Jenna sat in the comfortable chair and opened the desk drawers, hoping to find an address book. She found a pile of invoices for work completed on the cabin. She collected them and bagged them. She took photographs of the laptop and then, using a large evidence bag, slid the laptop inside. With luck, Wolfe would be able to open the computer, and if not, Kalo would be able to guide them through the process. Having an FBI computer expert on the team was a bonus in times like this. The sound of a vehicle arriving broke the silence inside the house. Jenna stood and walked into the hallway. She could see Wolfe’s van through the window. “Wolfe’s here.” She went to the front door and opened it.
“What have you got for me?” Wolfe stamped the snow off his boots, wiped his feet on the mat outside the door, and covered his boots with booties. His daughter Emily did the same.
Glad that Wolfe had arrived so fast, Jenna stood to one side as they came into the house. “A woman we assume is Laney Prescott appears to have been strangled. We found the back door open and signs of forced entry. Dave believes they picked the lock. We’ve both been inside the room without booties, I’m afraid. I removed a lipstick and separate cap as evidence. I’ve also taken the laptop from the office and some invoices. I’ve documented them all withphotographs.”
“I found a good set of prints on the lipstick.” Kane held up his scanner. “I haven’t touched the body apart from checking the pulse in the neck. I’ll need the victim’s prints for comparison.”
“Okay, let’s get this show on the road.” Wolfe placed a large forensics kit on the floor and then pulled on examination gloves. “Lead the way.”
FOURTEEN
Dr. Shane Wolfe scanned the bedroom, taking in the layout. He examined the pillow and frowned. “I figure he snuck in here and wrote the message while she was asleep. It’s likely he sat in that chair over there and watched her sleeping. The moment she stirred, he went out into the hallway until he heard her getting up to use the bathroom. I’ll examine her neck in a moment, but from the position of the garrote, he attacked from behind.”
Concerned that the body might be carrying trace evidence, Wolfe moved everyone away from the door to the bedroom. “Emily, we’ll wear coveralls for this one.” He turned to Jenna. “Strangulation using a garrote from behind is a very personal type of murder. It also takes a deal of strength and takes four minutes minimum to asphyxiate someone. We should assume he left fibers or bodily fluids on the victim. Her nails are torn up as is her neck. She fought hard to pull the garrote away. I’ll check under her nails for any foreign DNA traces, just in case she managed to claw his arms.”
“She must have been terrified.” Emily looked at her dad, and sadness filled her eyes. “Can you imagine wakingup and finding someone in your house?” She turned to Jenna. “You gotta stop him doing this again. Do you figure it’s the same person who abducted the teacher?”
“It’s too early to tell, Em.” Jenna met her gaze. “Find me the evidence and we’ll take him down.”
After covering his clothes with blue coveralls and buttoning them up, he indicated to Emily to go inside the bedroom. He turned to his assistant badge-holding deputy, Colt Webber. “Suit up. We’ll need a body bag in here on the carpet so I can roll her over and into it. I also need you to vacuum the carpet all around the victim and that chair over there.” He pointed to a small chair in the bedroom beside the window. “If the killer watched her sleep, that would be one of the places I would imagine he’d sit.”
“I wonder how long he’s been stalking her.” Jenna folded her arms across her chest and looked at him. “Do you figure she noticed anyone hanging around? If so, did she mention it to anyone? This is an isolated spot. A stranger would stick out a mile.”
“It’s possible. Being a social worker carries a certain amount of personal risk.” Kane rubbed his chin as if in deep thought. “Unfortunately, social workers are involved with a wide range of people and criminals. Most are involved in family disputes and taking children into care, which doesn’t make them very popular. Others deal with substance abuse and mental health. It’s not a career I would like for my daughter if I had one.”
Wolfe’s daughter Julie had been determined to become a children’s advocate, which would make her part of the Child and Family Services division. Although she’d planned to work along with the children’s court, there would always be a chance of conflict. He gave Kane a long look. “Apart from Emily, y’all in the line of fire for anyone with a grievance. Em and me, well, we don’t seem to have that problem. We haven’t been stalked by a corpse yet.”
Once Webber laid the body bag beside the victim, Wolfe and Emily carefully rolled her over. Rigor had stiffened the body but Wolfe managed to push the arms down to the sides. They stood for a few moments looking down. Even after hundreds of crime scenes, Wolfe couldn’t prevent the pang of regret when he saw a murder victim. Laney Prescott, if that was her name, had been an attractive woman but now her bloodshot brown eyes bulged and her shoulder-length chestnut-colored hair stuck to the blood around her neck. Her tongue protruded between blue swollen lips. The grotesque sight of a strangulation victim made the body unfit for viewing by relatives. In cases like this, he always advised them to remember their loved ones as they’d last seen them.
The attack had come from behind, fast and violent. The twisted rug, ripped nails, and deep gouges around her neck indicated Laney had fought for her life. She’d tried to get her fingers under the garrote and torn her neck to shreds. Wolfe scanned the room, noting the position of her slippers and bent to follow the electrical cord trailing from under the edge of the bed. He looked behind him at Webber. “Take photographs of the position of those slippers over there. I believe she might have been wearing them when the killer attacked her and she kicked them off.” He turned to Jenna and Kane standing at the door watching him. “When Webber is done here, bag the lamp under the bed. I figure she used it for a weapon. Maybe she hit him.”
“I hope so.” Kane’s eyes narrowed. “This poor woman helped people and she gets murdered. It just doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“Murder is never fair.” Emily took the victim’s liver temperature, pulled down her shirt, and then bent to smooth the woman’s hair inside the body bag before gently zipping it up. “Can you give Webber a hand to take the body out to the van?”
“Not a problem.” Kane moved inside the room.
“This house looks very spartan.” Emily looked at her father. “Do you figure she’s lived here very long? It’s as if she’s just got the basic furniture and none of the home comforts.” She followed him into the bathroom. “It’s hard to believe a woman lived here. No makeup, hairbrush, cosmetics—nothing.”
“I don’t think she’s lived here very long.” Jenna leaned in the bedroom door. “I found invoices for renovation work in her desk drawer and the place hardly looks lived in. I’ll find out when she purchased it. It wouldn’t be a rental. I recall seeing this house in the Realtor’s office window last summer.”
The top of the vanity held nothing, apart from a toothbrush and toothpaste resting inside a glass. The bathroom resembled a motel room, right down to towels hanging neatly on a rung beside the shower. Wolfe opened a few drawers and discovered what he was looking for. A makeup bag sat beside a hairbrush and comb. He peered inside the bag and found foundation, eye makeup, and a pale lipstick. He collected the items and placed them inside an evidence bag. He turned to Emily. “Do you know if women have a number of colors of lipstick or do they usually wear the same color?”
“Most have a go-to color that they wear all the time.” Emily peered into the shower and then bent to take swabs from the drain at the bottom. “Some, like Norrell and me, don’t wear lipstick at all and just use a lip gloss or something similar. It’s not unusual for others to have many different shades to match their clothes. I figure everyone is different.”
Wolfe frowned. The ambiguous answer wasn’t getting him anywhere. “If a woman wore makeup to work each day, would she carry a lipstick in her purse?”
“Yes, of course she would.” Emily stepped out of the shower and frowned at him. “Don’t you recall Mom touching up her lipstick after she’d eaten when we were out at a restaurant?”
The sudden image of his first wife, Angela, who died of cancer eight years ago, flashed into his mind and his heart twisted as it always did when he thought of her. In truth, sincehe’d married his beautiful young wife, Norrell, he’d tried to push the memory of Angela out of his mind. He refused to compare them as they were totally different people. Norrell didn’t wear lipstick. “Now you mention it, I do. So the victim would have a lipstick in her purse?”
“I bagged the purse and phone.” Jenna turned into the hallway. “Dave has it.”
Wolfe stepped around Webber as he vacuumed the carpet and met Kane in the kitchen. “Do you have the victim’s purse?”
“Yeah, it’s here.” Kane handed him an evidence bag with the purse inside. “Are you looking for anything specific?”
Wolfe opened the bag and emptied the contents onto the plastic. He found a lipstick and opened it. The lipstick in his hand had an orange hue and a different brand to the one they’d found in the bedroom. The one to write the message was deep ruby, almost blood colored. He pushed the top on and placed it back inside the purse. He went through the other contents. The purse contained a wallet with bills, some loose change, credit cards, and a card to give her access to her workplace. A hairbrush, a few feminine products, a small packet of tissues, and a set of keys.” He looked at Kane. “Does this look normal to you?”
