Dark Homecoming by William Patterson

red sugar glaze, which would then harden over the apple, encasing it in a dark red shiny shield.
    That’s what the dead body on the bed in front of him reminded Joe of. The head and upper torso were encased in a hard dark red translucent shell—probably hardened blood. The body had been lying here all that time, Joe guessed. From the looks of it, the young man’s throat had been slit and he’d bled out.
    The landlady of the apartment building was still shaking as she gave her statement to Joe’s partner, Sergeant Aggie McFarland.
    â€œI took a delivery for him this morning,” the chunky, middle-aged woman said, clutching the apron she wore around her waist. She was the proprietor of the convenience store downstairs. “It was marked ‘perishable.’ It looked like it came from his parents up in Georgia. His mother’s always sending him fruitcakes and pastries. Well, I kept knocking on his door, but he didn’t answer, even though his car was in his parking spot. It’s been there all week. I thought maybe he was getting a ride to work, that the car had died on him, like it’s done before. I really wasn’t suspicious at all until he didn’t open the door, even after I told him that I had this box for him. Finally I figured he must have been away, gone off with some friends. I figured I’d just let myself in and put the box in his refrigerator. But then, when I went inside, I saw . . .” The woman’s voice trailed off in horror.
    â€œGo ahead, Mrs. Marino,” Sergeant McFarland encouraged her.
    â€œI saw through the open door to his room that he was in bed. And I just peeked in, didn’t want to disturb him, and then I saw all the blood!”
    â€œThis was when?”
    â€œJust an hour or so ago. I screamed and called down to my son, who was in the store below. He came running up, took one look, and then called the police.”
    Joe Foley turned away from the corpse on the bed and walked over to the trembling woman, who wouldn’t glance into the bedroom, having already been traumatized enough. “You say his name was Jamison Wilkes,” Joe said. “Can you tell us any more about him?”
    â€œHe was a good boy, though I think he’d had some hard times of it during the past few years,” said Mrs. Marino. “I had a feeling he was struggling.”
    â€œDid he work for you?”
    â€œOh, no,” the woman replied. “He worked over at Huntington House. He was very proud of his job over there, how he had to wear nice pants and a nice cream-colored shirt every day.”
    Aggie was taking all of this information down in her investigator’s notebook. Joe took a moment to glance over at the dead young man again. So he worked at Huntington House.
    Not so long ago, Joe had been up to that sprawling estate. He’d been investigating the death of the young woman who’d been found on the lawn. Her name was Audra McKenzie. She was a pretty girl. Just twenty-two. She’d been stabbed repeatedly in the chest and neck. She’d bled out, too, like this Jamison Wilkes, though most of Audra’s blood was gone by the time they’d gotten to her, seeped into the earth. She’d been lying in the grass for hours in a torrential rain.
    And now a second employee of Huntington House had been murdered.
    Two dead employees. Not to mention the mysterious death a little over a year ago of Mrs. Dominique Huntington. A tragic accident on her boat. No foul play involved according to the verdict of the investigating team. Joe had only recently joined the force at that point; he’d played no role in that investigation. But the case had always struck him as odd. Mrs. Huntington takes the yacht out on her own—without its usual captain—and runs into a storm. She drowns. Joe had started thinking about the death of Dominique Huntington again when Audra McKenzie was found dead on the estate, and now he