She let out a sigh. “I know. But everything about these cases has a rush on it. Hell, the FBI is working it, so of course,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“And even with a rush, the preliminary might not get here today,” she said. “Maybe not even tomorrow.”
“I know. I’m assuming you want to check on the bruises on her neck,” he guessed. “To see if she was strangled.”
“She was.” Sol was certain. “The bruising and petechial hemorrhaging in the report will substantiate it, but no, that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“What, then?”
“You’re not gonna like it.”
He already knew that much. He wasn’t liking his own wayward thoughts. “What’ve you got, Augustin?”
Her eyes grew dark, and he felt a second’s trepidation.
Turning back to her computer, she said, “It’s easiest to show you.” Her fingers clicked over the keyboard, and as they did, the image on her computer screen changed from the four frames of etched rocks to Naomi Kittle’s dead body hanging from the rafter at Jeanne LaRoux’s hut in the swamp.
Reed involuntarily cringed. She was right, he didn’t like where this was heading. And the bad feeling, which had been with him all night and kept him awake, loomed larger.
“Take a look,” she instructed.
He stood and peered over her shoulder as Sol enlarged the picture, zeroing in on the dead woman’s abdomen. “See those little marks there? Those tiny scars?” She pointed to a couple of small discolorations visible on Naomi’s skin just above the top of her tight-fitting low-waisted pants.
“Yeah?”
“And this one here.” Her finger moved to Naomi’s navel.
His gut tightened. He knew what was coming.
“Looks like scars from a tubal ligation.” She glanced over her shoulder to look him directly in the eyes. “Didn’t you say that Kittleand his wife were planning a romantic weekend together when she went missing? That they were hoping to have another baby?”
“That’s what he told me.”
“Wasn’t going to happen,” she said flatly. “Unless I miss my guess, Naomi Kittle had already had her tubes tied. No more babies. No male heir for Jamison,” she said. “The autopsy will confirm.”
The evidence was damning.
Reed’s fears that had kept him up all night were substantiated.
“He lied to you,” Sol said.
“Yeah.” Reed straightened and looked away from the damning image.
The truth was obvious.
Jamison Kittle had just become the number-one suspect in his wife’s murder.
Chapter 39
Nikki couldn’t sleep.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Naomi Kittle’s body hanging from a crossbeam, blood crusted at her nostrils, her skin a sickly shade of gray. And when her eyes were open, her mind was racing with thoughts of stones, and odd numerals, and the silver SUVs.
Pierce, too, had been restless. When he’d given up on sleep, thrown on his clothes, and gone back to the station, she, too, had gotten up and climbed up to her office. Sometimes in the wee morning hours, when she was all alone and the house was quiet, the outside dark and still, she found that she could think more clearly.
Usually, she’d nurse a cup of coffee and let the caffeine help clear the cobwebs from her mind, but it was way too early for that. She was still holding out a slim hope that she might catch a few winks later, and she didn’t want a jolt of caffeine fouling up any chance of sleep.