The white sofa is spattered with blood. So is the white floor. A broken wineglass, a martini glass, and a tumbler lie in puddles of liquid on the floor beside the upturned coffee table. Stuffed olives and a cocktail onion have rolled toward the door. A television remote rests among the broken glass and spilled booze. Mal can smell the alcohol—the sourness of wine, whisky. An ashtray on an end table holds an artsy-looking weed pipe made of green glass.
“You know what they say about people in glass houses?” Benoit says.
“They shouldn’t throw stones?”
“They shouldn’t get stoned.”
Mal rolls her eyes and bends down to study the blood on the sofa. She takes a photo. “Consistent with expirated spatter,” she says. “And down there on the floor, that trail and line of heavy drops—”
“Could be arterial.”
She nods. “And more on the wall over there.”
Benoit walks toward the spattered wall. “Signs of a struggle—maybe it starts there.” He points to the sofa. “Three glasses, three people sitting having drinks. They begin to argue, fight. One gets up. Is followed. The victim is slammed against the wall here. Victim could have been standing at this point. Possible impact spatter there at average head height.” He points.
Mal comes up behind him. “Maybe hit with an object? Blunt force trauma could have created that patterning there.”
Benoit nods. “Or cut—stabbed. Victim then slides down the wall. Maybe crawls away in that direction.” He points. “The victim is bleeding close to the floor there. Victim tries to use the sofa armrest to pull back up into a standing position. Is hit again. Aspirates blood there? Victim crawls away.”
“Then what?” Mal asks. “Where did our victim go? Where’s the body?”
Benoit drops to his haunches. “Look at this straight line of blood. It appears something was in place here that stopped the spatter.”
“A rug,” she says quietly. “There was a rug here. Under the coffee table.”
“Might explain the drag marks,” Benoit says. “Victim could have been dragged out on the rug.”
As Mal shoots more photos, she notices a glint of gold between the sofa cushions. She takes another photo, moves the cushion aside, and with her gloved hand, lifts up a gold pendant. She whistles. “Big-ass diamond set in a gold teardrop,” she says. “Chain is broken.” She calls a tech over to bag the pendant, then walks slowly toward the open sliding door, studying the floor.
She steps out onto the pool deck. The surface of the infinity pool is riffled with wind. Behind the pool the Burrard Inlet sparkles. An ident tech is busy taking samples on the deck. The tech glances up.
“More blood trace out here,” the tech says. “Something was dragged out of the living room, along the deck, around the side of the house, then out the yard gate into the driveway. The yard gate was found open. The blood trace ends where it appears a car was parked.”
“As though something was put into a vehicle,” Mal says.
“That would be consistent with our observations so far.”
A movement next door catches Mal’s eye. She glances up at the neighboring house. There’s an old woman in the upstairs window, watching. A tartan throw covers her lap. The woman gives a small wave. Mal hesitates, then raises her own hand in a slight salute, feeling odd while she does it. Waving at witnesses is not a habit she’s accustomed to. Quietly she says to Benoit, “That must be her—the one who called it in. Would freak me out to have an old woman watching me from above like that. She must be able to see right over the pool and partway into that living room.”
Benoit follows Mal’s gaze. “We can get a statement from her next.”
They reenter the house and move to the bar counter. On the counter are a martini shaker, an ice bucket with melted ice, a silver bottle of Belvedere vodka, a bottle of Balvenie Caribbean cask fourteen-year-old whisky, a bowl of stuffed olives, and a board of assorted cheeses going dry.
Mal studies a framed photo on the wall behind the bar. It’s the only photo downstairs. It shows a man and woman, likely in their midthirties. The female is a fair-skinned and rather stunning brunette. Long wavy hair. Slender. She wears a silky cream jumpsuit and ridiculously high-heeled sandals. She poses with the panache of a Vogue model beside a man who is slightly shorter than her because of her heels. The male has his arm around her waist in a proprietary way. He appears of Asian cultural descent. They stand in front of a turquoise pool. Clearly confident and comfortable together. They look rich—if rich has a look. In the background are palm trees, cascades of orchids, a colonial-looking building with white columns and rattan furniture on a black-and-white-tiled veranda.
“Haruto and Vanessa North?” she suggests as she shoots her own photo of the framed image. “Taken some place in Asia would be my guess from the vegetation and that rattan furniture on the deck?”
Benoit moves into the kitchen. Mal follows. It’s massive, all stainless steel and gleaming white. Spotless. No signs of recent cooking at all. Benoit opens the Sub-Zero refrigerator.
“Nothing inside the fridge apart from a bottle of rosé,” he says, opening and closing doors. “Nothing in the dishwasher, either. It’s like this home was staged for a photo shoot. Oh, wait, take a look at this.” He points to a knife block. “One is missing.” He meets Mal’s gaze. “One of the big carving knives.”
Tension winds tighter as they climb the staircase, stepping to the side of tags marking droplets of blood on the steps. Blood is smeared down the handrail.
A tech comes down the stairs, nods in greeting. The upstairs area is carpeted. Bloody footprints track along the plush cream carpeting, coming from the bedroom. They enter the main bedroom. Mal stalls. For a moment she can’t breathe.
She’s no stranger to violent homicide scenes, but this one is shocking. An abstract painting—almost beautiful—done in blood spatter across the pristine white decor of the room. The red blood streaks and drops arc across the walls, the ceiling, the mirror, the lampshades, the carpet. And in the center of the king-size bed, in the middle of rumpled, silky-white sheets, is an area almost black with saturated blood.
A chill creeps over her skin. She swallows, steps forward. “Wow,” she says quietly.
The two crime scene techs collecting blood trace from a jade statue on the floor beside the bed both glance up. “Right?” they say, almost in unison.
“And no sign of a body?” she asks.
“Not yet,” says the female tech. “But I’m pretty damn sure whoever lost this much blood did not walk away from this.”
“The statue look to be a weapon?” Benoit asks.
“Possible,” the tech says. “We’ve got traces of matted hair and blood on the corner of the statue. Fine blonde hairs. Dark at the roots. We also found longer dark strands in the sheets. There’s something on the other side of the bed you might find interesting.”
Mal and Benoit go around to the far side of the king bed. A lone sneaker lies on its side—a white shoe with a decorative orange swoosh on the side. A worn, bloodied sock hangs out of it.
Mal frowns. “Just this one sneaker?” she asks. “Any sign of the other one?”