It’s very short, just her name, address, and that she needs assistance. The call was made using a prepaid phone with a new SIM card, as far as we can tell. We’re still checking to see if we can trace it, or find out where it was purchased from.”

“Great, Matt. Keep us posted about it,” Jacob said.

“And now I’m going to sleep,” Matt said, his voice brittle. “And if anyone else is murdered tonight, you can wake someone else.”

“There is no one else, Matt. You’re our guy,” Jacob said.

“I’m turning off the phone.”

“Good night, Matt.”

“Good night, Jacob.”

Jacob hung up, and they drove in silence a couple of minutes.

“Seven thousand dollars could also be a motive for murder for a man like Blayze,” Mitchell pointed out.

“Yeah.”

“Blayze could have wiped the fingerprints himself, make it look like someone else did it.”

“That’s true,” Jacob agreed.

Mitchell thought about it. “He did look as if he really does love her,” he said. “I mean, you know, you could see the loss in his eyes.”

Jacob glanced at him in amusement. “Seriously? Since when do you solve a case by looking into a man’s eyes?”

“Well, it’s just a feeling I had.”

“Yeah, well, love can do funny things.”

“I know,” Mitchell said vacantly. Would someone like Blayze hurt someone he truly loved? Strangle her with his bare hands? How could that even be possible? He shook his head. What was wrong with him? A boyfriend or husband killing his partner was one of the most common murder types there was. Why should Blayze be any different?

“We need to find some proof,” he said hoarsely.

“Yup.”

The smell of the morgue always made Bernard want to flee. He had a keen sense of smell, keener than most, and the coppery smell of blood, the ghastly odor of the dead body, and the smells of disinfectants and formalin were almost too much to bear. The first time he’d been in an autopsy room during his police academy days, he’d left the room to throw up. He wasn’t the only one, but as far as he could tell he was the only one who had done so three times. These days, he had better control over his gag reflex—though he made sure to verify that the path to the exit was unobstructed, and that he knew where the bathroom was.

A pair of white lab coats, spotted with some brown stains, hung next to the exit doors. The white cloth reflected the cold light of the fluorescent lamps. The tiled floor, though clean, felt a bit sticky under his feet.

As he walked toward Annie Turner and the dead body of Frank Gulliepe, Bernard tried to avoid thinking about the stickiness, concentrating on the number of tiles instead. Thirteen tiles between the door and the metal gurney. Thirteen, now there was a number. He looked at Frank Gulliepe, half covered with a pale blue blanket, his torso bare, the Y shape of the incision marks foreign and strange.

There were tools on a metal table beside the body. An electric saw, a scalpel, forceps, something that seemed to be a hammer. Bernard always forgot what they did with the hammer thing. It didn’t match the style of the rest of its grisly siblings. It would have been more at home beside some nails, used when a picture on the wall required hanging.

“What can you tell us, Annie?” Hannah asked. She didn’t seem to be troubled by the smell at all. Bernard wondered if it was because her nostrils were smaller. He would have been glad for a smaller pair of nostrils right about now.

“Well, the cause of death, like I said, was a stab to the heart,” Annie said. “We have seven stab wounds. Also, the fingers on the right hand are sliced, looks like a defensive wound. Two stab wounds went through the liver, one punctured the kidney, one punctured the lungs. Two stab wounds were much more superficial, probably because the blade hit the ribs. And this here is the stab to the heart.”

She pointed at the stab wounds as she explained this. Bernard counted with her. One, two, three… someone wanted to make sure this guy was dead.

“The stab to the kidney, and the superficial one here, were done after the victim was already dead. The bathrobe he was dressed in was torn in two places, which line up with these two wounds, so those two stabs went through the bathrobe and into the body. The rest of the stabbings were directly into the body.”