The job had been thorough because they thought Oscar Holmes, the friendly neighborhood mailman, wanted to get rid of something. It seemed obvious that whatever that something was had everything to do with making the circumstances unusual as well.

Teddy stepped into the hall, looking for the girl’s bedroom. It was the third door down, and he stopped to take it in before entering. It was a teenager’s room. A room in transition furnished with hopes and dreams and the lingering mementoes of a childhood about to be left behind. The sadness was overwhelming because the evolution from girl to young woman had been destroyed.

His eyes came to rest on an old oak chest against the wall by the window. Spotting a series of photographs, he flipped the light switch and crossed the room. The pictures had been dusted for fingerprints, along with the brass handles on the drawers. One photo stood out, and Teddy picked the frame up by its edges, trying to avoid the dark gray powder that ADA Powell had warned him about. It was a family shot, taken while on vacation and probably recent. It could have been Rome, but Teddy suspected it was Paris. He looked at the faces, the smiles, guessing the eldest daughter had to be Darlene. She was pretty, even beautiful. By the way her father was holding onto her, Teddy could tell he thought so, too. Teddy’s eyes moved back to Darlene in the picture and he studied her face. She was more worldly than he expected, almost too sophisticated to live in this room.

He set down the picture and looked around. He noticed her clothes on the chair, a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Then he crossed the room to the closet, reviewing her clothing. He spotted a pair of panties rolled into a ball on the floor and picked them up. As he opened them and examined them in the light, someone tapped on the bedroom door.

It was ADA Carolyn Powell, staring at him with a lazy smile and those blue gray eyes of hers.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” she asked.

Teddy froze, embarrassed. “She was sexually active,” he said.

“How do you know that?”

“There’s a discharge. She had sex with someone, then put these back on.”

Powell’s eyes went to the panties, then flipped back to his face. “She was eighteen, living in a modern world. We could discuss it more thoroughly if you’d like, but I think they’re ready downstairs.”

Teddy nodded and tossed the panties into the closet. Giving the room a last look, he switched the lights off and followed Powell out the door.


 

 

 

 

FOUR

 

 

 

The dining room had changed in the last hour. Darlene Lewis’s body remained entombed in the smoke beneath the plastic, but an exhaust fan had been placed in the window and the fumes from the hot glue were much easier to handle now. Six fluorescent fixtures mounted on light stands stood off to the side, plugged into the wall and ready to go.

Detective Vega traded looks with the district attorney. After a moment, Vega nodded at the man wearing the gas mask, who then removed the lamp from beneath the plastic and set it down on the floor careful not to spill any glue that might have remained in the dish attached to the light bulb. The girl’s form underneath the plastic went dark, and Teddy tried to get a grip on what he was about to see. Then the man with the gas mask began releasing the spring clamps that sealed the plastic to the wood of the dining room table.