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“Maybe.” But it didn’t wash, not with Thomas, and most likely not with Johnson either. She was just playing devil’s advocate.
“And how did McIntyre get up here? Did he have an accomplice? A driver?”
“Where is he?”
“Good question.”
“No sign of forced entry,” she reminded him. “Either he knew the attacker or the guy got the jump on him.”
“If he knew him, he didn’t offer him a drink. Only one glass. And he was attacked from behind.”
The front door that opened directly into the living area and the back door off the kitchen were both unlocked. The windows were closed, but the bathroom window hadn’t been latched and seemed broken. There were few screens, and the two that existed were frayed. Not exactly tight security. The prevailing theory was that the killer had entered through the kitchen door, possibly while Margrove was dozing or in the bathroom, or somehow distracted, then waited for the opportunity to come up behind him and kill him quickly as there hadn’t been an indication of a struggle. Margrove hadn’t had time to defend himself. Not only was the gun in his safe, but there had been a baseball bat in the living room, practically at arm’s reach. So the killer had acted quickly. Time of death, the ME thought, was the early morning hours.
He chewed at his lower lip, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the single-wide mobile home with its rickety porch and rotting railing. What had Margrove been doing up here? Had he known his killer? Thomas’s mind kept returning to Jonas McIntyre, but why would he kill the lawyer who had worked so hard to set him free? He would know he would become Suspect Number One.
The move was a stupid one.
One thing Jonas McIntyre was not?
Stupid.
Before he’d murdered his family, he’d been applying to get into Stanford, his father’s alma mater. His SATs, essay and high school GPA all pointed to a brilliant teenager, but that was before his trouble with the law, someone who had turned out to be a cold-blooded killer.
Thomas believed that Jonas McIntyre, all of eighteen that Christmas long ago, had been hopped up on teenage adrenaline and jealousy. What had turned into an argument had escalated to a savage massacre, and no one had been able to stop him. Bloodlust. Testosterone and adrenaline fueling his fury. Not that the case had been totally without question.
Why kill his parents?
Because they had punished him for his earlier fight? Grounded him?
Because they were witnesses to the crime?
That part had never set quite right with Thomas.
And what happened to Marlie? Why was there never a trace of her? Why had her clothes been so neatly folded, her bed unmade?
Then there was Kara. Saved by her missing older sister. The girl whose testimony had been twisted around enough to send her brother to prison.
The whole case had been manipulated. Not that Thomas didn’t believe Jonas McIntyre was guilty as sin. The kid had been a hothead, volatile and brutal. He’d killed his brothers. They’d all gotten into it and things had escalated out of control.
But the parents?
Killed first, it seemed, as Jonas had been found clinging to life in the living room with his brother and stepbrother.
“Hey!” Johnson broke into his thoughts. She was striding toward him as she shoved her phone into a back pocket. “Just got off the phone with dispatch. The highway up here that was shut down and diverted us? Turns out there was a major accident.”
“Yeah?” They’d known that much.
“Don’t have all the details yet, but a truck jackknifed, and another vehicle was involved. Couple of hours ago. A Jeep registered to Kara McIntyre.”
“Three?”
“Driver of the semi,” she said, holding up a gloved finger. “Then the driver of the Jeep, IDed as Kara McIntyre.” Another finger shot up as Thomas’s stomach plummeted. “She had a passenger with her. Male, thrown out of the vehicle.”
“What?”
Her third finger joined the first two.
His gut tightened. “Fatalities?”