In Death 18 - Divided in Death

the hacking began.”
    “Serious overkill,” Peabody commented. “There must be a dozen wounds on each of them.”
    “Eighteen for him, fourteen for her.”
    “Ouch.”
    “I’ll say. No heart wounds, which is interesting. Makes more blood if you don’t hit the heart.”
    She studied the way it spread over the sheets, the light spatter on the shade of the lamp beside the bed. Nasty work, she thought. Very nasty, very messy.
    “Also interesting that none of the holes in them struck the points where the stunner left the burn marks. Suspect has some blood on her clothes—not much, considering, but some. Hands and arms are clean.”
    “She’d have to wash up after something like this.”
    “You’d think. You’d think if she did, she’d have gotten rid of the shirt, too. But people dumb down a lot of times after they hack a couple people to death.”
    “Her mother’s here,” Peabody pointed out.
    “Yeah. So maybe her mother washed her up some, but Caro strikes me as more careful than that. Time of death is one-twelve A.M. We’ll have EDD check the security, see if we can determine when she bypassed and entered. I need you to check the kitchen, see if the murder weapon came from the premises, or if it was brought on scene.”
    She paused a moment. “You see what’s left of the leather bomber jacket on the floor down there?”
    “Yeah. Looked like nice material.”
    “I want it tagged, too. Ewing says she tore it up with her minidrill. Let’s see if that matches.”
    “Huh. Why’d she use a drill if she had a knife. Ripping away with a knife’s got to be more satisfying and efficient.”
    “Yeah, there’s a question. We’ll also run both vics, see if we can find anyone who’d want them dead besides the betrayed wife.”
    Hissing a breath out between her teeth, Peabody looked back at the bodies. “If it’s what it looks like, she’ll make diminished capacity in a walk.”
    “Let’s find out what it is, not what it looks like.”

Chapter 2
    “No. No, I didn’t wash her hands or face.” Caro sat, eyes level, face composed. But her hands were knotted together in her lap, as if she used them as a rope to anchor her body to the chair.
    “I tried to touch as little as possible, and just keep her calm until you got here.”
    “Caro.” Eve kept her gaze focused on the woman’s face, and tried to ignore the fact—and the small kernel of resentment in her belly—that Roarke remained in the room. At Caro’s request. “There’s a master bath upstairs, off the main bedroom. There are indications, though the sink was wiped down, that someone washed blood away.”
    “I didn’t go upstairs. I give you my word.”
    Because she did, because Eve believed her, she realized Caro didn’t understand the implications of her statement. But from the change in Roarke’s posture, the subtle shifting to alert, Eve knew he did.
    Because he remained silent, that kernel of resentment shrank a bit.
    “There’s blood on Reva’s clothes,” Eve said.
    “Yes, I know. I saw . . .” And the understanding dawned in her eyes, followed instantly by a barely controlled panic. “Lieutenant, if Reva—if she used the washroom, it would’ve been while she was in shock. Not to try to cover anything up. You have to believe that. She was in shock.”
    Sick, certainly, Eve thought. Her prints were on the bowl and rim of the toilet. Just as they’d be if she’d held on while being violently ill. But not in the master bath. The evidence of her illness was in the bath down the hall from the bedroom.
    While the blood traces were in the master bath.
    “How did you enter the premises, Caro?”
    “How did I . . . oh.” She brushed a hand over her face like a woman brushing absently at a cobweb. “The door, the front door was unlocked. It was open a little.”
    “Open?”
    “Yes. Yes, the lock light was green, then I saw it wasn’t quite closed, so I just pushed it open and came in.”
    “And what was the situation when you entered?”
    “Reva was sitting on the floor, in the foyer. Sitting there, in a ball, shaking. She was barely coherent.”
    “But she’d been coherent enough when she contacted you for you to understand Blair and Felicity were dead, and she—your daughter—was in trouble.”
    “Yes. That is, I understood she needed me, and that Blair—Blair and Felicity—were dead. She said: ‘Mom. Mom, they’re dead. Someone’s killed them.’ She was crying, and her voice was hollow and strange.