"Those are the scene-of-crime and autopsy photographs."
Skinner picked it up, and opened it, hoping that his distaste did not show. The first shot had been taken, he guessed, with the photographer on a chair. It looked down on the body from high above. Neidholm had been wearing a polo shirt when he died; it was yellow in colour apart from the dark stain across his chest. The foot baller was staring up at nothing through dull eyes, and his mouth hung open in the manner of death, a look that no movie could ever mimic. The policeman looked at the face; if it had any expression left it was pure surprise. As he studied it, he realised that he felt nothing at all; no pity, but no antipathy, no anger, either. He could just make out the handle of the knife against the stain. The blade had been thrust at an upwards angle, and had sunk entirely into the victim's chest.
"There must have been a lot of force behind the blow," he murmured, absently.
"The blade was razor-sharp," Brady said. "A woman, any woman, and not just a strong lady like your wife, could have shoved in it as far as that."
Skinner flipped over to the next photograph; it showed the same scene from a different angle, as did the next, and the next, and several after that, so that the change of location and subject took him by surprise. At first he wondered what it was, until he realised that he was looking at a sheet. The photo was an extreme close-up, focused on a hair; it would appear simply fair to the casual observer, but Bob knew exactly what colour it was. There were other shots of Neidholm's bed, some showing more hairs, others from a greater distance away, recording faint stains.
He turned from page to page rapidly, until he came to the first of the autopsy shots. They had been put together in sequence, he knew, for the victim was intact, naked on a slab, with the knife still embedded in him. In life, Skinner mused, he surely had been a massive man, in every respect. Without warning, he closed the folder and put it back on the table. "Autopsy report, please," he snapped.
Brady picked up a slim document and passed it over. Bob took it and read through it, slowly and carefully. When he was finished he laid it beside the photographs.
"Okay," he said dryly, 'so he's really dead. Talk me through it."
"There's not much to tell, Bob," Brady replied. "We took a call from the neighbour, Mr. Polanski, saying that he'd heard screaming from the
Neidholm house and that he'd seen a lady at the back door in a distressed state."
"Distressed?"
"Hysterical, even. There was a patrol car a block away; it was there literally in a minute. One officer went to the front door; the other went round the back and found your wife standing in the kitchen over the body, with a glass of water in her hand. Officer said she turned to him and asked, "What kept you?" He took the glass from her and cuffed her."
"Did she protest her innocence?"
"No, she became violent; she struggled and started to yell."
"What did she yell?"
"To be specific, she yelled, "What are you doing, you asshole?" That's what the officer said."
"Hah," Skinner barked. "Doesn't that sound to you like a protestation of innocence?"
"It sounds to me like abusive language."
"The DA will not challenge my interpretation, Eddie. Will he, Brad?"
The sheriff looked at him cautiously, but eventually shook his head. "I don't think so for a minute, Bob. Carry on, Eddie."
"Yes sir. The patrol officers called for detectives. Fortunately, the first man on the scene, Sergeant Dick Madigan, is a capable and experienced guy. He knew your wife, and the victim, from high school.
He called the sheriff directly and told him what had happened."
"And I told him to take Sarah straight away to the DA's office and hold her there," said Dekker. "She was off the scene long before the first media got there."
"Is Madigan a lieutenant yet?" Skinner asked, with the faintest of smiles.
"No, but he will be soon. Eddie."
Brady nodded. "After that, we put a forensic team in and gave the place a total going over. Here I get embarrassed," he said, 'because I gotta be blunt, Bob. Your wife was all over that house. We printed the knife while it was still in the body. The victim's prints were on it, because it was his, one of a set of kitchen knives. Absolutely the only other traces on the handle were your wife's. Some were mixed in with Neidholm's but we were able to separate enough. She had a full grip of the knife…" he made a motion with his hand '… in exactly the same way as you'd hold it to stab someone like the victim was stabbed."
"Has she given you an explanation for that?"
"She's made no statement yet, other than to declare her innocence. John Vranic reserved her position."
"Quite right. Go on."
"If you insist. Like I said we went over the whole place. We found forensic evidence of her presence in the house in several locations.
There were fingerprints in the living room, the den, the main bathroom and the en-suite bathroom attached to the victim's bedroom. We found hair from her head on a chair in the drawing room, in a brush on
Neidholm's dressing table and on the back of a pillow. We found her pubic hairs in the shower trap and in the victim's bed. We matched these against samples that she provided voluntarily. We also found
…" Brady stopped. "You want more?"
Skinner glared at him. "Go on," he hissed.
"We found stains on the bed-sheet; body fluids. Analysis so far shows two blood types; the victims and your wife's. We don't have full DNA test results yet, but…"
"But I know what they'll show," the Scot conceded, with a grimace.
"Okay, Eddie. You've proved that my wife had sex with Ron Neidholm.
You've proved that she found his body." He paused, and rapped his knuckles on the table. "But where have you proved that she killed him?
Was his blood on her?"
"We found traces on her shoes."
"From the kitchen floor; that means nothing. How about her clothes?
Her shirt, slacks, whatever she was wearing? Were there blood splashes on them?"
"No, but the pathologist said that death was almost instantaneous.
There didn't have to be any."
"Come on, man! We're talking about a massive knife wound that ripped straight up under the sternum and into the heart. Of course there were blood splashes. Have you ever seen a fatal stabbing where there weren't?"
"Our guy says there needn't have been any."
"And our guys, as many as we need to convince a jury, will say there must have been. Forget it. Can you prove that she was in the house for any longer than she says? Her story is that she let herself in with a key Neidholm had given her, went into the kitchen and found him there. Have you got a time of death?"
"He was still fresh when the scene-of-crime doc got there. He'd barely started to cool. But that's not an issue."
"The length of time she was in the house could be. The autopsy report found no signs of intercourse on the body, so you can't argue that she had sex with him then."
"No," Brady admitted. "Those stains were a couple of days old."
"Exactly, so you have no physical evidence of her being there other than at or immediately after the time of death, and you have no physical evidence of her killing him."
"Christ, Bob, we have her prints on the knife."
"You also have his. Plus, you've proved that she was in the house days before the killing. She must have handled the knife then. That's all the prints prove; that she handled it. Evidentially the knife will support the proposition that Neidholm killed himself."
"Why the hell would he do that!" the American protested. "The guy's rich, he's a sporting hero, plus he's just got back together with the love of his life."
"By that token, why the hell would Sarah want to kill him?" Skinner shot back. "Show me a scrap of evidence that says she might."