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Jacobs’s eyebrows lifted. “Okay, while I admit I missed the consensual sex piece, I never thought she would be sleeping with her bodyguard. But I guess it happens.”

“Do you have Draymont’s personal effects?”

She led him to a locked cabinet and opened it. Inside were a number of labelled plastic evidence bags.

“Clothes, shoes, wallet, other personal items.”

Decker examined each one carefully. He already knew about the suit and watch and shoes. He opened the billfold. Inside were three credit cards, one a personal platinum Amex.

“Thanks.”

“Her son came by to identify her,” Jacobs volunteered.

Decker shot her a glance. “Tyler came? Not his father?”

“He said his father couldn’t bring himself to come.”

“Damn. How did that go?”

“I covered her right up to her neck, so he couldn’t see…”

“Yeah.”

“He cried. But he handled it pretty well, actually. Better than I would have.”

“Life’s a bitch sometimes,” murmured Decker. “What about prints? Any luck?”

“We didn’t find any we couldn’t match. We found lots of Tyler’s prints, but none in his mother’s bedroom. And none of Barry Davidson’s.” She picked up her iPad and scrolled down. “We found several from the neighbor, Doris Kline. Prints from a maid service Cummins used. Some others we determined were tied to service companies, HVAC, plumbing, and other ones like that. Andrews had them checked out and all had alibis.”

“But not Doris Kline, right?” Jacobs looked up. Decker continued, “She lives alone. She found the bodies. She was home that night.”

“Y-yes, I guess that’s right. But do you think she could have done it? When I printed her, she seemed genuinely upset about the judge’s death.”

“I think anyone can do anything until it’s proved conclusively that they didn’t.”

Jacobs eyed him strangely and then shrugged. “While you’re here, thereissomething else I found.”

She led him over to a computer set up on a countertop. “I examined the blood found on the stairs and on the palm print on the wall of the stairs leading to the upstairs bedroom.”

“You mean the blood that came from the judge when she was attacked downstairs, and then fled upstairs to her bedroom where she was killed?”

“Well, that’s what I thought, at first. But the bloodstains on the stairs and under the palm print weren’t hers. They were Draymont’s.”

Decker glanced over at the two bodies, separated by a few feet in death, and perhaps by miles as far as the investigation was going.

“So the judge was not attacked downstairs?”

“Well, at least she wasn’tbleedingwhile downstairs.”

“So Draymont was probably leaving the house when he was shot. The judge came downstairs, probably when she heard the two gunshots. She found the body, got his blood on her that way, and then ran back upstairs, leaving his blood trace along the way?”

“That seems to be the case,” said Jacobs.

“But if the shooter was still there, why not kill her downstairs?”

“They might have tried to, but missed.”

“There were no bullet holes found other than the pair in Draymont,” Decker pointed out.


Tags: David Baldacci Amos Decker Thriller