Read Murder with a Twist for Free Online Page B

them out so we can see a pattern, and most of the time it’s the pattern that provides the solution, not the individual bits.”
    â€œYou didn’t seem surprised when I mentioned the chair or the smoke smell on the note and laptop. You knew this wasn’t a suicide when you brought me here, didn’t you?”
    Duncan’s smile turned apologetic. “Busted! But without you we might not have known that the position of the chair was staged, or that the person who typed the fake suicide note is a smoker.”
    â€œIs his girlfriend a smoker?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Duncan said. “We’ll ask her, but she may lie. We can search her credit card records, and check at stores near here and ask if she buys cigarettes. But that all takes time and it isn’t necessarily proof, because she could say she bought the cigarettes for someone else. We could also search her apartment to see if there are ashtrays filled with butts. However, that requires a warrant if she doesn’t give us permission. Or I can simply introduce you to her and you can tell me if the same smell exists on her hands.”
    â€œYou want me to sniff her hands?”
    â€œBased on what I’ve seen so far, I don’t think you’ll have to do that. I think just standing next to her will suffice. Wouldn’t you agree?”
    â€œProbably,” I said grudgingly. “If you didn’t know about the chair or the note before I got here, how did you know this wasn’t a suicide?”
    â€œWalter Finch, who was the first police officer on the scene, figured it out. Jimmy clued me in during his call. Walter’s a sharp cookie and he was able to tell it wasn’t a suicide by the marks on the victim’s neck. That was lucky for us, because it kept more of the scene preserved. Walter has seen several hanging victims and he knew this one was beyond any medical help, so we were also able to avoid having EMS tromp all over our scene. Thus far we’ve allowed only two officers to enter the apartment, so up until the arrival of the medical examiner, the only people who have been in here are Walter Finch, his partner, me, and Jimmy . . . and now you, of course. Jimmy got the initial call, and when he told me what we had, I decided to bring you along to see what you could figure out.”
    I glanced over at the body, curious about what Duncan had just said.
    Duncan called over to the man from the Medical Examiner’s Office. “Hey, Martin, can you show Ms. Dalton here the marks on our victim’s neck?”
    Martin, who was standing alongside the stretcher on the opposite side of the body from us, grabbed a hold of Thornton’s shoulder and hip, and rolled him up onto his side, exposing his back to us. The rope, which was still around Thornton’s neck, was slack now.
    â€œYou can see where the rope came in contact with the victim’s neck,” Martin said. “Everywhere it touched the skin is blanched white.”
    Even though I could see what he was referring to easily enough, he traced the path of the rope on Thornton’s skin with his gloved finger. The white stripe ran along the front and sides of the man’s neck, under his jawline, and up behind his ears, where it then disappeared. Martin then took hold of the rope above the knot and pulled it up behind the back of Thornton’s head, mimicking the position it had been in when he was still hanging.
    â€œYou see how the rope forms an upside-down V when the knot is located at the back of the head, as it was in this case?” Martin said. “It doesn’t touch the back of the neck, so the blanched area stops just behind the ear. It’s a typical finding in a hanging of this nature.”
    I must have looked confused because Duncan leaned into me and whispered, “Wait for it.”
    â€œWhat isn’t a typical finding for a hanging like this is the bruising we see here,” Martin said,