Page 40 of The B!tch is Bad

“A nine millimeter,” Slayer commented. He, too, bent low, fingering some of Sean’s curly locks aside on his back parietal bone. Picking up one of Sean’s dead hands, he let it drop, frowning. “From this rigor mortis, I’d say he’s been dead about six, maybe eight hours.”

I straightened up, not having seen a killer in Sean’s eyes. “So Amber must’ve come in looking for him.”

“Exactly. Let us look around for things that may have been stolen to determine the nature of the murder.” There was no question of calling the cops. We never would.

“Well, looks like he took Sean by surprise.”

“Most definitely. Wildstar did not let him in the front door, so he may not have known this person.”

I could not have chosen a better murder-solving person if I’d tried. The Kindly Sicario and I snooped about the room, but who would’ve stolen balls of yarn? Santiago had to move Sean a bit to ease his wallet from his back pants pocket, but no inept killer would put the wallet back after stealing money. Slayer made an impressed face at the sum of money he found, and eased the wallet back, money still there.

“The exiting bullet,” Slayer told me, showing me where on the wall the bullet had pierced. It was about two feet above Sean’s head, and Santiago explained to me how the bullet would tumble, corkscrew, maybe even getting stuck butt-end, or primer end, first. Of course the sicario had a pocket knife, and he dug into the wooden stud to withdraw the lethal cylinder. “See? It has been warped, smashed. Sometimes they come out like mushrooms.” He wrapped it in tissue he tore from a box in the room and placed it in his own front pocket. “The rifling on this bullet will tell us a lot about the weapon, when and if we find it.”

He glanced around. “I am expecting to find a scrapbooking room. This is very strange, indeed.”

“Could it have been someone pissed off about the plant hanger they received? Or hey, I was in my own dining room when Lytton came in, asking Sean to refill his candle order because he was all sold out.”

Santiago frowned. “I doubt very much Lytton would become so violent over candles.”

“Or, speaking of violence, he was extremely angry about some shitty vape pens that Oliver Klozov sold him.”

Santiago continued the thread. “And I just saw Klozov tooling around . . . but that was not six, eight hours ago. Only one. Let me go check the security camera.”

We cased the joint, as they say. Downstairs a bathroom window was left wide the fuck open, the screen on the ground outside. When we went out to inspect it, we had to go through an open chain link gate, what seemed to be a dog run area with no dog. Of course, the dog had gotten out when whoever had left the gate open.

I said, “Sean has come over many a time with his Great Dane.”

Walking ahead, Santiago turned to point at me. “Scruffy! Yes?”

“Yes! Watch out for that poo.”

Santiago did a little Fred Astaire sidestep around the flattened pile of feces. When I saw what had flattened it, a tingly sensation went up the back of my neck. A shoeprint had flattened the poo.

“You know,” I mused, “Elektra could analyze this shit, if we could find one of the culprit’s shoes.”

Santiago was on it. “You are right! I mean, I have never heard of anyone analyzing dog poo, but in theory it sounds correct.”

“I’ll go get a plastic bag from the kitchen. You check security cams. There’s one above the dog run so Sean can see his dog.”

After I took photos and gathered the dogshit, I went back upstairs to the macramé room, which was starting to stink of dead body. We’d have to call a Bare Boner to put this body on ice until we could give him a proper ceremony. I checked Sean’s sneakers. No dogshit.

Downstairs, a few rooms had been hastily rifled through. It was hard to tell what had been stolen.

Santiago punched the wall next to the security system. “Ningún maldito video!”

I sensed that was bad. “How would it not take a video of the dog run?”

He jabbed a stiff finger at the wall unit. “Someone turned the whole effing thing off!”

And Tobias and Wolf were in Florida taking pictures of alligators and Bermuda shorts.