Page 89 of Forever Dead

“Was she killed here?”

Blethan removed his glasses and cleaned them with a cloth from his pocket. “There’s blood on the floor beneath where she was hanging, and I can see what may be transfer near the wall. That suggests she was stabbed here or brought here very shortly afterward. I need Matt’s blood-pattern work before I give you more.”

Matt nodded toward the window. “Open at the top when Harold came in. That’s what kept the body moving into the door.” Connor pictured Harold forcing his way against the dead woman without knowing what blocked him.

“Any connection to Eleanor Marsh?”

Blethan put his glasses back on. “Forensically? None I can give you.”

“Same killer?”

“Different method.”

Connor frowned. “But could it be the same killer, Blethan?”

Blethan’s patience thinned. “One woman had her neck broken and was covered with pieces of a chair. This woman was stabbed in the abdomen and hanged from a rafter. If you want me to tell you those deaths demonstrate the same medical signature, they don’t.”

Connor stared down at the nurse’s uniform.

“Two women,” he said. “Both killed brutally. Both left staged.”

Matt glanced toward him. “You thinking serial?”

“I’m thinking I don’t know what I’m thinking.” The admission irritated him.

The second scene changed the shape of the problem. Eleanor’s murder could have been personal. Curtis Halle, Deacon Blair, an old grievance. This felt arranged for discovery.

Connor rubbed the back of his neck. “I want another set of eyes on this.”

Blethan’s eyelids narrowed. “Selena?”

“For the scene. I’m not putting her back on active duty.”

Blethan considered that for a moment. “Then keep her on the cane.”

“I intend to.”

Connor stepped into the kitchen. Arnold stood near the doorway with his notebook.

“Put in a request to Kentucky State Police,” Connor said. “Tell them we have two staged homicides that may be connected and we want investigative support.”

Arnold nodded. “Got it.”

“Then call Selena.”

Arnold blinked. “Seriously?”

“I’m bringing her in.”

*

Selena’s car came up the Tully drive forty minutes later. Connor watched from the sitting-room window.

She parked behind Arnold’s sedan. Arnold crossed the yard to meet her, offering an arm as she got out with the cane. Selena accepted without argument, which told Connor the knee was bothering her more than she would admit.

Beside him, Blethan said, “Must be hard having your ex-wife hanging around.”

Connor turned toward him. Blethan glanced toward the rear of the house.