“Yes,” she answered. “It appears that the killer once again used scissors as the murder weapon, maybe even the same pair. The wounds are similar in depth and angle to those suffered by Maria Cain. And like before, the puncture points are duller than one would expect with a traditional knife. There are also these.”
She pointed to a section of the curtain cords that had obviously been snipped.
“But it looks like those cords weren’t strong enough to keep her in the chair,” Jessie gathered.
“It seems not,” Gallagher agreed. “When you come over, you’ll see that some of them are still wrapped around her. But others came loose and those that remained apparently couldn’t keep her upright in the chair. Did you want to look now?”
Jessie nodded. She and Sam walked around the table. Once there, she allowed a moment for the scene to wash over her. Yuki Tanaka was slumped on her side on the carpet. Her long black hair, knotted in dry blood at the ends, obscured her face. She was wearing cream capri pants and a V-necked top that exposed the gashes in her flesh.
To the side of her was the aforementioned pool of blood, complete with the indentation where Mitzi must have settled, hoping her owner would eventually wake up. Jessie felt a pit of empathetic pain rise in her gut and made no effort to fight it off. She intended to use the feeling as fuel to catch whoever had committed this atrocity.
But even amidst her compassion for Yuki, she noticed that something was missing. Usually, these kinds of murderous attacks evoked not just empathy in her but also a sense of righteous vengeance. That was nowhere to be found now. She wondered if her cold-blooded elimination of Ash Pierce was somehow connected. Had that moment—that choice—shut something off in her temporarily? Or maybe for good?
“The blood looks pretty dry,” Sam noted.
“Good catch,” Gallagher said. “It’s one of the many things, including the state of the body, that makes me suspect Tanaka was killed before Maria Cain.”
“How much before?” Jessie wondered.
“Noting all the standard cautions about preliminary data, I’d say approximately 36 to 44 hours ago.”
“It’s almost 2 P.M. now,” Sam said doing the mental math, “So that would place it between 6 P.M. and 2 A.M. on Friday night?”
“That’s a good general range,” Gallagher confirmed.
“So the first victim was killed on Friday night and the second on Saturday night,” Jessie summed up. “That doesn’t bode well for tonight.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment as the anxiety of that realization saturated the room. Jessie broke the silence. “We need to talk to the housekeeper.”
CHAPTER TEN
They found Alina Arturo sitting at a patio table under an umbrella with a female officer sitting beside her. Jessie estimated that the housekeeper was in her mid-thirties. Her brown hair was tied back in a bun and she was wearing jeans and a work shirt that made sense considering why she was here today. Her elbows were propped on the table and her head was resting in her hands.
“Alina?” Jessie said gently, walking over and taking one of the empty chairs as Sam took the other.
The woman looked up. Her eyes were red but had a distant glassy look that Jessie found was common in people in shock.
“Yes?”
Jessie introduced Sam and herself before easing into the questions. "We know this is a difficult time and that you've already spoken to some officers, but we were hoping to ask you a few things. We think they might help us catch the person who did this. Is that okay?"
Alina nodded limply.
“So you came over to help prep for a dinner party tonight?”
Alina nodded again.
“Was there any special reason for the party or was it just a hangout?”
Alina sat up straighter and kind of shook herself into a more alert state.
“The Tanakas and a group of their friends do a rotating dinner party every month,” she explained, “so they end up hosting about two of them a year. I remember they did one back in March. I helped prep for that one too.”
Sam looked like he wanted to ask something but hesitated briefly, seeming to defer to Jessie. She nodded that he should go ahead.
"Did Yuki mention having a dispute with anyone recently?" he asked. "Maybe someone is making derogatory remarks about her ethnicity or immigration status?"
Alina shook her head.
