Pete complied. Under his blue sun-protection shirt, he wore a gray T-shirt that saidHarvardin red. As far as Reid knew, Pete hadn’t gone there, but he would save the question for later. He examined both outside and inside Pete’s upper arms—no signs of a struggle.
“Would you mind removing yourHarvardshirt?” Reid asked.
“I was in Cambridge for a seminar, in case you’re wondering,” Pete said.
Reid could almost feel Pete wanting to tell him he got an A; the statement served as a delay technique. Pete stood still, making no move to take off the shirt. Reid’s pulse kicked up a notch. He knew there was something Pete didn’t want him to see. Pete was in a bind. He had complied with the outer shirt; if he failed to take this one off, he’d be indicating some sort of guilt.
“Mr. Lathrop?” Reid asked.
Again—the face reddening, growling groan, and in one quick motion, Pete whipped off his shirt. He stood facing Reid, breathing heavily. There was one nick, about an inch long and mostly healed, on the skin over his left collarbone.
Reid examined it. “From the rose bushes,” Pete said.
Other than that single mark, the front of his body was clear.
Reid walked behind him. Pete’s back was another story.
There were four deeply scored scratches, scabbed with dry blood, on his left scapula. There was just enough space between them to indicate they were made by fingernails. On the back of his upper right arm, the deltoid muscle, there was a bite wound. It looked severe. The area was a dark-red oval with small yellow beads of dried pus tracing the clearly delineated upper and lower teeth impressions.
“Looks like you had quite an infection back here,” Reid said.
“Nothing serious,” Pete said.
“Did you see a doctor?”
“No need.”
“How did you get these injuries?” Reid asked, holding himself back from adding,Rose bushes?
“Are you kidding me?” Pete asked. “It’s called sex.”
That could be true, but to Reid they looked like defensive wounds. He unlocked the cabinet behind him and removed a camera. His heart was banging hard. He pictured Beth, naked and lying on the bed. He saw the bruises around her neck, the gash in her head embedded with bone chips. He held the camera and checked both the battery and the date stamp.
“I’m going to photograph the wounds now if you don’t object,” he said.
Pete didn’t say anything, so Reid took the photos.
“Will you give a DNA sample?” Reid asked.
“Of course,” Pete said.
“Let me call the lab tech,” Reid said. “We’ll get your DNA, and you can be on your way.”
“Don’t forget the polygraph,” Pete said.
“We’ll get that scheduled for you, Pete,” Reid said.
But an hour later, after Pete had left the building and before the polygraph examiner had returned Reid’s call, Reid heard from Mackenzie Green, a well-known defense attorney from New Haven, who said that from then on he would be representing Peter Lathrop, and that all future Connecticut State Police inquiries should be directed to his office.
And that Pete would not be taking a polygraph.
PART II
15
July 22
Six days after Beth’s funeral, the hot weather continued, the air heavy and holding the constant promise of afternoon thunderstorms to cool things off. But the sky never seemed to break; it held the moisture and turned it to steam. Rolling white clouds would form and dissipate without ever raining.
