"So no time for that coffee?" he asked, a fake pout on his handsome face.
"No time."
"Well, how 'bout a phone number?"
She made a pistol with her index finger and thumb and aimed it at him. "Bang, bang," she said. And trotted toward her yellow Camaro.
Chapter Three
This is a school?
Wheeling a large black crime-scene suitcase behind her, Amelia Sachs walked through the dim corridor. She smelled mold and old wood. Dusty webs had coagulated near the high ceiling and scales of green paint curled from the walls. How could anybody study music here? It was a setting for one of the Anne Rice novels that Sachs's mother read.
"Spooky," one of the responding officers had muttered, only half jokingly.
That said it all.
A half-dozen cops--four patrol officers and two in soft clothes--stood near a double doorway at the end of the hall. Disheveled Lon Sellitto, head down and hand clutching one of his notepads, was talking to a guard. Like the walls and floors the guard's outfit was dusty and stained.
Through the open doorway she glimpsed another dim space, in the middle of which was a light-colored form. The victim.
To the CS tech walking beside her she said, "We'll need lights. A couple of sets." The young man nodded and headed back to the RRV--the crime scene rapid response vehicle, a station wagon filled with forensic collection equipment. It sat outside, half on the sidewalk, where he'd parked it after the drive here (probably at a more leisurely pace than Sachs in her 1969 Camaro SS, which had averaged 70 mph en route to the school from the assessment exercise).
Sachs studied the young blonde woman, lying on her back ten feet away, belly arched up because her bound hands were underneath her. Even in the dimness of the school lobby Sachs's quick eyes noted the deep ligature marks on her neck and the blood on her lips and chin--probably from biting her tongue, a common occurrence in strangulations.
Automatically she also observed: emerald-colored studs for earrings, shabby running shoes. No apparent robbery, sexual molestation or mutilation. No wedding ring.
"Who was first officer?"
A tall woman with short brunette hair, her name tag reading D. FRANCISCOVICH, said, "We were." A nod toward her blonde partner. N. AUSONIO. Their eyes were troubled and Franciscovich played a brief rhythm on her holster with thumb and fingers. Ausonio kept glancing at the body. Sachs guessed this was their first homicide.
The two patrol officers gave their account of what had happened. Finding the perp, a flash of light, his disappearing, a barricade. Then he was gone.
"You said he claimed to have a hostage?"
"That's what he said," Ausonio offered. "But everybody in the school's accounted for. We're sure he was bluffing."
"Victim?"
"Svetlana Rasnikov," Ausonio said. "Twenty-four. Student."
Sellitto turned away from the security guard. He said to Sachs, "Bedding and Saul're interviewing everybody in the building here this morning."
She nodded toward the scene. "Who's been inside?"
Sellitto said, "The first officers." Nodding toward the women. "Then two medics and two ESU. They backed out as soon as they cleared it. Scene's still pretty clean."
"The guard was inside too," Ausonio said. "But only for a minute. We got him out as soon as we could."
"Good," Sachs said. "Witnesses?"
Ausonio said, "There was a janitor outside the room when we got here."
"He didn't see anything," Franciscovich added.
Sachs said, "I still need to see the soles of his shoes for comparison. Could one of you find him for me?"
"Sure." Ausonio wandered off.