“Y-yes, I guess that’s right. But do you think she could have done it? When I printed her, she seemed genuinely upset about the judge’s death.”
“I think anyone can do anything until it’s proved conclusively that they didn’t.”
Jacobs eyed him strangely and then shrugged. “While you’re here, there is something else I found.”
She led him over to a computer set up on a countertop. “I examined the blood found on the stairs and on the palm print on the wall of the stairs leading to the upstairs bedroom.”
“You mean the blood that came from the judge when she was attacked downstairs, and then fled upstairs to her bedroom where she was killed?”
“Well, that’s what I thought, at first. But the bloodstains on the stairs and under the palm print weren’t hers. They were Draymont’s.”
Decker glanced over at the two bodies, separated by a few feet in death, and perhaps by miles as far as the investigation was going.
“So the judge was not attacked downstairs?”
“Well, at least she wasn’t bleeding while downstairs.”
“So Draymont was probably leaving the house when he was shot. The judge came downstairs, probably when she heard the two gunshots. She found the body, got his blood on her that way, and then ran back upstairs, leaving his blood trace along the way?”
“That seems to be the case,” said Jacobs.
“But if the shooter was still there, why not kill her downstairs?”
“They might have tried to, but missed.”
“There were no bullet holes found other than the pair in Draymont,” Decker pointed out.
“Of course, that’s right. And she was stabbed, not shot.”
Decker rocked back on his heels. She was stabbed, not shot. Why the hell didn’t you see that discrepancy before, superpower memory or not?
“What caliber killed Draymont?” he asked.
“Nine millimeter. Both slugs were still in him. They’re in good shape for a ballistics match if we can find the gun.”
She showed him the rounds that were in another plastic evidence baggie. “They were fired from a distance of over four feet. No powder burns or other markings on the body.”
“Which makes sense. It would give Draymont no opportunity to wrestle the weapon away. Now, what can you tell me about the knife used to kill the judge?”
She brought up a file on the computer that showed the knife wounds on the dead woman together with a measurement scale.
“I’m estimating about a six-inch blade with a serrated edge.”
“Four defensive wounds on her forearms and two on her hands?”
“That’s correct. Unfortunately, there was no trace under her fingernails. She probably was focused on blocking the knife strikes and never got ahold of her attacker.”
“Right.”
“And, as I reported before, ten stab wounds to her torso, including the fatal one.”
Decker shook his head.
“What is it?”
“Maybe nothing. Thanks.”
He left and walked out into the heat and sunshine.
Gun, knife, impersonal versus frenetic. What the hell was I thinking? Well, you weren’t thinking, were you?
You don’t shoot someone and then chase down and struggle with a witness, and then knife her. She would have been screaming her head off, though with Kline on a CPAP machine and taking a sleep aid, and the Perlmans out of town, there would have been no one around to hear. Still, you would just shoot her, like you had Draymont. Bang, bang, no screams, no struggle. You didn’t have to get close enough to stab her multiple times.
So they had one personal murder and one probable nonpersonal murder occurring around the same time and in the same house.
Despite all the reasons why it could have never gone down that way, Decker was now thinking one thing.
We have not one but two killers. And as implausible as it sounds, I don’t think either one knew about the other.
Chapter 29
A?T AROUND HALF PAST TWELVE a Mercedes sedan pulled into the home’s wraparound driveway and came to a stop. A man in his early seventies with neatly trimmed white hair and wearing a blazer and dark slacks got out from the rear driver’s side. He was around six feet tall and thin. A tall, slender woman in her late fifties with long silvery hair and dressed in a billowy navy blue skirt and long-sleeved white blouse climbed out of the rear passenger side.
The driver clambered out, popped the trunk, and pulled out two rolling suitcases.
The man tipped him and took the suitcases.