set—bra, full slip, and panties. You can’t buy fancy underwear like that anywhere in Bisbee these days. Andy ordered them from a Victoria’s Secret catalog and had them shipped to the office so I’d be surprised. He’s been dead for months now, but they’re still sending him catalogs. They show up on my desk in the mail.”
“I’m sorry,” Carol said.
Joanna nodded. “Thanks,” she said, sniffing and wiping the tears from her face.
By then they had reached the breezeway. Carol waited while Joanna unlocked the door to the room. “Where were they again?”
“The panties? In the laundry bag hanging on the back of the bathroom door.”
“And the envelope?”
“I’m not absolutely sure, but I think I left it in the desk drawer.”
By then the technician was bringing the ALS into the room. “Where do you want it?” he asked. Carol looked questioningly at Joanna, and she was the one who answered.
“Over there by the closet.”
Once plugged in, it took a few moments for the equipment to reach operating temperature. Then, with the lights off, the technician, crawling on his hands and knees, aimed the wand toward the floor.
“There you go,” he breathed as a ghostlike footprint appeared on the carpeting. “There’s one, and here’s another. Looks to me like it’s the same as in the other room,” he added. “The guy came into the room through the door in the closet. Some of these prints have been disturbed, though. Could be he left the same way.”
“No that was me,” Joanna said. “I was crawling around trying to get a look at the access door in the closet. I wanted to see it for myself.”
Carol nodded. “All right, guys. I want photos of the footprints, and I want the entire room searched for fingerprints as well.”
“Will do,” the technician replied.
Carol took Joanna by the arm. “Come on outside,” she said. “We’ll go out there to talk and leave the techs to do their jobs.”
Once they were standing in the breezeway, Joanna realized the sun was going down. That meant it was long past five o’clock. The shock of knowing someone had broken into her room left her in no condition to face the emotional minefield of that Thanksgiving dinner right then. Her guests would simply have to go on without her.
“What does it all mean?” Joanna asked.
“I don’t honestly know,” Carol replied.
“Do you think he planned on killing me, too?”
“That ‘s possible. Actually, now that you mention it, it’s probably even likely.”
“But why?” Joanna asked.
For a while both women were silent. Carol was the first to speak. “Supposing Dave Thompson did kill Serena Grijalva,” she suggested grudgingly. “Since the envelope with the press clippings in it is the only thing missing from your room, we have to look at that possibility. And let’s suppose further that he killed her with the intention of blaming the murder on someone else.”
“Jorge,” Joanna supplied.
“Right. Fair enough,” Carol
