body was bathed in its own blood. He had five gaping wounds on his head: three across his balding forehead, one just above and slightly to the side of his left eyebrow, and the biggest above and to the back of his left ear. Hope counted six stab wounds from a large-bladed knife in Von Stein’s upper back, near his left shoulder. Another, in the center of his chest, had gone straight to his heart. The carpet was bloodied on both sides of the double bed for more than three feet out. Blood was splattered on the ceiling and on three walls of the sixteen-by-twenty-foot room.
John Taylor’s real first name was Haskell, but nobody ever called him by it. The song “Big Bad John” had been popular when he was a bruising toddler, and his daddy had started calling him that. The nickname soon got shortened to plain John and nobody had called him anything else since. At twenty-seven, he was the youngest detective in the Washington Police Department and one of its most promising officers. One of his fields of training was photography, and he took most crime scene photographs for his department. After Michelle Sparrow called him, he drove his pickup truck to the police department, loaded his photo equipment into the police evidence van, and went to 110 Lawson Road. He arrived as Melvin Hope was looking over Lieth Von Stein’s body.
David Sparrow and Ed Cherry were on the porch, and Taylor told them to seal off the yard with the yellow crime-scene tape he had brought in the van. Nobody was to pass beyond the tape without an official reason for being there.
Taylor joined his sergeant and captain in the bloody bedroom and got a brief rundown on what had happened before the three detectives took a quick walk-through of the house to begin scouting for evidence.
It was apparent that the intruder had entered and departed the house by the back porch door, but the broken window by the door was a mystery. It had been broken from the outside, because the glass shards were scattered on the beige linoleum of the porch floor. But why had the window been broken when the wooden door itself had nine panes of glass? A person would need long arms and have to stand on tiptoes to reach through the broken window and unlock the door. Also the cuts on the screen didn’t seem to match the breaks in the glass. Could somebody have entered with a key and broken the window as an afterthought to try to make it seem like a break-in?
Another odd thing on the back porch was a faded, torn military knapsack lying on the floor by a plastic garbage can. It was obviously out of place. Had it been abandoned by the intruder?
Two cabinets in the kitchen stood open, along with two drawers. Two purses lay on a countertop, and the contents of another purse, this one white, had been spilled across the range top in the kitchen island. A wallet, a fat folder of credit cards, and a small aspirin bottle were spread over stove eye covers decorated with fox hunt scenes. The wallet and purses appeared to have been rifled, but the detectives weren’t convinced that robbery had been the motive for this crime.
Too many things that a robber might take had been left behind: televisions, stereos, tape players, a VCR, computers. A twenty-dollar bill and a handful of change lay in clear view on a dressing table in the Von Stein bedroom. Lieth Von Stein’s wallet and watch lay untouched in a letter box. His wife’s wedding rings were in a small bowl. Other valuable jewelry was in an unlocked box atop a chest.
Could Lieth have awakened and startled a burglar before the thief had a chance to find all these things? If so, why didn’t the burglar just flee? And why would a burglar creep into an occupied bedroom in the middle of the night carrying a baseball bat or club and a large knife unless he had come with an intention to murder?
While the detectives were doing their walk-through, others had been arriving at the house: Chief Harry Stokes, Captain Zane Osnoe, two technicians
John Taylor’s real first name was Haskell, but nobody ever called him by it. The song “Big Bad John” had been popular when he was a bruising toddler, and his daddy had started calling him that. The nickname soon got shortened to plain John and nobody had called him anything else since. At twenty-seven, he was the youngest detective in the Washington Police Department and one of its most promising officers. One of his fields of training was photography, and he took most crime scene photographs for his department. After Michelle Sparrow called him, he drove his pickup truck to the police department, loaded his photo equipment into the police evidence van, and went to 110 Lawson Road. He arrived as Melvin Hope was looking over Lieth Von Stein’s body.
David Sparrow and Ed Cherry were on the porch, and Taylor told them to seal off the yard with the yellow crime-scene tape he had brought in the van. Nobody was to pass beyond the tape without an official reason for being there.
Taylor joined his sergeant and captain in the bloody bedroom and got a brief rundown on what had happened before the three detectives took a quick walk-through of the house to begin scouting for evidence.
It was apparent that the intruder had entered and departed the house by the back porch door, but the broken window by the door was a mystery. It had been broken from the outside, because the glass shards were scattered on the beige linoleum of the porch floor. But why had the window been broken when the wooden door itself had nine panes of glass? A person would need long arms and have to stand on tiptoes to reach through the broken window and unlock the door. Also the cuts on the screen didn’t seem to match the breaks in the glass. Could somebody have entered with a key and broken the window as an afterthought to try to make it seem like a break-in?
Another odd thing on the back porch was a faded, torn military knapsack lying on the floor by a plastic garbage can. It was obviously out of place. Had it been abandoned by the intruder?
Two cabinets in the kitchen stood open, along with two drawers. Two purses lay on a countertop, and the contents of another purse, this one white, had been spilled across the range top in the kitchen island. A wallet, a fat folder of credit cards, and a small aspirin bottle were spread over stove eye covers decorated with fox hunt scenes. The wallet and purses appeared to have been rifled, but the detectives weren’t convinced that robbery had been the motive for this crime.
Too many things that a robber might take had been left behind: televisions, stereos, tape players, a VCR, computers. A twenty-dollar bill and a handful of change lay in clear view on a dressing table in the Von Stein bedroom. Lieth Von Stein’s wallet and watch lay untouched in a letter box. His wife’s wedding rings were in a small bowl. Other valuable jewelry was in an unlocked box atop a chest.
Could Lieth have awakened and startled a burglar before the thief had a chance to find all these things? If so, why didn’t the burglar just flee? And why would a burglar creep into an occupied bedroom in the middle of the night carrying a baseball bat or club and a large knife unless he had come with an intention to murder?
While the detectives were doing their walk-through, others had been arriving at the house: Chief Harry Stokes, Captain Zane Osnoe, two technicians
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