“Let’s bag up her possessions and get them to the lab for processing.” After they’d done that and sent the items to the lab via a Patrol officer, Sam said, “Let’s wait for the ME, and then we can head to the Tappens’s house to see what we can find out about Pamela.”

  “I’m with you, LT,” Carlucci said.

  * * *

  The Tappen family lived in a three-story townhome that was connected to a dozen others. The façade was white with black shutters, and the stairs had been sanded for ice.

  “What I want to know,” Dani said, “is how she got so stinky when it’s so cold. Wouldn’t the cold act almost like a fridge?”

  “Bodily fluids,” Sam said bluntly.

  “Ugh, so she was alive in there for a while?”

  “It’s a theory.”

  Sam rang the doorbell and noted it was a regular, average doorbell and not the ridiculous symphony orchestra she’d encountered at the Thorn mausoleum. A fiftysomething man came to the door wearing an apron that said Kiss the Chef. He had a towel thrown over his shoulder, and the aromas of garlic and basil he brought with him made Sam’s mouth water.

  The man did a double take when he saw who was on his front porch.

  “Mr. Tappen, I’m Lieutenant Holland, and this is Detective Carlucci. We wondered if we could speak to you for a moment.”

  “Of course, but what’s this about?” he asked as he stepped aside to admit them into the nicely kept home.

  “Do you own a white Honda Odyssey minivan?” Sam asked.

  “I do. That’s my wife’s car.”

  “What’s your wife’s name?”

  “Pam.” All at once, he seemed to realize that police being at his door could mean only one thing. “Is something wrong with her?”

  Sam gestured to a sofa in a nearby living room. “Could we sit for a second?”

  “Um, sure.” He led the way and sat on the love seat while Sam and Dani sat together on the sofa.

  “When was the last time you spoke to your wife?”

  “Friday. She was traveling for work this past weekend, and she’s so busy that it’s not unusual that we don’t hear from her while she’s gone. She’s due home tonight.”

  Sam couldn’t for the life of her imagine not speaking to Nick for four days. She’d go mad. “What does she do for work?”

  “She owns a business that provides conference services to a wide array of clients, everything from registration support to publications, signage, etc. She does it all, and when she’s on-site at a show, she puts in sixteen-hour days.”

  “So you don’t text with her or anything during the shows?”

  “Hardly ever. Now that our kids are older, she doesn’t check in like she did when they were little. Wh-what is this about?”

  “Mr. Tappen, I’m sorry to have to tell you that your van was found in Southeast with the body of a blonde female inside it. Your wife’s purse and other belongings were in the car. We’re working under the assumption that the body is that of your wife.”

  His face seemed to go completely lax with shock. “Oh my God.”

  “The medical examiner would like you to come in to identify her, if possible.”

  “You… My Pam is dead?” he asked, his eyes filling as his hands began to tremble.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Oh God,” he whispered, dropping his head into his hands. “How can this be happening?”

  “Are you home alone?”

  “Yes, my sons are at football practice, and my daughter is away at college in Massachusetts.”

  “Were you here when Pam left for her work trip on Friday?”

  “No, I went from work to Delaware for a tournament for my sons’ AAU football team. Pam was so bummed to miss it.”

  “Are you able to come with us to identify the body?”

  “I, ah, yeah. I just need to, uh, deal with the stove.”

  Sam nodded to Dani to go with him. They needed to ensure he didn’t make any phone calls or do anything other than shut off the stove and grab a coat. A few minutes later, Sam was driving Tappen to HQ, while Dani stayed behind to speak to the neighbors about whether they’d witnessed anything unusual involving the Tappens’s van the previous weekend. It was a long shot, but worth asking.

  “Was your wife having any problems with anyone in her life?” Sam asked Mr. Tappen, who sat in the front seat with her. She’d debated whether to allow him that privilege, but since he wasn’t a suspect—at the moment, anyway—she’d had no reason to cuff him or treat him like a criminal.

  “Not that I know of. I mean, we have teenagers, so we have issues with them, but it’s just the usual stuff that everyone deals with.”

  “What kind of issues?” Sam asked, glancing at him.

  The man looked shell-shocked, but who could blame him? He’d been making dinner when the police came to tell him his wife had probably been murdered.

  “Staying out past curfew, drinking, smoking pot, slacking off in school. The same stuff everyone deals with.”

  “How many children do you have?”

  “Three. My boys are fifteen and seventeen, and my daughter is nineteen.”

  Sam also couldn’t imagine not speaking to Scotty for four days, no matter how busy she was at work. “And you say it wasn’t unusual for her to go completely dark while working a show?”

  “Not at all. We all understood that when she was working, we wouldn’t hear from her. She knew I could handle things at home and that I’d text if I needed her for something.”

  What was perfectly routine for this family would’ve been unthinkable for hers, Sam thought, but hey, different strokes for different folks. When they arrived at HQ, Sam drove around to the morgue entrance and parked. “I want to prepare you before we go in. The body we found had suffered some decomposition. She’d been bound and gagged with duct tape, and we believe she’d been there for a couple of days by the time she was discovered.”

  “Christ have mercy,” he whispered.

  Sam made a call to let Lindsey know she was bringing Mr. Tappen in.

  “We’re ready,” Lindsey said.

  Sam shut off the car, got out and waited for him to walk around the car.

  He hesitated. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “I’m sorry to ask it of you, but we need to know for sure who our victim is.”

  After taking a deep breath of frigid air, he released it and nodded for her to lead the way inside. They stepped into the cold, antiseptic-smelling morgue, where Dr. Lindsey McNamara greeted them. Sam was glad her friend was there to walk Mr. Tappen through the dreadful process of identifying his wife.

  Sam introduced him to Lindsey, whose green eyes were full of the compassion she gave to all the victims who landed in her morgue and their families.

  “If you’d follow me, we can get this over with,” Lindsey said.

  Sam brought up the rear as they walked into the exam room where the body had been laid out on a table and covered by a sheet.

  “Are you ready?” Lindsey asked him.

  “I… I guess so.”

  When Lindsey drew the sheet back from her face, Sam noticed the duct tape had been removed from the woman’s mouth, but some of the sticky residue remained on her face.

  Tappen’s knees buckled, and Sam moved quickly to grab him before he could fall to the floor. His anguished wail confirmed the woman’s identity.

  “Pammy! Oh my God. Who could’ve done this to her? Everyone loved her!”

  With the shock still fresh, Sam knew this wasn’t the time to grill him about every aspect of his wife’s life, but who knew how much time they’d already lost while she was dead inside a parked car? “Mr. Tappen, is there someone I could call for you? A friend or family member?”

  He covered his mouth with his hand as tears ran down his face, his gaze fixed on the decomposing face of his wife. “My, uh… My kids. I should call my kids.”

  “I’d like to be with you when you inform them of their mother’s death.”

  “Uh, sure. That’s fine, I guess.” He glanced at her, looking shocked and confused. “How do we do this? My daughter is away at school.”

  “Can you text your sons and ask them to come here after practice?”

  “Y-yes, I can do that.” He withdrew the phone from his pocket with a shaking hand and sent the text. “My older son is asking why. What do I tell him?”

  “Say you’ll explain when they get here.”

  He sent the text. “They should be here in about fifteen minutes. What about my daughter in college?”

  “We’ll call her after we talk to the boys.” Sam dreaded those conversations, even though they were a necessary part of any homicide investigation. Watching the reactions of the people closest to a victim while hearing that he or she had been murdered could be informative.

  Lindsey handed him her business card. “I’ll be performing an autopsy before we release her to the funeral home of your choosing. You can call me at your convenience to let me know which one you’d like to use.”

  Tappen took the card and put it in his pocket. “Thank you.” After another long look at his late wife, he said, “Are we done in here?”

  “Yes,” Sam said. “Right this way.” She led him out of the morgue and through the corridors that led to the pit where her detectives worked. The pit that was a beehive of activity during the day was now dark and quiet. They went into the conference room. Sam turned on the lights. “Can I get you a water or anything?”

  “A water would be good, thanks.”

  “I’ll get that for you, but I’d ask you not to contact anyone until I’m back in the room.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s standard procedure.”

  He nodded as if he understood when she’d bet that none of this made sense to him. How could it?

  “I’ll be right back.”

  She went to the vending area and bought two bottles of water, and when she turned away from the machine, Detective Ramsey was there.

  He took two steps to close the distance between them so he was staring into her face with fire in his eyes. “I hope you’re happy. My wife filed for divorce.”

  “Why would that make me happy?”

  “Because that’s what you wanted when you sent your dogs to dig for shit on me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We didn’t dig for anything on you, but of course, if there’s nothing to be found…” She shrugged. “Can you move? I’m working.”

  “I’m going to tell you something right now,” he said on a low growl. “You’d better watch your back. I don’t care who you’re married to. You’re nothing special, and before long, the whole world is going to know that.”

  “Did you eat garlic for lunch?” She made a distasteful face while delighting in his hateful expression. “While I have you, let me ask you… What is it about me that you hate so much? Is it my last name? The fact that I’m a lieutenant, and you’re… not? Or is it that I’m a woman, and you’re not? That might be it. Of course, it could be just that I’m fucking awesome at my job, and you’re not. Hmmm, you know what? I find that I don’t care. I’ve got the husband of a victim in my conference room. I care about him. You? I don’t care about you, so if you’d just step aside, I can get back to doing important stuff.”

  He didn’t move.

  Sam sighed, hating that he was wasting her time. “Do I need to get physical with you? We’ve already done that once, and as I recall, you ended up in the hospital. But hey, it’s your funeral.”

  Ramsey started to raise his hand as if he was going to strike her.

  She placed her hand on the butt of her weapon. “Move your ass, now, Sergeant, or I’ll take whatever measures needed to protect myself.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Lieutenant.”

  Sam would never admit to being relieved to hear Captain Malone’s voice coming from behind Ramsey.

  “Detective Ramsey will be getting the fuck out of here right now if he knows what’s good for him,” Malone said.

  “I think he was just about to move along,” Sam said.

  Ramsey gave her a filthy look before turning and storming off.

  “Are you all right?” Malone asked.

  “I’m better than fine. I got off a few good comments, the kind you usually think of long after the opportunity has passed.”

  “In other words, you made a bad situation worse?”

  “Define ‘worse.’ Apparently, his wife is divorcing him. I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to be married to a prize like him.”

  Malone rolled his eyes. “What’ve you got with the woman in the van?”

  “Not sure yet. I’ve got the husband in the conference room and the two teenage sons on the way here so he can tell them about their mother. The daughter is in college in Massachusetts, so we’ll be calling her.”

  “Are you leaning in any directions?”

  “Nothing yet. We’re an hour in and have identified the victim as Pam Tappen. According to her husband, Robert, it wasn’t uncommon for his wife to punch out completely for days at a time when she was working at a conference. She ran a business providing conference services to a wide range of organizations. She’d been gone all weekend working at an event, or so he believed.”

  “The woman had children, and she didn’t check in while she was away?”

  “I found that odd, too.” She didn’t mention that she could barely stand to go an hour without speaking to her husband, let alone four days. That information was probably common knowledge to everyone who knew them as well as Malone did.

  The captain followed her back to the pit.

  Sam dropped off the water for Mr. Tappen in the conference room and told him she’d be back in a minute. She pulled the tickets she’d taken off the van out of her coat pocket and handed them to Malone. “These were on the van where Mrs. Tappen’s body was found. If you look at the dates, you’ll see that over the course of the weekend, Patrol officers left two tickets, but apparently, neither of them looked inside the van. She might’ve been found sooner if they’d bothered to look.”

  Frowning, he took the tickets from her. “I’ll take care of it.”

  A young Patrol officer came into the pit. “Lieutenant, we have Justin and Lucas Tappen here to see you and their father.”

  “Please bring them to the conference room.”

  Sam took off her coat, intending to stash it in her office, but stopped short when she realized the door was open. “Someone’s been in here. I locked it when I left earlier, and no one else has a key but you.”

  “Step back.” Malone went to Freddie’s cubicle, found a ruler and used it to push the door open. With his flashlight, he revealed that the office had been tossed. Paper, files, framed photos and awards she’d received on the job were scattered on the floor. Glass had been broken, and the awards were in pieces. “Motherfucker.”

  Her heart ached at the sight of the photo of her and her dad on the floor, shattered, as if someone had slammed it to the floor. “Do you think it was a coincidence that Ramsey was here late on a Monday night, and then we discover this?”

  “We don’t believe in coincidences.”

  Chapter Six

  While Malone waited for Crime Scene detectives to comb through the carnage in her office, Sam returned to the conference room to check on Mr. Tappen.

  “My sons should be here soon.”

  “They’re here. One of our officers is bringing them in. Please allow me to tell them about their mother.”

  He nodded, and judging from the puffiness of his eyes and face, he’d been weeping while he was alone in the room.

  Her heart went out to him as he absorbed the terrible shock that came with a loved one’s murder. One minute, he’d been making dinner at home, and the next, his entire life—and his children’s—had been turned upside down.

  Two handsome, dark-haired young men were brought into the room by a patrolman.

  “Justin and Lucas, this is Lieutenant Holland,” Mr. Tappen said.

  “You’re the first lady, right?” Justin, the younger of the two boys, asked.

  “That’s right. Can you come in and have a seat?”

  “Why are we here, Dad?” Lucas asked, eyeing her with curiosity.

  “It’s about Mom,” Bob said when the two boys were seated next to each other.

  “What about her?” Justin asked, his gaze moving between his father and Sam.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you that your mother was found dead today,” Sam said, having learned getting right to the point was the best strategy in these cases.

  Justin’s eyes filled as he looked to his father for confirmation. “Is it true, Dad? She… She’s dead?”

  Bob nodded and reached for his younger son, who broke down into sobs.

  Lucas looked down at the table while his brother’s heartbroken sobs filled the room. “What happened to her?” Lucas asked, glancing up at Sam with torment in his expression.

  “She was found bound and gagged in the back of her van, which was parked in Southeast.”

  Hearing that, Lucas dropped his head into his hands. “Do you know who did it?”

  “Not yet,” Sam said. “We’re in the earliest stages of the investigation.”

  “Does Molly know?” Justin asked.

  “Not yet,” his dad replied. “We’re going to call her.”

  “You should have Aunt Amy go there and tell her,” Justin said. “She shouldn’t be alone when she hears this.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Bob said.

  “Who’s Amy?” Sam asked.

  “My wife’s best friend from college. She lives an hour from where Molly goes to school. The kids have always been close to her.”