“Not that I know of.” She looks out a window. No reporters yet, but the neighbors are out in full force, spilled onto their lawns or the street, in housecoats and slippers, some dressed for work; children with their backpacks headed off to school on a Tuesday morning, the first bell in ten minutes. The half dozen police cruisers would be enough on their own, but Jane imagines that word has filtered back to the neighbors now.
“Christ,”says the chief.“The first damn homicide ever, and I’m at a seminar in Indiana.”
Jane walks to the south door of the house, the kitchen door, because from everything they can tell thus far, it was not the point of entry or the site of the struggle. She wants to keep the crime scene as pristine as possible until Major Crimes brings its forensics unit.
She removes her shoe covers and walks outside, appreciating the fresh air. Andy follows her around the side of the house to the front, where the action occurred.
Grace Village, the day after Halloween. Remnants of smashed pumpkins, candy wrappers scattered in yards or stuck in the curb drains, plastic bags blowing about or clinging to the branches of naked trees.
The Village does a mean Halloween business, a mecca for kids from the west side of Chicago, from the other side of the Des Plaines River, even from Grace Park. Sometimes they take buses over here to the mansions, with the huge candy bars and elaborate decorations. The older teenagers come at the end of the four-hour window for trick-or-treating, hoping to clean up the remaining candy in the bowls, usually prompting calls from one of the more uptight residents.
Hundreds and hundreds of strangers roamed these streets last night, many in face paint or masks or disguises, on the one night of the year that it wouldn’t stand out. It’s going to make this investigation twice as hard.
You want to kill someone, Halloween’s not a bad night.
“I’ll walk you through what we know so far, Chief. It’s early.”
“I’m listening.”
“First, the window on the front of the house.”
Manicured shrubs along the façade of the house. A large window behind them. She walks along the grass and peeks over the shrubs.
Boot impressions in front of one of the windows. Good and deep, cemented in the dirt.
“We have deep boot impressions,” she says. “Looks like an adult boot. Our guess is adult size, maybe twelve, thirteen. We’ll have forensics do impressions and run ’em through the database.”
“Good.”
“It rained just a little yesterday afternoon, right before trick-or-treating started. That was a gift to us. The ground behind the shrubs was just soft enough to allow for impressions. Looks like he was standing there for a while.”
“Looking through her window?”
“Exactly. Nothing else he could do, standing in that direction, but look through this window.”
“We have a time frame?”
“Well, that’s the thing, boss. Last night was Halloween. So you know how that goes.”
“Three-to-seven, then lights out.”
Per tradition, the residents of Grace Village turn off their lights at seven o’clock, to tell everyone that trick-or-treating is over. At seven bells sharp, all the parents shout, “Happy Halloween!”—probably mumbling under their breath,Now get out of my neighborhood—then kill their outside lights.
“No way our creeper peeper was lurking outside her window before seven,” says Jane. “Trick-or-treaters would walk right past him. Everyone would see him.”
“But once seven o’clock hit...”
“Once seven o’clock hits, it’s the darkest night of the year in the Village. He could’ve stood there without notice for as long as he wanted.”
“Okay, what’s next?”
“Our creeper peeper goes to the front door,” she says. “We don’t see his boot prints on the walkway or the driveway. He goes from the window to the front door.”
The front door is enclosed within a small A-frame brick canopy with stone trim. The welcome mat bears the family name, Betancourt. The outside light is turned off. The front door frame is intact. The floor on this porch is stone. And quite dirty, from the activity last night, all the shoes, dirty or otherwise, of trick-or-treaters.
“We see his boot impressions on the front porch,” she says. “They’re far more prominent than the other scuff marks and prints from the trick-or-treaters. The most recent, I’d guess. And we see them on the door, Chief.”
“The door. Meaning he was kicking the front door.”