Bones Don't Lie (Morgan Dane #3)(67)

“We’ll have to tell Sheriff King about Brian.” Lance drove away. “Brian lied in his police statements.”

“He lied to Sharp twenty-three years ago,” Morgan said. “The statute of limitations would have run out on making a false statement many years ago.”

“But admitting he falsified his statement means he has no alibi for Mary’s murder.”

“And he also admitted that he was with her that night,” Morgan said. “He said he dropped her at PJ’s, but who can believe a chronic liar?”

“But if Brian had an alibi for P. J. Hoolihan’s death and the attempt on my mother’s life, then he probably didn’t kill Mary.”





Chapter Thirty-Three

Morgan stepped into her office. Her grandfather was studying the whiteboard from his wheelchair. He held one of Sharp’s green protein shakes in his hand. Next to him, Sharp pointed at the board with a dry erase marker.

“What have you two been up to?” She touched her grandfather’s shoulder on the way to her desk.

“Sharp made me this drink.” Her grandfather examined his glass. “It looks disgusting, but the taste isn’t bad.”

“We’ve found a couple of new leads, thanks to your grandfather,” Sharp said. “Art hasn’t forgotten anything about investigating.”

Lance came in. Four adults crowded the small room.

Sharp set down his marker. “Tell us what happened with Brian Leed.”

By the time Lance finished the story, Sharp and Grandpa were shaking their heads.

Sharp snorted. “Nice to see Karma getting payback. I can’t believe he lied all these years.”

“I’d keep Brian at the top of the suspect list for Mary’s murder.” Grandpa drained his glass. “We suspect the current murderer is the same person who killed Mary, but we don’t know that for certain. And forgive me if I don’t take his word for it that he dropped Mary back off at PJ’s that night. Or about anything else. Once a liar, always a liar.”

“His word is worthless.” Sharp drew a big fat star next to Brian’s name.

“Warren Fox is a liar too. He told us he hadn’t seen Crystal in months, but Abigail said he’d been hanging around the motel harassing her recently.” Lance pointed to the board. “We need to follow up with him.”

“Stan needs a follow-up interview too,” Morgan said. “If Brian lied about their whereabouts, then so did Stan. Was he covering for a friend, or was there another reason he lied?”

“We have more lies than truth at this point.” Lance shook his head.

“Now, what did you two discover today?” Morgan asked Sharp.

“First, your grandfather found indications that Crystal could have been murdered.” Sharp opened a laptop on Morgan’s desk.

The four gathered around the computer. Sharp pulled up a photo of Crystal. The gruesome image made Morgan flinch, even though she’d seen it before.

Grandpa pointed to the screen, where he’d zoomed in on Crystal’s hands. “Look at her fingertips.”

“Her fingernail is broken,” Morgan said. “And I see a yellow thread and a little blood under the nail.”

“Good eye.” Grandpa zoomed in even more. “She pulled at the rope. She has some scratches on her neck too, which could indicate that she was struggling against an attacker. Or once her brain figured out she was dying, her survival instincts kicked in and she tried to get the rope off her neck. Without a drop long enough to break the neck, it can take a few minutes to die by hanging.”

Morgan had a mental image of the woman’s body flailing, her feet kicking, knocking over the chair, her fingers tearing at the noose around her neck. “But at that point, she couldn’t free herself.”

“Right.” Grandpa went to another image, a close-up of the rope around her neck. “Do you see the way the rope has shifted on her throat?”

Morgan leaned in and pointed to the screen. “This abrasion?”

Next to her, Lance said, “I would expect the rope to move a little when she stepped off the chair.”

“Yes,” Grandpa said. “But to me, this looks like it could be two distinct ligature marks, a horizontal line and an angled line, with the abrasion connecting them.”

And here’s where Grandpa’s experience with the dead made all the difference.

Morgan sat back. “As if someone stood behind her and choked her with the rope and then strung her up.”

“And the noose shifted position when her body weight hit the rope.” Lance straightened. “Maybe she didn’t commit suicide. Maybe she was murdered.”

“We can’t prove it,” Sharp said.

“How do we tell the ME?” Morgan asked. “We aren’t supposed to have these photos.”

“We don’t,” Lance said. “Frank won’t miss it. He’ll have the actual body. The marks will be even clearer to him. Is this enough for the medical examiner to find the death suspicious?”

“Depends what else the autopsy turned up.” Grandpa studied the screen for a few seconds.

Without his insight, they wouldn’t have had this information until the official autopsy was released, which could take months, since the medical examiner would wait for lab results and the tox screen before he would issue an official cause of death. Sheriff King would never share preliminary autopsy results.