Dead Guilty by Beverly Connor

chief of detectives. ‘‘He’s not here.’’
‘‘How’s it look inside?’’
‘‘A mess,’’ said Janice Warrick. ‘‘Chairs overturned,
drawers pulled out and emptied. We’re looking for
Mayberry now. Officer Wallace is calling his parents
and friends, and we have an APB out for his car.’’ ‘‘Did you see any blood, drug paraphernalia...?’’
Garnett asked.
Janice shook her head. ‘‘Nothing but the mess. We
only did a casual look through. That’s all we could
do.’’ Her eyes darted in Diane’s direction and back
to Garnett.
‘‘Stay here and see if he shows up. We need to
find him,’’ said Garnett. He turned to step back into
his car.
There was nothing for Diane to do but go back to
the crime scene. With three people working, perhaps
it wouldn’t take the entire night.
    ‘‘Sorry, guys,’’ Diane said to her crew.
‘‘No problem. Who needs sleep?’’ said David. The warrant had arrived in her absence, and Jin and
    David, clad in head and shoe coverings, had already started. David was photographing the body, and Jin had begun a fingerprint search, starting at the front entryway and following a path to the bedroom. Whit stood just outside the bedroom door watching David. Garnett stopped beside the body. Whit wore gloves and shoe coverings. Garnett did not.
    On the porch, Diane had donned a hair cap and fresh shoe coverings. Now she slipped on a pair of gloves and examined the knots in the rope that bound and strangled Chris Edwards. Of particular interest was the knot tied in the middle of the rope between the clothes bar and Chris Edwards.
    ‘‘Get good photographs of the knots.’’
‘‘Of course,’’ said David.
‘‘What about the knots?’’ Garnett stepped up be
    hind her.
    Diane wondered if he had decided to take the lead in the investigation. Janice Warrick hadn’t yet been replaced, and Garnett had stated to the press when he accepted the appointment as chief that he was going to take a hands-on approach.
    She handed him a pair of latex gloves and covers for his shoes. He looked at them quizzically for a moment before he slipped them on.
    ‘‘The rope and knots are different from the ones used with the other victims,’’ said Diane.
‘‘That’s significant?’’
‘‘It is indeed.’’
‘‘Diane is an expert in knots,’’ offered David, snap ping another photograph. ‘‘In that she has had to hang from them herself on many occasions.’’
David was good at keeping conversational tones, treating people like Garnett as if he was one of the team and not an adversary—which was the way Diane saw him.
‘‘Uh, you’ll have to explain that,’’ said Garnett. He gave Diane a sidelong glance.
‘‘I’m a caver,’’ she said. ‘‘I work on rope a lot.’’ Diane sniffed the corpse’s hair. ‘‘Shampoo. He’d just come out of the shower. I take it Miss Beck found the body. Why so late?’’
‘‘She just got off work,’’ said Garnett.
Diane studied the body. Chris Edwards was clad only in briefs, and there were bruises on his face, ab domen and arms. Despite the discoloration of his face resulting from the strangulation, bruises were still evi dent on his right temple and the right side of his jaw, as well as his arms. Dried blood was caked on his nose, down around his mouth and in his hair. He had put up a fight.
‘‘He looks like he was kicked.’’ Garnett pointed out the bruising on his side.
‘‘It looks like it,’’ Diane agreed. ‘‘Who’s going to get the body?’’
‘‘Rankin. He’s our medical examiner. You thinking maybe he should go to Webber because of the connec tion to the other victims?’’
Yes, she wanted Webber to do it. If the cases were related, it would be better if one examiner did them all.
‘‘I think it would be a good idea.’’ When the words were out of her mouth, she wondered if she sounded too curt.
Garnett thought for a moment. ‘‘Webber would make sense, especially if this turns out