Allison Brennan - Cutting Edge

“Any sign of him being drugged?” she asked.

“He had whiskey last night-there’s an empty glass in the bathroom that smells of it,” Sanger said. “It’s bagged into evidence. He told me he wouldn’t drink.”

“Excuse me?”

Sanger turned his red-rimmed eyes from Cole to her. “I should have stayed.”

“You couldn’t have known he was a target. Leif Cole doesn’t fit-” Then she realized she had no idea why or how the killer was selecting his-or her-victims.

All the evidence pointed to the mysterious Maggie O’Dell. No driver’s license, no records, no photo.

Nora and Duke had found Cole’s body after Nora couldn’t reach him on any phone-house, cell, or the college. She called Sheriff Sanger and confirmed that Cole had gone home the night before, leaving his car at Rose College. At first she wasn’t concerned-he could be sleeping late, a common sign of grief. But when he didn’t respond to knocking or the doorbell, she’d searched the property and discovered the garage door unlocked.

Cole had given them Maggie’s name, but Nora didn’t see how Maggie could have found out. Did she fear he would lead them to her? Did Cole know more about Maggie O’Dell than he said last night?

She looked back at Cole, and the wall that separated her cop mind from her emotions faded. She’d known Cole. She’d talked to him just last night. Seeing him like this … it was more than a tragedy. Nora wasn’t going to forget.

Duke put a hand on the small of her back. Subtly and discreetly, but the simple gesture supported her and helped keep her focus on the crime scene.

There was very little blood spatter on Cole’s body, the chair, or the wall, as far as she could tell. Each cut seemed to have been made slowly, carefully-at least four dozen incisions. There was some cast off from the knife on the carpet and the side table, suggesting the killer was right-handed.

Keith Coffey was grim. “I think he bled to death. There’s little or no clotting. Someone check his medicine cabinet for warfarin or another anticoagulant. In fact, grab all medicines.”

“These cuts look the same as Payne’s. Can you run tests on heparin?”

Keith looked at Nora. “I was thinking the same thing, but Payne’s body was clean.”

“Clean?”

“There wasn’t blood like this.”

“Would the fire have taken care of that?”

“Not necessarily. And his back would have been stained. There would have been smearing and his unexposed skin-under his arms and back-would have had dried blood. Since he’d been dead for several hours, even brief exposure to water from the fire hose wouldn’t have cleaned him so effectively.”

“On the surface, it looks too similar to discount a connection to Jonah Payne’s death,” said Nora. “We’re going to assume it is until proven otherwise. I just don’t know why.”

“A college professor seems an unlikely target for this killer.”

Nora said, “Not to Maggie O’Dell.”

Duke raised his eyebrow and Sanger was about to speak, but Nora put her hand up. “Bear with me a minute. I might be making a stretch, but if we believe what Cole said yesterday, Anya was calling it quits with BLF. She was highly distraught when she heard about Dr. Payne, and at the time she thought it was an accident.

Maggie didn’t want them to quit, but she couldn’t trust that they’d keep quiet.”

“So she poisons them?”

“Convenient. Take out all three witnesses. Maybe she thought Cole would expose her.”

“He did,” Sanger pointed out. “Last night.”

“He was the only other witness to her involvement in the arsons,” Nora said. “A good attorney could block his statements without the ability to cross-examine.”

“What if she was angry?” Duke motioned toward the corner of the bedroom where Cole’s computer monitor was shattered, a deep gouge in the wall.

“Angry at Cole?” Nora said.

“For talking to us last night?” Sanger asked. “How would she know?”

“Could she have followed him?”

“I would have noticed someone following me,” Sanger said defensively.

One of the deputies walked in with a clear bag of evidence. A wet gob of multicolored hairs. “This came from the shower drain and tested positive for blood. Bloody female clothes were found in the bathroom.”

“She came prepared,” Nora said.

“Why didn’t she take the clothes with her?” Sanger asked.

“I think she’s deranged,” Coffey mumbled.

He might be right. Nora couldn’t reconcile the methodical, vicious way Maggie O’Dell had killed her friends and a man Nora doubted she even knew, Jonah Payne. “She’s young,” Nora said. “Early twenties. Impulsive.”

“She’s going to be caught.”

“Either she doesn’t care or she doesn’t think we’ll find her. She’s an anarchist-we know that from BLF activities. She’s learned to be sly, sneaky, live off the grid. She was probably raised that way.” The similarity to Nora’s upbringing was unsettling.

“Why these people? Why now?” Sanger asked.

Nora had been wondering the same thing. “Maggie left for nearly a year, dropped out of college and disappeared, then came back. What was she doing during that time?”

She glanced at Pete. He said, “I know what you want. I’m on it.”

“You need her college transcripts. We have to know who she is. Maggie O’Dell isn’t popping up anywhere we’ve looked. If we had an address or financial aid information, anything to point us at least to her parents.”

Pete was already on the phone with Rachel as he left the crime scene.

Another deputy came in. “We have footprints coming to and from the house, leading across the field. We lost them in the grass meadow, but there’s a street only a quarter mile from here. I sent two men to check it out and canvass the neighbors.”

There was something else they weren’t seeing. Nora glanced at the broken monitor, then at the chair. “She was enraged about something. Look-she stabbed the chair. Not Cole-she has some control-but the chair has three … five, six holes.”

One of Steve Donovan’s ERT, Agent Chow, stepped in. “The killer got in through the garage door. The kitchen door was unlocked, but the garage door leading to the back has a flimsy lock. Someone jimmied it. A novice might take five minutes, an expert five seconds.”

“She needed help with Payne because she moved the body, but not with Professor Cole,” Nora said. “If he was drugged he might have passed out. Or maybe he wasn’t drugged, and just drunk.”

Coffey said, “I’ll rush the tox screens and alcohol test.”

“You’re on the right path,” Duke said. “Only, there has to be something else in common between Payne and Cole. Another reason they were targeted.”

“They did something to Maggie.”

“What?” Sanger said, irritated. “You think they did something to her? Like what?”

“Something personal. They probably didn’t even know what. She was slighted, and she made them pay in the only way she knew how.”

“But she’s so young,” Duke said in disbelief.

“They start younger and younger,” Nora said. “Duke, do you have the background check on the three kids?”

“It should be done by now,” he said.

“Let’s go back to headquarters and take a look. There is a common factor between all these victims. We just have to find it.”

As they walked out, Duke whispered, “I could find out about Maggie O’Dell faster.”

Nora was very tempted. “Let’s give Rachel one more hour to get the warrant. I don’t want this case thrown out because of a technicality.”

Duke stood in front of the driver’s door of Nora’s car with a concerned expression. “You want to drive?” she asked.