Black Silk

Moving down the hall, Charlie glanced in the kitchen. The light was on, the room neat. Two empty wineglasses sat on the counter, washed but not put away. A dish towel had been folded in half and draped across the sink. But there was no sign of Emily.

Charlie continued through the house to the next room, the spare bedroom. She flipped on the light, found it empty as well. Then she came to Emily’s bedroom. The door was closed, but she could see a faint light shining from beneath the bottom of the door. She tapped on it. “Emily?”

Nothing. No response. No sound at all.

With her heart pounding, Charlie opened the door.

The heavy scent of honeysuckle hit her. Charlie noted the gutted candles, recognized the silky-sweet scent that Emily loved and that had driven her crazy when they had both still lived at home. But beneath the overpowering sweetness, she detected another scent. An unfamiliar scent. An unpleasant scent.

Adjusting her eyes to the dimmer light, she saw her sister lying atop the bed, her body and face turned slightly away. At first glance, Charlie thought she was sleeping. She looked small in the four-poster bed, surrounded by the lacy yellow pillows and with the floral duvet draped over her lower body. She was wearing one of those silky, frilly nightgowns that she’d always favored over nightshirts and pajamas. A pair of matching black satin mules was askew on the floor. Although Emily’s face was turned away, her long blond hair cascaded across the pillow. One arm was lifted so that her hand rested on the pillow. Within reach of her fingertips lay a black silk stocking.

For a moment, Charlie simply stared at her sister. Then she was struck by her stillness. Emily wasn’t moving, Charlie realized. Not even a slight rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Nervous, Charlie’s heart began to pound like a jackhammer. A knot formed in her stomach as she moved toward the bed. “Emily,” she said her name again, this time unable to keep the fear out of her voice. Reaching out, she touched her sister’s shoulder and Emily’s body shifted. Suddenly Emily’s arm fell limply over the side of the bed; her head tilted toward Charlie like a broken doll. As she stared at Emily’s lifeless brown eyes, Charlie began to scream.

Charlie yanked herself back to the present. Shaking off the memory, she tuned into what the M.E. was saying to her and Vince and hoped that neither of them had noticed her lapse in attention.

“What about a time of death, Doc?” Vince asked.

“You know I can’t tell you that until I get the body back to the lab and examine it more closely,” Dr. Penelope Williamson said as she stripped off her gloves.

“Come on, Doc. Just a ballpark idea,” Vince responded.

“Well, based on lividity, I’d say she died sometime between midnight and four this morning. I should be able to narrow it down once I complete the exam.”

“What about the cause of death?” Charlie asked her, even though she was sure strangulation would be ruled the cause—just as it had been for her sister.

“My initial assessment is death due to strangulation. But like I said, I’ll know more once I get back to the lab and do a full exam.” She motioned for her team and they moved in and began to bag the victim for transport back to the coroner’s office. “I heard this one was a robbery turned homicide. Judging by some of the artwork left behind, your perp isn’t very bright. There’s a small fortune just on the living-room walls.”

“He may have settled for the cash and jewelry because it was easier to get it out of here without attracting attention,” Vince offered.

Or maybe the robbery had nothing to do with the murder, Charlie thought, because it simply didn’t feel like a robbery to her. “You’ll let us know if anything interesting shows up—like someone else’s DNA,” Charlie stated, knowing without asking that she could count on the other woman. Not only was Penelope Williamson a good doctor, she was thorough in her exams. Nothing got rubber-stamped on her watch.

“I’ll let you know, Detective,” Dr. Williamson assured her in that cool, calm voice that reminded her of her high-school English teacher, her words perfectly enunciated and no hint of the South in her tone. “And I’ll also let you know if anything shows up in the toxicology report. From the looks of things, your victim liked to party.”

If the champagne bottles and caviar in the other room were an indication, Francesca Hill liked to party in style, Charlie thought.

“Sean, just one minute,” Dr. Williamson called out to one of the men with the body bag. Frowning, she said, “Excuse me, Detectives.”

She and Vince watched as the other woman went over to her crew and had them wait while she tucked the victim’s hair inside the bag and away from the zipper. She stood there a moment longer, giving them instructions.

Charlie had come to admire Penelope Williamson immensely in the year since she’d joined the New Orleans Coroner’s Office. To her surprise, the doctor had a sense of humor—something that helped make an often gruesome job more tolerable. Charlie had seen Dr. Williamson approach the most grisly of crime scenes without hesitation. And she’d seen her handle broken and bloody corpses with the same tenderness and care she would administer to a child. Penelope Williamson cared about the dead victims. It was something the two of them had in common, Charlie thought. She also felt in her bones that if anyone would be able to provide her with the information she needed to identity Francesca Hill’s killer, it would be Dr. Penelope Williamson. And her every instinct told her that when she found Francesca Hill’s killer, she would find Emily’s killer, too.

“I know what you’re thinking, Le Blanc. And you shouldn’t start jumping to conclusions,” Vince warned.

But before she could respond, Dr. Williamson returned. “Sorry about that.”

“No problem,” Vince said.

“How quick can you get us the autopsy results?” Charlie asked.

Vince placed a hand on her arm and gave her a look. “Doc, what my partner’s trying to say is that we need the results on this one yesterday. So we really would appreciate it if you could process this one right away.”

“Kossak, you and Le Blanc always need your cases processed right away. But you’re going to have to wait like everyone else. The weekend’s not over yet and I’ve already got five bodies lined up in the crypt waiting for me,” she told him, referring to the two homicides and three accident victims from the previous night.

“But this one can’t wait,” Charlie began, only to grimace when Vince stepped on her foot.

“The word from the top is that this case is a priority,” Vince explained. “We’ve been ordered to solve it quickly and quietly or heads are gonna roll.”

“I don’t like politics, Kossak. They have no place in police business,” Dr. Williamson informed him.

“I agree with you,” Vince returned. “But the victim’s fiancé has friends in high places and those friends are putting pressure on the captain.”

The comment irritated Charlie—especially because she knew that despite the mayor’s efforts to rid the city of corruption, there were still a great many who held on to the good-old-boy system of doing business. “It doesn’t matter who her fiancé was or who the man is friends with,” Charlie said as she watched the body bag being carried out. “What matters is that a woman is dead and we need to catch the animal who killed her.”

“You’re right, of course,” Dr. Williamson told her. “You’ll have the autopsy results as soon as I finish.”

“Thanks. We owe you one, Doc,” Vince told her.

“You owe me several, Detective.” She shifted her gaze to Charlie and back to him again. “Both of you do and one of these days I intend to collect by having you treat me to a lavish dinner at Commander’s Palace.”

“Anytime you say, Doc. Right, Le Blanc?” Vince nudged her with his elbow. “Right?”

“Um, right,” Charlie said, pulling her thoughts back to the present.

“I intend to hold you to that,” Dr. Williamson told them, and after she gathered her bag, she headed for the door.

“Snap out of it, Le Blanc, and start focusing on this case,” Vince said in a low voice near her ear before heading for the tech guys in the next room and barking orders about the surveillance tapes.

Telling herself that Vince was right, that she did need to concentrate on the case at hand, Charlie made another sweep of the crime scene. Pictures had already been taken, evidence bagged and tagged. She walked through the bedroom, attempted to re-create where each piece of clothing, each shoe had been found. She looked at the bed, noted the markings on the mattress, outlining the position of the body when it had been found. She looked over to the spot where the stocking had been draped beside the body. As she did so, she called up the images forever etched in her memory from Emily’s bedroom six years ago. The similarities couldn’t be dismissed.

It’s the same guy.

She was sure of it—could feel it in her bones. He might have gotten away the last time, but not this time, she vowed. This time she wasn’t an unprepared law student who didn’t know enough to preserve the crime scene. This time she was a cop, one who knew what to look for and where to look for it. If he’d made a mistake, no matter how small, she would find it.

And then she would find him.

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