Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [51]
Sean shook his head. “I’ll be surprised if anything is missing. Oh, maybe he took a little something to remember her by, but most B and E men are pretty careful to make sure there’s no one home before they make their hit. They want to grab and run, quick and clean. No confrontations, no witnesses. Just in and out. Whoever did this knew exactly what he was about. There’s nothing accidental about this crime scene. I’d say our boy came here expressly to kill his victim.”
“He? I thought you already took her”—the tech nodded in the direction of Amanda’s shop—“into custody.”
“Whoever killed Marian O’Connor was tall enough to stand behind her and slash her throat in one clean motion, left to right. Jugular to carotid. The victim was considerably taller than Amanda Crosby. It wouldn’t have been possible.” Sean shook his head, thinking that the killer was also strong enough to have plunged a fairly large knife into the victim’s sternum hard enough that a piece had broken off and remained in the wound, but since the tech had twice come close to losing his breakfast, Sean thought it best not to remind him of the details. “So no, Amanda Crosby is not a suspect. But she is a witness, and right now we’re just trying to keep her out of harm’s way until I can question her a little more thoroughly.”
“Gotcha.” The tech nodded, took a deep breath, and disappeared back inside, stepping aside to let the medical examiner pass.
“You done?” Sean asked as the doctor came through the door.
“Jesus, what a mess.” Bill Westcott stripped off his plastic gloves and tossed them into the bag he held under his arm. “I can’t remember ever seeing a worse crime scene.” He shook his head, his expression grim as he bent over to remove the covers from his shoes and toss them into the bag with the gloves. “Whoever did this was one mean SOB.”
“Can you estimate how long she’s been dead, or do you need to complete the autopsy to establish that?”
“I’ll know better after I’ve been able to take a closer look, but I’d say she’s been dead for roughly fourteen, fifteen hours.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I got fixed lividity, I got full body rigor. Corneas are cloudy. I’d say time of death is going to come in between nine and midnight last night.” He nodded as he unwrapped a stick of gum and folded it into his mouth. “If that changes, I’ll let you know, but it won’t change by much.”
“Thanks.”
“Man, between the stab wound to the chest and the wound to the throat, the poor woman bled to death.” The young doctor shook his head as he walked away. “Hell of a way for anyone to die. Hell of a way . . .”
When Sean entered his office, the first thing he noticed was that Amanda Crosby was seated on a hard chair in the far corner of the room—alone. Her hair was wet and brushed straight back from her face, which looked colorless and thin. He’d started to call Officer Burke to explain why the witness had been left alone in the room when the officer walked in behind him.
“She wanted water,” the young woman explained before he could ask. “It’s the first she’s asked for anything.”
“I didn’t want her left alone.”
“I only went across the hall,” she replied. She twisted the top off the water bottle and handed it to Amanda.
“Thank you.” Amanda nodded.
“You’re welcome.” Dana turned to her boss. “You’ll take it from here?”
“Yes. Thanks.”
“Her statement’s on your desk. I’ve already sent her clothes to the lab.”
Sean nodded his thanks, then closed the door after the departing officer and sat on the edge of his desk, fingering the file holding Amanda’s written statement. Before he could speak, Amanda looked up at him with sad, weary eyes and said, “I did not kill Marian.”
“I know that.”
“You do?”
“For one thing, you’re not tall enough to have—” He hesitated. “To have done what was done to her.”
She appeared to waver between asking and not asking.
“Someone slit her throat from behind,” he