“Any reason to believe any of them might have been involved?” asked Jamison.
Lassiter answered. “Alice Martin is an elderly woman who’slived her whole life in Baronville. I actually know her because she was my Sunday school teacher. The second home is owned by an old man in a wheelchair named Fred Ross. The last house is the closest to the crime scene, but the man who lives there, Dan Bond, is blind. I spoke to Bond, and my partner talked to Mrs. Martin. I think we can safely rule out each of them as possible suspects.”
Decker turned around to look at her again. “Why is that?”
Lassiter blinked. “Don’t you think it’s obvious?”
Decker glanced at Green. “There are some things about a murder investigation that are obvious. Ruling out someone as a suspect after one contact or an assumption is not one of them.”
Decker could see Lassiter’s face flush and her features turn ugly, buthe plowed ahead.
He added, “So, Dan Bond and Alice Martin have been interviewed. Why haven’t you talked to Fred Ross yet?”
Green said, “He wasn’t home at the time. We’re going to check with him, though.”
“Any idea how one of your uniforms got on the dead guy?” asked Decker.
“None. All uniforms are accounted for, as far as we can tell.”
“So maybethe source of the uniforms?” said Jamison.
“We’re checking all that,” interjected Lassiter, who looked like she was barely containing her anger. “We didn’t just fall off a truck, you know.”
Decker ignored this and pointed to a spot on the shoulder of the man found in the basement. “What’s that?”
The ME said, “I noted that in my report. Maybe something was placed thereand then removed.”
“Any ideas?”
“Could be any number of things. Pain patch for one. Nicotine patch for another.”
“Was he a smoker?” asked Jamison.
“His lungs showed some damage from smoking, yes. I’m estimating that he wasn’t yet forty, so if he had stopped smoking his lungs most likely would have been able to regenerate.”
“Guess it doesn’t matternow,” said Green.
The ME said, “The tox screens should show what was in it, if it was a medication patch. If the drugs are still in the body, that is. If the patch was taken off too long ago, the meds might have worked through his system.”
Decker eyed the man closely and said, “So, the big question: Have you got a time-of-death determination yet?”
The ME said, “WhenI got to the house limbs were stiff on both, so they were in rigor. I’d say they’d been dead about twenty hours or so, or even far longer, since they might have actually been comingoutof rigor at that point. I’ll know better later.”
“Did you take a core temp?”
The ME said in an annoyed tone, “Something went wrong with my equipment. It was registering wacky numbers.”
“Meaning really, really cold?”
The man looked surprised. “Yes, how did you know that?”
“So even without a core temp, twenty hours or even far longer is your final verdict? You sure about that?”
The ME looked indignant that Decker seemed to be challenging his conclusion. He said stiffly, “Yes, I am. Well, that they were dead at least twenty hours. Why?”
“And are you sure the bodies weren’t moved after they died?”
The ME shot a look at the corpses and then glanced back at Decker.