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He nodded.
“Did she have any idea where Ivy was?”
“No. Tanaka’s checking with her friends.”
Pescoli had a bad feeling about that. “But she live
d here.”
“Yeah.”
“And just happened to be gone when her parents were murdered.”
“Lucky,” he said, sending her a look.
“Or . . .”
“She was clued in, or part of it, or already gone missing.”
The bad feeling got worse and didn’t let up as Paterno led her down the stairs to the second floor where the murders had taken place.
The beds had been stripped, the bedding taken for lab tests, though there was no obvious sign that either of the victims had been sexually assaulted.
Paterno opened a set of double doors. “This was Paul Latham’s suite,” he said, and she followed him into a massive bedroom where a stripped bed faced a huge flat screen TV mounted on the wall. Oddly, in juxtaposition to all the rest of the furnishings, Paul’s room was modern, a king-sized bed facing the TV, the headboard smooth, blond wood, the end tables wood and metal, the lamps chrome. Two sleek chairs sat next to a glass and chrome bar positioned near the French doors that opened onto a veranda.
“This connects to your sister’s room,” Paterno said, opening the blinds so that she could see the private outdoor space. “Only access is from one bedroom to the other. I wonder if they ever used it.”
Looking outside, where rain was washing against the glass and running across the flagstones, she couldn’t imagine her sister and husband—what?—sleeping separately but meeting outside on their private veranda for a drink? Still, it was a great place to hide between the potted plants. “Is there a ladder or some kind of fire escape?” she asked.
He nodded. “Doesn’t look used much.”
“But it could have provided access . . . ?”
“The doors were locked when we got here.”
“So we’re back to a key.”
“Or someone inviting them inside.” He motioned toward an open doorway. “The GSR on the bodies indicated that each victim had been shot at close range,” Paterno said as they walked into the now empty gun closet. “Very close range.”
GSR—gun shot residue—remained after a gun was fired, the closer the victim to the firearm, the more likely he or she would have traces of GSR on their bodies. The armory itself was the size of a small bedroom and filled with display cases, shelves, locking racks. Just no weapons.
“You think one of Paul’s guns was used in the attack?” she asked.
“Don’t know, but I’m leaning the other way, that they had their own weapons. It looks like two separate guns were used.”
“You find casings?”
“Yeah.”
“Different caliber of bullets?”
“Both .380s. We’re checking to see if they came from the same gun, but I’m not betting on it. Two neighbors heard something. The guy across the street, Jerome Forrester, claimed to have heard only one shot that, of course, he thought was a car backfiring or something. The other neighbor, just next door to the west, Mrs. Margaret Rinaldo, thought the bang kind of stuttered, so maybe she heard two shots, but she couldn’t say so. Neither heard the sound of two distinct shots.”
“Huh. So . . . what? You’re thinking two killers?” Pescoli asked.
“Possibly. Or probably.” They started walking back through Paul’s bedroom and down the short hallway separating his sleeping quarters from Brindel’s. “No way could anyone shoot one of the victims close enough for the amount of GSR, then run out of the room, down this hall and cross the bedrooms to set up and shoot again. Not only would the first shot alert the second victim but the sounds of the shots would have been separated by silence. Two definite shots. There’s just too much distance either by the hall or across the deck to have the sound of the shots not be distinct.”
“They were executed?” she said, the thought chilling. “Two murderers with synchronized watches, or cell phones or just shouting, but firing simultaneously?” She had trouble believing it.
