The Stranger You Seek - By Amanda Kyle Williams Page 0,34

around me. I don’t really remember them or anything much before that moment. It’s like being born into a crime scene at five years old. I had been playing behind the counter when I heard the door open, heard angry voices. Where’s the money, old man? Give us the fucking money. Grandfather had pressed his palm firmly against the top of my head that day and held me down so I wouldn’t pop up and get it blown off. When he fell next to me, and when another shot collapsed my grandmother too, I didn’t make a sound. In obedient silence, I watched the blood soak through my clothes and the pale pink shoes I wore.

Now, lights from television crews lit up the street and reporters spoke into cameras with the hotel and the crime scene tape as their backdrop. Uniformed officers kept them as far from the scene as possible. Already there were whispers about it being another Wishbone murder, and it seemed that everyone outside the ropes had a phone to their ear.

“It’s that freak who wrote to the newspapers,” someone said into their BlackBerry, and Rauser and I exchanged a quick glance. He was chewing on his lip.

We followed one of the officers through the parking lot and walked past a few buildings. Uniformed officers and plainclothes cops fell silent as we passed them on our way to Building G, Suite 351.

Rauser had strict instructions that no one should notify the ME’s office until the scene had been properly processed. All hell would break loose over that, I knew. He’d had disputes before with the medical examiner over jurisdiction and procedure, but preserving the scene and whatever evidence was left on the body was crucial before it was released.

We stood outside the doorway while the first officer briefed us. He had followed Rauser’s instructions to the letter. No one, not even an annoyed crime scene investigator, had been allowed inside. Everyone who had come in contact with the scene had been detained and was now unhappily waiting to give a detailed interview.

“Victim’s name is David Brooks,” the officer told us.

Rauser glanced at me. The muscle in his jaw was busy. He gave the officer a pat on the shoulder and said quietly, “Good work.”

I spoke briefly at Rauser’s request with Ken Lang, the specialist from the crime lab. I told him a bloodstain analyst was on the way and that no samples or scrapings or any kind of blood evidence should be collected unless there was pooling. In that case wet and pooled blood could be swabbed without jeopardizing other spatter evidence. I let him know Rauser wanted it processed thoroughly and as if it were a Wishbone scene. Lang promised if there was a fiber, any DNA, a fingerprint, any trace at all, he would find it. I wasn’t so confident.

If David had a family and the killer couldn’t take him as he had the other victims, in their own environment, which he had meticulously surveilled, then what better place than this? Hotel property covered a couple of acres. The lobby was small and freestanding, and two-story brick buildings were spread out with what appeared to be only a couple of town house–style units per building. I hadn’t seen any cameras except at the lobby entrance and inside at the front desk. And even with a good housekeeping staff, hotels are crawling with DNA and fiber and trace evidence.

Rauser was handing out assignments to the detectives and uniformed cops. The parking lot entrance was now blocked off. “Nobody leaves the hotel,” he ordered, “and everyone in the place is interviewed no matter how far away their room is from the crime scene. Split up two to a building and get the guest interviews,” he told the cops. “Make sure we got statements from everyone on staff before anyone goes home. Balaki, get the credit card receipts from the front desk. Somebody needs to talk to the businesses around here and see what they saw. Looks like the Krystal and the pancake house are open. Bevins, you and Velazquez check out all the vehicles, search the property again.”

The tension was palpable. Rauser patted his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes, then stopped himself. You can’t smoke in a closed crime scene no matter how bad you want one. “Move your ass, people. Maybe we got a perp still hanging around.”

Rauser looked at Lang, who stood with a video camera in one hand, an aluminum case in