“I’ve met Barry Davidson.”
“And you know this club, obviously, since you recognized it in the photo.”
“Yes. I belong to the Harbor Club, too.”
Decker eyed the man’s costly suit and shoes. “Is that your Lexus outside?”
“Yes, it is. What about it?”
“Nothing. Is the Mazda Draymont’s ride?”
“Yes,” answered Jacobs, looking anxiously between the two men.
Decker said, “So, what’s your theory on what happened here last night, Agent Andrews?”
Andrews glanced at White and then took a moment to compose his thoughts. “I think it seems reasonably clear. Since there was no forced entry, either one of the doors was unlocked or the person or persons was let in. The fact that the judge was in her underwear leads me to believe that Draymont was shot first. The judge, on hearing something from her bedroom, put on a robe, came downstairs, and was attacked. She ran back to her room, probably to lock herself in, but wasn’t able to. They killed her here. Then they left the card and put the blindfold on her.”
“If Draymont let the person in he must have known them. Either on his own, or because they knew the judge,” said White.
“But if the murders occurred between midnight and two, that would be pretty late for a visitor,” observed Decker.
“Could Draymont have been in on it, let the person in, and then had a change of heart, or the killer intended on leaving no witnesses behind?” said White.
Andrews said, “That’s certainly possible.”
“Who called the police about the bodies?” asked Decker.
“They got a call from the neighbor next door, Doris Kline. She went out on her rear deck this morning to drink her coffee and read her iPad, and saw the back door of Cummins’s house open. She went over to make sure everything was okay. It was after nine at that point. And the judge was normally on her way to court before then. Kline walked in the rear door, went into the kitchen and then through to the study, where she saw Draymont’s body. She ran back to her house and called the cops. They found the judge’s body, too, and called us in because of her federal status. I’ve already contacted the U.S. Marshals Service to loop them in. I’ve been busy here, but I plan to interview Kline next.”
Decker nodded absently and surveyed the room once more, imprinting every detail onto his memory cloud, as he liked to refer to it now. When he’d first learned he had perfect recall he’d named it his “hard drive,” but times changed and he had to change with them.
His hyperthymesia was an amazing tool for a detective, but it was also overwhelming at times. He had been told that there were fewer than a hundred people in the world who had been diagnosed with the condition, and Decker would have preferred not to have been one of them.
Most people with hyperthymesia concentrated their recall on personal events, memories from the past, mostly autobiographical in nature. Because of that, Decker had learned that they often tended to live in the past as well because the stream of recollections was unrelenting. While Decker certainly had some of that, too, his memory recall was different. Pretty much everything he heard or saw or read in the present was permanently encoded in his mind and could be pulled out at will.
He turned to Jacobs. “TOD on the judge?”
“Approximately the same range as Draymont. Midnight to two a.m. I might be able to get a little tighter on the parameters, but that time box is looking pretty solid.”
He handed her his business card. “Let me know about Draymont’s gun and the possible sexual assault.”
“All right.”
He looked at Andrews. “We told the guard at the entrance gate to get us the list of people who came through over the last twenty-four hours. He was going to bring it here.”
“I had planned to do that,” said Andrews.
“Good, we’re operating on the same wavelength. While we’re waiting for him, let’s go talk to Mrs. Kline.”
He walked out of the room.
Andrews whirled on White. “How long have you and Decker been partners?”
White checked her watch. “Oh, about six hours.”
Chapter8
D?ORIS KLINE USHERED THEM INTOher home after they knocked, and led them to the rear lanai. She was in her late fifties with permed hair and too much makeup, at least to Decker’s mind.