Sean didn’t try to conceal his excitement. “I want to have another look at that bathroom. Something just occurred to me.”
“Like what?”
“I know that Len Rivest was murdered.”
CHAPTER
27
WHEN THEY GOT BACK to Len Rivest’s house, Sean led the way to the bathroom and stopped at the doorway.
He said, “I came in here last night around eleven or eleven-fifteen to use the toilet. This is the only bathroom in the place.”
“Okay,” Hayes said expectantly. “And?”
“And was anything removed from the bathroom by any of your men or the FBI?”
“No. Only the body’s been removed. Why?”
“Well, look around, what’s missing?”
Hayes studied the interior of the small place. “I give up. What?”
“There are no towels, no washcloths.” He pointed at the floor. “And no bath mat. Now all those things were in this room when I was here last night. And there’s something else.” He walked over to the commode and looked behind it. “There was a long, wooden-handled plunger here too. Only it’s not here now.”
Hayes said, “So you’re saying…?”
Sean knelt on the floor and ran his hand along the tile and then along the wall above the tub. “Damp, but not soaked.” He stood. “I’m saying you have to take the towels if you used them to wipe up the water that would have splashed on the floor and walls while you were struggling with Rivest.”
“And the plunger?”
Sean pantomimed gripping something in his hand and standing next to the tub. “You don’t want to hold Rivest under with your hands. He can reach you that way and maybe get some of your DNA or clothing fiber under his fingernails. But if you place a long-handled plunger on his chest, you can hold him down without him being able to get to you.”
“Damn!”
“But everything’s going to get soaked that way. So you have to take the towels, mat, plunger with you, otherwise the police will see them, deduce a struggle and we go from accidental drowning to murder. Rivest may have come up here to take a bath and just settled in when the killer struck. If he hadn’t been drunk he might still be alive.”
“So if he was still drunk and the killer used the plunger, we can’t rule out that it was a woman who did it.”
Sean looked at him shrewdly. “That’s right. Call the ME and tell him to check for a circular ring on Rivest’s chest or stomach. A plunger might have made an abrasion that can still be seen under the scope. And also tell him to check for fragments of wood from the plunger handle under his fingernails.”
Hayes whipped out his cell phone and made the call while Sean continued to poke around.
After the sheriff finished his call he smiled at Sean. “I left a message. I gotta say, my decision to partner up with you is really starting to look smart.”
“Don’t get too excited. Knowing that a man was murdered
and finding out who killed him is, to borrow a line from Mark Twain, the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. Now we need to really canvass the place and find out if anyone saw someone leaving Rivest’s last night. There’s security all over the place. Someone had to see something. Especially if my theory is correct and the person was leaving with a bunch of wet towels and a plunger.”
“Will do. Anything else?”
Sean held an internal debate and said, “I was down at the banks of the York this morning, around six-thirty or so. I wanted to have a look at the boathouse and take a recon of the area. Somebody took a couple shots at me with a high-powered rifle. That’s what I was coming to tell Len.”
Hayes gaped at him. “Where’d the shots come from?”
“Maybe from across the river.”
“Camp Peary?” Sean nodded. “And Monk Turing was found dead on Camp Peary property,” Hayes said slowly.