The top of the dresser was sparsely arranged with bottles of perfume and moisturizers, a hairbrush and a set of electric curlers. Against the wall to the left of it was a desk, and the electric typewriter on top of it was an island in the midst of a sea of paper and books. More books were on a shelf overhead and stacked on the hardwood floor. The closet door was open a crack, the light off inside. There were no rugs or knickknacks, no photographs or paintings on the walls-as if the bedroom had not been lived in very long or else her stay was temporary.
Far to my right was a twin bed. From a distance I saw disarrayed bedcovers and a splay of dark, tangled hair. Watching where I stepped, I went to her.
Her face was turned toward me, and it was so suffused, so bloated by decomposition, I could not tell what she had looked like in life except she was white, with shoulder-length dark brown hair. She was nude and resting on her left side, her legs drawn up, her hands behind her and tightly bound. It appeared the killer used the cords from venetian blinds, and the knots, the pattern, were joltingly familiar. A dark blue bedspread was thrown over her hips in a manner still ringing of careless cold contempt. On the floor at the foot of the bed was a pair of shorty pajamas. The top was buttoned, and it was slit from the collar to the hem. The bottoms appeared to be slit along the sides.
Marino slowly crossed the bedroom and stood next to me. “He climbed up the ladder,” he said.
“What ladder?” I asked.
There were two windows. The one he was staring at was open and nearer the bed. “Against the brick outside,” he explained, “there’s an old iron fire escape ladder. That’s how he got in. The rungs are rusty. Some of it flaked off and is on the sill, probably from his shoes.”
“And he went out that way, too,” I assumed aloud.
“Can’t say for sure, but it would appear so. The door downstairs was locked. We had to bust it open. But outside,” he added, looking toward the window again, “there’s tall grass under the ladder. No footprints. It rained cats and dogs Saturday night so that don’t help our cause worth a damn either.”
“This place air-conditioned?” My skin was crawling, the airless room hot and damp and bristling with decay.
“Nope. No fans either. Not a single one.”
He wiped his flushed face with his hand. His hair was clinging like gray string to his wet forehead, his eyes bloodshot and darkly ringed. Marino looked as if he hadn’t been to bed or changed his clothes in a week.
“Was the window locked?” I asked.
“Neither of them was-” He got a surprised look on his face as we turned in unison toward the doorway. “What the hell . . . ?”
A woman had started screaming in the foyer two floors below. Feet were scuffing, male voices were arguing.
“Get out of my house! Oh, God . . . Get out of my house, you goddam son of a bitch!” screamed the woman.
Marino abruptly brushed past me, and his steps thudded loudly on the wooden stairs. I could hear him saying something to someone, and almost immediately the screaming stopped. The loud voices faded to a murmur.
I began the external examination of the body.
She was the same temperature as the room, and rigor already had come and gone. She got cool and stiff right after death, and then as the temperature outside rose so did the temperature of her body. Finally, her stiffness passed, as if the initial shock of death vanished with time.
I did not have to pull back the bedspread much to see what was beneath it. For an instant, I wasn’t breathing and my heart seemed to stop. I gently laid the spread back in place and began peeling off my gloves. There was nothing more I could do with her here. Nothing.
When I heard Marino coming back up the stairs, I turned to tell him to be sure the body came to the morgue wrapped in the bedcovers. But the words stuck in my throat. I stared in speechless astonishment.