As Kara McIntyre had reported, the lawyer had been murdered, his throat sliced, bleeding out in the space between his coffee table and a couch. A cigarette had smoldered in the futon, though the place hadn’t burned down, the TV was still on low, a near-empty bottle of scotch on the table with an ashtray full of butts, a paper plate with the remains of a slice of pizza, just the nearly burned crust.
But there were things missing.
Important things.
Blood spatter had stained the coffee table, red beads visible on a pair of glasses, the ashtray, glass and bottle, the greasy paper plate, even a pen. But there were clear spots where the marred table showed no signs of blood, a square patch about the size of a laptop computer, a smaller one that could have been where Margrove’s cell phone had rested, and then a larger area, not as defined. Notes? A legal pad with some pages having been torn out. Maybe.
He hadn’t been robbed.
His wallet was still in his jacket pocket in the parka hanging on a hook near the front door, his wedding ring and other one, with what appeared to be diamonds, still on his fingers. And a small safe in the bedroom hadn’t been disturbed. It had been closed, but unlocked, a loaded pistol and a bag of marijuana left, though there had been no personal documents.
“You think this is Jonas McIntyre’s work?”
He hesitated. Rubbed a hand around the back of his neck. “Not sure. But it seems a little too pat. Yeah, someone close to McIntyre was killed, the weapon of choice being a blade of some kind, like before, but it seems almost like a setup. First of all, why would Jonas McIntyre kill his lawyer? After all, the guy was the one person who stood by him, worked for a couple of decades trying to get Jonas out, so why turn on him?”
“Anger issues?”
“I don’t know.” Thomas wasn’t buying it. “The word is that Jonas McIntyre is a new man, found God and all that.”
“Maybe an act.”
“Maybe.” But it didn’t wash, not with Thomas, and most likely not with Johnson either. She was just playing devil’s advocate.
“And how did McIntyre get up here? Did he have an accomplice? A driver?”
“Where is he?”
“Good question.”
“No sign of forced entry,” she reminded him. “Either he knew the attacker or the guy got the jump on him.”
“If he knew him, he didn’t offer him a drink. Only one glass. And he was attacked from behind.”
The front door that opened directly into the living area and the back door off the kitchen were both unlocked. The windows were closed, but the bathroom window hadn’t been latched and seemed broken. There were few screens, and the two that existed were frayed. Not exactly tight security. The prevailing theory was that the killer had entered through the kitchen door, possibly while Margrove was dozing or in the bathroom, or somehow distracted, then waited until the opportunity to come up behind him and kill him quickly as there hadn’t been an indication of a struggle. Margrove hadn’t had time to defend himself. Not only was the gun in his safe, but there had been a baseball bat in the living room, practically at arm’s reach. So the killer had acted quickly. Time of death, the ME thought, was the early morning hours.
He chewed at his lower lip, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the single-wide mobile home with its rickety porch and rotting railing. What had Margrove been doing up here? Had he known his killer. Thomas’s mind kept returning to Jonas McIntyre, but why would he kill the lawyer who had worked so hard to set him free? He would know he would become Suspect Number One.
The move was a stupid one.
One thing Jonas McIntyre was not?
Stupid.
Before he’d murdered his family, he’d been applying to get into Stanford, his father’s alma mater. His SATs, essay and high school GPA all pointed to a brilliant teenager, but that was before his trouble with the law, someone who had turned out to be a cold-blooded killer.
Thomas believed that Jonas McIntyre, all of eighteen that Christmas long ago, had been hopped up on teenage adrenaline and jealousy. What had turned into an argument had escalated to a savage massacre, and no one had been able to stop him. Bloodlust. Testosterone and adrenaline fueling his fury. Not that the case had been totally without question.
Why kill his parents?
Because they had punished him for his earlier fight? Grounded him?
Because they were witnesses to the crime?
That part had never set quite right with Thomas.
And what happened to Marlie? Why was there never a trace of her? Why had her clothes been so neatly folded, her bed unmade?