Page 100 of One of Us Is Guilty

If Bloch was in a particular hurry to get quick results on a forensic test, she would bring in the test sample with a Blu-ray for Raymond. Usually something starring Tony Leung, Chow Yun Fat or Raymond’s favorite, Jackie Chan. Those tests then somehow managed to skip the line with A1 priority. He was diligent, honest and fast, the key characteristics of a great forensic technician. For Raymond, knowing Bloch made life easier. There was a certain cachet of cool that came with being her friend. Doors opened. And more importantly for Raymond no one bullied him any more. Bad-tempered bosses and even jacked-up, gym-rat PIs stopped giving Raymond shit. In that respect, being Bloch’s pal was like having anuclear weapon in the backyard. Nobody would ever risk pissing you off in case you aimed it at their house.

In Molly Green’s apartment, months ago, Bloch had ignored Raymond as he swept the apartment with the same equipment he was using now. In Molly’s apartment, Bloch had a particular point of focus.

She remembered staring at the Monet print that hung on the wall – the water lilies.

She remembered sniffing the air.

Whatever chemical smell she had detected on her first visit to the apartment was now gone.

She had approached the picture, examined it. It sat flush to the wall. Bloch put her hands on the frame, tried to tilt it upwards to take it off the picture hook, but it didn’t move.

It must’ve been stuck on with picture tape.

Instead, she pulled gently, and then lifted. The picture came off the wall with a slight cracking, sucking sound. Her first thought was that she had been right, the picture had been stuck to the wall. But when she checked the frame, she didn’t find any stickers. None on the wall either. There was a single picture hook.

She had looked closer, saw that some flecks of white paint had come away from the wall, and were now stuck to the frame.

She had called for Raymond then.

That moment of discovery. Of finding something that had been hidden, it gave most investigators a thrill. A surge of adrenaline and dopamine that was the juice of the job. Not for Bloch. She felt different. She felt as if something wasn’t quite right. An itch. An annoyance. And revealing the truth fixed the problem.

It was soothing, but, in a strange way, not completely satisfying.

Raymond was up on all the latest forensic techniques, including retrieving blood and DNA in all kinds of situations.

Bloch had helped him that afternoon in Molly’s apartment, carefully sanding and removing layers of paint to reveal – bloodstainson the wall, behind the paint. Raymond explained that once paint dries, it forms a discreet layer. In a way, it’s just like wallpaper. If the layer of paint is carefully peeled from the wall with a sharp blade, then whatever was beneath it can be properly examined.

Raymond had processed the bloodstains that he could find, and a DNA analysis had revealed that it was Molly Green’s blood.

Now Bloch knew why she and Lake had smelled that solvent aroma when they’d first visited Molly’s apartment. It was fresh paint. Someone had painted over Molly’s bloodstains on the wall.

Why they had done so was not clear to Bloch, Lake, or even Eddie.

Why paint a wall to hide a victim’s bloodstains when there was a pool of her blood on the floor? That was a question that continued to plague Bloch, but it established a method of operation. Painting over blood to hide it.

Now, as Raymond swept the light over floors of Patrick Vanderpool’s Hamptons beach house, Bloch got the same curious feeling. She left Raymond in the grand hallway of the Hamptons house, and moved into the kitchen. It was a vast space with a long wooden dining table with a dozen wicker seats on either side. At the end of the kitchen was a glass-paneled bi-folding door that led straight out onto the beach. It was an overcast day, with dark gray clouds that sat over a chalk-green ocean. The sand was still wet with recent rain and looked more like clay in this light.

White foam brushed the beach, waves breaking far away and rolling in toward the house. It should have been a beautiful sight, the whole room was designed to frame that view, but Bloch felt only loss. She had always been slightly fearful of the ocean, recognizing its power and how often people underestimated it. Watching the tides, Bloch could easily see how a young Teresa Chase could have been swept away in those waves.

Taken and never returned by an unforgiving sea.

It would be easy to sell such a story.

But the more time she spent in that room, the more she thought that this house was just as dangerous as the sea outside.

Something wasn’t right in this house. Something had been hidden.

She and Raymond had to find—

‘Bloch,’ called Raymond.

She turned and followed his voice. The way he had said her name just now. The tone – she knew before she even saw him that Raymond had found something.

40

The Journal

Patrick’s beach house was beautiful.