“Not much. According to Pierce, there was blood found at the scene, but that’s all he’ll tell me. My guess is it’s not just Richard’s or Imogen’s, or Pierce wouldn’t care so much.”
Nonna leaned against the dryer. “So, it belonged to the killer.”
“Maybe. You have to remember that it could be one of the Basanelli’s. There was a bit of a scuffle before Richard left.”
She sighed. “That’s not good news.”
No, it really wasn’t. I needed to call Pierce again and see if he’d received any of the DNA results. Hopefully he was still in a sharing mood.
Chapter21
Aiden drove me to work on Thursday and dropped me off with a promise to pick me up around four or five. My leg felt much better, and I could put weight on it now, so I only slightly limped into my office.
“Morning.” Oliver handed me a stack of messages from the afternoon before, the muscles in his chest rippling. “Clark’s in court, and Pauley’s in class.”
“Thanks, Oliver.” As soon as we earned some decent money, I needed to give the kid a raise. I made my way back to my office and worked on paperwork for a while. My phone buzzed just as I started to crave caffeine. “Albertini,” I answered.
“Hey, it’s Pierce.”
“Hi.” I’d called him two more times, and the guy hadn’t returned my calls, yet I kept my tone chipper because I needed information.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Like he didn’t already know. I forced a smile because, supposedly, that transferred over the telephone. “I was wondering if you had any news.”
“I’m not supposed to share news with you, Albertini.”
That wasn’t necessarily true. “Come on, Pierce. We both want the truth here.”
“Fine. You want the truth? I already received the DNA test result for Wayne Wilson.”
I leaned forward, hope clashing through me. “Yeah?”
“He’s clear. None of the DNA at the scene belongs to him.”
My shoulders sank. “It doesn’t?”
“Nope. Not even close.”
That meant the blood wasn’t his brother’s either because there would be a familial hit. So, Wayne and Spencer weren’t tied to the dump site. “Wait a minute. Just because it wasn’t Wayne’s blood doesn’t mean he didn’t kill them.”
“I’m aware of that,” Pierce said curtly. “There’s no evidence that he did. None whatsoever.”
“Except nobody knows where he was that week.”
Papers shuffled across the line. “Plenty of people saw him around town putting up posters and asking everybody he could find about his wife.”
I sat back in my chair, wanting to raise my leg again because it was starting to throb. “That’d be a good cover, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” Pierce said. “I pulled in Lisa Robinson this morning. She’s in the interrogation room. Are you willing to drop the charges if she cooperates?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I’ll do anything you want. You have free license.”
His voice warmed. Slightly. Very slightly. “Great. I’m hoping to get her to submit a DNA sample as well as fingerprints.”
“You haven’t fingerprinted her yet?” I asked.
“No, my machine’s down,” he said. “It’ll be back up in probably an hour. Plus, I didn’t want to scare her too much. We both know you’re not going forward with this.”
