Long Shadows

Chapter 28

“Were right, Agent Decker,” said Helen Jacobs.

They were huddled over the body of Julia Cummins at the morgue. Decker’s electric blue tsunami had come and gone, but left him a bit pale and shaken. He hated that reaction as much as he hated anything. It made him feel weak and not up to the task. And he knew others seeing it might think the same.

Screw synesthesia.

“She’d had sex before she died?” he said.

“Yes. I checked for that, as I said when I saw you at the crime scene. But I was really looking for an assault, considering that she was murdered. I went over her entire body. I checked for the usual finger pad bruising on her arms, legs, and neck, suction bites, especially on her breasts, petechiae in the eyes and palate, bruising to the inner lips and behind the ears, all places typically impacted by a sexual assault. I used swabs and a Foley balloon catheter to check her vagina. The physical structure of that part of the anatomy makes detection of an attack difficult, so I also used a colposcope and an ultraviolet light to do my exam. All the results came back pretty much negative for a sexual assault.”

“And since you found no firm evidence of sexual assault, you proceeded no further on that line?”

“That’s right. No assault meant no sex at all, at least in my mind.” Jacobs looked embarrassed. “I should not have made that assumption. But I suppose I was influenced by her violent death. You never see consensual sex end that way. At least I haven’t.”

“She was also found dressed — in her underwear — but still dressed. Perps who commit sexual assaults don’t usually take the time to re-dress their victims unless it’s some sort of ritual killing.”

“I guess that influenced me, too. And none of the clothing was torn or damaged, except by the knife strikes. In a sexual assault the attacker always tears some of the clothing, particularly the underwear, to show his aggression and dominance. But once you texted I dug a little deeper. There were the smallest of signs around her vagina, just a bit of swelling. There was no tissue damage, or bruising, the sort of thing you see with pretty much every sexual assault. And when I went back and looked again, there was also very slight evidence of a vaginal lubricant.”

“So the encounter was planned?”

“Apparently.”

“Did the man use a condom?”

“He must have. There was no evidence of sperm in the vagina. I certainly checked for that.”

“I think the condom was flushed, not that it would have mattered. She lived alone. And I think they both must have showered afterward. And then the judge put on the clothing she was later found wearing. There were damp towels and washcloths in the laundry bin in the bathroom.”

“I guess that would make sense.”

“Can you still get a DNA match?”

“I hope so from other detritus left behind when people have sex, even with a shower. And there should be plenty of it on the sheets, which we have here, and I can also examine the towels and washcloths. Do you have someone to match it to?”

Decker pointed to Draymont’s body, which was lying on the other table. “That guy right there.”

Jacobs’s eyebrows lifted. “Okay, while I admit I missed the consensual sex piece, I never thought she would be sleeping with her bodyguard. But I guess it happens.”

“Do you have Draymont’s personal effects?”

She led him to a locked cabinet and opened it. Inside were a number of labelled plastic evidence bags.

“Clothes, shoes, wallet, other personal items.”

Decker examined each one carefully. He already knew about the suit and watch and shoes. He opened the billfold. Inside were three credit cards, one a personal platinum Amex.

“Thanks.”

“Her son came by to identify her,” Jacobs volunteered.

Decker shot her a glance. “Tyler came? Not his father?”

“He said his father couldn’t bring himself to come.”

“Damn. How did that go?”

“I covered her right up to her neck, so he couldn’t see...”

“Yeah.”

“He cried. But he handled it pretty well, actually. Better than I would have.”

“Life’s a bitch sometimes,” murmured Decker. “What about prints? Any luck?”

“We didn’t find any we couldn’t match. We found lots of Tyler’s prints, but none in his mother’s bedroom. And none of Barry Davidson’s.” She picked up her iPad and scrolled down. “We found several from the neighbor, Doris Kline. Prints from a maid service Cummins used. Some others we determined were tied to service companies, HVAC, plumbing, and other ones like that. Andrews had them checked out and all had alibis.”

“But not Doris Kline, right?” Jacobs looked up. Decker continued, “She lives alone. She found the bodies. She was home that night.”

“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.