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Winthrop took a moment to reset, then continued. “As I was saying, after that painful exchange I went to my office and tried to sleep, but I primarily walked the floor. At some point after collapsing into the chair behind my desk, I fell asleep there.”
“But you still went for a walk this morning?” Finley was surprised she’d done so with little or no sleep, not to mention she had left Grady at the house. Alone.
“I had hoped he would leave sometime during the night, but he surprised me by daring to stay. As exhausted as I felt, I didn’t want to be under the same roof with him. I told him to be gone when I came back from my walk.”
“You spoke to him,” Jack reiterated, “confirmed that he was alive when you left the house.”
She nodded. “I did. He just stood in the center of the family room staring at me as if he still didn’t understand why I was upset.”
Jack studied her a moment, then asked, “Do you have any way of confirming what time you left the house and then returned?”
“I’m certain the security system will show when I left the house,” she said, “and when I returned.”
“Your system has cameras?” Finley hoped the answer was yes.
“Yes.” A frown marred her forehead. “I’m confident the detective has already confirmed the time I left the house and the time I returned. I was gone just over an hour, from nine thirty until fifteen or so minutes before eleven.”
“You returned,” Jack went on, “and you found him.”
“As I told Detective Ventura,” Winthrop answered, “I returned to the house. The door was locked, so I assumed he was gone. Once inside, I walked straight to the family room to see if he was still loitering there,but he was not. The evidence he’d drunk himself to sleep the night before had been cleaned up.”
How nice of the sneaky embezzler to clean up his mess.
“Did you search the house from that point?” Finley wondered about his vehicle. She felt confident the man had one. Probably a Lamborghini. A wedding present from his adoring wife.
“I did. First I went to the garage. His Ferrari was still there. Admittedly, this made me more than a little angry, and I stormed through the house in search of him.”
Ferrari. Lamborghini. Close enough, Finley mused.
Finley waited for her to go on. Ellen Winthrop’s next steps would define how this case moved forward. Could be smooth sailing or like driving over mountains of rubble.
“I checked the kitchen first. He wasn’t there, and I found no sign he’d bothered with coffee, so I went upstairs to our suite to see if perhaps he was still packing.” She swallowed, took a breath. “That’s when I found him.”
“Remember, I need to know every step, every thought, every word on your part,” Jack said softly. “I know this is difficult, but it’s important that we don’t miss anything.”
“I climbed the stairs, slowly,” she said, then hesitated a moment. “By that point dread had taken hold, and I wasn’t looking forward to having someone from my security service remove him. Or worse, the police. I really had hoped he would just leave.” She drew in a long, deep breath. “The french doors to our bedroom were open, so I continued into the room without stopping. I was braced for battle. Determined. Frustrated.” She shrugged. “Angry.”
Finley held up a hand. “Think for a moment. Was there anything unusual about the room. A smell? Sounds? Anything at all?”
“The bed remained made, since neither of us had slept there.” Her eyes narrowed as if she was searching her memory. “I smelled the soap he used, a leathery sandalwood scent.” The features of her face tightened.“I experienced a powerful surge of anger at that point. The idea that he would take his time, shower at his leisure, infuriated me unreasonably.”
She took a moment then, seemed to gather her courage around her. “I found him in the bathroom.” A beat, then two, elapsed. “At first I thought he’d slipped getting out of the shower. He was lying on the floor, his head turned so that I could see his face. I initially noticed that his eyes ...” She gestured toward her own. “They were open. Unblinking.”
She fell silent, her gaze distant, as if she were back in that bathroom staring at her dead husband.
“Take your time,” Jack offered.
Winthrop blinked, his voice prompting her to go on. “There was an indentation on his left temple, as if he’d fallen and hit the edge of something. I called his name. Moved a little closer. He ...” She closed her eyes a moment. “I crouched down ... that’s when I realized he wasn’t breathing. I checked his pulse. Nothing. His skin felt cold.” She shivered. “I saw the blood pooled on the floor beneath his head. I tried to draw away, lost my balance. I toppled backward onto my bottom. That’s when I saw the hammer a few feet away. As if it had been tossed aside ...”
“Did you recognize the hammer?”
Winthrop started at Finley’s question. “I’m sorry. What?”
“Is the hammer one that you recognized as belonging in your home? Maybe from the garage or a tool kit you keep.”
Winthrop hesitated, then said, “Yes. No.” She shook her head. “It isn’t that kind of hammer. One of my dearest friends, Laney Pettit, gave it to me years ago when I first made the Fortune 500. The hammer is made of titanium. She’d had it mounted in a distinctive glass case. She said it was in honor of my shattering the glass ceiling.”
Interesting. Clearly the killer was aware of the personal significance of the chosen weapon. Finley wondered if Winthrop had consideredthat the killer might be someone in her circle. “Was the hammer on display somewhere in your home?”
