“Or we got a court order,” Jesse said.
“In New York,” Healy said.
“Or we could dig her up,” Jesse said.
“Carey,” Healy said. “Nice idea. I talked to the ME already. Without knowing when they died and how long they were refrigerated . . .”
Healy shook his head.
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H I G H P R O F I L E
“Not worth the trouble,” Jesse said.
“No.”
Healy tipped his chair back slightly on its hind legs and teetered there, keeping his balance with one foot on Jesse’s desk, rocking slightly.
“Well,” Jesse said. “Whoever did it knew about the dream house on Stiles Island.”
“Did they follow them there and kill them?” Healy said.
“And see the walk-in refrigerator and improvise?”
“Or did they know about it ahead of time, and kill them there in order to refrigerate them?”
“No blood anywhere else in the house,” Healy said.
“None we could find,” Jesse said. “We looked hard.”
“So either shot in the walk-in cooler,” Healy said, “or shot someplace else and dumped there.”
“Which would account for the small amount of blood,”
Jesse said.
“They could have been shot there, and the killer cleaned up.”
“And missed the minuscule amounts we picked up with the blue light,” Jesse said.
“They’d have bled a lot when they were shot,” Healy said.
“And bled for a while,” Jesse said. “You’d have had to do several clean-ups.”
“Having, under this theory, just murdered two people,”
Healy said, “with no certain assurance that nobody heard the shots.”
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R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
They were both quiet for a time.
“I like it better that they were shot somewhere else and moved there after they died,” Jesse said.
“And the blood traces were just a little postmortem seepage.”
“Yes.”
Again the two men were quiet.