Protector - Laurel Dewey [54]
“Sure.”
“One of the killers was a woman. The final kill to the heart on David Lawrence and the mutilation of his wife’s face led him to that possibility.”
“Both of those MOs can reflect a female killer but each was killed with a different knife. So, is Chris saying that two women did this?”
“He speculated it could be a jealous woman and a man.”
“Oh, sure. David’s having an affair with the woman and he won’t divorce Patricia. So his lover hauls ass over here in tow with her boyfriend or husband who conveniently just found out about the tryst and together they decide to take care of business in between snorts of cocaine. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Or how about this? Maybe it’s like a roaming Bonnie and Clyde duo? If so, ‘Bonnie’ must have the upper arm and wrist strength of a Romanian weight lifter to plunge that knife in Patricia’s eye and pull it partly out of her head. Not to mention that Bonnie continues this onslaught seventy-five times on Patricia or over ten times on David. Now, there’s a broad you want to have on your office softball team!”
“You can drop the sarcasm. What’s your point?”
“A woman played no part in this murder. This is a professional kill. How many male/female teams are out there? I’m not saying that can’t happen. I’m just saying it didn’t happen here. The other reason I don’t think a woman was involved is that pile of cocaine. If this was a drug deal gone bad—and I’m telling you it wasn’t—no woman is going to forget what she came here for!
“So, it’s two men.”
“I don’t know. Is it two men who know enough about the MO of a female killer that they consciously create the outward appearance of female involvement? And if so, why? That’s on par with premeditated manipulation. Manipulation of us who are standing here and trying to figure out what the fuck happened! Boss, I know you don’t want to hear this, but nothing fits in my opinion. The whole thing feels purposely disjointed. It’s like three or four different murders that DH has investigated, but suddenly they’re all wrapped up into one house. Is it a man making it look like a woman? Is it one person making it look like two? Is it two making it look like one? I don’t know. All I know is that whatever it turns out to be, it’s not at all what it seems.” Jane’s eyes rested upon the desk in the front hallway.
“What is it?” asked Weyler.
“My mother had a similar desk.” Jane crossed toward the desk, gently skimming her finger against its rolled edges. “You don’t see a lot of these.”
“Are they worth a lot?”
“I don’t know. They were more a novelty item. I used to call it the ‘riddle desk.’ ”
“Why’s that?”
“That’s where the novelty part comes in. Every time you think you’ve found a drawer or cubbyhole, you get tricked. I’ll show you. They must have hired world-class artists to do the three dimensional designs because they’re so lifelike. See these drawers?” Jane pointed to a series of four slender drawers aligned on the top left of the desk. “Try pulling one of them out.”
Weyler reached over and tried to grab on to the knob but then realized it was only painted on. “Humph!”
“Lifelike, eh? Try opening what looks like a cubbyhole, and it’s not.”
“What the hell good is a desk you can’t use?”
“But you can use it. You just have to know what buttons to push.”
“Buttons?”
“They’re hidden. I’m not exactly sure where they are on this one. My mom’s had a couple on the side and some underneath.” Jane moved her face closer to the surface of the desk, slowly running her index finger along the middle of the desk. “You just gotta look real closely and if you’re lucky . . .” With that, her finger wedged into an indentation in the desk and the front door popped out like a cashier’s drawer. “Abracadabra!”
“Anything interesting in there?”
Jane rummaged through the near empty drawer and came up with a handful of paper