was going to get for the recyclables he placed inside them.
Maybe his buddy Jerry who works maintenance at the nursing home was keeping Roth well stocked, or maybe Roth was taking the bags when he was in and out, still working the occasional odd job there. I remind Machado that we must find out if Peggy Stanton volunteered at Fayth House.
“A careful, cautious woman who had an alarm system and didn’t want her address and phone number on her checks wasn’t going to let just anybody in her home.” I collect the open carton of liners. “She must have had some connection with him; she must have felt safe with him if she let him do any sort of work inside her house or even on her property.”
“Unless whoever killed this guy planted the check in his toolbox as an alibi.” Machado takes another evidence bag from me.
“Why?” I wander back to the TV.
“We find it and assume Howie killed her. Case solved. Sort of like the way he set up Marino, right? It’s what this son of a bitch does, right?”
I don’t believe he’s right at all, but I listen to him spin his theory as I let him know I’m untying the garbage bag under the counter because it’s peculiar that it’s the only one closed. All the other ones are open, and maybe Howard Roth left them that way because he rinsed out all the bottles and cans and jars and left the bags open so everything would dry.
I point out to Machado that there’s a garden hose outside, and most redemption facilities require recyclables to be emptied and rinsed, and I also haven’t noticed any odors. I tell him that if he doesn’t object I’m going to see what’s in this one bag and then I’m going to look for blood.
“Thing is, we find the check and bingo.” Machado continues to describe what I don’t think is possible. “Some lowlife who killed Peggy Stanton. Her handyman did it and then died in a drunken accident. The killer sets that up and we think case closed.”
“And where does the killer think we’ll assume Roth kept the body after he supposedly murdered her?” I inquire, as I untwist the tie. “Where might he have kept it long enough for it to begin to mummify? Certainly not in this house over the summer, and are we supposed to believe Howard Roth had a boat or access to one?”
“Maybe the killer assumed she wouldn’t look mummified,” Machado says. “Maybe he thought she wouldn’t look dehydrated after she was in the water for a while.”
“Mummified remains don’t reconstitute like freeze-dried fruit. You can’t add moisture back to a dead body.”
I open the bag, and the bottle is right on top of other bottles and cans and jars. It’s right there where the monster placed it.
“But would the average person know that a dried-out body wouldn’t rehydrate?” Machado asks.
The forty-ounce Steel Reserve 211 bottle is the same as the two empties by the recliner, each with a price sticker from a Shop Quik.
“I’m not going to do anything with this here,” I say to Machado, as I hold up the bottle in my gloved hands, turning it in sunlight shining through a window. “I see ridge detail, and I see blood.”
thirty-three
I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY A KILLER WHO HAS ELABORATE fantasies and premeditates and seems meticulous makes so little effort to hide evidence that matters. In fact, I’m baffled, I tell Benton.
“You’ve got to focus on his priorities,” he says, as he drives us through mid-Cambridge. “You have to get inside his head and know what he values. Neatness, tidiness, everything exactly the way he likes it. Restoring order after he kills. Showing he’s a nice guy, a decent guy, someone civilized. I’m suspicious the flowers in Peggy Stanton’s house were from him. When he returned her car and entered her house he left flowers to show what a sterling fellow he is.”
“Any luck finding a record of a delivery?”
“Not any of the florists in the area. It’s been checked.” He glances at his phone, and he’s been glancing at it a lot. “I think there was no card because there never was one, that he walked in with a spring arrangement like a thoughtful son stopping by to see his mother. It’s very important to this person that what he believes about himself is reasserted after he’s killed. A great guy. A gentleman. Someone capable of meaningful relationships.”
“What he did to Howard