Silent, Fletch’s eyes screamWhat the fuck, so I thrust the phone forward again.
“Archer?” Minka presses.
“Uh…” Wary, Fletch takes the phone and sets the call on speaker. “Hey, Delicious, it’s actually me.”
“Oh.” She sounds so sad. And withdrawn. Hapless, and exhausted. “Why have you got Detective Malone’s phone?”
“Because he’s a pussy. I heard we got two killers? What’s happening with that?”
“Is Archer there with you right now?”
Fletch swings his gaze around to me.
I shake my head.No.
“Yes.”
“Is he listening in to this call?”
Scowling, I remain silent.No.
“Also yes.”
I flex my fist and draw his attention down to the jab he’s about to receive.
“Archer Malone, you’ve reached a new level of petty,” Minka spits out. “It’s embarrassing and unnecessary. Detective Fletcher, since you’re grown enough to actually do your job—which is a fun twist I never saw coming—it’s my professional opinion that we have two killers. One of them used a blade, though the trajectory of each strike, and the puncture wounds, makes me think that blade was in fact an axe.”
Fletch’s lips curl back, as though the use of such a tool offends him. “Ouch.”
“A small one,” she clarifies. “But there are other puncture wounds, too. My best guess is a length of steel. Perhaps a tire iron.”
“Jesus,” he hisses. “Brutal.”
“Preliminaries lead me to think the axe tip is about two and a half inches long. I don’t know yet how heavy it was, or how much force the wielder struck out with, but McGregor has several broken bones and lacerated organs, which could imply the perpetrator wasn’t being gentle. Additionally, there’s a second set of puncture wounds, narrower, deeper, which makes me think tire iron or something similar. In total, I’ve counted twenty-seven stab wounds, not including what they needed to remove each limb.”
“Damn, Dimples. You’re not even flinching when you say these things.”
Silence hangs for a beat. Tension. And in my mind, my thoughts screamBecause she’s a killer too!
She didn’t kill Paul, but she’s killed others. More than a couple of them.
Finally, she clears her throat. “I suspect the axe was used to remove each limb. The strikes were messy. The perp was going at him the way a frustrated man might chop wood in the dead of winter. Lots of different entry points. Missed throws. The bedframe shows dozens of chips, where the timber caught stray hits. The perp—or, as I suspect, perps—will have been dripping with blood when they were done.”
“Why two of ‘em?” Fletch asks the question I almost lost my willpower and voiced. “Why not just one guy with two weapons?”
“The angles, mostly.” Her chair squeaks in her office, and her computer hums, because it’s old and needs to be replaced. “The axe was coming down on Paul’s left. The secondary weapon was coming down on the right.”
She does something on her end of the call, and I see her in my mind, shrugging and sitting back in her squeaky chair. “I can’t prove it just yet, but I think I’m going to be correct—there’s two of them. Everything is present and accounted for… two arms, two legs, a head, ten toes, and ten fingers. Your perpetrators didn’t take anything for a trophy. But they violated him first.”
My brow shoots up, then my eyes go to a smirking Fletch.
He knows I’m dying to speak, to question her. But he also knows I won’t give in.
Not yet.
“Alright,” he finally chuckles. “I’ll bite. How did he, orthey, violate Paul? And was it pre- or post- bye-bye?”
“Bye-byeis not an accurate, nor recognized, stage of death, Detective Fletcher. And I don’t know yet if the mutilation was done before or after death, but I expect to have those answers as the day wears on.”