Tell Me Your Dreams by Sidney Sheldon

So the motive was not robbery. Drugs? Revenge? A love affair gone wrong?

“What did you do after you tidied up here, Maria?”

“I vacuumed in here, the way I always do. And then—” Her voice faltered. “I walked into the bedroom and…I saw him.” She looked at Deputy Blake. “I swear I didn’t do it.”

The coroner and his assistants arrived in a coroner’s wagon, with a body bag.

Three hours later, Deputy Sam Blake was back in the sheriff’s office.

“What have you got, Sam?”

“Not much.” Deputy Blake sat down across from Sheriff Dowling. “Dennis Tibbie worked over at Global. He was apparently some kind of genius.”

“But not genius enough to keep himself from getting killed.”

“He wasn’t just killed, Matt. He was slaughtered. You should have seen what someone did to his body. It has to be some kind of maniac.”

“Nothing to go on?”

“We aren’t sure what the murder weapon is, we’re waiting for results from the lab, but it may be a broken wine bottle. The maid threw it in the compactor. It looks like there’s a fingerprint on one of the pieces of glass in his back. I talked to the neighbors. No help there. No one saw anyone coming in or out of his apartment. No unusual noises. Apparently, Tibbie stuck pretty much to himself. He wasn’t the neighborly type. One thing. Tibbie had sex before he died. We have vaginal traces, pubic hairs, other trace evidence and a cigarette stub with lipstick. We’ll test for DNA.”

“The newspapers are going to have a good time with this one, Sam. I can see the headlines now—MANIAC STRIKES SILICON VALLEY.” Sheriff Dowling sighed. “Let’s knock this off as fast as we can.”

“I’m on my way over to Global Computer Graphics now.”

It had taken Ashley an hour to decide whether she should go into the office. She was torn. One look at me, and everyone will know that something is wrong. But if I don’t show up, they’ll want to know why. The police will probably be there asking questions. If they question me, I’ll have to tell them the truth. They won’t believe me. They’ll blame me for killing Dennis Tibbie. And if they do believe me, and if I tell them my father knew what he did to me, they’ll blame him.

She thought of Jim Cleary’s murder. She could hear Florence’s voice: “Jim’s parents came back and found his body. He had been stabbed to death and castrated.”

Ashley squeezed her eyes shut tightly. My God, what’s happening? What’s happening?

Deputy Sam Blake walked onto the work floor where groups of somber employees stood around, talking quietly. Blake could imagine what the subject of conversation was. Ashley watched him apprehensively as he headed toward Shane Miller’s office.

Shane rose to greet him. “Deputy Blake?”

“Yes.” The two men shook hands.

“Sit down, Deputy.”

Sam Blake took a seat. “I understand Dennis Tibbie was an employee here?”

“That’s right. One of the best. It’s a terrible tragedy.”

“He worked here about three years?”

“Yes. He was our genius. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do with a computer.”

“What can you tell me about his social life?”

Shane Miller shook his head. “Not much, I’m afraid. Tibbie was kind of a loner.”

“Do you have any idea if he was into drugs?”

“Dennis? Hell, no. He was a health nut.”

“Did he gamble? Could he have owed someone a lot of money?”

“No. He made a damned good salary, but I think he was pretty tight with a buck.”

“What about women? Did he have a girlfriend?”

“Women weren’t very attracted to Tibbie.” He thought for a moment. “Lately, though, he was going around telling people there was someone he was thinking of marrying.”

“Did he happen to mention her name?”

Miller shook his head. “No. Not to me, anyway.”

“Would you mind if I talked to some of your employees?”

“Not at all. Go ahead. I have to tell you, they’re all pretty shaken up.”

They would be more shaken up if they could have seen his body, Blake thought.

The two men walked out onto the work floor.