Identical by Scott Turow Read Free Book Online Page B

towel missing, suggesting that the killer had used it to bind a wound. The ABO typing that was state-of-the-art in 1982 classified the blood in the room as B. Dita and the rest of the Kronons were O, so there was no doubt of an intruder. From the brass knob on the outside of the French door, the initial techs also lifted a good set of fingerprints, which had remained there despite the fierce rainstorm that had pelted that side of the house. No way to date prints, but the best guess was that they belonged to the intruder.
    “Dita is killed in her bed,” Tim said, “which is still made. Apparently she’s tuckered out and watching the tube for a while, before going out to meet her girlfriends at a bar. She’s in her robe and undies. No vaginal trauma, no tearing, but rape kit is positive for semen-then again, that could be from any time in the last forty-eight hours. Type B, though. Somebody smacked her first, damn hard, then grabbed her face. You could see the bruising in both cheeks. The hit on the left side made finger stripes. Meaning we’re probably looking for somebody right-handed. And whoever it was had worn a ring, because there’s a big circular bruise. The police pathologist’s thought is our perp whacked her, then sort of covered her mouth with his hand and rattled her skull against her headboard. She dies of an epidural hematoma. Lividity and the bleeding from the scalp wound shows she wasn’t dead for several minutes after she was beaten. But the pathologists can’t say whether or not she lost consciousness. Probably though, since she didn’t call for help.” Tim recited all of this like the prayers in a breviary. The murder was twenty-five years ago, but for many people she knew in law enforcement, the details of a big case were burned onto their brains. There were few jobs more intense than having to save everybody in town from a bad guy.
    “What’s the time of death?”
    “Well, you know, it’s a Greek picnic, they’re eating all day, so it’s hard to tell for sure from the stomach contents, but the pathologist says 10:30, give or take. Right around ten, according to the toll records, she gave her boyfriend Cass a call. So she dies after that.”
    “Who found her?”
    “Zeus. He wasn’t much of a witness, not that I’d have done any better. Clear recollection that he heard the window break and comes running down the hall. Pretty shaky after that. Best memory seems to be that he sees Dita on the bed. The TV is on, and he asks her what’s doing, but he catches sight of the shattered pane in the door and the blood and goes straight there. Looking out, he thinks he sees a dark figure, male, disappearing into the woods. When he turns back to talk to Dita, she doesn’t answer. So he comes over, touches her, shakes her. It actually takes him a minute to fathom she’s dead. He calls the family doctor. Then sits with his daughter. Can’t even imagine going down the hall to tell her mother.” Tim stopped there with his own memories. When Katy passed, they’d all known it was coming, but Maria had gone home to sleep and so he had to call her. He still remembered the feeling. He was here, but not really, the rest of him was still in the past when his six-year-old daughter was alive.
    Evon asked the status of the investigation when he got involved.
    “They were chasing their tails. The operating theory was that the bad guy crawled in thinking she wasn’t there, caught her unaware and he grabbed her like that to keep her from screaming, then he took off, afraid somebody had heard the commotion. But each department had its own spin. The locals are thinking it was a burglary gone bad. State police are talking to everybody at the picnic, hoping somebody noticed Mr. Stranger Danger. Zeus is still pretty much a mess, and blaming himself. Why didn’t he hear her getting beat? And he’s convinced she’s been killed by his enemies to get even with him.”
    “Enemies?” Evon asked.
    “Turned out Zeus