A Score to Settle by Kara Lennox Read Free Book Online Page B

Christopher and find the real murderer, if the real murderer was me?” he asked sensibly.
    She shrugged. “I’ll put that possibility on the back burner. For now. But that leaves me with Gables as a two-time murderer.”
    Daniel curbed his impatience. “Gables was a college kid at the time of the first crime.”
    “College kids are adults, perfectly capable of homicide.”
    One inch at a time. Daniel had more now than he did last time he’d met with Jamie. He just had to keep building.
    “Back to the metal shavings. Was your guy able to distinguish the type of metal, or where it might have come from?”
    “Well, it’s ferrous, which means iron or nickel, or an alloy of either. We haven’t gotten beyond that yet. The type of close analysis you’re talking about takes time…and money.”
    “I’ll give you the name of a lab. They do photo-chemical spectography, which can give us the exact— What?”
    Her expression was closed again, guarded. “It’s not just a question of time or money. My boss is going to throw a fit.”
    “Does he have to know?”
    “Of course he does! If you’re right, if Christopher Gables was involved in two murders—”
    “Wait. Stop right there. You can’t seriously think Gables is a serial killer.”
    “How can you know it’s not Gables? Look at it from my perspective, Daniel. I am as sure as I’ve ever been that Christopher Gables committed the murder of Frank Sissom. You can’t argue away those fingerprints. If trace evidence links this murder to another, then Christopher might well be involved in the previous murder, as well. It only makes sense.”
    It made no sense at all.
    “Would you like me to give you an explanation for the fingerprints?” Daniel asked.
    “Oh, this I’ve got to hear.”
    Daniel had given this a lot of thought. Because, unlike Jamie, he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that he hadn’t killed anyone, yet his prints had been found on a murder weapon.
    “Christopher used the knife for something else—hours, days, even months prior to the murder. So long as no one else touches the knife, the prints remain intact.
    “The real murderer then uses an identical knife to commit the crime. Wearing gloves, he smears some blood on the knife bearing Christopher’s prints and places it near the body. Voilà, a perfect frame-up.”
    “The medical examiner matched the knife to the wound,” she argued.
    Daniel opened his briefcase, rifled through it until he came up with a page of the trial transcript with some testimony highlighted in yellow.
    “‘The wound on Mr. Sissom’s neck is consistent with a Messermeister Meridian Elite eight-inch chef’s knife—the knife found near his body.’ Do you recognize that testimony, Jamie?”
    She closed her eyes for a moment. “Yes.”
    “‘…is consistent with…’ doesn’t mean the same as ‘exact match,’ does it?”
    “Please, I’m not on trial here. You’ve made your point. The murder could have been committed with an identical knife.”
    “You have no idea how many nights I lie awake, thinking about how my prints ended up on a murder weapon. I had no conscious memory of using the knife that killed my partner. I’m not a chef, and I spent little time in the kitchen.”
    “So how do you explain it?”
    “I tried to think of the things I might use a knife for. And here’s what I came up with. I might have used a knife to open a package. Not the day of the murder, but perhaps weeks earlier. I had a penknife I kept in my pocket for such things, because the restaurant received packages all the time. But I could have mislaid it and picked up whatever was handy.”
    Daniel could almost see the gears turning in Jamie’s head as she mulled over his theory.
    “Christopher wasn’t a chef, either,” she finally said. “Our theory was that Christopher confronted Frank in the kitchen, knowing ahead of time he would have his choice of murder weapons.”
    “I’d like to talk to him,” Daniel said. “See