Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [47]
“She didn’t answer the door. So I used my key—she’d given me a key. I went in and I called her but she didn’t answer and I saw the light from her office and I went back there but there was something on the floor and I couldn’t get the door open. . . .” She wished she could stop rambling but didn’t seem able to focus. “I pushed on the door. I pushed and I fell. She was on the floor and I fell on her.”
“Take another deep breath. Go on. Okay, let’s start again,” Sean said softly. “What time did you get to your shop this morning?”
“Around six-thirty.”
“Any idea what time Marian O’Connor arrived?”
“No. She was here. Her car was already in the lot. . . .”
“So she arrived before six-thirty.”
“Yes.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Yes. She doesn’t open till ten. But she bought some things at a sale the other day and was eager to turn them over. She was excited. She said she had clients who’d want certain of the pieces. She’d make a great profit, and she was so pleased with herself.”
“These pieces—were they similar in any way to the goblet?”
“Derek’s goblet? Oh, no. Not at all. Marian’s were all Russian antiques. It was a specialty of hers.”
“Do you know if she had contacted these customers, if she had a sale pending?”
“I wouldn’t know. And no, I have no idea who her customers were. She did mention something about someone in D.C.—she might have even said a name—but I don’t remember.”
“So go back. You were going over lists . . .”
“Yes, I’d gone through several disks of private customers and decided to start going through the list of dealers Derek sometimes had business with, when I thought I’d take a break. I went over to chat with Marian but the shop was locked and she didn’t answer the bell.”
“You said you have a key. . . .”
“Yes. She left a spare key with me, just in case.” She licked dry lips with a dry tongue. “Can I get some water?”
Sean got the attention of someone in uniform, and within minutes a bottle of water appeared. Amanda took long draughts, then leaned back against the bench.
“I knew when I opened the door that something wasn’t right. Something didn’t smell right. Didn’t feel right.”
“Try to think. Did you hear anything?”
“Nothing. That was another thing. Marian always had music in the shop. She had a CD player, played music all day long. But it was so quiet in there this morning. All I could hear were the clocks. She had a good eye for clocks.”
He reached out and took her carefully by the wrist, raising one of her hands. She looked down slowly, then pulled her hand away, recoiling.
“Oh, my God. My hands . . . the blood . . .” She stood and started toward her shop. “I have to wash my hands. Oh, God, it’s on my shirt. . . .”
She took off the yellow cardigan and held it in front of her, staring at the bloody smears across the front and the sleeves.
“You can wash your hands after we swab them for blood type,” Sean told her.
“I can tell you whose blood it is.” She looked at him as if puzzled. “It’s Marian’s. Whose else could it be? I fell over her when I opened the door.”
“Let’s get it swabbed, and then we’ll know for sure,” he said calmly.
“You have got to be kidding.” Her voice began to rise with the first touches of hysteria. “You think that I . . . that this is mine . . . I would never . . . How could you even think . . . ?” Indignation rose steadily.
“This isn’t about what I think. This is about looking for blood other than the victim’s. You’re covered in it, and there are bloody fingerprints, footprints. Let’s find out whose it is.”
Mercer stood and nodded to the young policewoman who’d been keeping guard at the front of Marian’s shop. “Take Ms. Crosby down to the station. Swab her, get her clothes. Keep her company, and keep her comfortable. I’ll be along in a while.”
Amanda’s jaw dropped. Did he think she had something to do with Marian’s death?
He turned his back and walked into Marian’s shop, stopping to speak with one of the county’s crime scene investigators who had just arrived.