Page 76 of Hell Hath No Fury

“Second,” Cassie continued, “do you remember Lydia Pruse?”

Matthias rolled the name over in his memory. “Is that your friend who works in the coroner’s office?”

“Sheusedto work in our coroner’s office. She moved about six months ago and now works in Washington County.”

“For the coroner?”

“Convenient, huh? So, I called her just to chat. After we caught up, I asked if they’d had any interesting cases come through the morgue down there, and she said, ‘As a matter of fact, yes. There was this guy who was stabbed by a chunk of glass.’”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re sneaky?”

“All the time. Anyway, she told me it was determined the victim didn’t gothroughthe glass. The killer apparently used a sharp piece and stabbed him with it.”

“Fergusson already told me that much.”

“Did he tell you there wasn’t any other blood on the rest of the glass they found in the trash bag?”

“No.”

“Let’s think about this. You want to use a piece of glass as a murder weapon. A sharp piece of glass. Sharp enough to kill. How do you think that would work out for you?”

He realized where she was going with this. “You would probably cut your hand in the process.”

“But only the victim’s blood is on the shard used to kill him.”

“The killer wore gloves.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Cassie said. “According to Lydia, the portion of the shard the killer would have gripped had been bleached. Not merely wiped clean, but disinfected. You wouldn’t need to do that if you were wearing gloves.”

“The killer cut himself.” Matthias’s mind spiraled. “Why would he only disinfect part of it? If he wanted to destroy the evidence, why not bleach the entire thing?”

“Interesting question.”

“He didn’t want to destroyallthe evidence,” Matthias mused out loud, answering his own question. “Only what implicates himself. The only reason I can think of for doing that is he intended to plant the evidence and frame someone else for the crime.”

Emma let out a groan. “Eric, for example.”

“But wait.” Cassie launched into a television huckster’s voice. “There’s more.”

“Such as?”

“The forensic investigators tried to put the broken glass together like a jigsaw puzzle, hoping to figure out what it was. Problem is, like so many puzzles you pick up secondhand, there were too many pieces missing.”

Matthias shot a glance at Emma, who was scowling in thought. “Not all of it was in that bag?” he asked Cassie.

“Correct.”

“Now, why would a person clean up a broken… whatever… and only pitch part of it?”

“You find the answer to that, you might have your murderer.”

Matthias thanked her and disconnected. He made no move to put the Jeep in gear. Instead, he stared through the windshield, digesting Cassie’s news.

“What are you thinking?” Emma asked.

“The killer used a broken piece of glass as the murder weapon.”

“We already knew that.”