Page 6 of So Lethal (Faith Bold #22)

In morning traffic, it took them nearly two hours to reach the Porter residence in Pacific Heights, an upscale neighborhood in the northwest corner of San Francisco. On the way, Faith looked up James Porter.

He was forty-nine years old with two grown children, the youngest of whom had just graduated from MIT.

He worked as an accountant for a property management company that owned thirty properties in the Bay Area.

During the pandemic, he had started working from home and hadn’t stopped.

He was a member of a golf club that met infrequently.

None of his social media pages indicated any connection with Monica Smith besides the fact that both were deaf.

He had been married to his wife, Barbara, for thirty years. They had been high school sweethearts who married as soon as she turned eighteen. As nearly as Faith could tell, they had never looked back.

But then, thirty years was a long time, and nineteen years old was adult only in the legal sense. It was a long shot, but Faith wasn’t dismissing the possibility that James had met Monica somewhere and hit it off with the attractive young deaf woman.

“Would you ever cheat on Ellie?” she asked Michael.

Ellie was Michael’s wife. The two had met a couple of years ago and married about a year after that.

“What? Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I’m not going to tell her your answer.”

“I’m still not happy about the question,” Michael retorted. “You want to give me some context?”

“I’m trying to think of a connection between Monica Smith and James Porter. The only thing I can come up with besides them being deaf is that they had a thing on the side and Mrs. Porter had them killed.”

“You think she could have strangled them both to death?”

“I won’t know until I meet her, but it’s possible. Or she could have paid someone to do it.”

“You don’t think them being deaf is enough of a connection?”

"Come on, Michael. There are nine million people in the metro area. There's got to be thousands of deaf people between Monica's studio and James's house. Why are these two people an hour away in no traffic and two hours away in traffic?"

Michael shrugged. “Well, no, I would never cheat on Ellie. I can’t imagine putting her through that kind of pain.

If we were ever on our way out, I’d talk to her.

It’s a tough conversation, but I would be an absolute piece of shit if I ever betrayed her that way.

Does Porter seem like an absolute piece of shit to you? ”

“No, the opposite. His social media is active and full of people who seem to genuinely love him.”

“Well, you never know what’s under the surface, I guess, but we should reserve judgment until we talk to Barbara.”

“Yeah. Fair enough.”

They pulled next to the curb in front of a three-story Victorian mansion with a white facade that might very well have been real marble. CPA work apparently paid very well.

There was a car in the driveway, a late-model Lexus sedan in immaculate condition, so Faith assumed Barbara was home. Turk looked around and sniffed every few yards but showed no sign of suspicion or wariness.

Michael knocked on the door somewhat more gently than he had at Cliff Kowalski’s apartment.

Faith heard shuffling, and a moment later, the door opened.

A woman in her late forties stood in the doorway.

Her hair was blonde with a liberal amount of gray sprinkled in, and her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed.

She wore a plain cotton nightgown that didn’t at all flatter her figure that had once been statuesque but seemed to have softened considerably as she aged.

In other words, she looked exactly like a woman who had just suffered a devastating loss.

“Yes?” she asked. “Can I help you?”

“Barbara Porter?” Faith asked.

“Yes.” She looked at their uniforms. “Is this about James?”

“Yes,” Faith confirmed. “We were hoping to ask you some questions.”

“Oh. Okay. Come on inside.”

She led the two of them inside. The contrast between the cheap, faded interior of Cliff Kowalski’s apartment and Barbara Porter’s mansion was profound.

The floors here were granite tile polished to a mirror-like shine.

The countertops were of darker stone, some sort of basalt, and equally shiny.

The furniture was all oiled maple and richly upholstered with leather that was neither wrinkled nor cracked.

The walls were decorated with art ranging from oil paintings of abstract shapes and colors to equally abstract statuary that looked the way a person might look if a farsighted man took his glasses off and squinted into a funhouse mirror.

Faith thought the décor would look much better with a few of Monica Smith’s statues.

“You can sit in the living room if you’d like,” Barbara said. “Do you two want anything to drink? Maybe some water for your dog?”

“Water for Turk would be nice, thank you,” Faith replied.

“Water will be fine for us too,” Michael added. “Thank you for taking the time to speak to us. I know you’re going through something terrible.”

She sniffled. “Yes. It’s…” Her lower lip trembled, but she took a deep breath and kept from crying. “Why did they call the FBI in? Was James in some sort of trouble?”

“They called us in because there was another murder,” Faith replied, taking a seat on the expansive sofa. It was unfairly comfortable.

Barbara blinked. “Another?”

“Yes,” Michael confirmed. “A woman named Monica Smith.”

Faith watched Barbara closely, but she showed no sign that the name was familiar to her. “I don’t know a Monica Smith. Was she one of James’s coworkers?”

“No. She was a graphic designer. She lived in San Jose.”

“Okay,” Barbara said. “How does this relate to James’s death?”

“Both were… the circumstances of their deaths were similar.”

“Oh.” Barbara took another shuddering breath. “It’s just horrible. Why would someone do that to James? I don’t know this Monica, but I assume she was a decent person as well.”

“All signs point to that,” Faith replied. “To answer your question, we’re not sure. That’s why we want to talk to you. We’re hoping you might be able to tell us something helpful.”

Barbara shook her head. “I wish I could, but I don’t know why on Earth anyone would want to hurt James. Everyone loved him. We hosted the Christmas party for his company every year, and they all adored him. He was so kind to everyone.”

She pressed her fingers to her eyes, and her lips trembled again. After a moment, she stood abruptly. “I forgot your water. I’ll be right back.”

She stalked away, and Faith got the impression she was trying not to let them see her cry.

Turk whined softly and watched her go with an empathetic stare.

As soon as she returned to her seat, Turk stepped over the bowl of water she’d brought him and laid his head on her lap.

Barbara smiled slightly and stroked his fur.

“We never had a dog. James was allergic. He would have put up with one for my sake, but I didn’t want to do that to him. ”

“You seem to have loved him very much,” Michael said.

“I will always love him. He was my only one. I fell in love with him the day we met. He was fifteen, and I was fourteen. He had just moved here from Wisconsin. He had this wide, goofy smile and the kindest eyes I’d ever seen.

My parents were wary at first on account of him being deaf, but after they got to know him, they accepted him as one of their own. ”

“Why were they wary about his deafness?”

Barbara gave a soft little wave. “Some older people believed that deafness was a sign of mental handicap. Obviously, that isn’t the case, but my parents were raised in a very traditional manner.

Needless to say, they didn’t believe that for very long.

” She sighed wistfully. “I’ll never forget the day he told me he loved me.

We spoke in sign language before then—I started learning as soon as I met him—but he practiced saying it in his own voice so he could tell me on the day of our senior dance. ”

Her eyes took on a beatific look. "He had such a beautiful voice.

Rich and strong and deep. I loved hearing him talk.

He rarely did in front of others, but at home, I would listen to him speak for hours.

" She shook her head. "It's strange. I thought that over time, our love would soften.

I knew it would remain strong, but I thought it would become more of a friendship than a romance.

I was wrong, though. I was head over heels for him. Always."

She bowed her head, and this time, she didn’t try to hide her tears.

Turk looked up at her and whined softly.

Faith felt a lump form in her throat and had to look away.

She knew already that Barbara wasn’t the killer.

It was true that sociopaths could put on a convincing show of love, but Faith was trained to see past that falseness.

It was clear that there was no falseness in Barbara’s devotion. She would never have killed James.

After a few minutes, Barbara’s tears subsided. She took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ve been a mess ever since he died.”

“No need to apologize,” Michael said gently. “We’re so sorry for your loss.”

“Can you tell us what happened that night?” Faith asked. “I know it’s painful, but anything you can tell us would help a lot.”

Barbara chuckled bitterly. “I wish I could. I just don’t know. I didn’t find him until the morning after.”

“Just tell us what you know,” Faith said gently.

She sniffled, then said, “Um… We went to bed at eight-thirty like normal. We’ve always been early birds.

We fell asleep, and then…” She took another deep breath.

“I woke up at four. He wasn’t in bed, so I assumed he had gone outside to wait for me.

When we woke up early, we’d make coffee and wait for the other in the backyard.

It was our little ritual to watch the sunrise together and talk before we had to work. So I went to the backyard, and… and…”

She began to hyperventilate, and Faith quickly went to her side. Barbara stroked Turk’s hair and slowly calmed herself. She looked straight ahead at the wall, her eyes wide as she recalled the shock.

"You can't imagine how horrible it is to see the person you love like that. To see him hurt so badly, to know that he struggled but couldn't even scream because of what the murderer did to him. To know that I was so close, but I couldn't help him because I couldn't hear him."

“So you didn’t hear any noise at all?” Faith asked. “Nothing like a low rumbling?”

Barbara’s brow furrowed. “A rumbling? No. Why? Is that important?”

Faith and Michael shared a look. “We’re not sure yet.

It looks like it might not be.” She pulled a card from her pocket and set it on the coffee table.

“If you think of anything else, please call me. And please don’t be alone.

I know it’s hard to see other people right now, but if you have family or close friends you can be with, please do so. It helps.”

Barbara nodded. “Thank you. I will.” Her face hardened, and there was steel in her eyes when she met Faith’s gaze. “You find them. Whoever did this, you find them, and you make them suffer.”

Faith couldn’t promise to make someone suffer, even if it was a vicious killer, but she decided it was better not to point that out to Barbara. “We’ll find the killer,” she replied.

Barbara nodded again. “I hope you won’t think me rude if I don’t walk you to the door. I think I’ll just rest here for a while.”

“Of course,” Michael said.

The three agents left the house. The brilliant sunshine outside was almost offensive after what they’d heard.

They were silent as they entered their car and began the return journey to their hotel, but all three of them wore the same determined look. They would find justice for their victims and for the loved ones each had left behind.

And while Faith couldn’t promise anything, she hoped very much that the killer would suffer.