“If the other person were a family member, would that make a difference?” asked Decker, who already knew the answer.
“Well, of course it would. All humans’ DNA is ninety-nine point nine percent the same. But that one-tenth is dramatically different for all, except if you’re a monozygotic or identical twin. But the testing that was done on Abigail’s nails would not have picked up on a third party’s DNA if the person were a family member of Hawkins. They would have had to do additional steps. Actually, they would have had to do extra steps to check for any third-party corruption, family or not.”
Natty eyed Decker. “What family member are you talking about?”
“There really can only be one: his daughter, Mitzi.”
“Why would she have set up her old man?” asked Natty.
“I don’t know.” He looked at the ME. “Is the DNA sample still available to do additional testing, to see if Mitzi’s DNA or a third party’s had corrupted it? I asked you to check earlier.”
The ME nodded his head. “I did check. And there is some left. I’m having an expert in Cincinnati where they have much better equipment and protocols do sophisticated testing on it. They’ll be able to differentiate between a father’s and daughter’s DNA, and also the presence of any third party. But it will take a little time.”
“Let me know as soon as you have something.”
“You really think his daughter was involved?” said Natty.
“If she were it would explain how the murder weapon came to be found in a panel behind the wall of his closet. I just reread the report of the search team that went over Hawkins’s house. They wrote that Mitzi had drawn their attention to some unevenness of the wall. They didn’t ask her why she knew about it.”
“Are you going to ask her about it?” said Natty.
“I think if I go back to that well again, she’s going to lawyer up. Probably already has. Right now, she’s home free, or thinks she is.”
Decker looked back at Susan Richards’s body. He closed his eyes and thought back to something that a witness had told him. He put layer after layer of facts on top of that one, pulling them down from his cloud with ease. Until something did not make sense. It stood out, in fact, like a blinking red light.
Natty said, “So, you don’t think she killed herself?”
Decker opened his eyes. “I’m almost sure she didn’t.”
“How?”
“Because I think she was already dead when she left her house.”
Chapter 39
IT WAS THE NEXT DAY and Decker and Mars were standing in front of the late Susan Richards’s house. Across the road, Decker could once more see Agatha Bates sitting on her screened porch.
“You’re saying that Richards was in the rolling suitcase already dead?” said Mars.
Decker absently nodded.
“So that means another woman was impersonating her.”
“Agatha Bates saw the person from a distance. And it was dark, and judging by the thickness of Bates’s eyeglass lenses, her sight is far from perfect. And the person had on a long coat and a hat. That was one thing that made no sense to me. It was warm that night with not a cloud in the sky. So it was a disguise, because they wanted to take no chance that Bates might be able to see it wasn’t her neighbor.”
“But why do you think it wasn’t Richards in the first place?”
“Richards’s car muffler was really loud. That was why the person came out and started the car and then went back inside to get the suitcase.”
“I’m not following.”
In answer, Decker pointed across the street. “Think of it this way: This was all a show for Bates. The person wanted her to hear the car start up, knowing that she would look out the window and see who she thought was Susan Richards come out with the suitcase. If she had come out and put the bag in the car and then got in the car and started it, Bates would not have seen what she did. Bates said the person had trouble getting the suitcase in the car. That was probably because of Richards’s weight.” He paused. “And in addition to that, she barely took any clothes or shoes or other things. So why the big suitcase? And she was on a bunch of meds. I saw them in the medicine cabinet. Most weren’t too critical, but one she left behind was: high blood pressure medication. She had to take that every day.”
“So someone killed Richards because…?”
Decker said, “To place blame for Hawkins’s murder on her. Then she’s found, ostensibly having taken her own life out of guilt. Case closed. At least with respect to Hawkins’s murder.”
Mars nodded thoughtfully. “Gotta admit, it all hangs together.”
“But it leaves a lot of questions unanswered and creates a lot of new ones. And it doesn’t tell us who committed those murders thirteen years ago, or who really killed Meryl Hawkins.”
“Well, you think his daughter is involved somehow.”
“But I have no way to prove it. At least not yet.”
“So you think it’s all connected, then? What happened back then and now?”
“Well, we have one factor unaccounted for.”
Mars thought for a moment. “The dude who took a shot at you.”
“Right. Who is he? Was he hired to take a shot at me by someone? Was he the one who earlier tried to kill me by ramming his truck into my car?”
Mars rubbed his arm where the guy had slashed him. “Dude could fight, I’ll give him that.”
“And I have other questions.”
“Like what?”
“Why would someone drive Katz over there and kill him, Don Richards, and his kids?”
“Because they knew something incriminating, something that could hurt whoever killed them.”
“Right. But if Katz knew something, why drive him over there and kill the others?”
“Because Don Richards knew something too. They had to take them both out. And instead of doing it separately, they did it all at once.”
“Right. But the thing is, Susan Richards wasn’t there. If her husband knew something that could hurt somebody, you’d think she might know too.”
Mars snapped his fingers. “Maybe she did know, because she was involved in whatever it was. And that may be the reason she wasn’t there that night.”
“I’ve covered that ground before. While I can see Susan letting her husband die, I just don’t see her allowing her kids to die too.”
“So maybe she was just lucky she wasn’t there.”
“But she’s dead now, because she was a scapegoat for Hawkins’s murder, because she had a motive to kill him.”
“But what would David Katz or Don Richards know that would get them killed?”
“Rachel Katz has a lot of projects going on around town, with money behind her. She’s obviously very ambitious. And she wasn’t there that night either, which meant she got to live.”
“That doesn’t make her a murderer, Decker. In fact, it might make her a target now if people are tying up loose ends from thirteen years ago.”
“Well, nine times out of ten, when a spouse dies, it’s the other spouse doing the killing. I don’t think that was the case with Susan Richards, but it could very well be the case with Rachel Katz.”