Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,7
fence.
“Wanna go inside?” he says, opening the gate and walking toward the front porch.
“I want to go in the back way,” I say. “Let’s start with the detached garage.”
Crescenzo turns to me. “There’s a detached garage? How did you know that? That Google Earth thing?”
“The video on the real estate agent’s website,” I say. “That’s how he knew it too.”
“He being the killer.” Not hiding the skepticism in his voice.
I walk around the house, following the wrought-iron fence, which encircles the whole property. The backyard is far larger than the front yard.
“Nothing was taken from the home,” Crescenzo says, keeping pace with me. “No sign of sexual assault. No sign of struggle.”
I can’t blame him for thinking this was exactly what it looked like, a slip-and-fall in a shower. He has no reason to think otherwise.
“Were there unexplained puncture wounds on her torso?” I ask.
“How—” He stops in his tracks. “Now, how in the hell did you know that?”
“Lucky guess.” I stop and look over the area. She kept a nice yard. A vegetable garden in one corner, a neat cobblestone walkway leading from the garage to the back patio.
“Needle punctures,” he says.
“Two of them.”
“Yes, Emmy, two of them. You know a lot.”
“How big a woman was she?” I ask.
“The deceased? Oh, she was a tiny woman. Maybe five two, five three. Not thin like you, but not heavy either.”
She looked petite from the photos I saw on Facebook, but you can never be sure.
We reach the detached garage, a small, windowed structure with aluminum siding. We walk through the fence into the alley. The garage door is closed and locked. We walk back around to the door that leads into the yard. The door is locked from the outside.
“I didn’t ask the real estate agent to open the garage up,” says Robert. “Just the house.”
I push on the handles of the window and it gives. I lift the window as high as it can go. Then I turn to Robert Crescenzo.
He raises his hands. “Don’t look at me.” He’s well over six feet tall and broad-shouldered. No way he could fit through that opening.
“Okay if I slip in?” I’m tall myself, but I’m skinny as a rail these days.
He thinks about it a moment but probably realizes there isn’t any harm.
It’s easier than I expect. I slide in headfirst, facing up, and when my torso is through, I reach out, grip the interior frame of the window, and bring my legs in. I grit my teeth and ignore the pain in my ribs. My landing on the garage floor won’t qualify me for the Olympic gymnastics team, but I stay on my feet.
I take my first breath inside and I’m hit with the smell of gas and lawn clippings. With the light coming through the window, it isn’t hard for me to navigate around the parked car and open the door into the yard. I flip on a light switch too. The garage is small, only enough room for a single car, a bicycle, and assorted lawn equipment.
Robert Crescenzo comes in through the door I opened. He shines a flashlight into the car’s interior. He tries the door, and it’s open, so he pops the trunk, goes around, and lights that up too.
“Nothing obvious, at least.” He looks at me. “Did you think there would be? You think, what, she was ambushed in her garage?”
No, that’s not what I think. But I say, “Maybe,” and gesture to the car. “You mind if I get in?”
“Suit yourself.”
I get in on the driver’s side and sink back into the seat. I don’t want to touch the steering wheel, but I reach for it, noting that I can barely touch it with my fingertips even though my arms are fully extended. My feet don’t reach the brake and gas pedals.
“Could we trade places?” I ask.
“Okay…”
I get out, and Robert gets in, settles in the seat, puts a hand atop the steering wheel.
“Pretty comfortable fit for you,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“But not for a woman who’s a foot shorter than you.”
Sergeant Crescenzo blinks twice, thinks about it, then turns and looks at me.
“Someone other than Nora Connolley drove this car last,” he says.
8
SERGEANT ROBERT CRESCENZO and I leave the garage and go back to the patio. He walks along the cobblestone path. I walk in the grass next to him.
“At the risk of stating the obvious,” he says, “just because someone else drove her car last doesn’t mean that that somebody killed her.”