“Yes, I think so.”
“We’ll have to check it out anyway. We may need your shoes for verification.”
“Of course.”
They both fell silent for a moment, then Elizabeth said softly, “You noticed, didn’t you?”
“Noticed what?”
“There’s no blood on the body or on the floor. And look at the color of her skin. She looks as if she’s been exposed to extreme temperature, but there’s no frostbite.”
Cullen had seen the same thing, but he’d kept his observation to himself. He’d learned a long time ago to make no assumptions.
“My guess is she was killed somewhere else and brought here,” Elizabeth said. “She could have been dead for several days. The killer probably kept her in a cooler or freezer somewhere until the time was right.”
“Meaning?” Cullen glanced at her curiously. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, something about the confident manner in which she spoke had his attention.
“Until he was ready for someone to find her.” Elizabeth’s gaze moved upward, where the body of Bethany Peters stirred gently in a slight draft from a heating vent. “He put her on display. She was left here, like this, for a reason. The killer is trying to tell us something.”
Cullen knew instantly what she meant. One-time crime-of-passion killers would only take the time to move the body of their victim in order to dump it in a remote location or to try and throw off the police. They wouldn’t flaunt it. Neither would a professional hit man. There was only one type of killer who would.
Elizabeth turned to Cullen, her eyes deeply troubled. “This is a very bad thing, Cullen.”
His gaze lifted to the body. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out.
THE MOMENT the medical examiner arrived, Elizabeth was expelled from the solarium.
“We’ll take it from here,” Cullen told her firmly.
“But I’d like to help—”
“If we need your help, we’ll ask for it.” He must have realized how harsh his words sounded because he almost at once altered his tone. “I appreciate everything you’ve done so far, but this is a police investigation. You need to wait outside with everyone else.”
When she still resisted, his grasp tightened on her elbow. “Come on, Elizabeth. Cut me a break here.”
“But you can’t seriously consider me a suspect,” she protested. “If you’d listen to your brain for a moment instead of your ego, you’d realize I could help you.” She winced. That hadn’t come out at all right. She hadn’t meant to goad him, but somehow, around Cullen, she always managed to say the wrong thing.
“You’ve done quite enough already,” he said coolly.
“If you’re referring to letting the Pierces come into the solarium, I had no authority to keep them out,” she defended. “I’m not a police officer.”
He arched a brow. “Precisely my point.”
“Just let me stay while Dr. Vogel examines the body. I want to hear what he says about cause of death.”
“Out.”
“Cullen—”
“Out.”
He opened the solarium door and gave her an unceremonious little push into the hallway. The door closed firmly behind her.
The Pierces were still in the hallway, and they gazed at her curiously.
“I take it your services are no longer required,” Drew commented.
“Cops can be so…infuriating.” The latex gloves snapped loudly as Elizabeth peeled them off.
“They do tend to have a one-track mind,” William sympathized. “But in this case, I have to agree with Detective Ryan. A murder scene is no place for a young lady.”
“But I teach criminology,” she protested. “I’m not unfamiliar with crime scenes.”
“You can’t be more than a day over twenty years old. Hardly more than a child. If Natasha were still alive, I certainly wouldn’t want her subjected to such a gruesome scene.” Pain flashed in William’s blue eyes, and whatever annoyance Elizabeth had been harboring toward him for his comments about her age vanished. Tasha’s death had affected them all, but especially her family. It was obvious that her father still grieved her passing. That was why he hadn’t been able to forgive David Bryson and probably never would.
But had Bryson been able to forgive himself? Elizabeth wondered. Or had his guilt driven him to do unspeakable evil, as some of the townspeople suspected?
Careful, she warned herself. Don’t let your imagination get the better of you.
They had absolutely no evidence thus far linking David Bryson to Bethany’s murder. Nothing except an innate distrust of the man, and Elizabeth knew she was prejudiced in that regard. Tasha had been her friend.
If she wasn’t careful, such a biased perspective would end up proving Cullen’s point—that she had no place in a murder investigation.
“They won’t find anything,” Geoffrey Pierce murmured in a strange, offhand manner, his gaze on the solarium door. “That girl was dead before she was hanged.”
Elizabeth had come to the same conclusion, but it wasn’t exactly admiration she felt for Geoffrey’s keen perception.
Earlier, when they’d all rushed into the solarium, the other Pierces had been deeply disturbed by the sight of the body, especially Zachary, who’d turned a bit green when his father suggested that he and Drew find a way to cut her down. The same look of horror and compassion had emanated from all the Pierces’ blue eyes—all except for Geoffrey’s.
In his eyes only a cool curiosity had gleamed.
Elizabeth had to wonder about a man, a nonprofessional, who could remain so stoic and unaffected in the face of such horror.
Her gaze on him narrowed. “Why do you think Cullen won’t find any evidence?”
He shrugged. “Because whoever did that knew what he was doing.”
“He?”
“Given your field of expertise, I’m sure you know as well as I do that crimes of this nature are almost always masterminded by white males. Serial killers seem to be a unique affliction to our race and gender.” He didn’t seem especially disturbed by his conclusion.
“Serial killer?” Elizabeth said, feigning surprise. “Who said anything about a serial killer?”
Geoffrey gave her an enigmatic smile. “Don’t tell me the same thought didn’t cross your mind when you saw her hanging there. The way the body was put on exhibition? What else could it be?”
“An act of rage,” Elizabeth said. “A crime of passion.”
He shook his head. “You don’t believe that. You know what we’re dealing with here as well as I do.”
Elizabeth had studied crimes such as this in both her undergraduate and graduate courses. She’d learned a long time ago what it meant when a murderer “signed” his kill.
But she couldn’t help wondering how Geoffrey Pierce knew.
And would another body soon follow that would prove his point?
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