The Fourth Motive by Sean Lynch

world of crime and with
     no intention of becoming like so many of the victims she dealt with every day in court.
    Or so she hoped.
     
     
       

CHAPTER 11
     
     
    Ray Cowell waited a full five minutes after Paige left her condominium before getting
     out of his car. He watched her from across the parking lot as she walked down the
     sidewalk along the tennis courts which separated her condo complex and the Harbor
     Bay health club.
    Once her leotard-clad figure was out-of-sight, Ray lit a cigarette and forced himself
     to wait longer as the second hand of his Timex swept slowly around. The delay was
     in case Paige returned, perhaps forgetting something on her way to the gym. “Haste
     makes waste,” his mother used to say before she became a drunk and he stopped listening
     to her. Ray didn’t know if Paige would go to the health club or skip her daily exercise
     in light of what happened to her yesterday. As result, he arrived early enough to
     account for either contingency.
    Ray left the ignition running and the car’s door unlocked. Theft was unlikely in this
     upscale neighborhood, and he might need to leave in a hurry. Besides, the car was
     already stolen. After retrieving his gear from the back seat of the car, he was careful
     not to slam the door. He put out his cigarette in his car’s ashtray, pocketed the
     butt, and strode toward the front door of Paige’s condominium.
    He was wearing tan coveralls and a San Francisco Giants baseball cap. He also wore
     sunglasses and a false mustache he’d purchased from a theatrical supply store in Berkeley.
     The fake mustache made his nostrils itch, and he restrained himself from scratching
     his nose to abate the irritation; he didn’t want the glued-on facial hair to come
     off. Ray was carrying a small stepladder and had his black nylon gym bag in the grip
     of one gloved hand. In his pocket was the portable police scanner, and the earpiece
     adorned his left ear. He was softly whistling Frank Sinatra’s version of “Anything
     Goes”.
    When he reached Paige’s porch, he nonchalantly set down his bag and unfolded the stepladder.
     He moved slowly, with confidence, and avoided the urge to glance around to see if
     anyone was watching him; a furtive act that a legitimate workman would not feel compelled
     to do. Instead, he played the role of the bored repairman busily attending to the
     day’s first service call.
    Ray stepped up onto the ladder and withdrew a screwdriver from his bag. The mini-ladder
     put him within easy reach of the metal alarm box over the front door. The label on
     the alarm box read “ACME Security Systems” and was above a local phone number. The
     same logo and phone number were stenciled on the back of Ray’s coveralls. He unscrewed
     the alarm box cover, opened it, and took out the canister of hairspray obtained from
     his mother’s bathroom. Still whistling Sinatra, he sprayed the contents of the industrial-sized
     can of hairspray into the inner workings of the alarm until it was emptied. He replaced
     the alarm box cover.
    He stepped down from the ladder and walked through the gate leading into the condominium’s
     minuscule backyard. Once there, he stripped lengths of gray duct tape and stuck them
     horizontally across the width of one window. In less than a minute, the window was
     covered in tape. Once this task was completed, Ray kicked the center of the pane and
     then all four corners in succession. The tape muffled the sound of the breaking glass
     to a dull crunch, and the entire pane fell as one unit into the condominium. No alarm
     sounded.
    Ray climbed through the window into Paige’s home. Once inside, he made a quick dash
     through each room to ensure there were no other occupants or noisy pets, like a bird
     or cat.
    Paige’s condo was neat and well decorated with expensive furnishings. Ray wasted no
     time appreciating her interior design tastes. He made a beeline for the den, for a
     large antique rolltop