Kyle?”
She looked back at the Praying Monk, as if pleading for him to save her, but he remained silent.
“Tell me, Eldora. I’m going to stay here until you do.” I hated bullying her, but Ali was my client, not Eldora.
The edge in my voice must have reached her because her thin shoulders slumped. She was getting tired of lying. Returning her gaze to me, she said, “Maybe Miss Ali yelled some. Girls do. That all. No fighting. No hitting. Just yelling.”
“How about Dr. Cameron? Did he yell at Ali when they talked about Kyle?”
A faint smile. “No. Dr. Cameron not care what she do. So no yelling.”
“Really?”
“Dr. Cameron not care what anybody do. Just so long they don’t scratch his pretty cars.”
My next question was a shot in the dark, but sometimes shots found their target. “Eldora, do you know who killed the Camerons?”
Her mouth began trembling again, then her hands, her shoulders. Then her attempt to control her emotions failed utterly. With tears streaking her cheeks, she lifted her face to the sky and wailed, “If I know who, I not wait for cops, I kill them myself!”
***
I spent the rest of the day at Desert Investigations digging through the case file again, studying the crime scene photos, rereading the detectives’ interviews, double-checking the autopsy report on the victims. Alexandra and Alec had died of massive blunt trauma, Dr. Cameron by gunshot. No semen had been found in or on Alexandra, and there was no sign of vaginal bruising; she hadn’t been raped. The stippling around Dr. Cameron’s wound showed that the gun had been fired approximately three inches from his head, a coup de grace, much like a hunter puts a wounded animal out of its misery.
During the autopsies, the M.E. found all three victims had small portions of partially digested almond chicken, moo goo gai pan, rice, and egg rolls in their stomachs. Based on those findings, and the fact that when the police arrived at 6:12 p.m., rigor mortis had already begun in the Camerons’ eyelids, necks, and jaws, the M.E. estimated their times of death as between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. The time was further narrowed by the statement of the delivery boy from the Chinese restaurant, who said he dropped off a takeout order to a still-living Alexandra Cameron a few minutes before noon. The Camerons managed to get small portions of the takeout into their stomachs before they were bound with duct tape and slowly tortured to death, which gave a more realistic timeline of death to somewhere between noon and three p.m. After flipping through more pages, I found a note saying that Ali and Kyle had arrived at the vet’s with the badly injured Misty at 3:02 p.m., as shown by the camera in his reception room. Given that the vet’s office was an approximate thirty-minute drive from the Cameron house, I condensed the timeline of the murders to between noon and 2:30.
I did find one other thing interesting. Tests found fibers from both Alexandra’s and Alec’s clothing on the back of Dr. Cameron’s sports shirt and slacks, leading me to believe that despite his seeming lack of warmth, he tried to protect his family from the killer. Or killers. Gun or no gun, I wasn’t convinced the damage I saw had been carried out by one person.
“How you doing over there?” Jimmy asked, turning away from his computer, where he had been busily working all day. “You’ve been pretty quiet.”
“Just a little light reading.”
Before I could cover them up, he glanced at the photographs laid out on my desk. “I don’t know how you can look at that stuff.”
“Just part of the job. It doesn’t bother me.”
“Right.”
“Tell you what, though. After all this sitting around and reading, I need to loosen up, so I think I’ll go to the gym.”
“Which one?”
For the past few years I’ve been a member of L.A. Fitness, but a couple of months ago I’d also been going to Scottsdale Fight Pro. The gym was only two blocks from Desert
She looked back at the Praying Monk, as if pleading for him to save her, but he remained silent.
“Tell me, Eldora. I’m going to stay here until you do.” I hated bullying her, but Ali was my client, not Eldora.
The edge in my voice must have reached her because her thin shoulders slumped. She was getting tired of lying. Returning her gaze to me, she said, “Maybe Miss Ali yelled some. Girls do. That all. No fighting. No hitting. Just yelling.”
“How about Dr. Cameron? Did he yell at Ali when they talked about Kyle?”
A faint smile. “No. Dr. Cameron not care what she do. So no yelling.”
“Really?”
“Dr. Cameron not care what anybody do. Just so long they don’t scratch his pretty cars.”
My next question was a shot in the dark, but sometimes shots found their target. “Eldora, do you know who killed the Camerons?”
Her mouth began trembling again, then her hands, her shoulders. Then her attempt to control her emotions failed utterly. With tears streaking her cheeks, she lifted her face to the sky and wailed, “If I know who, I not wait for cops, I kill them myself!”
***
I spent the rest of the day at Desert Investigations digging through the case file again, studying the crime scene photos, rereading the detectives’ interviews, double-checking the autopsy report on the victims. Alexandra and Alec had died of massive blunt trauma, Dr. Cameron by gunshot. No semen had been found in or on Alexandra, and there was no sign of vaginal bruising; she hadn’t been raped. The stippling around Dr. Cameron’s wound showed that the gun had been fired approximately three inches from his head, a coup de grace, much like a hunter puts a wounded animal out of its misery.
During the autopsies, the M.E. found all three victims had small portions of partially digested almond chicken, moo goo gai pan, rice, and egg rolls in their stomachs. Based on those findings, and the fact that when the police arrived at 6:12 p.m., rigor mortis had already begun in the Camerons’ eyelids, necks, and jaws, the M.E. estimated their times of death as between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. The time was further narrowed by the statement of the delivery boy from the Chinese restaurant, who said he dropped off a takeout order to a still-living Alexandra Cameron a few minutes before noon. The Camerons managed to get small portions of the takeout into their stomachs before they were bound with duct tape and slowly tortured to death, which gave a more realistic timeline of death to somewhere between noon and three p.m. After flipping through more pages, I found a note saying that Ali and Kyle had arrived at the vet’s with the badly injured Misty at 3:02 p.m., as shown by the camera in his reception room. Given that the vet’s office was an approximate thirty-minute drive from the Cameron house, I condensed the timeline of the murders to between noon and 2:30.
I did find one other thing interesting. Tests found fibers from both Alexandra’s and Alec’s clothing on the back of Dr. Cameron’s sports shirt and slacks, leading me to believe that despite his seeming lack of warmth, he tried to protect his family from the killer. Or killers. Gun or no gun, I wasn’t convinced the damage I saw had been carried out by one person.
“How you doing over there?” Jimmy asked, turning away from his computer, where he had been busily working all day. “You’ve been pretty quiet.”
“Just a little light reading.”
Before I could cover them up, he glanced at the photographs laid out on my desk. “I don’t know how you can look at that stuff.”
“Just part of the job. It doesn’t bother me.”
“Right.”
“Tell you what, though. After all this sitting around and reading, I need to loosen up, so I think I’ll go to the gym.”
“Which one?”
For the past few years I’ve been a member of L.A. Fitness, but a couple of months ago I’d also been going to Scottsdale Fight Pro. The gym was only two blocks from Desert
Similar Books
