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Malone was still in the bedroom, watching over CSI Blair as she continued to process the room. Donnelly must have been elsewhere in the house. Malone stepped out of the way to let everyone inside.
“How did it go with Steedman?” he asked.
“I don’t think the guy did this. He’s too broken up,” Amanda said. “He has an alibi for last night, which we’ll have to confirm. Before we do, we need TOD. He did give us a lead though. According to him, Burr spent the bulk of last night at the Tipsy Moose.”
“Sounds like a potentially solid lead to me,” Malone said. “She could have picked someone up or been followed home.”
“What we were thinking,” Amanda said. “We also want to see if we can find a connection between Burr and Kelley.”
“What I would like to know,” Trent started, “is why Kelley and Burr? What was it about them? Or is it as you essentially suggested, Sarge, that Burr was killed to muddy the investigation?”
“Only upside in that is we hopefully won’t be looking at any more victims,” Malone said.
“I wouldn’t be so sure. If he is willing to kill just to cover his true motive, who knows where this will stop?” Amanda rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache moving in. Why couldn’t their murder cases be quick open-and-shut dealies? It seemed like she and Trent were doomed to get the complicated ones. She looked across the room to where Rideout and Liam were getting to work on the body, and it wasn’t long before they were pulling a Queen of Hearts playing card—folded into eight squares—from the vic’s mouth.
“And there it is,” Amanda muttered, shaking her head. That was the last piece that wrapped this crime scene with the neat bow of the Romeo Killer, confirming he’d jumped from the pages of fiction into the real world. To make it worse, her world, and that pissed her off beyond measure. Two murdered women within days, and where were she and Trent in terms of catching up with the killer? Behind the eight ball, as the expression goes. Or no further ahead, seeing as that was their starting position. She just had to keep the faith that eventually there would be a breakthrough. It could never happen fast enough.
Malone’s face hardened as he fixed his hands on his hips. “We’re going to need to get in front of this, not that I should need to say that to either of you.”
“You don’t,” Amanda said.
A few seconds of tense silence passed between them, with Malone breaking it. “Can we afford to make the assumption this isn’t a serial killer?”
“We’ll keep our minds and our eyes open, but I’m really not convinced.” She still felt there was something telling in Felicity’s paperwork being burned. Was the killer trying to hide their tracks? Cover up a secret Felicity had discovered? That could fit if Felicity had found out who killed Naomi Chapman. But in the vein of keeping an open mind… “Did we find the vic’s phone?” She directed this to Blair.
“Yep, it’s bagged,” she said.
“Was there any indication items were missing from the home or paperwork destroyed?” Amanda asked, but felt she knew what the answer would be.
“Nothing I’ve noticed or Donnelly has mentioned.”
The answer was the expected one, but it still had the skin tightening on the back of her neck.
“Time of death, Rideout?” Trent asked the ME.
“Preliminarily, I’d say between nine and eleven last night. I’ll do more tests at the morgue to narrow it down and confirm.”
“We were told she didn’t get home until ten o’clock,” Trent countered.
“Hey, you’re doing my job for me. TOD between ten and eleven then.”
“It doesn’t get much narrower than that,” Malone said.
“It does not. This also means that Burr’s killer didn’t wait long to act after she returned home.” They’d need to call Lee Steedman’s client to confirm he was with him during that time. “At least we know who didn’t murder Jane Burr.”
“Sheldon Lowe,” she and Trent said at the same time.
“Yep, and since it’s clear we’re looking at the same guy for Felicity’s murder, he’s in the clear there too.” How she hoped it was that simple. The thought ran through her mind—what if this is a copycat of a copycat? How much detail hit the news?
“To think if he never led us on a car chase, he wouldn’t even be facing charges.” Trent raised his eyebrows.
It was crazy what panic would make people do, but it wasn’t like Sheldon was entirely innocent. He was a stalker. But her mind was more on what entered her thoughts a moment ago. She and Trent had spoken with a lot of people. Had one of them slipped word to the media, hinting about Felicity’s murder being much like her book? “Has there been any mention or rumor out there that someone imitating the Romeo Killer murdered Felicity Kelley?” Just verbalizing the question made her nauseous.
Everyone fell silent. Trent was the first to speak.
“Someone copied a copycat… Then are we looking at someone in Burr’s life who saw this as an opportunity to kill her and have blame land elsewhere?”
Amanda hadn’t even played out the theory to that possibility. She wished she’d gotten around to asking Lee Steedman about those who didn’t like Jane. They’d have to revisit him.
