Read Online Desert Rage: A Lena Jones Mystery by Betty Webb - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Betty Webb
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bones break, they don’t break silently. A baseball bat hitting a skull makes some noise, too. As does a gunshot.
Bocelli cleared his throat. “I hear these high-end houses are pretty much soundproofed. Even if they weren’t, the neighbor on the left was in Venice, the one in Italy, not California, and the neighbors on the right were at their ranch in Wyoming.”
In Scottsdale, everyone who could manage it left town during the summer months. Those who had to work remained, such as maids, cops, and Emergency Room physicians.
“Yeah, and since the golf course in back was pretty much deserted on a hot Monday afternoon—my research says the temp made it to one-seventeen that day—few golfers would have been around to hear anything, either,” I responded.
“If two kids really did do this, it would make you think twice about having a family, wouldn’t it?” Bocelli said.
There was nothing to say to that, so I just kept snapping pictures until it was time to check the other rooms. With Bocelli trailing behind, I walked down the hall to Dr. Cameron’s den, where a new stench met me. Most dens are small hidey-holes, usually repurposed bedrooms. Not the good doctor’s. Two brass-plated oak doors opened into a suite-sized space furnished with a wall of built-in mahogany cabinets and an antique desk the size of the ruined Escalade in the garage. But like the dining and living rooms, the desk’s beauty had been destroyed, this time by a brown smear of what looked and smelled like feces across its surface.
Seeing my expression, Bocelli volunteered, “Dog shit. That’s what I hear, anyway.”
“Why dog shit?” I’d seen plenty of feces-smeared rooms in my career, but in every case, the feces had been human. This departure from the norm unsettled me.
Bocelli shrugged. “Who knows what went through those sickos’ minds.”
I moved away from the reeking desk and studied the walls. The glass-covered prints of classic cars had been knocked off their hangers, and lay shattered and ripped on the oak floor. More red spray enamel took the artworks’ place. Near the sliding glass doors to a private patio, the remnants of a Samsung E2420L monitor lay on its side, but the hard drives of every computer in the house, along with every iPhone, were at the police lab. Their read-outs were in the case file back at Desert Investigations.
Wreckage this complete and planned—the killer or killers, plural, had to transport a giant helping of dog feces to the household—signaled an intense and personal animus, not random violence. The fact that Dr. Cameron’s body was positioned so that he was forced to watch the torture-deaths of his wife and child identified him as the target victim. The agonies of Alexandra and Alec were merely a means to that end.
Further searching revealed nothing useful left in Dr. Cameron’s den. Every drawer in the desk and file cabinets had been opened, their contents confiscated by the police.
“Lots of rage here,” I said, to Bocelli.
“Seems to be everywhere these days, doesn’t it?”
Another unanswerable question. Leaving the young cop to reflect on the state of the world, I got busy taking pictures. Since so little was left, I wound up spending much less time in the den than in the previous rooms, so a few minutes later I was climbing the stairs to the second floor, Bocelli trailing behind me like a loyal puppy.
The master bedroom was a disaster, with the mattress slashed to a fare-thee-well, but at least the Camerons’ attacker hadn’t massaged dog feces into the Tempur-Pedic. The master bath was worse. Every mirror had been shattered, the long granite countertop split in two, the porcelain top on the toilet bowl smashed against the tile floor. More feces had been smeared in the sauna-sized bathtub. I held my breath as long as I could, but finally had to inhale. Due to the hard surfaces and closed nature of the bathroom, the stench was worse than the den’s.
“You about done?”
Bocelli cleared his throat. “I hear these high-end houses are pretty much soundproofed. Even if they weren’t, the neighbor on the left was in Venice, the one in Italy, not California, and the neighbors on the right were at their ranch in Wyoming.”
In Scottsdale, everyone who could manage it left town during the summer months. Those who had to work remained, such as maids, cops, and Emergency Room physicians.
“Yeah, and since the golf course in back was pretty much deserted on a hot Monday afternoon—my research says the temp made it to one-seventeen that day—few golfers would have been around to hear anything, either,” I responded.
“If two kids really did do this, it would make you think twice about having a family, wouldn’t it?” Bocelli said.
There was nothing to say to that, so I just kept snapping pictures until it was time to check the other rooms. With Bocelli trailing behind, I walked down the hall to Dr. Cameron’s den, where a new stench met me. Most dens are small hidey-holes, usually repurposed bedrooms. Not the good doctor’s. Two brass-plated oak doors opened into a suite-sized space furnished with a wall of built-in mahogany cabinets and an antique desk the size of the ruined Escalade in the garage. But like the dining and living rooms, the desk’s beauty had been destroyed, this time by a brown smear of what looked and smelled like feces across its surface.
Seeing my expression, Bocelli volunteered, “Dog shit. That’s what I hear, anyway.”
“Why dog shit?” I’d seen plenty of feces-smeared rooms in my career, but in every case, the feces had been human. This departure from the norm unsettled me.
Bocelli shrugged. “Who knows what went through those sickos’ minds.”
I moved away from the reeking desk and studied the walls. The glass-covered prints of classic cars had been knocked off their hangers, and lay shattered and ripped on the oak floor. More red spray enamel took the artworks’ place. Near the sliding glass doors to a private patio, the remnants of a Samsung E2420L monitor lay on its side, but the hard drives of every computer in the house, along with every iPhone, were at the police lab. Their read-outs were in the case file back at Desert Investigations.
Wreckage this complete and planned—the killer or killers, plural, had to transport a giant helping of dog feces to the household—signaled an intense and personal animus, not random violence. The fact that Dr. Cameron’s body was positioned so that he was forced to watch the torture-deaths of his wife and child identified him as the target victim. The agonies of Alexandra and Alec were merely a means to that end.
Further searching revealed nothing useful left in Dr. Cameron’s den. Every drawer in the desk and file cabinets had been opened, their contents confiscated by the police.
“Lots of rage here,” I said, to Bocelli.
“Seems to be everywhere these days, doesn’t it?”
Another unanswerable question. Leaving the young cop to reflect on the state of the world, I got busy taking pictures. Since so little was left, I wound up spending much less time in the den than in the previous rooms, so a few minutes later I was climbing the stairs to the second floor, Bocelli trailing behind me like a loyal puppy.
The master bedroom was a disaster, with the mattress slashed to a fare-thee-well, but at least the Camerons’ attacker hadn’t massaged dog feces into the Tempur-Pedic. The master bath was worse. Every mirror had been shattered, the long granite countertop split in two, the porcelain top on the toilet bowl smashed against the tile floor. More feces had been smeared in the sauna-sized bathtub. I held my breath as long as I could, but finally had to inhale. Due to the hard surfaces and closed nature of the bathroom, the stench was worse than the den’s.
“You about done?”
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