Page 53

FIFTY-TWO

SHERIFF HUDSON

I throw the report down on my desk. “It was Bob,” I say to Olson, who sits across from me. “Fingerprints on the knife found in his safe match his, and the blood is a match to Kelly Summers.”

“Wow, that’s... incredible.” She picks up the report, reading it over.

“I guess that solves that case.”

“It sure is convenient.” Olson shakes her head, still flipping through the report.

“It is, isn’t it?” I say, moving my mouth side to side. “Bob winds up dead, killed by the woman he kidnapped, and when we search his apartment, the murder weapon in the Kelly Summers case, after all these years, was in his safe, like it had a bow tied around it.” I bump my fist against my knee a few times softly, a reflexive habit I have when thinking.

Sometimes evidence in a case is convenient because... well, that’s what evidence does; it helps solve a crime, tells the story of what really happened. But it isn’t usually just gift wrapped in a place we would have never thought to look.

“And the other pool of blood in the basement?” she asks.

“It’s a match to the blood found at the salon, so we can assume it was Carissa’s.”

“Wow” is all Olson can say.

“Forensics said they estimated that between the two scenes, there were approximately five pints of it.”

“So, we can presume Carissa Brooks is dead?”

I nod and let out a deep sigh.

“Do you really think Bob did this all alone?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Well, Bob and Sarah married shortly after Adam was executed. And you’re telling me Bob framed Adam for murder and then went off and married Sarah.” She cocks her head and tosses the report on my desk.

“But Sarah didn’t know any of that yet.”

“Or did she?”

I stand from the desk and pace my office. Why though? Why would Sarah marry and have a child with the man who framed her husband for murder? Unless, of course, she was in on it. Adam was having an affair with Kelly Summers. But Bob turned out to be worse than Adam. He cheated and then abducted his mistress and Carissa in order to frame Sarah. Maybe it wasn’t about their daughter, Summer, after all. Maybe it was about him ensuring he wouldn’t go down for Kelly’s murder.

I squint and look to Olson. “It just seems too far-fetched. Sarah and Bob kill her first husband’s mistress and frame her husband for it? They never get caught, and they just start a life together living happily ever after until they decide to turn on each other? I feel like that leaves a lot of things to chance, especially framing Adam.”

“Not if you’re also the husband’s defense attorney,” Olson quips, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

That is true. It was such an unusual circumstance. But I was in that courtroom every day. Sarah did a phenomenal job. It was some of the best work I’ve ever seen by a defense attorney.

“I think we’re stretching a bit far here. What’s more likely? That Sarah worked with Bob to cook up some evil genius master plan spanning over a decade, or that Bob was just a sick individual that used Sarah?”

Olson shrugs, still not convinced.

“Plus...” I sit back down in my chair. “Even if your theory was true, we’ve got no evidence tying Sarah to this case, not a single shred.”

“Except that knife that showed up on our doorstep.”

“Except that.”

“And it looked identical to the real knife.” Olson leans forward to punctuate her point.

“That was bizarre, but that’s all it is right now. Bizarre. Bob was most likely behind that though, and he would know what the real knife used in the murder looked like. It was probably another scheme of his to frame Sarah.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes before I check my watch, noting the time. “I’ve gotta go fill the press in on everything. They’re going to have a field day with this.”

“What about Scott Summers?”

“What about him?”

“He’s a murderer on the loose. We can’t just do nothing.”

“Olson, you already know the feds took it over, so it’s not BCI’s case anymore, and it’s not ours either.”

She shakes her head. “I just wish we could do something more to help.”

“I do too, but my hands are tied. And look at what we just did. We solved three cases.”

She sighs. “I know, but Scott’s still out there.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think Scott’s a danger to society, not unless he thinks there’s another person involved with his wife’s death.”

“It doesn’t, but I’ll leave you to it so you can write up your statement for the press.” Olson stands and walks to the door.

“Chief Deputy Olson,” I call out.

She glances over her shoulder at me. “Yeah?”

“I love you.”

A smile cracks across her face. “I love you too,” she says, leaving my office.

I turn to my computer and start typing, “Good evening, everyone. They say truth is stranger than fiction, and if you didn’t believe that phrase before, you’ll believe it by the time I’m done explaining how the events occurring over the past week and a half connect to a murder that happened more than twelve years ago.”