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This was going to fucking suck. But this is why I was here. It’s the one thing I could actually do, as Taavi had reminded me, so I was going to fucking do it.

* * *

In Gregory’s office,I paused, took a couple deep breaths, and then tried to turn off the part of my brain that was screaming and crying in order to focus on what I needed to do. Compartmentalize. Be a cop.

I’d already pulled dirt and a button from the floor, but it wouldn’t hurt to do another once-over. Elliot hadn’t been back in here—I’d asked, just in case—and I really didn’t think anybody else had, either. Just in case, I pulled up the photos I’d taken that first day as a point of comparison and slowly started going through the room.

Floor first.

This time, I didn’t just look at what was exposed—I did that, and then I got down on my hands and knees and started looking under the desk, under the over-turned chair, under the desk chair, around the edges of bookshelves…

I found a scuff mark on the corner of the shelf closest to the door—the kind of scuff mark that a black work boot might make. Most people who had work boots bought the generic brown ones—but this was one of those black rubber marks. Whoever it was had hit the edge of the shelf pretty hard.

I knew from having gone through the closets that Gregory had not owned any such boot. So it had to be one of the killers or one of the cops. I started taking notes on my phone.

White or light-colored shirt button. Gregory hadn’t owned any of those. He had some button-down shirts, of course, but none with the little collar buttons. Since he’d also said to Ward that his killers had worn dark clothing, it seemed like the button probably belonged to one of the cops. I wrote that down:cop? Why did it fall off?

Of course, I knew buttons sometimes fell off. But that was usually the ones you used all the time—the ones down the front or on the sleeves. Maybe the owner of the button had helped get the body down and something had caught. Or maybe something else. A white shirt under dark clothes, maybe. If you were being murdered, you probably weren’t paying attention to whether or not the asshole murdering you had a white collar sticking out over his black sweatshirt.

Mud from a partial shoe print (see picture & baggie). I was still debating shipping the dirt back to Richmond for Mays to test, but I wasn’t sure that was the best idea. I’d rather get someone from Shawano PD on my side and give it to them… or give some of it to them. I couldn’t decide if Taavi’s comment about the cops being in on it was making me paranoid or whether that was justifiable.

Scuff mark from a black rubber-soled shoe. Also not Gregory’s. I added to it:(Henry? Cop?)A reminder to myself to not assume that everything was from a killer.

Based on what Gregory had said, his killers wore gloves, so I wasn’t going to find fingerprints, which was just as well, since mine were now pretty much everywhere, as well. Gregory’s description also suggested that even if he’d struggled a bit, he hadn’t been able to draw any blood.

He’d only started to regain consciousness when they hung him, so his recollection was fuzzy and distant. He’d seen them, tried to move, but had been too weak and had lost consciousness again quickly. It was a horrible fucking thought, but it was better than being fully awake and aware of his lungs burning and his vision going black as he suffocated, unable to find a way to actually get himself out of the noose they’d put around his neck.

According to the coroner’s report that we’d been given when we arranged for Gregory’s body to go to the funeral home, they’d used a belt. A fuckingbelt.

I frowned.

A belt.

I walked back down to the basement.

“El?”

“What?” he straightened up, rubbing at his lower back, his face pinched and a little pale.

“How many belts does your dad own?”

“What?”

“Belts. How many?” There had been two upstairs in the closet—a beaded one and a brown one that had embroidery. Both were dressy and lightly worn, but old, the leather starting to crack from disuse.

“Uh, there were… two?”

“He didn’t have any other ones?”

“No?”

“How sure are you about that?”

I watched as his gaze sharpened, realizing that I wasn’t asking for no reason. “Pretty sure. Dad didn’t wear belts. I was surprised he owned any.”

I nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”

“Val?”