I looked at him. “What it was?”
Bud handed me a pair of protective gloves and paper booties. “You are not gonna believe the trouble this guy went to.”
I snapped on the white latex gloves, then leaned against the deck railing and pulled the paper booties over my high-tops. Bud stood back and let me precede him into the foyer. Ever the gentleman. I stopped just inside the door and eyeballed the room. The chandelier was turned on, blazing down on a large, round oak table with a white marble top. Long-stemmed pink roses were just beginning to wilt in a fan-shaped crystal vase that looked like Lalique. A sickly scent that reminded me of mortuaries filled the air. A white card lay on the table. I bent and read it without picking it up. Welcome to Cedar Bend, sweetheart. Relax, enjoy yourself, and I’ll see you soon was written neatly in small, back-slanted handwriting. It was signed Nick.
I walked through a curved archway into a long living room, which faced the lake. The day had finally dawned outside, and three large skylights threw oblong patches of sunlight over oak hardwood floors. Everything was spotless, pristine-looking, the carpet snow-white and plush under the couch. Half a dozen French doors brought in a spectacular view of the glistening lake.
On the back deck, lots of white wrought-iron furniture padded with thick blue-and-white-striped cushions were arranged in conversation nooks. Chaise lounges were lined up facing the water, among giant terra-cotta pots full of geraniums and marigolds. Now that she was out of prison, Martha Stewart would nod her approval and say, “It’s a good thing, this place on the lake.”
“Okay, enough with the suspense, Bud. Where is she?”
“Out here.” I followed him across the glossy floor to a French door standing ajar. “No telling when somebody would’ve discovered the body if the neighbor lady hadn’t gone in for a dip.”
The back deck stretched about twenty feet out over the lake. There were steps leading down to a lower-level boat dock. I braced myself mentally. I’d had enough experience with spattered blood and brain matter in L.A., as well as various other gore, not to get sick at crime scenes, and I was well used to the incomparable stench of decaying corpses and the way it infiltrated my hair and skin until I could barely scrub it out. Unlike some officers and medical examiners, I couldn’t look at dead bodies as hunks of red meat or evidence depositories; I saw them as wives, mothers, daughters, family members.
Homicide victims suffered terrible pain and unimaginable fear in their last moments on earth. Nobody deserved that, and now Bud and I, and other hard-eyed investigators like us, would prod and probe and invade Sylvie Border’s body, dissect her life to find out who and what and why.
A water rescue boat sliced through the still waters, with a roaring engine, and headed straight at us. Twenty yards from the deck, the driver killed the motor, and silence dropped like a rock. There was only the gurgle and splash of water breaking on the pilings under the deck. One of the men was a state patrol diver who’d gone in after a bridge suicide last month. I didn’t recognize the others. “I take it they’re here for retrieval?”
Bud slid off expensive mirrored shades, folded them, and stowed them in his breast pocket as the rescue team donned scuba gear. “Take a peek over that rail and tell me what kind of psycho did her.”
I leaned over the waist-high railing and peered into the water beside the lower-level boat dock. The lake looked about ten feet deep there, a little turbulent from the rescue boat’s wake, but not enough to obstruct my view.
Sylvie Border sat upright in a chair sunk into bottom mud. She was completely nude, and her skin gleamed pale white, almost silvery, under the water. I couldn’t see her face, but her long hair billowed up and down in underwater currents. The killer had not only submerged the victim in a chair, he’d also sunk a deck table, dishes, and silverware, entire place settings for three people, as if Sylvie were awaiting dinner guests on the bottom of the lake.
When a smallmouth bass slipped through long strands of waving hair and nibbled the victim’s right cheek, I straightened and dragged my palms down my face. I said, “He’s a freak, all right. What’d you think he was trying to say, leaving her at a table like that?”
Bud took out a stick of Juicy Fruit, bent it in half, and stuck it in his mouth. “He’s a friggin’ nutcase, that’s what he’s tryin’ to say. Think about it, Claire. He had to’ve been down there in the water with her for a long time to get all that done. He’s got goddamn salad forks and bread plates floatin’ around down there.”
I searched the bottom again. Whoever had done this knew proper dining etiquette, all right. The killer had to have spent lots of time down in the silent, murky currents with the dead woman, placing silverware and goblets just so. “He’s got her taped to the chair.” I squinted and tried to see where he’d bound her.
“Yes, ma’am.” Bud pointed into the water. “Wrists, calves, neck, and ankles. Silver duct tape, and a lot of it.”
I sucked air a moment and peered across to the Cedar Bend marina, trying to shake off macabre thoughts of the killer diving over and over to pose the corpse. “What do you have on the lady who discovered the body?”
“Some neurosurgeon’s wife from the Big Apple, Jewish, plenty rich enough to come down to the sticks and stretch out on Black’s thousand-dollar-an-hour couch.”
“He charges a thousand dollars an hour?”
“That’s what I heard.” Bud popped a second piece of Juicy Fruit into his mouth, his one addiction other than silk Armani suits. “I’m telling you what, Black’s got some kinda racket out here. O’Hara says the lady’s name is Madeline Jane Cohen.”
“Where is she now?”
“Next bungalow over. Waitin’ for us to come interview her.”
“Okay, we’ll talk to her as soon as we finish up here.” I examined the victim again, more objectively this time. I’d seen violent crimes before, even a couple of times when the vic was posed by the killer, but never anything quite this bizarre.
“Ms. Cohen’s pretty shook up. Swam right over the victim. Then when she realized it was her nice little neighbor down there taped in that chair, she panicked, swallowed a bunch of water, and barely made it back to shore.”
“The perp went to a helluva lot of trouble posing her like this. I guess you know what that means?”
“Couldn’t’ve been too worried about bein’ discovered,” Bud said, offering me a stick of gum.
“Exactly. You oughta be a detective.” I took the proffered gum and absently tore off the wrapper. “Think she was dead when she went in?”
Bud made a shrug, redonned his shades, and adjusted the aviator lenses. “Who knows what gets a maniac off? The ME can tell us cause of death soon enough.” He pulled back a starched cuff and checked his watch. “They oughta be here any minute. I called Buckeye right off the bat.”
“How many times you think he went down to get all that done?”
“Dunno. Plenty. Hey, maybe he’s a window dresser at Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel.”
That Bud. He’s a laugh riot.
“Have you checked out the bungalow?” I scanned the lake for pleasure boats. Nobody was getting anywhere near this crime scene, not on my watch.
“Nope. Got here right before you did. O’Hara pointed out the body. Accordin’ to her, nothin’s been touched, inside or out.”
“The front door was open?”
“Yeah, Suze Eggers said the front door and the French door to the deck were both open when she got here.”
“Okay. Let’s see what we can find inside before forensics show. She’ll have to stay put until the ME can supervise.