Matthews stared at him for a moment before answering. “It’s pink and has a sticker on it that says Wife.”
Kerri bit back a smile. “You’re thinking the shooter took Mrs. Abbott with him.”
“We haven’t found her body, which suggests as much. That said, unless the forensic guys spot something with luminol that I missed, I haven’t found a blood trail—not even a drop—to indicate a hemorrhaging victim was hauled out of here.”
“He may have wrapped her in something.” Kerri looked around. “A throw or quilt.”
When she moved away from the bed, Falco crouched next to the dead husband and had a closer look. “I’m betting it was a .22,” he announced. He stood and nodded toward the victim. “Hard-contact wound. Whoever did this pressed the muzzle against his skull. This was up close and personal, Devlin. By someone who knew what he was doing. He didn’t hesitate, or the vic would’ve woke up, opened his eyes.” Falco shook his head. “No hesitation at all. Our shooter walked up and tapped him without so much as a blink.”
“Looks that way,” Kerri agreed, “but we’ll see what the crime scene folks and the ME have to say before we make any final conclusions.” Investigative procedures needed to be followed for a reason. Something else she’d learned from Boswell. Never conclude anything too quickly, and leave room for adjustments; otherwise you might miss an important detail that didn’t fit neatly into your initial conclusion.
“Were the french doors open when you first arrived on the scene?” Falco asked, not put off by Kerri’s reminder of protocol.
Matthews nodded. “They were. No sign of forced entry, though. No alarm triggered. I checked with the company monitoring the security system, and they said the system was disarmed at five this morning. Cameras were disabled weeks ago. No one had bothered to reactivate them.”
Had the wife awakened that morning, disarmed the security system, and opened the french doors only to find an intruder? Or had the wife exited through those doors after murdering her husband and mother? Had the mother wounded her in their struggle? But then how had the blood gotten on the bed down here in the master suite?
Maybe the mother-in-law hadn’t been happy with her daughter’s husband and had shot him, and her daughter had been injured in the ensuing struggle.
If the shooter was the wife, there was always the possibility that after the struggle with her mother, remorse had brought her back to the bed next to her husband for a few minutes, long enough to bleed on the sheets. People did strange things when they went over an edge. Even those who had no mental incapacity often suffered a moment’s remorse after it was too late to change their minds.
Kerri had seen far too much in her seven years to doubt the possibility just because the missing woman was the daughter of one of the vics or because she was injured herself. People did bad things. Sometimes those people were good people—maybe even saints—who for whatever reason snapped. Life could be like that. But there were other, more probable possibilities to rule out first.
Kerri took another look around the room. “What about jewelry? Cash?”
Matthews indicated the door to the walk-in closet, which stood open. “There’s a huge jewelry box—more like a small bureau—in there full of dazzling pieces. The wife’s purse is lying on top of it. Credit cards and cash inside. The husband’s wallet is there as well. Credit cards and cash inside, just like the wife’s.”
“Makes it hard to point to robbery,” Falco said from where he stood near the open french doors.
Definitely, Kerri agreed. To Matthews, she said, “Let’s see the second victim.”
“This way.” Matthews jerked her head toward the door.
Kerri followed her back to the front hall and up the stairs. By the time they arrived at the second-floor landing, Falco had caught up.
“I checked outside,” he said to Kerri. “The deck off the master overlooks the backyard. Steps lead down to a stone walkway. The ground is covered with that extrathick grass and mulched landscape beds. We won’t be finding any shoe prints back there.”
Kerri wasn’t surprised. With a property like this one, there wouldn’t be any barren areas where a shoe print might be found. There were times when an ultralush landscape was not their friend.
Upstairs there was a den and three more bedrooms, each with a private en suite. The first bedroom was that of the second victim.
“This is the mother-in-law’s room. Jacqueline Rollins,” Matthews said, hesitating before entering the room. “Seventy years old. She moved in with the couple right after their honeymoon. She obviously had a number of health issues. There are some serious prescriptions on the bedside table. I’m no doctor, but”—Matthews gestured for Kerri to go on in—“my father died of lung cancer. I recognize some of the meds. Whatever she had, it wasn’t pleasant.”
Kerri stopped in the center of the room and surveyed the space. The room smelled of disinfectant, like a freshly cleaned hospital room. The walls were painted a calming hue of blue. Several watercolor prints of the beach and the ocean adorned the wall. As Matthews had said, an array of prescription bottles sat on the bedside table. A walker stood next to the bed. The covers were tousled. But there was no victim.
Kerri’s gaze wandered to an open door that provided a slanted view of the en suite. “The vic in the bathroom?”
Matthews jerked her head toward the door. “In the next room.”
Judging by the expression on her face, there was more to this ugly story.
Matthews led the way to the next room—a nursery. At the open door she pointed to the knob. “There are a couple of scratches in the paint around the knob. I’m thinking this is where she broke her nails. She was probably terrified and struggling to get the door open. Also, you can see just the tiniest bit of tissue, probably skin, on the edge of the door here.” She indicated a spot several inches above the knob.
“She wasn’t thinking clearly,” Kerri offered. “But she wanted in this room for some reason. Tell me we don’t have a missing baby too.” Her gut clenched at the idea.
“Not exactly,” Matthews explained. “But the missing wife is pregnant.”
Oh hell.
The second victim lay on her back on the floor in the center of the room. Her gray hair was braided, and she wore a long pale-pink nightgown. The front of the gown was soaked in blood. She’d been shot twice in the chest before giving up her battle. Her face was battered where she’d been punched or kicked.
Damn. Kerri crouched next to her. Two nails on her right hand were broken. There was a minor scrape midforearm, probably where her arm had scrubbed the edge of the door. The smell of urine and feces served as an unpleasant accompaniment to the metallic odor of blood. The violent manner of death had stolen any final vestiges of dignity from the poor woman.
Kerri pushed to her feet, glanced around the room decorated in pastel pinks and bright whites. She blew out a breath. “Maybe they were planning to adopt. How do we know the wife is pregnant?”
“Prenatal vitamins in the master bath downstairs,” Matthews said, “and a photo of her and her husband holding a pic of an ultrasound on the dresser over there.” She nodded to the shiny white piece of furniture across the room.