Seconds to Live(84)

Dena Miller was on the table, her nude body icy white against the stainless steel. Large ugly stitches across her torso said Frank had been busy.

He motioned Stella to the lightboard and pointed at rows of X-rays. “This is the victim’s right hand. As you saw at the scene, all of her fingers were broken. With the damage to the skin and the way the bone is impacted, I suspect he used a hammer.”

Stella felt sick.

The next X-ray showed Dena’s skull and neck. “I found the vertebrae fracture her husband told you about.” He waved at the board, where images of Dena’s bones were displayed. “I found four more recently broken and healed bones: one wrist, an elbow, and several ribs. The Scarlet Falls hospital only has records showing Dena’s neck injury, so I had my assistant check with the three other hospitals in the area. Dena had records at all of them. Each emergency room treated her once. Each time she claimed to have fallen down the stairs.”

“Classic abuse history.”

“Repeat visits to the same ER would spark suspicion,” Frank agreed. “She was careful not to use hospitals in the same network to avoid the possibility of digital records automatically cross-referencing.”

Poor Dena.

Stella put aside her anger and sadness. Justice was all she could offer Dena now. “What else did you find?”

“She’d been recently washed and her fingernails were clipped.” Frank tossed the file back on his desk. “There was no sign of sexual assault. Tox screens are being rushed. The lab has promised to get Missy Green’s done by Monday morning as well.”

Stella left the medical examiner and hurried across the lot to the forensics lab. She still didn’t have enough to convince anyone that Adam Miller was a killer. The fact that his wife had multiple broken bones didn’t prove he murdered her.

Darcy Stevens, the county latent fingerprint analyst, leaned over her desk. Her coffee-colored skin looked too smooth for her to be a grandmother.

“How’s your grandson?” Stella picked up a framed snapshot of a two-toothed baby.

“Perfect.” Darcy smiled, then sobered. “I have something for you.”

“Is it going to make me happy?”

“I think so,” Darcy said in her rich, deep voice.

Stella dropped into a chair facing her desk.

“I found several sets of fingerprints on the envelope of cash you found in Missy Green’s apartment.” Darcy opened a file on her computer. She pointed to the envelope, encased in a protective plastic sleeve. “Missy Green’s matched right away. That was easy. But then I had an idea, and I pulled Dena Miller’s prints. Perfect match.”

“You matched prints from Dena Miller and Missy Green?”

“I did.”

“You are a genius.”

Darcy rubbed her fingernails on her black suit jacket. “I know.”

Dena was keeping cash at Missy’s house.

“Do you know if Vinnie’s in?” Stella asked.

“He was. I saw him at the coffeepot an hour ago.” Crime didn’t adhere to a weekday schedule, and Saturday was often a time for playing catch-up.

Stella’s steps were quick as she went down the hall to Vinnie’s office. The swarthy forensic tech looked like a Godfather extra.

Vinnie was holding a paper evidence envelope. “You’re just in time. The tech just came back from your house.”

“Did he find anything besides the scarf?”

“Nothing interesting. The rain destroyed the scene.” With gloved hands Vinnie opened the envelope and looked inside. “This scarf looks like the ones found on the dead girls.”

“What do you know about them?”

“Polyester. The tags were removed.”

“Not Hermes?” Something high end would be easier to trace.

“No. Sorry. These are fairly generic.” Vinnie set the envelope on the desk. “I don’t like that he left this at your house.”

“That makes all of us,” Stella said. “What about Dena Miller’s crime scene?”

“Opposite problem. The scope of the scene gave us a lot of evidence to sort through. My team barely got the evidence bagged, tagged, and locked up yesterday. I called in two techs to work overtime, but it’s still going to take a while.”

“Thanks, Vinnie.”

Spivak was in jail, but Stella had no idea when the scarf had been tied to the tree, so that didn’t eliminate him. The tree wasn’t visible from the driveway, mailbox, or front windows. It could have been there for a few days. Could everyone else be right and Spivak be the killer? It felt too easy, and Frank’s suspicion that Dena Miller was a victim of domestic abuse made Stella doubt Adam Miller’s alibi further. She knew he was violent—and lying.