Chapter38
DECKER WAS INTHEMORGUElooking at yet another body.
She looked like she was asleep, not dead.
“Bodies really piling up,” said the ME as he laid the sheet back down on top of Susan Richards.
“Cause of death?”
“My best guess right now, drug overdose. Women usually go the overdose route when committing suicide. Guys like to blow their heads off with guns.”
Richards had been found in an abandoned building by a construction worker working nearby who had noticed an odd smell.
“Time of death?” asked Decker.
“Rigor has resolved so she’s been dead a while. I’ll have a better time later.”
“Could the time of her death be close to when she disappeared?”
The man looked over the body and rubbed his chin. “Yes, actually, it could.”
Decker had already been told that the suitcase she had been seen putting in her car had not been found with the body.
“Any pill bottles found with her? Or a suicide note?”
The ME shook his head. “No, on both counts.”
The door opened and Blake Natty walked in, looking shriveled and depressed. He eyed the body of Susan Richards with little interest. “So she killed herself?” he said.
“Unknown as yet,” said Decker.
Natty said, “Well, if she did kill herself, we know why: She murdered Hawkins.”
“If she did kill him, she got the wrong guy,” said Decker.
Natty waved this off. “That’s your theory.”
“It’s more than a theory now,” replied Decker. He explained about the light switch plate at the Richardses’ old house. “And they placed a smudge of Katz’s blood on the plate to draw our attention to it and thus the print.”
“Where do you think the print and the switch plate came from?”
“The easiest source would have been Hawkins’s home. I think they didn’t put Katz’s blood on the print because that would have messed up the ridge lines.”
“And the DNA under the girl’s nails?” asked Natty.
“They picked her because she was physically smaller and weaker than the others. And they needed a plausible scenario to get the DNA under her nails. And a struggle during a strangulation plausibly fit that bill.”
“But Decker,” said the ME, “I pulled out those reports and went over them after I knew you were looking into the case again. If someone else had scratched Hawkins and then transferred what was under that person’s nails to under Abigail Richards’s nails, you would expect to find the other person’s DNA as well.”
“If the other person were a family member, would that make a difference?” asked Decker, who already knew the answer.
“Well, of course it would. All humans’ DNA is ninety-nine point nine percent the same. But that one-tenth is dramatically different for all, except if you’re a monozygotic or identical twin. But the testing that was done on Abigail’s nails would not have picked up on a third party’s DNA if the person were a family member of Hawkins. They would have had to do additional steps. Actually, they would have had to do extra steps to check for any third-party corruption, family or not.”
Natty eyed Decker. “What family member are you talking about?”
“There really can only be one: his daughter, Mitzi.”
“Why would she have set up her old man?” asked Natty.