Part 25 (1/2)

If ”spa.r.s.ely furnished” was the polite way of describing the downstairs of Wittmer's home, the upstairs made the first floor look like an episode of h.o.a.rders. Of the first three bedrooms we looked into, only one actually had a bed. And by bed, I mean a queen-sized mattress on top of a box spring on top of a Harvard frame. No sheets. No pillows.

And still no Wittmer.

Which only made it worse, that feeling of dread. The tightening of the chest muscles. The extra pull on the lungs with each breath.

The inescapable truth of something inevitable.

Because at no time-not for one fraction of a second-did I think there was a chance that Wittmer wasn't there in his home. The only question was where.

”Here,” said Owen.

This time, he was definitely talking to me. Pointing, too. He'd turned the corner into the master bedroom.

Two steps past the doorway, I saw him. Wittmer, wearing the same clothes as when we'd left him, was lying in the bed on his back. If I hadn't known better, I'd have said he was simply asleep.

But I did know better, if only because Owen knew better.

Wittmer was never waking up.

CHAPTER 76.

MEANS AND motivation. The whole story was right there in front of us, exactly as intended. Although it wasn't intended for us.

On the bed next to Wittmer, where the ghost of his wife surely slept, was a large photo alb.u.m opened to a spread filled with happy, loving pictures of the two of them in Paris. They were kissing in front of the Eiffel Tower, arm in arm beneath the external Habitrail-like piping of the Centre Pompidou in Beaubourg, and playfully leaning against Louis Derbre's Le Prophete in the Jardin du Luxembourg, the golden head of the statue-and their faces-beaming in the suns.h.i.+ne.

Claire and I used to talk about going to Paris together. But life is ninety percent talk, isn't it?

As if connecting the dots, my eyes moved from the photo alb.u.m over to the empty pill bottle, the orange-brownish variety you get from your local pharmacy. Only, there was no label on it, no indication of a prescription.

Ironically, that made the story even more convincing. Wittmer was a doctor, after all. What pills wouldn't he have access to?

It all made so much sense. Of course, that was why it was all bulls.h.i.+t.

I was catching on quick, all right. Certainly faster than the police would, if at all. Odds were they never would.

This was no suicide.

”Temazepam, if I had to guess,” said Owen with a nod to the empty pill bottle. ”Very effective for insomnia, Michael Jackson notwithstanding. One injection, probably to the carotid artery, and the coroner would never know the drug wasn't swallowed.”

The image of Wittmer giving injections to the prisoners in Stare Kiejkuty flashed through my mind. Oh, the irony ...

Without even thinking, I leaned in, looking at Wittmer's neck for a needle mark. I didn't know why, I just did. I felt sorry for him. He'd made his choices, but he didn't deserve this.

”Christ, we can't even call the police,” I said.

Wittmer lived alone. There was no telling how long it would be before his body was discovered. The same could be said for the guy in my bathtub back in Manhattan, but I couldn't give a rat's a.s.s about him. This was different.

”Maybe we could somehow leave an anonymous tip,” I said. ”What do you think?”

I was still staring at Wittmer's neck, waiting for Owen to answer. When he didn't, I turned around. Again, he was gone. I called out to him.

”In here,” he responded.

I followed his voice to the only room left on the second floor we hadn't searched. Wittmer's office.

Unlike every other room, though, this one looked the part. A large, messy desk, stacked bookcases, and a well-worn leather armchair with an ottoman. There was even a rug-a faded crimson and gold Persian with ta.s.sels, some of them frayed, some of them missing altogether.

To call it a lived-in look would be an understatement. In fact, what it really was, was depressing.

This wasn't Wittmer's office. This was Wittmer. Period. In the wake of his wife's death, his life had become defined by his work. This was all he'd had.

”What are you looking at?” I asked.

”Something I shouldn't be,” said Owen. ”Not if they're trying to cover their tracks.”

CHAPTER 77.

HE WAS standing by one of the bookcases, staring long and hard at a picture in a dust-covered silver frame. It was an old photograph of Wittmer from his undergrad days at Princeton, a group shot of some members of the Cap and Gown eating club.

Of course, if it hadn't been for the engraving at the bottom of the frame saying as much, I never would've known that.

So why is Owen staring at it so intently?

I leaned in close, focusing on Wittmer. He looked so young. Happy. Alive. ”What am I not seeing?” I asked.

”The whole picture,” Owen said.

If I'd somehow lost the forest for the trees, there was still no finding it as I canva.s.sed the other half dozen faces staring back at me in the photo. Owen all but expected as much, giving me a hint.

”He had a lot more hair back then,” he said.

With that, he reached out with his index finger, tracing a line from Wittmer to the guy on the end, who was lanky and, yes, had only a hint of a receding hairline.

But now I could picture him bald, and in doing so, all I could see-and recognize-was the same smirk masquerading as a smile that he always flashed in interviews as if there weren't a question in the world that could ever trip him up.