Page 5 of Fury In Death

Despite the wife’s identification, Eve followed procedure.

She believed in procedure. When followed, fewer mistakes were made, and more facts were uncovered.

She took the Identi-pad out of her field kit, pressed one of the body’s thumbs to it. “Victim is confirmed as David Pressley, Caucasian male, age eighty-three of 522 East Eighty-Second Street.”

As she reached in her kit for her gauges, she tried to avoid getting blood on the boots she had no doubt her husband had paid an obscene amount for.

“Time of death, sixteen-forty-three. The victim sustained multiple injuries consistent with a fall down a flight of steps. In addition . . . let’s turn him, Peabody.”

Her partner stepped in. Detective Delia Peabody wore pink high-tops. She’d gotten them on sale, hadn’t paid an obscene amount, but also did her best to avoid the blood.

“Looks like he cracked his head falling off that ladder, then topped that off with a fall down the stairs.”

“Yeah, it does. But. We take the steps.”

He had a vicious gash on his forehead, a broken nose that had obviously gushed blood, a wound inside his bottom lip where the impact, most likely, had jammed his teeth against it.

“Left eye’s swollen under the head wound. Skin around it had just started to blacken, so he stayed alive long enough for that. He’s wearing his wedding ring, one house skid.”

Peabody tapped the sole. “No tread. No grip. The second one’s in the kitchen near the ladder, which,” Peabody added with a scan of the tidy basement, the organized tools, “I bet he got from down here. Didn’t bother to close the door, since he planned to take it back down.”

“Eighty-three, wearing old, slippery house skids, and he gets on a ladder.” She glanced up the stairs. “It sounds like his wife stopped wailing.”

“The mild sedative the MTs gave her must’ve kicked in, and the uniforms are keeping her calm.”

“Let’s go up. Call in the morgue, and the sweepers.”

She’d been a cop long enough to know the sweepers and the ME would confirm her conclusions.

But procedure.

They took the stairs to the main level of the townhouse, where the bloody mess of the kitchen opened into the neat-as-a-pin living area. A floral couch and its many pillows and a couple of chairs stood empty in the light spilling in the front windows. A massive screen shared wall space with a long, narrow electric fireplace.

Shelves, tables, cabinets held the doodads people collected as well as family photos. On a quick study, Eve concluded the victim and his widow had a couple of kids, then those kids had a couple of kids each, and those kids had started to procreate.

It made the world go round.

And explained the long table in the dining area. They’d need it if the horde came for dinner.

She noted the office/sitting room, organized if fluffily feminine.

“Pretty” was Peabody’s opinion. “If you look beyond the blood and breakage in the kitchen, it’s all pretty and homey.”

Eve nodded at the shopping bag on the table just inside the front door. “True Beauty Salon and Spa. She’s out saloning and/or spaing. Comes in, sets the bag down, starts to take off her jacket.”

It lay on the floor near what she took to be a coat closet.

“Sees the blood—counter, floor. Calls out for him, rushes toward the kitchen. Ladder, shattered glass, more blood. And there’s the open basement door. Runs down. You can see the blood on the steps is smeared in a couple places. She’ll have blood on the bottom of her shoes. Calls nine-one-one at seventeen-twenty-eight.”

“Sounds right.”

“If we’re cynical, she comes home, sees him up on the ladder. Now’s my chance! Walks over, shoves him off. Unfortunately, that doesn’t kill him right off, so when he staggers around, she gives him a boost down the stairs. Goes down, checks it out. Got him that time! Waits awhile to put more of a gap between when she’ll claim to have gotten home and TOD, makes the nine-one-one.”

As they started to the second floor, Peabody frowned. “You’re not that cynical.”

“Oh, I absolutely am. I don’t believe that scenario, but we check home security to confirm when she came in, or in the alternate when she rushed out after killing him to buy something to cover her story.”

“That alternate would be really stupid.”