Dead Certain (12 page)

“Well, I was just thinking . . . not to put you on the spot or anything . . .”

“What?” She leaned on the counter and smiled.

“Well, maybe . . . since it might be a little late by the time I get here . . . maybe I could take you out for a bite after we conclude our business.” He lowered his eyes, thinking it made him look shy, unassuming.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.” And she actually blushed!

“But I’d like to. Unless, of course, there’s someone . . .”

“No, no.” The blush deepened.

“Then that’s what we’ll do. I’ll give you a call either way, let you know what I decide about the pendant, and then we’ll go . . . well, why don’t you decide where we’ll go? Someplace nice.”

“All right. I’ll do it.” Marian had looked very pleased with herself.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow. And if I decide against the pendant . . .”

“Yes?”

“Maybe you can show me something else that I might like.”

Vince laughed out loud in the dark room. There was just nothing in the world like a single, middle-aged woman. He could wrap any one of them around his little finger, just like that.

He figured she’d be waiting all day for his call, so he’d put it off until almost five. Using a phone card, he’d called the shop from his mobile phone and told Marian he’d be there by eight-thirty. She said she’d probably close at the regular time and come back later to meet him.

And she had. It had been all just as he’d pictured it. She was wearing a simple dress, a knit in a subtle shade of green. She’d looked nice, happily expectant. He’d wished he’d had time to play it out a little more with her, maybe have a few dates, just to see how far he could go with her, but he didn’t want to risk having anything go wrong. For one thing, she’d have time to start talking about him to her friends and family. A woman like that would be talking if she thought she had a live one, and that just wouldn’t do. This way, he was in, he was out, the deed would be done, and no one could connect him to her.

He patted himself on the back for passing on the gun. He’d really felt little satisfaction plugging the queer. It had been over just like that. Of course, having had experience with a gun in the past, he’d expected that. This last time was different, though. There’d been no burning anger, no blind rage, no real emotion to speak of as he pulled the trigger. It had just been
bam!
and done. Where was the fun in that? Not much fun at all.

At least Marian had been a bit more lively. His arms were stretched over his head, and he flexed his hands. The Band-Aid he’d wrapped around his right thumb pulled a little, and he loosened it. He’d somehow cut himself, wasn’t sure how. Maybe they’d ID his blood type as being different from Marian’s, maybe they wouldn’t. Not that it mattered. They’d never be able to connect him, Vinnie Daniels—or Vince Giordano, either—with this. No one had seen him going in or coming out, just like he planned. He’d been smart, all right. It had all gone so smoothly. Just right. Right down to bringing a towel and a clean change of clothes with him, and a brown paper bag to carry away the dirty ones. Somehow, he’d just known he was going to make a mess.

Oh, yeah, this had been much better than offing someone with one shot to the head.

Of course, stabbing Marian had been so much harder than shooting Derek. He rubbed his sore right shoulder. He’d had no idea of how much strength—the amount of
pressure
—it took to stab through to someone’s heart. You really had to push down hard on that knife. One handed, no less, since the left hand was covering her mouth when she started to scream. Somehow after he’d stabbed her, she’d broken away from him, running for the back door. Like she really would have had a chance to get away from him.

He’d caught up with her in the office, thought about looping his belt around her neck to strangle her from behind, then thought,
What the hell, let’s go for broke here,
and he’d slit her throat. One nice slick slice and it was over. Sprayed blood like a son of a bitch, though. He was glad he’d thought to bring a change of clothing. She bled out so fast, it had almost been a disappointment to him to have it over so quickly. He had toyed with the idea of cutting off her head, but with his hands so sticky and the handle of the knife so slippery, it was just too much work. Why should he exert himself, when she was already dead, maybe from the chest wound? Why strain himself?

He wondered idly if perhaps he shouldn’t think of a different, even more exciting means of dispatch for Ms. Crosby. He smiled, contemplating the possibilities, and drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

“Chief, a Detective Crosby has been calling you. Called twice in the past twenty minutes.”

Officer Dana Burke had slipped into the hallway to make the call to Mercer, who was still at the crime scene. Her boss hadn’t said whether Amanda Crosby was to be treated like a witness or a suspect, but either way, Burke didn’t think Amanda should be privy to the chief’s calls. Even if the caller said he was Amanda’s brother.

“What did he say?”

“He said if he didn’t hear from you within the next ten, he’d have the county D.A. up your ass before noon.”

“Did he leave a number?” Sean stole a look at his watch. He had one minute.

“Yeah, it’s right here.” She read it off to him. “She called him. I let her. You didn’t say that she couldn’t make any calls, so when she asked, I said okay. I hope that was all right.”

“It was fine, Dana. Keep her company for a while longer. I’ll be here for another hour or two.”

“Well, I’ll try. I mean, I’ll keep her here as long as I can, but unless she’s a suspect, if she wants to leave . . .”

“She’s not a suspect. If she leaves, you leave with her. Just don’t let her out of your sight.”

“Chief?” Dana stopped him before he could disconnect. “She’s been swabbed and all. Can I take her home and let her shower and all? I’ll bring the clothes back to the station, but it doesn’t seem right to make her sit there, covered in her friend’s blood.”

Sean cursed softly. “Jesus. I’d forgotten . . . yes, of course. Take her home. Take someone else with you to watch the house while you and she are inside. Help her clean up if she needs it. See if she wants anything to eat. I’ll meet you at the station in about an hour.”

Shaking his head and embarrassed at his own thoughtlessness, he hung up, then dialed the number she’d given him.

“Crosby.”

“Mercer here. I understand you wanted to—”

“Mercer, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing with my sister, but I want it stopped,” Evan Crosby exploded. “You had damn well better have a good reason to be holding her.”

“I’m trying to keep her alive.”

“What?”

“I said, I’m trying to keep her alive,” Sean repeated calmly. “I’m sure she’s told you about what happened to Marian O’Connor, so you’ve got to be feeling at least as nervous as I am when you start thinking about the fact that both her business partner and her close friend have been murdered within the past two weeks. Right now Amanda’s in the company of two officers, which is where she will remain until we figure out what the hell is going on and if there’s any danger to her.”

He paused. “Good enough reason, Crosby, or will the D.A. still be looking for a way up my ass by . . . what was it, noon?”

“I’ll be there in an hour or so. I’m going to want to hear the whole thing.” Evan didn’t bother to say good-bye.

“Nice talking to you, too, Detective.”

Sean closed his mobile phone and slid it back into his pocket, then stepped around the tape that ran from Marian’s shop to Amanda’s.

“You almost done in there?” he asked one of the crime scene techs.

“Another few minutes, I guess. We’re just finishing up a sketch of the scene, then we should be able to wrap it up.” The tech stood in the doorway and looked back into the shop. “Think this was a robbery gone bad?”

Sean shook his head. “I’ll be surprised if anything is missing. Oh, maybe he took a little something to remember her by, but most B and E men are pretty careful to make sure there’s no one home before they make their hit. They want to grab and run, quick and clean. No confrontations, no witnesses. Just in and out. Whoever did this knew exactly what he was about. There’s nothing accidental about this crime scene. I’d say our boy came here expressly to kill his victim.”

“He? I thought you already took her”—the tech nodded in the direction of Amanda’s shop—“into custody.”

“Whoever killed Marian O’Connor was tall enough to stand behind her and slash her throat in one clean motion, left to right. Jugular to carotid. The victim was considerably taller than Amanda Crosby. It wouldn’t have been possible.” Sean shook his head, thinking that the killer was also strong enough to have plunged a fairly large knife into the victim’s sternum hard enough that a piece had broken off and remained in the wound, but since the tech had twice come close to losing his breakfast, Sean thought it best not to remind him of the details. “So no, Amanda Crosby is not a suspect. But she is a witness, and right now we’re just trying to keep her out of harm’s way until I can question her a little more thoroughly.”

“Gotcha.” The tech nodded, took a deep breath, and disappeared back inside, stepping aside to let the medical examiner pass.

“You done?” Sean asked as the doctor came through the door.

“Jesus, what a mess.” Bill Westcott stripped off his plastic gloves and tossed them into the bag he held under his arm. “I can’t remember ever seeing a worse crime scene.” He shook his head, his expression grim as he bent over to remove the covers from his shoes and toss them into the bag with the gloves. “Whoever did this was one mean SOB.”

“Can you estimate how long she’s been dead, or do you need to complete the autopsy to establish that?”

“I’ll know better after I’ve been able to take a closer look, but I’d say she’s been dead for roughly fourteen, fifteen hours.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I got fixed lividity, I got full body rigor. Corneas are cloudy. I’d say time of death is going to come in between nine and midnight last night.” He nodded as he unwrapped a stick of gum and folded it into his mouth. “If that changes, I’ll let you know, but it won’t change by much.”

“Thanks.”

“Man, between the stab wound to the chest and the wound to the throat, the poor woman bled to death.” The young doctor shook his head as he walked away. “Hell of a way for anyone to die.
Hell
of a way . . .”

When Sean entered his office, the first thing he noticed was that Amanda Crosby was seated on a hard chair in the far corner of the room—alone. Her hair was wet and brushed straight back from her face, which looked colorless and thin. He’d started to call Officer Burke to explain why the witness had been left alone in the room when the officer walked in behind him.

“She wanted water,” the young woman explained before he could ask. “It’s the first she’s asked for anything.”

“I didn’t want her left alone.”

“I only went across the hall,” she replied. She twisted the top off the water bottle and handed it to Amanda.

“Thank you.” Amanda nodded.

“You’re welcome.” Dana turned to her boss. “You’ll take it from here?”

“Yes. Thanks.”

“Her statement’s on your desk. I’ve already sent her clothes to the lab.”

Sean nodded his thanks, then closed the door after the departing officer and sat on the edge of his desk, fingering the file holding Amanda’s written statement. Before he could speak, Amanda looked up at him with sad, weary eyes and said, “I did not kill Marian.”

“I know that.”

“You do?”

“For one thing, you’re not tall enough to have—” He hesitated. “To have done what was done to her.”

She appeared to waver between asking and not asking.

“Someone slit her throat from behind,” he said as gently as he could. Better she hear it from him, here and now, than later, on the evening news.

“She had blood . . .” Amanda’s hands patted her chest.

“Yes. He did that, too.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Why would anyone . . . ? She was such a sweet and gentle woman. Why would . . . ?” She looked bewildered, lost.

“We’re going to do our best to find that out.”

“Why are you holding me if you know I didn’t kill her?”

“You’re not being held. You can leave whenever you want. I’d rather you didn’t, for two reasons.”

“They are . . . ?”

“One, because I might still have some questions I need you to answer about what happened. What you saw. What you heard.”

“I’ve already told Dana—Officer Burke—what I know, but if you have other questions, okay.”

“Chief, Detective Crosby is here and he’s asking for you.” Joyce barely got the words out through the intercom before Evan Crosby opened the office door after little more than a cursory knock.

“So I see.” Sean waved Evan in as if he hadn’t already entered the room.

Evan pulled a chair next to his sister’s and sat on the edge, taking her hands in his. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

“I’m okay,” she said, though tears were forming in her eyes all over again.

Her brother continued to hold her hands even as he looked at Sean. “Want to fill me in, Mercer?”

Sean quickly did so.

Evan blew out a breath. “Jesus. First Derek, now Marian. Any idea of what is going on around here?”

“We were just about to get into that.”

“Chief Mercer was just telling me why I’m not a suspect,” Amanda said.

“Well, isn’t that nice of him.” Evan turned to Sean. “I think I’d like to hear that myself.”

“Marian O’Connor’s throat was slit. From behind. By someone taller and stronger than she was. Now, I don’t know how strong she was physically, but I know she was close to five foot ten. Amanda, you’re what, five foot five?”

Amanda nodded.

“But you still think she had something to do with Derek’s death?” Evan pressed.

“I think she had something to do with it, but not in the way you mean.” The two lawmen stared at each other for a long moment. “I’m thinking there’s a connection between Derek England’s murder and Marian O’Connor’s.”

Evan nodded slowly. “You think the same person committed both.”

“Yes, I do. But I don’t think that person is your sister.”

“Why would someone want to kill Derek and Marian? What do they have in common?” Amanda stood, her arms wrapped around her middle. “Other than the fact that they’re both shop owners dealing in antiques, what do they have in common?”

“You,” Sean told her. “They both had you in common.”

“But that’s silly. That makes no sense to me.” She shook her head. “I mean, why?”

“If I knew that, I’d probably be able to figure out who, but right now, I don’t have a clue,” he admitted. “Now, I have to think that the phone calls, the flowers, were probably from the same person who—”

“What?” Evan grabbed Amanda’s arm. “You didn’t tell me that you were getting calls again.”

“They just started right before Derek’s death, and it had happened only a few times. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. I mean, it could have been legitimate wrong numbers. As for the flowers, I found the first one the day of Derek’s memorial service. I thought it might have been left there by a friend, or a neighbor,” she explained.

“Don’t sit there and tell me that it didn’t occur to you that you’d been down that road before, Manda.” Evan’s gaze was stony.

“Well, it did, but I didn’t want my imagination to run away with me. I didn’t want to make it something other than what it was. It took me a long time to get myself together after Archer Lowell, Evan. I did not want to crumble the first time someone hung up my phone when I answered.”

Evan turned to Sean. “She told you about this?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you do about it?”

“I tracked the rose to a grocery store out on Route Thirteen, but there’s no way to trace the buyer. The store manager told me they sell dozens every week.”

“Store surveillance tapes?”

“Destroyed after ten days. But even so, we don’t know who we’re looking for.”

“Anyone walking out of the store with a rose would be a good place to start.”

“Most of the flowers leave the store in a bag. The cameras don’t come equipped with an X-ray function.”

“So that’s it?”

“Pretty much.”

“What are you doing to catch him? He’s been at her house—”

“But he’s never gone in,” Amanda pointed out.

“You don’t know that when you’re gone, he hasn’t been sneaking in and out,” Evan pointed out. “Did you ever get your security system straightened out?”

Amanda looked sheepish. “The electrician said the entire house would have to be rewired and the service upgraded before the alarm system could be activated again. It kept blowing fuses and going off at all odd hours, so I just left it inactive.”

“Amanda . . .” Evan pulled a hand through his hair.

“I thought it would be okay, Evan. The only person who ever bothered me is in prison. I didn’t expect to have to worry about anyone else.”

“Famous last words,” her brother muttered.

“We’ve been watching her house,” Sean said matter-of-factly. “No one’s been going in and out except Amanda.”

“You’ve been watching my house?” she asked.

He nodded. “Twenty-four/seven.”

“You were outside last night. Across the street.”

“All night,” he admitted.

“So you know that I didn’t leave my house all night.”

“That’s right.”

“Does this mean that she’s no longer a suspect in Derek’s murder?” Evan asked.

“The county forensic team found a black hair on the floor of Derek England’s car. Dyed black. Amanda’s hair is dark, but it’s not dyed black. Nor is Clark Lehmann’s. And according to him, the only thing the backseat of that car was used for was transporting bags and such from the store. No one ever sat back there.”

“Except for Derek’s killer,” Evan said.

“That’s how I see it.”

Evan nodded. “I’m assuming that you’re sending that hair out for a DNA analysis, and that you’re going to run the results through CODIS.”

“Well, hey, if that’s what you county detectives do, then I guess we should do that, too, huh?” Sean scowled and folded his arms over his chest. “Maybe you could walk me through the process so that I know how to do it.”

“Will you two please stop?” Amanda said wearily.

“Just because we’re a small town with a small force doesn’t mean that we don’t understand and utilize the national databases.”

“Sorry.” Evan backed down. “That was the big brother thinking out loud. Though you might be surprised at how many police departments still balk at anything outside their own little realm. I’m sorry if it sounded as if I was giving you instructions. I didn’t mean it that way.”