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Kellan is twenty-nine years old and at his physical and mental prime. I am forty-one years old and peri-menopausal.
I smooth my sweater, a rush of insecurity coming over me. No makeup, messy ponytail, jeans that are a bit too snug (didn’t used to be), and worn running shoes. I feel like this a lot lately, insecure.
“So where is she?” I ask, forcing aside the insecurity. “She” being the dead body that the witness, Mr. Hoyt, found.
“Upstairs in the master.”
I tilt my head, noticing the shift in his tone. “What?”
“She’s… I didn’t think things like this happened around Blackbird Cove.”
“Murder happens everywhere.”
“Not like this.”
Kellan fills me in as we climb the curved staircase.
“The station got a call about ten-thirty from the neighbor, Mr. Hoyt, after he discovered the body. He says he became suspicious when he hadn’t seen the homeowner, Alyssa Kaing, leave in over two days. He says he became officially concerned after the lights had been on inside the home for two straight days now.”
“Kaing, that’s an interesting last name.”
“It’s Japanese. She took her husband’s name.”
We step onto the second-floor landing. White and gray marble runs under arched doorways and hallways. Recessed lighting gives the walls a golden glow. The word opulence runs through my head. Someone in this home has lots of money and likes to show it off.
Kellan continues, “Hoyt said it was suspicious because Alyssa and her husband always turn the lights off at nighttime—as most people do. I get the vibe he’s one of those neighborhood watchers. Anyway, about an hour ago, he got worried enough that he decided to come over and check on her. When no one answered, he used his key to enter the home.”
“He has a key to the home?”
Kellan nods. “Apparently, Alyssa gave it to him two weeks ago. They’re friendly, according to Mr. Hoyt, meet for wine or afternoon tea sometimes. They both like to garden and struck up a friendship that way. Hoyt says Alyssa gave him a key in case there was ever an emergency.”
I frown.
“Yeah, exactly,” Kellan’s eyes narrow. “I thought that was kind of odd too, considering two weeks later, there appears to be one hell of an emergency—she winds up dead.”
“Is there a Mrs. Hoyt?”
“No. He’s a widower, so he says.”
“You don’t believe him?” I ask.
“Didn’t say that.”
“When someone says, ‘so he says,’ it usually means they are suspicious of whatever was said.”
“Ah. So, like, Detective Velky is okay… so she says.”
I roll my eyes but inwardly wince. I hate my current mood, but more than that I hate that I am unable to conceal it.
Before we reach the master bedroom, pops of light bounce off the walls, accompanied by the click, click, click of the crime scene investigator’s camera.
We step to the doorway. The room is lit up like a stage, the lamps and overhead lights on full-blast. Wearing a white jumpsuit and hairnet, the medical examiner is on her knees, next to the body. On the floor next to her sits a medical bag, tweezers, scalpel, multiple plastic baggies, some of which contain bloody pieces of hair or skin that she has already removed from the body.
At the center of the scene is a woman lying in the middle of a white shag carpet, in front of a four-poster king-size bed.
I am taken aback by the brutality before me. Kellan did not prepare me for this.
FOUR
