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Josie said, “Once she was in this chair, she didn’t move.”
Mettner followed the trail from the chair toward the kitchen. “These must be from her arm swinging while he carried her.”
Hummel nodded and beckoned back into the kitchen, pointing out the trail as they walked. They had already passed through the room once on their way to the body, but now Josie took a closer look. Like the rest of the house, it was spacious. The tile was white granite, the cabinets oak. There was no island countertop, only a small, circular table with seating for two sat off to one side. Stacked high on top of it were a number of plastic takeout containers, covered with blood droplets. The faint scent of steak and salmon emanated from them. The stove and even the sink sparkled. Not a crumb or dirty dish in sight.
Except for the blood nearly everywhere, the room was pristine.
Across from the table, recessed into the wall was a small vestibule that led to sliding glass doors. Josie edged around more bloody footprints and droplets layered across the middle of the kitchen floor toward the doors. She pushed aside one of the hanging blinds. Exterior lights illuminated a large deck and beyond that, down a set of steps, an in-ground pool, now covered for winter.
“Were those doors locked?” she asked.
“Yes,” Hummel said. “There is a keypad outside of the door, too, so to get in you need a passcode.”
She moved to the table, again careful to keep her Tyvek booties out of the blood. No easy task. Mettner was already there, nudging one of the foam containers with a gloved finger. “Takeout food for their anniversary?”
Josie motioned to a large area of blood spatter on the wall over one of the chairs. More blood spilled across the table. “Is this where it started?”
Hummel pointed to a stained area of the wall that would have been about head level had Claudia been seated there. The blood droplets were small and scattered, indicating medium-velocity impact spatter, meaning someone had struck Claudia with something. Gravitational drips trailed down toward the floor. More blood pooled in several places at the base of the chair, thick and dark. Hummel said, “It was a head injury. I’m thinking blunt force trauma. Not sure with what. The doc maybe can help you with that. We haven’t found anything here that could have been used as a weapon.”
Mettner said, “Looks like she was sitting in the chair when it happened.”
Hummel nodded. “I think so. She would have been facing away from the great room, so I think he came in the way we just did, from the front door, and snuck up on her. Hit her on the head before she even knew what was happening.”
Josie looked from the door to the chair. “How many entrances to this place?”
Hummel said, “The front door and that one right there that leads to the pool.”
Josie said, “She would have seen someone trying to come from the pool area. You’re right. He had to come right through the front door. She left the alarm disabled, per Eve Bowers, probably because she was expecting people.”
“What good fortune for the killer,” Mettner said.
“Or he knew her schedule, knew she would be here and waited to catch her alone,” Josie said. “Let’s keep going.”
Hummel pointed to the part of the table that was nearest the wall. “This is where her purse was sitting—we took it into evidence. Behind the takeout containers. It appears as though she came in here, put her things down, unpacked these, threw away the takeout bag—I found that in the trash bin—and plopped into this seat. She might have been on her phone—maybe that’s why she didn’t hear him? But her phone is not here.”
“You’re absolutely sure it’s not here? Elsewhere in the house?” Josie said.
“Not in her purse or anywhere on the premises,” Hummel said. “We’ve searched this entire place.”
Josie said, “Did you have the husband call it? See if you could hear it ringing anywhere in the house?”
“Several times,” Hummel said. “It’s not here.”
Mettner said, “We can get Brennan to call dispatch and get them to ping the number. See if we can find its location.”
Hummel said, “You think this guy came in, killed her and just took her phone? There’s a ton of jewelry upstairs—expensive stuff—and the electronics in this house would get a lot on the street.”
“We don’t know yet,” Mettner said. “It’s weird that it’s not here. All right, he hits her in the head and carries her into the dining room.”
“Yeah,” Hummel said. “That’s the weird part. I don’t understand why he moved her.”
The killer had made a point of depositing Claudia Collins into her seat at the anniversary dinner. What message was he trying to send? Josie asked, “Is it possible she was still alive at that point?”
Hummel said, “I don’t know. Maybe the doc can tell you.”
SIX
Again, they picked their way over the bloody tile and back into the dining room. Dr. Feist looked up from Claudia’s head. She gave Josie and Mettner the same half-grimace, half-smile she always greeted them with at crime scenes. “You’re back. I’m happy to see you two,” she said. “But not over a dead body.”
