She blinked her eyes some, the itchiness of tears gathering. “You’ll never forget.”
“No. I can’t. I need to do this. I have...dreams. Sounds stupid.”
“Absolutely not,” she said. “A dream is just your relaxed subconscious urging you on. That’s how I choose to look at it.”
His face was flush and she wasn’t sure why he was embarrassed to admit he was following something that came to him in the night. She did it often. The least she could do was let him know he wasn’t alone.
“That’s a good way to think about it. My mother dreams too. That’s what brought me here. I’m not sure why I never remembered this before and it probably means nothing, but I need to see if it was brought up in the court proceedings. I saw pictures of it from the police report and when I looked back I knew something wasn’t right.”
“What?” she asked, sitting up straighter.
“Before she left for her walk, I noticed an ankle bracelet on her. A bunch of strings tied around her ankle. I asked her what it was and she said she found it at the cabin my family rented. I found out it was called embroidery floss. All the same color of blue tied around.”
“A common thing,” she said.
“It was on her when her body was found. My mother said she’d never seen it before and I had said Rene put it on that day. That’s it, it was never discussed again.”
“Okay, what’s different now?”
“It was loose on my sister’s ankle when I saw it. Enough to not leave a mark. I would have remembered it leaving a mark. When I went back to pictures of her leg after she’d died, it was almost cutting into her skin. They said it was from her body bloating or it catching on a branch.”
“But you don’t believe it?”
“No.” He got up and grabbed his laptop and returned. “Look at it here. This is the police picture before it was cut off of her and after. Four strings. I don’t remember the exact number before, but it was over four. Not only that, my sister was OCD about things. They didn’t undo the knot. They just cut the bracelet off and see how much is hanging off of it and how it’s burned on the edges so it doesn’t fray.”
“Yeah,” she said, scrolling in closer. “I used to do that too.”
“Exactly. Rene would have made her knot, cut off the extra and then burned it down so that nothing was showing but the knot and she would have had the knot on the inside of her leg so it’s not visible. This was on the outside and look at how much is hanging past the knot.”
“Damn,” she said. “Are you positive?”
“I am,” he said. “I know it. But I need to see it. It’s got to still be in evidence. I wonder if anyone ever tested it.”
“You think the killer took it off and then tied it back on?”
“I don’t know what to think other than it’s not the way I remember it.” He moved to the living room and came back with a notebook. “I don’t have Rene’s talent, but this is what I remember. The minute I woke up I tried to draw it. I know people won’t believe me.”
“I believe you,” she said, looking at the ankle bracelet. Six strands, the knot not visible anywhere looking at the front of the leg and yet the police picture shows it tight and almost in the front.
Yes, it was possible it moved during the struggle and the dumping of her body, but that didn’t explain why the knot was different or tighter.
“I need to gather more information. I need to see the evidence. Once I get the court records and can see if it was ever discussed, then I can reach out to the detective that’s been working the case.”
“I can talk to Ford,” she said.
“I don’t want special treatment. At least not until I have facts. That’s how we don’t get anyone to return calls.”
She reached for his hand again. “No one should dismiss this,” she said. “I mean it.”
“I’ve walked by the spot they found her body. It’s not far from here. She was drawing an older rundown cabin set back further by the water. I remember getting upset with her over that. I told that to the police too. And I was positive she was going back there to get more pictures. They were on her phone. The pictures right before she died. More than before.”
“What did the police say?”
“They ruled it out as that is where she went on her walk, but not where the crime occurred.”
“They were positive?”
“It’s what we were told. It’s in the police report.”
