Hunter moved on to the text messages – again, several from her mother, one from her friend, Mary, and one from a different friend, this one named Claudia.

No text messages from Jake Goubeaux.

On the black console by the window, Hunter found several photoframes neatly arranged. Many of the photographs showed Helen Webster with her mother, prior and post wheelchair. Helen had been a very attractive woman, with almost perfect skin, a petite nose and mouth, high cheekbones, a slim figure, and shiny raven-black hair that fell just past her shapely shoulders. The hazel eyes and the charming smile she had clearly inherited from her mother.

The other photographs showed Helen smiling, dancing, and having a good time with friends, all of them women.

Once again, no boyfriend.

Hunter paused and rubbed his eyes. Though a theory was starting to form in his head, he was also a little worried. Was he reading too much into this? Was it because, deep inside, he wanted his first ever case as a LAPD Robbery Homicide Division detective to be more than just an open-and-shut suicide case? Was Officer Travis right? Did he just want to impress his new captain?

Hunter thought about for a moment.

No, that wasn’t what his gut feeling was telling him – there was more than just an open-and-shut suicide case here – he could sense it. And Hunter had always been able to trust his gut.

But he could be reading this all back to front, and he knew it. What if Helen had been the one madly in love with Jake Goubeaux, and for some reason he had decided to break it off? What if he had told her that he was in love with someone else? That could’ve easily triggered a severe bipolar episode and in a rash moment she could have decided to kill herself. That possibility was still alive.

‘Study the scene,’ Hunter told himself. ‘Go with what it tells you.’

Hunter wasn’t ready to bring Mr. Goubeaux in for questioning just yet. The apartment could still reveal more, and so could the forensics team, once they finally got there. Also, Hunter wanted to check if the door-to-door, or the file he’d requested on Jake Goubeaux would return any valuable information. For now, the best he could do was to continue searching the apartment.

Still in the living room, he paused in front of the TV module again. Something didn’t seem right. The symmetry was wrong.

Frown.

Chin scratch.

Frown again.

The mini stereo system.

That was it.

One of its speakers was missing.

Hunter checked the cables at the back of the stereo. The speaker cable was still connected to the receiver.

‘Strange,’ Hunter said to himself, but left it at that, returning to the bedroom.

Helen had been a very organized woman. All her drawers and cupboards were impeccably stacked. Every item of clothing had been folded and placed in its designated location. Nothing looked to have been disturbed. The same could be said for the en-suite bathroom.

Her wardrobe held an ample variety of blouses, trousers, jeans, jackets, shoes, belts and handbags. Again, all neatly arranged in their specific places, except for a black silk blouse that had slipped off its hanger and fallen on top of some shoes.

Hunter closed the wardrobe door and turned to face the bed again.

Everything about that scene was wrong. Helen Webster was positioned with her legs fully extended and her arms wide open, in a human-crucifix shape. That would mean that she had sliced her wrists, lay perfectly still on the bed, and simply waited for death. One would need tremendous willpower to do something like that.

Also, suicide by slitting the wrists and bleeding out didn’t bring instant death. Many who attempted it, if they hadn’t numbed themselves with sleeping pills and alcohol first, ended up changing, or trying to change their minds once they saw and felt the blood fleeing their veins. There would usually be a lot of twitching and arm movement, which would create a very messy scene. Hunter had studied the photographs and attended enough wrist-slitting suicide scenes to know that. The scene in that room was messy, no question about it, but in the wrong way. Helen’s body was clear of blood. All the blood had pooled on the floor, or soaked into the bed sheets. That indicated that she hadn’t moved her arms at all once she had cut her wrists open.

The second problem with her body being so clean of blood was – as the doctor had said – the cut to both wrists had been deep enough to slice through both the radial and the ulnar arteries. That meant that, at first, blood would have squirted out of her wrists like a water gun. Since the mess of blood concentrated solely on and around the bed, Hunter knew that if he was really looking at a suicide scene, there were only two possible scenarios. One: Helen had cut her wrists while lying down on the bed. If that had been the case, her arms wouldn’t have been extended out in a human-crucifix shape at first. It was way too awkward a position for her to be able to achieve such precise cuts. She would have them close to her body, probably over her chest, with the wrists turned towards her. She should’ve been covered in blood. Two: Helen had cut her wrists in a standing or sitting position before sprawling herself on the bed. In that case, blood would’ve squirted up, hitting her face, hair, and torso. A blood-free body made no sense.

No, there was no doubt in Hunter’s mind. That suicide scene was all wrong.

‘Where the hell is my forensics team?’ he said to himself.

In the kitchen, Hunter checked the fridge. Nothing had gone bad. The sell-by-date on the milk carton was still valid. The apples and pears in the fruit bowl on the small kitchen table still looked fresh. There were a few dishes on the dish rack, and an open pack of cookies on the kitchen counter.

In a cupboard he also found several bottles of spirits, including an unopened bottle of Dalwhinnie 1973 29 Year Old single malt Scotch whisky. That made Hunter pause. Not because there was anything peculiar about it, but because he’d given his father an identical bottle for Christmas just a few years back – their last ever Christmas together. Hunter’s father had a passion for single malt Scotch whisky. A passion that, frankly, Hunter had never understood. He found whisky, any type of whisky, way too overwhelming for his palate.

Pushing the memories away, he pressed the pedal on the large chromed garbage can by the fridge, looked inside, and frowned.

At least the mystery of the missing stereo speaker was solved.

Hunter reached for it, or what was left of it. The small wood-encased box had been completely pulled apart. The tiny tweeter speaker was intact, but the subwoofer had been smashed to pieces, as if somebody had had a big beef with it.

‘What the hell?’ Hunter murmured, looking at it from all sides.

His cellphone rang in his pocket.

Hunter dropped the speaker pieces back into the garbage can before answering it.

‘Robbery Homicide Detective Robert Hunter,’ he said proudly.

‘What the hell are you doing, rookie?’

Chapter 4

Hunter immediately recognized Captain Bolter’s voice.

‘I send you on an easy, open-and-shut, zippidy-zip suicide case, and in no time you escalate it to first degree homicide and put in a call for a forensics team?’

‘Captain . . .’

‘That thing should’ve been wrapped up and sealed, and your ass should’ve been back here filling forms an hour ago. What the hell is going on?’

Hunter explained everything as quickly and as concisely as he could.

‘Wait a second here,’ the captain said when Hunter was done. ‘Are you telling me that right on your first, easy-as-they-will-ever-come case you’ve had a hunch?’