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Storm needs to grab the opportunity to speak to him now. Monroe has checked Everett’s alibi and found it may not stack up. Storm has known enough Hollywood types to know that if Everett feels like it, he might decide to shack up in some luxury hotel and refuse to speak to Storm later, making it harder for the team to investigate.
Remi greets Storm at the door of the house. “Everett here yet?” he asks.
Remi shakes her head. “They’re running late. Everett didn’t like the sandwich he was given and has insisted on grabbing some lunch on the way.” She makes a face. “You’d think he might have lost his appetite given the condition in which he found his fiancée.”
“And the friend Kris Caprio?”
“Is still with him,” says Remi. “He was following the big star around like a loyal lapdog last I saw him.”
“Good,” says Storm. It will be good to get an impression of them both at the same time. People always give away more than they think in the presence of their nearest and dearest.
Hearing Storm’s arrival, a skinny figure with greasy slicked back hair dashes enthusiastically towards him. It is Phineas Finlay, the crime scene tech.
“Just your key findings for now, Finlay,” says Storm, knowing Finlay’s tendency to go into an irksome level of detail.
Finlay enthusiastically shows Storm the site of Raif Silverstone’s murder. “We think he opened the door to the murderer, and then went towards the stairs to call up to Lynesse Jones who was upstairs,” says Finlay cheerfully.
Finlay retraced the killer’s footsteps and mimes every move with exaggerated enthusiasm. “The murderer followed him, and picked up this cat.” He points to a heavy statue of a cat lying on its side next and mimes swooping it down, crashing it into a skull. “And WHACK, WHACK, WHACK!” he finishes.
The blood at the base of the stairs is brown now. There is no sign that it had ever been blue.
“So? Was he an incubus?” asks Remi. Leo has no doubt messaged her.
Storm nods. Beatrice Grictor had confirmed it. And according to Finlay’s evidence it looks like everything that Diana had seen in her dream was accurate. Either that or she came to the same conclusions herself when she was here.
Remi seems to have picked up on his thoughts. “Diana said she dreamed the killer was watching them from outside the house.” She points to a window. “We found smudged fingerprints on the outside and one clear partial. Nice catch, huh?”
Storm frowns. “Maybe.”
“C’mon,” she says. “Incubus. Prints on the window. That’s two points to Diana.”
“I hadn’t realized it was a competition,” says Storm.
Remi makes a face.
Finlay has been watching them, his lizard-like eyes flicking from one to the other. “An incubus?” he says. “Cool! Were they bonking? I bet they were bonking. I bet he killed them for bonking. That’s hot.”
“Is there any evidence of that?” says Storm coolly.
“Er… Well there were no fluids, no semen on the bedsheets, but maybe they hadn’t got round to it yet?” says Finlay.
“Stick to the evidence,” says Storm tersely. “Leave the theorizing to us.”
Finlay shrugs. He bounces upstairs, where he spouts at great length about Lynesse Jones’s death and re-enacts the gruesome savagery with relish.
Storm’s eyes are on the mark left on the wall by the murderer. It should be in a more prominent position. Over the bed would have been a better spot. And Diana was right — the deep claw gouges that accompany DCK’s bloody pawprint are missing.
Storm hears footsteps on the stairs and tells Finlay to shut up just in time to keep him from upsetting the grieving fiancé. A moment later an Agency officer enters the bedroom and, when Storm nods, he allows Jared Everett and Kris Caprio to follow him in.
Everett looks older in person than in his pictures. In his mid-thirties, he is a decade older than Lynesse. Every bit of those years is showing on his face as he stares at the bloody, rumpled bed in horror as if seeing it for the first time. Perhaps it looks different now that his dead fiancée is no longer on it.
“Would you like to wait outside, Mr Everett, while Officer Samson gets your things?” says Storm.
Faced with the reality of being in this room, Everett seems to change his mind about getting his things himself. He nods his head. Officer Samson seems relieved. It will be easier for him to catalogue the things that are going to be removed and ensure they are nothing of evidentiary relevance without a Hollywood superstar barking at him to hurry up.
Storm and Remi exchange a meaningful glance. They escort Everett and Caprio back downstairs to the kitchen where, at Everett’s insistence, Caprio busies himself making coffee for everyone. He is overly tall and gangly, his features too prominent on his long face. A failed actor according to the information that Monroe sent over. Clumsy too, splashing milk over the counter as he pours some into a mug. He doesn’t bother to wipe it up.
Everett slumps into a chair at the kitchen table and buries his face in his hands. He looks every inch the grieving fiancé. His shoulders are even shaking. He clearly expects Remi to play the part of the beautiful female cop and comfort him.
