Elizabeth Becka - Unknown Means

UNKNOWN MEANS

ELIZABETH BECKA

For my sisters,

Mary and Susan,

my friends,

my support

Contents

THE WOMANS BODY HAD BEEN POSED, SOMETHING

Evelyn had read

A MERENGUE BEAT SPLIT THE AIR, TRILLING FROM THE

Nextel

THE TELEPHONE SHATTERED THE DARKNESS, SNAPPING

Evelyn to attention with

HER WORKPLACE HAD BEEN TITLED THE TRACE EVIDENCE

Department for

EVELYN TOOK OVER A PARKING SPACE FROM A DEPARTING Channel

THE OFFICERS HAD ALREADY INVESTIGATED THE

stairwell, and she did

SHE FOUND RAFE JOHNSON IN HIS OFFICE, A FORMER

supply

EVELYN TRIED TO REACH ANGEL AT HOME, BUT NO ONE 77

AS IF FROM A DISTANCE, SHE HEARD A VOICE: DAMN

HOLDING A BAG OF ICE TO HER THROAT, EVELYN sized

THE ARMCHAIR IN WHICH SHE RESTED HAD ABSORBED

most of

EVELYN DID NOT BOTHER GOING HOME. THE ONE, PERHAPS

two

I CANT BELIEVE IM DOING THIS, EVELYN THOUGHT. NOT

again.

FRANCES DUARTE HAD ONLY ONE LIVING IMMEDIATE

relative, her sister

DAVID COULD HAVE INSISTED THAT FRANCES DUARTES

accountant come to

OUR KILLER IS THE UNKNOWN SUBJECT IN FIVE

UNSOLVED rapes,

THE LOBBY INTERCOM AT THE QUAY 55 BUILDING HAD

been

THE SWELLINGS GONE DOWN, ROBERT TOLD EVELYN

as they stood

YOURE IN EARLY, MRS. ANDERSON SNAPPED AT

her. I havent

THE VACUUMINGS FROM GRACE MARKHAMS APARTMENT

consisted of fibers from

DAVID AND RILEY SPENT THE MORNING TRACKING

down four of

EVELYN WAS CONVERSING WITH THE AFOREMENTIONED

waste of flesh at

THERE IT IS, JUSTIN TOLD HER. YOURE IN LUCK.

Pickup

WOO-EEE. TONY HELD HIS NOSE AS EVELYN

deposited her bags

YOU SEEM PRETTY PERKY FOR A GIRL WHO JUST

cheated

THE BRICK BUILDING ON THE SITE OF THE DEFUNCT

Fagans

AFTER TWENTY MINUTES ON THE PHONE WITH HER

mother, Evelyn

CRAIG SINCLAIR HAD PASSED HIS TWENTY-SECOND

birthday the week before.

RILEY, WHERES DAVID? I TRIED HIS NEXTEL AND HIS

pager,

THE PLAIN DEALER BUILDING HAD BEEN AT THE CORNER

of

FINDING DAVIDS CAR IN HER DRIVEWAY FILLED HER

with conflicting

EVELYN RAN THE FTIR SPECTRUM OF CRAIG SINCLAIRS

crayons against

DAVID BROWSED THE C GATES NEWSSTAND AT

Cleveland Hopkins Airport,

EVELYN LEFT ED TO EAT HIS BREAKFAST AMONG THE

compressed-air

WHEN SHE DARED TAKE HER EYES OFF THE ROAD, Evelyn

SHE COULD HEAR HIM BREATHING, AND NO DOUBT HE

could

AND THE ELEVATOR ROLLED TO A SMOOTH HALT.

SHE RELEASED THE UP BUTTON TO GRASP HIS SANDY

blond

ITS JUST A LITTLE SHOCK, THE PARAMEDIC TOLD

David. Shes

THE WOMANS BODY HAD BEEN POSED, SOMETHING

Evelyn had read about but never seen. Twenty-eight, white, dead Grace Markham sat upright at her kitchen table, silky black hair skimming her cheeks. Mesh straps held her shoulders and waist to the high-backed wooden chair. One of the same straps had been used to strangle her, to judge from the width and pattern of the indentations in her skin. Her arms lay on the table in front of her, stretched forward far enough to keep them from slipping back off.

She might have been sitting at a meal, were it not for the bulging eyes and tongue, and her head lolling to her chest. Perhaps the killer had not had time to fix that detail, or couldnt figure out how.

Evelyn James turned off the filtered vacuum that she had been using to pick up any loose hairs, fibers, or trace evidence on the floors surface. Thunder rattled the windows, extra loud in the sudden quiet. Is it ever going to stop raining?

Its the lake effect. Besides, April showers bring May flowers,

Detective Riley told her.

They also bring flash floods and backed-up sewers.

She leaned toward the body, close enough to catch the scent of fresh death. Grace Markham had tried to save herself, to judge from the scratches along her jugular and the broken fingernails, the red

slash of constriction etched deeply into her neck. Part of a gold necklace had been caught against her skin so that the diamond pendant hung awry. Evelyn shifted the gem with one finger. This has to be two carats, at least.

Homicide Detective David Milaski spoke for the first time since Evelyn had arrived, twenty minutes earlier. Ill pick up one for you to wear to Marissas wedding. Oh, thats right, Im a cop. I cant even afford cubic zirconium.

An olive branch, an attempt to get past their argument that morning. She tried to reciprocate. Id just sell it to pay for Angels college anyway. I dont know how else Im going to afford tuition.

Of course.

Wrong choice of subject. Evelyn held his blue-eyed gaze for another moment to tell him so.

You two arguing again? Riley asked. Davids partner, the rumpled Detective Bruce Riley, had been a cop for thirty-two years and could pluck a tense tone out of the air like a sonic baseball. If this has to do with Freedmans bachelor party, I want it on the record that I told him not to go.

That was a great party, a uniformed cop, the contamination officer for the scene, murmured from the foyer.

Evelyn removed the filter from the vacuum and sealed it in a brown paper bag before she picked up her camera. The viewfinder framed Grace Markhams preternaturally still form like a bizarre piece of modern art.

Evelyn had seen death by strangulation before, more times than she cared to tally. The Medical Examiners Office dealt with two or three homicides per week, and each one had to be examined by a forensic scientistmeaning her, until the Trace Evidence Department budget could allow for more staff. But this particular murder broke new ground.

Instead of in a violent back alley, Grace Markham rested at her own kitchen table, and in one of the most expensive high-rise suites on

the Lake Erie shore. The Markham suite spanned the entire tenth floor, with four bedrooms, three baths, two offices, a TV room, and a sauna. At the main entrance, where the contamination officer stood to keep unwanted personnel out of the scene, the elevator opened directly onto the foyers granite squaresrich people did not fumble with keys.

The kitchen and open eating area flowed into a living room filled with leather furniture, a plasma flat-screen, and artfully lit photographs, the white walls and carpeting as clean as an unused operating room.

This was new. And not in a good way.

Most murders occurred on the spur of the moment, impulsive acts of rage or desperation that the killers tried to cover up or escape as quickly as possible. There should have been some sign of struggle or disturbed items to indicate the killers process, his agenda, his desires. This guy had left them nothing but one very dead body.

Evelyn twisted the cameras lens, focusing on Grace Markham.

Where was the husband?

At work, David said. Hes an architect, currently designing the new Rhodes office complex in the Flats. No children. Miller and Sanchez are with him right now, finishing up his statement. He last saw Grace when he left for work this morning, around six. Grace had a nail appointment at ten and a doctors appointment at elevenprenatal visit. She iswastwo months pregnant.

Evelyn looked up. Damn.

Yeah. She didnt make either of her appointments, to judge from the messages on the answering machine. Meanwhile, the husbands been showing a proposal to a client all day, in full view of at least five people at any given moment. Whens time of death?