Can't Miss Her (Emily Slate FBI Mystery Thriller Book 5) by Alex Sigmore

Author:Alex Sigmore [Sigmore, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dark Woods Press
Published: 2022-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

“Good morning, Agents,” Sharon says as we enter the Mardel medical examiner’s office. She’s dressed in smart scrubs, with a white coat and holding an iPad as we enter. I see no sign of Metcaffe anywhere.

“Morning,” I say. “Working alone this morning?”

“All night, actually,” she replies. “I wanted to get this information to you as soon as I could. And it took some work convincing Chief Quaker we didn’t need to wait for Metcaffe to return from his vacation.”

“He’s on vacation?” I ask, incredulous. What kind of man goes on vacation in the middle of a murder spree? Not only was he lackadaisical with Brady Sanford, but he didn’t even bother to stick around in the event we needed something.

“The man does not like for his schedule to be interrupted. By death or any other inconvenience,” she replies wryly. I like Sharon a lot more than her boss.

“Thank you for jumping right on this,” I say. “We really do appreciate it.”

“Of course,” she replies. “My original assessment was off by only a little. It looks as though she died between midnight and eight a.m. on Monday morning.”

“So then probably within twelve hours of her husband’s death,” I say.

“More or less,” she replies. “And whoever killed her was sloppy. The ligature marks around her neck indicate strangulation was the primary cause of death, but I was able to pull a lot of organic material from under her fingernails. Looks like she gave as good as she got before she died. You’re looking for someone with fresh scratches. I’ve already sent the material off for DNA analysis, but who knows if it will come back or not.”

“Fingerprints?” I ask.

“Sloppy, but not completely inept,” she replies. “The killer wore gloves of some kind. I believe them to be either workman’s gloves or maybe even something softer, like gardening gloves. Not rubber gloves by any means, the marks are too rough.”

“Wonder why they didn’t just shoot her, like they did her husband?” Liam asks.

“That’s the other part,” Sharon says. “She was sexually assaulted.”

“Don’t tell me you got a sample,” I say.

She grins and gives me a nod. “I’ve already sent it out for analysis too. It looks, from the way the blood has pooled in the body, that she was probably alive for the assault. Or she could have possibly died during, via strangulation.”

“Jesus,” I say, the gravy in my stomach doing a small lurch. “So the killer came up on them, shot Brady in the back of the head, and kidnapped her, only to assault her and kill her too.”

“What are you thinking?” Liam asks.

I’m not sure yet, I’m still trying to understand this killer. Was this a crime of opportunity? Or was it something personal? It certainly feels personal and given there haven’t been any other crimes of a similar nature I have to assume that the killer knew his victims.

But who else would have had it out for them? Who could have been watching and waiting to take their opportunity?

“Did you find anything else?” I ask.

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