He had wrapped it in a dish towel so they would not leave prints. She stuck it through the handle and pulled the door open, so as not to leave, or smudge, any fingerprints. She looked in the ice compartment.
'Why wouldn't she have taken out all the ice as a precaution?' Maria asked. 'Dress fibers may have become stuck to them.'
'That would have put them in plain view in the sink,' McCaskey remarked.
'She could have washed them away.'
'The FBI routinely checks drainpipes for evidence,' McCaskey replied.
'Whoever was behind this would surely have known that.'
Maria made a face and looked down. She crouched. Her husband shone the light on the tile floor.
'Find something?' he asked.
'Maybe. Look at this,' she said.
McCaskey squatted beside her. Maria was pointing to several slightly off-color stains.
'This limestone has no shine, which means it has not been sealed,'
Maria said. 'The tile is extremely porous. It soaks up water.'
'Okay. Some of the ice fell and was not picked up. It melted. It stained the limestone '
'Darrell, the dampness stays in the tile for about an hour, then it evaporates,' Maria told him.
'You're saying that someone was here within the hour,' McCaskey said.
He did not like the sound of that.
'It seems so,' Maria said.
'It could have been a housekeeper.'
'I don't smell any cleaning agent,' Maria said.
'There's pineapple smell '
'An air freshener,' Maria said, pointing back at the bathroom. 'I saw it earlier when we looked in the bedroom.'
Damn, she is good, McCaskey thought. But that still did not convince him. It was still a big leap from a few damp spots on the floor to someone having been here in the last hour. McCaskey looked up. The ice dispenser in the freezer door was directly overhead. He ran his gloved finger along the inside of the plastic lip. 'It's moist. The stains could have come from dripping condensation.'
'That is possible,' Maria agreed. 'It is also possible that Ms.
Lockley is being framed.'
The realization was like a punch in McCaskey's gut. If it were true, it meant something else as well. Something that became clear when they heard movement in the hallway.
They had been set up.
FORTY-TWO
San Diego, California Wednesday, it:53a.m.
It had been a two hour flight from Salt Lake City. Kat did not talk to Rodgers the entire time. He was not surprised, but he was inconvenienced. If she were innocent of wrongdoing, they should be talking about who might be involved. Instead, she just worked on her laptop and shut him out.
Rodgers checked his cell phone voice mail as soon as they deplaned.
