Page 12 of Done Dirty

“Heat of the moment,” I said. “Pure adrenaline. We can’t rule out a female.”

I took more pictures of the blood trail and spatter patterns before heading back to the body and kneeling beside him.

“What do you want to bet the knife in the balls is a message of some kind?” I asked.

“That’s a sucker’s bet,” Jack said and moved to the nightstand, opening the drawer.

I paused what I was doing and looked at Jack. The expression on his face was odd. “What is it?”

“I’ve just never seen a sex drawer this organized.”

“What, like it’s alphabetized or something?”

“No, he’s got dividers and drawer hooks. Like we have in the kitchen.”

I laughed and realized he was serious. “Maybe it’s like a mechanic keeping his tools arranged in the garage.”

“Wade Rivers was a sex mechanic?” he asked.

“You know what I mean.”

He grinned and started going through the drawer. “Three different types of condoms. Sex toys of the male and female persuasion, lubes and creams organized by size, color, and label, handcuffs and black satin restraints of various kinds, blindfolds, and something that looks like a police baton, but it has an on switch so I can’t even begin to speculate what it does.”

I snickered. “When you love what you do you never work a day in your life.”

“This room feels off,” Jack said.

“In what way?”

“It’s lived in,” he said. “It’s like you said, the rest of the house looks like a model home. Like no one actually lives here. No personal effects. No books, car keys or random coffee cups sitting around. No shoes kicked off by the front door. Everything in here is neat, but his wallet is out, his phone charger is plugged in over here, the sheets are mussed. They’ve been slept in.”

“Slept in or sexed in?” I asked. “There’s a difference. A guy like Wade seems like the type who would make his bed every day.”

“Mmhmm,” Jack said. “Which begs the question of his company for the evening. Nothing seems to be missing out of the sex drawer. Everything is in its slot or on its hook.”

“So they hadn’t gotten that far yet,” I said. “Maybe they were interrupted.”

I got my penlight out of my bag and shone it across his face, neck, and chest. “No petechiae in the eyes. No ligature marks. He wasn’t strangled.” I checked his arms, turned his hands over one at a time. “Knuckles clean. No visible defensive bruising. I can still smell shower gel or aftershave on him.” I reached into my bag for evidence bags and sealed both hands. “I’ll check under his nails at the lab. But they look clean.”

“I’m assuming the knife didn’t cause those blood spatter patterns.”

“Good eye,” I said.

“Well, it’s not my first rodeo.”

I smiled. “It’s postmortem,” I said. I pulled out an evidence bag and carefully removed the knife.

“God,” Jack said, closing his eyes.

“At least he wasn’t alive,” I said, looking at the knife. “This knife is from the same set we got as a wedding gift. It’s a nice set. And sharp.”

“And expensive,” Jack said. “The set retails at almost two thousand dollars.”

“For knives?” I asked, shocked. “Who would pay that for knives to cut up chicken?”

“As the person who cuts up our chicken and cooks it,” he said wryly, “I can tell you a good kitchen knife is the most important tool in the kitchen.”

“You watch too many cooking shows,” I said. “I heard that chef with the beer gut and the Crocs say that when you were flipping channels during the baseball game commercials.”