Protector - Laurel Dewey [53]
“You just don’t want them to fit.”
Jane held firm. “They don’t fit because they don’t fit. Are we done in here?”
Weyler straightened his body and stared at Jane. “Let’s go downstairs.”
Jane followed Weyler down the stairs and into the living room. She spotted two rolled sleeping bags in the corner of the entry hall—one adult size and one child size. “Who was Emily going camping with?”
“Chris noted that. The neighbors said that Emily and her mother had just returned on May 22 from a nine day camping trip to Moab, Utah.”
“They decide to go on a nine day camping trip in the middle of May while school is still in session?”
“Perhaps they wanted to avoid the summer rush of tourists.”
“Why didn’t David join them?”
“Maybe it was one of those mother/daughter bonding experiences.”
Jane stared at the sleeping bags, feeling a nagging sense of something being off creep into her psyche. Weyler stood near the front door. “The front door was wide open when the next-door neighbor found the scene the following morning. Based upon the lividity of both victims, estimation of death is put between nine and eleven the previous evening. Both victims were dressed in street clothes and from all appearances, opened the door quite willingly to the suspects. So did the Lawrences know the perps? It’s after nine in the evening. You’re typically not going to open your door at that hour to somebody you don’t know or you don’t trust. Thus, we throw out the idea that this is a random crime.”
“Okay.”
“Take a look at the scene,” Weyler pulled out several color photos from the large envelope and handed them to Jane. “The living room was in shambles. Lamps broken and overturned, there was an overstuffed chair that sat over there that was cut open with one of the knives. That white fluff in the one photo is the polyester filling from inside the chair. Most of the glass vases and knickknacks were either chipped or smashed. The scene was totally disorganized and trashed. Then of course, there’s this.”
Weyler handed a photo to Jane. It was a close up of the coffee table. A mound of five ounces of cocaine was piled on the table. Jane examined the photo closely then handed it back to Weyler. “That’s convenient,” Jane said with a smug look.
“How’s that?”
“Look closely. It doesn’t fit into the scene. It isn’t affected by any of the surrounding debris. If this is a drug deal gone bad, the coke is already going to be on the table before the carnage starts. If it’s already sitting there and all hell breaks loose, the coke is not going to stay in a neat little mound! I’m telling you, after all the shit went down, the coke got put there to throw us off.”
“I’ll have to think about that one.”
“Hey, boss, I’m thinking outside the box!” Jane rejoined.
Weyler looked tiredly at Jane, aware she was sarcastically referring to his earlier remark. “We questioned the neighbors about the Lawrence’s overt behavior. They all reported the same thing. Nice couple. He liked to drink a lot at block parties but none of the conspicuous late night drug pickups were ever witnessed. And believe me, these people watch each other.”
“There’s a Hazel in every neighborhood . . .” Jane said.
“But take a good look at this.” Weyler held up a large color photo of David Lawrence sprawled facedown across the living room floor. His throat is deeply slashed, exposing muscles and bone. “You tell me a hyped-up drug addict didn’t carve up that man?” Weyler dropped the crime scene photo of David’s bloody body onto the floor. “David fell here. Patricia was here,” he dropped her photo less than three feet from the other one. “David was stabbed over ten times with a double edged knife. The first cut was to the throat, obviously to disengage him from saving his wife. The final kill was to his heart. Patricia Lawrence was stabbed with a single edged knife approximately seventy-five times. Her first cut was also to the throat. Not enough to kill her, but enough to knock the fight out of her. Half of her seventy-five stab wounds were to her face. This