The Wedding Guest (Alex Delaware #34) - Jonathan Kellerman Page 0,66
away. Milo gloved up and checked them. Force of habit.
He headed for the door.
I said, “Nothing interesting.”
“Gluten-free imitation something and enough bottled water to hydrate South Africa.”
He inserted the key. I stood back as he stepped inside.
Seconds later: “C’mon in.”
* * *
—
Suzanne “Kimbee” DaCosta’s hundred bucks a month had bought her two hundred square feet of whitewashed drywall, plywood ceiling, and concrete floor glossed by translucent spray-on coating. Where the gloss wasn’t covered by a fake Persian rug, structural cracks were suspended, like gristle in aspic.
One corner was hidden by two walls of plastic shower curtains. Behind the curtains were a prefab shower, a mirrored medicine cabinet bottomed by a glass shelf, a small sink, and a toilet. A freestanding full-length mirror took up the opposite corner. A red silk scarf had been draped over one side.
Sleep came by way of a bright-blue futon against the wall. Perpendicular to the mattress was the same kind of portable clothes rack as in the main house. Seven red dresses hung neatly from padded black silk hangers. Orderly color progression: arterial blood to maroon. An equal number of tops in the same color progression was followed by a dozen pairs of blue, black, and gray skinny jeans and leggings.
Light from a dormer in the roof cast a fog-colored beam rife with dancing dust.
Across the room were shoe boxes stacked three-high, a pair of brown metal four-door cabinets, and a collection of orange cardboard box-files laid horizontally. Bottles of cosmetics and perfume sat on one of the cabinets.
First Lotz’s hole, now this.
Milo spent a while snapping photos with his phone, then handed me gloves and pointed to the shoes. “Do me a favor.”
I checked each box. Size eight and a half, a few hotshot designer labels, others I hadn’t heard of. Stilettos, pumps, sandals, spangled sneakers, all blood red.
I said, “Nothing but footwear.”
“Hmph.” He’d moved on to the orange files. Opened the first and said, “What?” Then: “That’s a first,” as all the boxes gave up their contents.
Precisely folded thong underwear, socks, and pantyhose. Red and black.
At the bottom of the last box were three pairs of body shapers like the one Kimbee DaCosta had worn the last day of her life.
“Why the hell would she need these?” he said.
I figured that as rhetorical and didn’t answer.
“No, I mean it, Alex. She had a dancer’s bod, what the hell was she covering up? Give me something psychological. I need to understand this girl.”
I said, “She made her living from her looks. Maybe she saw it as maintenance.”
He grumbled again. “She was sure maintaining at the wedding. To me that says she figured to meet someone who mattered.”
I thought: Or just force of habit.
I said, “The Brain?”
“Garrett Burdette’s pretty smart and he makes decent money. They break up a year ago but maybe library time means she was still trying to impress him.”
“She told Serena and Claire she’d ended the relationship. Why crash his wedding?”
“She was the one who got dumped and was saving face.”
“You’re figuring she was planning to humiliate him.”
“I’m figuring she pressured him with some sort of ultimatum and deadline before the wedding and he didn’t give her satisfaction. Best guess is the ‘or else’ involved either coming back to her or money.”
“Pay me to keep quiet about the affair.”
“Look at this place. Better than Lotz’s hole but that’s all you can say about it. She wasn’t exactly raking it in.”
He rearranged the orange boxes, walked over to the brown metal cabinets and tried a drawer.
No give. Same for all of them.
“Locked. Good. We’ll save the best for last.”
He inspected the makeshift bathroom.
Liquid soap and four types of expensive shampoo on the floor of the shower. The mirrored cabinet held analgesics, lotions, additional cosmetics and their applicators, shampoo, brushes, combs. A small bottle of Windex explained the spotless mirror.
On the floor were a hair dryer, a curling iron, and a box of rollers.
“Not a single damn narcotic,” he said. “Where are the weak-willed victims when you need them.”
I took a look at the interior of the medicine cabinet. “No birth control, either.”
“Autopsy said she wasn’t pregnant, never had been. Maybe after a few interesting years she decided to try celibacy.”
He eyed the locked cabinets. “Gimme your car keys.”
* * *
—
He returned with the crowbar I keep in my trunk. Took photos of the brown cabinets, muttering, “Chain of evidence,” then nosed the tip of the bar into the seam between the top drawer of the right-hand cabinet and the