Stay of Execution by K. L. Murphy Read Free Book Online Page A

weaving in and out of the crowd, her friend trailing behind. He’d had only one thought as she moved down the street and out of his view. Her presence was surely a sign.
    He’d committed the letters on her shirt to memory. Kappa Kappa Delta. Did she live there? Even if she didn’t, she had to go there sometime. His fingers tingled, and he licked his lips. He’d find her when the time was right.
    His thoughts strayed to the reporters at the press conference and the row of cameras perched on tripods above the crowd. He’d watched as one lens panned the ­people with their signs and their small-­town attitudes. Uniformed police circled the crowd and stood guard on the steps. He’d suppressed a smile. It was perfect in every way. He couldn’t have planned it better if he’d tried.
    â€œSo fucking easy,” he said out loud. He leaned back, folding his arms behind his head. The stage was set and now that he’d seen the girl—­chosen her—­everything would fall into place. She didn’t know it yet, but soon, she would be famous.

 
    Chapter Eleven
    C ANCINI SIFTED THROUGH the trial transcript, stopping on the testimony of the forensic specialist. He could recite the questions and answers word for word, but it was moot now. Everything she’d said in the first trial had been wiped away by the new testing. He looked up from the file. The light in the hotel room was fading with the sun. Cancini switched on the desk lamp and read the prosecution’s summation. He could still hear the man making his case, his deep baritone laying out the evidence piece by piece until it culminated with the DNA. “How,” he’d asked, “can there be any reasonable doubt?”
    Cancini flipped back through the file, pulling out his daily reports. Months of investigative work had yielded scraps of evidence, much of it circumstantial but eventually enough for a warrant. That warrant led to the DNA evidence that sold the FBI, the police chief, and the jury. Now that same DNA evidence was the sole reason for Spradlin’s exoneration. It made Cancini’s head hurt. He gathered the papers, closed the file, and stowed it back in the hotel room safe.
    He swallowed some aspirin and stretched out on the bed. The quiet should have made him feel better but instead reminded him he was far from home, far from traffic and horns and weekly homicides. He missed the frenetic pace of Washington life. He missed the job that kept him busy all hours and helped him forget his ex and his empty apartment. Here, the silence stung. The hours crawled by and there was too much time to think, too much time to wonder about things he couldn’t change.
    Cancini closed his eyes. When the case had gone to trial, Spradlin hadn’t helped himself. He’d said almost nothing in the interviews, and the little he had said was oddly incriminating. He’d never denied knowing the victims. He’d never offered an alibi. When the killings had stopped after Spradlin’s arrest, even the few doubters were convinced of the man’s guilt. Relief had spread among the townsfolk like the smell of summer rain after weeks of dry and dusty weather.
    Without the DNA evidence, would Spradlin have been convicted? Cancini couldn’t be sure. He relied on DNA—­he had to—­but knew better than to build a case solely on one piece of evidence. Lawyers used it on both sides of the bench, but it could come back to haunt you. Detectives both prized and hated DNA. Cases turned on it, and now, in the world of ever-­evolving technology and science, justice could barely be achieved without it. Even old cases, long forgotten by anyone except the principals, were alive and fresh again, front-­page news when a reversal made headlines. The state of Virginia was no exception.
    When a former governor ordered old cases be reviewed and any stored DNA evidence be tested, the goal was not to close