As I study the coagulating puddle that reaches from under her back to some five feet away I easily deduce that this is where she was on the floor when she bled out. But originally she wasn’t in this position. Somebody moved her after she was dead and I take photographs to capture the exact position she’s in. Next I lift her arms and check her hands, strong ones, large ones, a gothic silver ring with an amethyst on the right middle finger, a plaited black leather bracelet on her right wrist. Rigor has begun in the small muscles and her temperature is tepid on the way to cool because she has very little body fat and has lost most of her blood.
There are two incisions to her throat. One begins on the left side of her neck below her ear, terminating in approximately three inches, slicing through her jaw, and the bone shows white against red tissue that is drying. I notice a peculiar wide, shallow cut with abraded edges, the skin peeled in places like a wood shaving, and it’s not something I’ve seen before. It parallels the deep incision from its beginning to where it terminates like a ragged path running along a road. I have no idea what made it. The weapon is an unusual shape or perhaps the tip of the blade is bent.
The second wound ended her life swiftly, an incision with the same strange peeled shallow cut running parallel to it, both beginning at the right side of her throat. This second fatal wound is deepest where a sharp sturdy blade first went in below the right jaw, then moved horizontally across the throat in a neat, forceful slice, severing her carotid artery, her strap muscles, and airway, cutting all the way through to her spine. I stand up.
I take in every inch of the open kitchen, getting a perspective of the two granite countertops across from each other, the one closest to the front door and the other on either side of the stovetop and the refrigerator. I note a white bakery box and inside it are two cupcakes that look fresh and smell like rich mocha and chocolate, from a food shop on Main Street in downtown Concord, based on the logo. Maybe Lombardi bought them on his way to the commuter rail station when he was picking up his visitor and I think of the three or four cupcake wrappers on one plate and the one used napkin on the sunporch. I wonder if one person ate that many cupcakes. If so, it was a lot of sugar.
Near the bakery box is a stainless-steel coffeemaker, the type that has a tank instead of a carafe. I open the lid, feeling the heat of coffee that smells strongly bitter. The gold filter is full of grounds and I check the gauge in back. There are four cups remaining, and I think of the two mugs on the table inside a space where people could have a private conversation that couldn’t be spied on or overheard.
I look across the room and don’t see coffee cups on the other desks, and there are none in the sink. I open the dishwasher and there’s nothing inside but a spoon. I try drawers and discover several are faux. Others are empty. In one are folded dishcloths that look new and unused, and in another are four place settings of silverware. I look for sharp knives but don’t find any. I pull out the trash compactor and there’s not even a bag inside.
In glass door cabinets above the dishwasher are stacks of dishes, simple white china, four place settings each, and more mugs like the ones on the sunporch. Moving to one side of the refrigerator, staying clear of blood near the handle and on the floor, I open the door. I find blood on the inner edge of it that’s also smeared on the gasket.
Coffee cream, soymilk, bottles of water, both sparkling and flat, and a take-out foam container, and I push open the lid. Inside is a leftover gyro wrapped in deli paper. It doesn’t look fresh, possibly from many days ago. Condiments and low-fat salad dressings are in the door, and inside the freezer I find ice cubes that look old and a container of grocery-store chili that’s dated October 10.
She came into the kitchen for a reason, possibly for coffee or a bottle of water, and I retrieve the UV light from my scene case. I find the switch for the kitchen lights and turn them off, then I squat by the body. I rest my weight on the back of my heels, looking again at the blood and the spread open wounds of her neck, and I turn on the UV light and the lens glows purple as I direct the black light at her head and move down, checking for trace evidence and instantly the same neon colors fluoresce. Bloodred, emerald green, and bluish purple.
The fleece she has on shimmers and then turns kelly green again when I switch off the UV light. A dusting of the same residue I saw this morning and it’s only on the fleece, and my misgivings grow about who this person is and how it’s possible she’s dressed this way. I collect samples with adhesive stubs. Then I take off my gloves. I reach Lucy on my cell phone and hear a TV in the background, Spanish, what sounds like the Dish Latino Network.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“Checking out the barn. There are monitors in here and cameras, nanny-cams for the horses.” She’s suggesting that the killer would have been picked up by security cameras if anybody was watching.
“Are you alone?”
“The housekeeper’s in here sitting by herself, watching TV. Gracias por su ayuda. Hasta luego,” Lucy calls out. “And I’m on my way to get the server before the Feds show up. Benton just drove by so they’re probably not far behind.”
“I need you to drop off evidence to Ernie and tell him I want it looked at right away.”
“Something good?” Lucy asks and she’s outside the barn. I can hear her breathing as she jogs.
“There’s nothing good about any of this” is what I say as I hear the familiar throaty rumble of a powerful sports car in the parking area.
The engine stops and silence returns and I imagine Benton getting out of his Porsche. He’ll walk around for a while before he comes inside.
Marino’s footsteps are heavy and widely spaced, never fast but with purpose like a steady train coming. Then he’s on the other side of the counter holding a fingerprint dusting kit.
“He came up behind her and inflicted this injury first.” I point to the incision on the left side of her neck and jaw.
“I’ve not dusted in here or the back offices,” he says. “I didn’t want to do that before you were done.”
He knows the routine. We’ve been doing this for more than twenty years.
“So far I’m not seeing any patent prints. No bloody ones and no footprints,” I let him know.
“He had to have stepped in blood. Benton just got here and is looking around outside.”
“I’m not seeing any indication the killer stepped in blood. The two cuts to her throat were in rapid succession and then he may have gotten out of the way and let her hemorrhage to death. Within minutes she would have been unconscious and gone into shock.” I continue glancing at the windows on the other side of the room as if I can see through the drawn shades and I think of what Lucy predicted.
Ed Granby will show up and if he does we’ll know his special interest. To protect people with money, she said while we were driving here.
“In scenes this bloody usually they step in it.” Marino has his flashlight out, shining it obliquely over the floor, and thick blood glows deep red. “It’s hard not to.”
“There’s no sign he did and no sign anything was cleaned up. There’s a partial tread pattern here.” I point it out. “But that’s from her stepping in her own blood, possibly after she was cut the first time.”
“Haley Swanson’s SUV is still parked in the projects where his uncle lives,” Marino says. “All four of his tires are flat. Maybe the same assholes doing car breaks and vandalism around there. His expensive Audi SUV is parked there often, the uncle told Machado, about a sixty-thousand-dollar SUV if Swanson got it new. I have a feeling he was doing more than visiting his uncle several times a week. Maybe mixed up with shitbags dealing drugs over there, some of the really bad designer drugs killing people around here.”