“It’s not a practically new plot line, is it?” said Ray

“Nope. Rich and powerful older man, beautiful young women. That one has been around since…the dawn of man and woman.”

“You know Jill Wudbine is Malcom Wudbine’s daughter-in-law?” asked Ray.

“That makes the story suddenly a lot darker, doesn’t it,” observed Hanna.

Ray gestured toward neatly arranged pages. “So you really think….”

“Look at this e-mail. All she says is No one is clean. Perhaps Pepper is projecting her behavior….”

“I wondered about that, too.” Ray picked up his phone and touched the top of the recents screen. A moment later he spoke into the phone, “How do you know the same is true of Jill?” He listened. “Thank you. That’s what I need to know.”

“Well?” asked Hanna.

“In flagrante delicto. And on more than one occasion.”

“Well, the message is clear.” She paused, her tone changed. “This thing with Jill, it’s not incest, but it’s pathological behavior of the worst sort. Perhaps the ultimate hostility a father can commit toward a son. I think you have lots of people with a motive. Now I need the beach, Ray. A long walk on the beach.”

“Ditto.”

46

“What did you learn in Grayling?” asked Ray as Sue entered his office early the next morning.

“I’ve got a good set of prints off the handle of the knife, but the evidence tech—Andy Goodhue, a new guy that I’ve never worked with before—alerted me to something very interesting.”

“Which is?”

“The position of the fingers on the handle of the push dagger. The prints were good, almost too good. The fingers had been positioned in such a way to get the maximum area of the fingertips against the wide area of the handle. After we were done lifting prints, he showed me that it would be unlikely for the fingers to fall on the handle in that way if the perp was gripping it tightly to make a kill. In short, Ray, they looked staged.”

“So you’re suggesting that the prints were obtained from the dying or dead Brenda.”

“It appears that way.”

“So who was with Brenda? We know Grubbs was there. Did he do this? Or was it Jill, or Alyson, or Elliott?”

“Or perhaps someone else?”

“I was hoping to find a print or two on the scabbard that would help us answer that question. No such luck. After we established there were no prints on the leather, Andy cut open the seams. We could see traces of dried blood on the interior. He seemed confident that there was enough material to get a DNA profile. We should have the results in about five business days. Assuming a match, sometime next week, we can say this was the likely murder weapon. One more thing, the blade closely matches the dimensions cited in Malcolm Wudbine’s autopsy.”

“The pieces of the puzzle are falling together,” said Ray. “Here are Brenda Wudbine’s fingerprints. Dr. Dyskin was good enough to get us this set before the body was shipped to Grand Rapids.” Ray removed a standardized fingerprint card from a folder and handed it to Sue.

“So let me do a quick comparison.” She placed the cards side-by-side and examined them closely. “Something’s wrong here.” She studied them a second time. “I see the problem. My mistake. I assumed the prints on the push knife were from the right hand. They are a perfect match with the left hand prints from Brenda’s body.”

“The pathologists on Malcolm Wudbine’s autopsy said the murderer was probably left handed,” said Ray. “Did you find prints on the brandy bottle and coffee mug?”

Sue added two more fingerprint cards. She studied them carefully. “They are not of the same quality, but clearly from the right hand. See for yourself.”

“Agreed. We need to verify this, but it appears that Brenda was right-handed. How about the contents of the brandy bottle and coffee mug?” asked Ray.

“Andy did a quick and dirty. He’ll send a more complete analysis in a few days. Just brandy and coffee with brandy, no adulterations.”

“According to Hanna, Brenda’s blood alcohol was .26. Another thing she and Dr. Dyskin noted during their preliminary exam was that Brenda had sustained a blow to the back of the head, consistent with hitting a hard, flat surface, like a concrete floor. Let’s look at the greenhouse photos, I want see the position of the stool.”

Sue opened the laptop, “Is this what you’re looking for?”

“Perfect.”

“The EMTs probably would have pushed it out of their way,” said Sue.

“Yes,” agreed Ray. “But would they have changed the orientation? What I’m thinking is that Brenda had an early morning visitor, Grubbs or someone before him. Let’s say they were standing on the opposite side of the table. To get at Brenda they would take the shortest route, moving clockwise around the table.” Ray ran his finger over the screen to show the path. “And if they gave her a fairly forceful push, she would have ended up about where Grubbs said he found her. So tossing in another assumption, if this was the person who planted the knife and put Brenda’s prints on the handle….”

“They were probably moving fast. A mirror image grab of the hand, a simple mistake.”

“Or not,” said Ray.

“I see where you are going. My head is starting to hurt. I think we’ve only encountered one southpaw, Alyson Mickels.”

“Yes, that’s my memory.”

“Hold onto that,” said Ray. He laid out the copies of the room reservations, following Hanna’s organizational pattern. “I’ll get a pot of fresh coffee while you look those over. I’m interested in your interpretation.”

Five minutes later he returned with the coffee and clean mugs.

Sue gave him a Cheshire Cat grin.

“Okay, let me have it.”

“Based on these documents. Looks like Jill was, to put it in the vernacular, Malcolm’s main squeeze. There were occasional segues for a little spice with Pepper, but after Alyson happened on the scene, everything changed. She’s quite the babe.”

“Let’s go through our top suspects again.” Ray pulled down the whiteboard. “Starting with Richard Grubbs. He’s got motive….”

“Lots of motives,” interrupted Sue, “motive and opportunity.”

“And we’ve already talked about the fact that he’s been at the scene of both deaths. And three months ago, when I first encountered Wudbine, Grubbs jokingly said that if Malcolm ever ended up dead, we’d have an almost endless list of suspects.”

“Grubbs seems to be a kind, rational man,” said Sue. “But he’s only human. There’s got to be rage lurking below the surface. Could he have encouraged Brenda to put a little arsenic in Malcolm’s coffee?”

“Probably, he seems to be one of her few friends here. How about Pepper? And why did she send me all those documents?”

“She’s pissed. She wants revenge. So she’s breaking the code of silence and tossing out the dirty linen,” said Sue.

“Or maybe she thinks she is under suspicion. She’s trying to build some cover. But is she a killer?”

“Pepper was backstage, so she had opportunity. And there probably are multiple motives. She would have needed an accomplice. Could she have maneuvered Brenda into handling the power switch?”

“How about Alyson?” asked Ray. “Again, she’s the only southpaw in the group that I’ve noticed.”

“I’m impressed that you picked up on that particular characteristic.”

As was his custom, Ray let her comment pass. “I don’t know what her motive would be. She seemed to be Wudbine’s….”

“Femme du jour. Both Wudbine men seemed quite taken with her. Tom Lea puts her with Elliott. But could he be confused about the sequence of events?”

“A possibility. And then there’s Jill,” offered Ray.

“We just don’t know much about her. Could she manipulate Brenda into handling the power? Pepper said something about Jill trying to rehabilitate Brenda. That seems to be more hostile than friendly.”

“So,” said Ray, “a key element is how did the killer communicate with the person who turned off the lights. It had to be a cell phone.”