you for coming,” he said.
Jamie set her purse on the floor and sat down on one of the plastic chairs in front of the desk. She waited until Finn settled in his chair before saying, “No problem. You know I’m happy to help.”
Finn raked one large hand through his black hair. “So how did it go with Donovan? Did he do it?”
A laugh flew out of her mouth. Finn, right to the point as always. “You know I can’t tell you that. I only spoke to the man for twenty minutes.”
“But what’s your gut telling you?”
She bit her bottom lip, trying to decide if she should tell him the truth, or what he wanted to hear.
“Jamie.” He sighed. “Come on, lay it on me.”
“Fine. I don’t think he’s your guy.”
Finn’s features creased with aggravation. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me that.”
“You wanted the truth.” She shrugged. “My gut is saying he didn’t do it.”
Finn looked so dejected she decided to keep his suspect alive for a bit longer. “Remind me again of the evidence you have against Donovan,” she suggested. “I didn’t have a chance to go over your fax in detail.”
“All circumstantial. His prints are all over the house, but he lived there, so that’s expected. We found skin cells under Teresa’s fingernails, which are being tested for DNA at a private lab in the city.”
“Do you have a comparison sample from Donovan?”
Finn gave a grim nod. “Yep, and he submitted it willingly.”
“So if the samples are a match—”
“Then he can claim his DNA got there when Teresa grabbed him in the parking lot of the bar,” Finn finished. “Witnesses saw her do it during an argument.”
Jamie pursed her lips together. “Okay, what else?”
“Some hair samples, which are too long to be Donovan’s, and most likely belong to Teresa. Those are being tested too. And a partial fingerprint on the coffee table near where Teresa’s body was found.”
“Do you think it’s Donovan?” Jamie asked point blank. “And I mean from a cop’s point of view, not a resident who might not like him.”
“As a cop? It sure looks like he did it. The man had the motive, that’s for sure. Teresa was contesting their pre-nup, and about a month ago, she sold a tell-all article to the tabloids.” Frustration seeped into his husky voice. “Does any of this help with the profile?”
Jamie decided not to remind him that coming up with a profile wasn’t the same as pulling a rabbit out of a magician’s hat. Instead, she went silent for a moment, her mind working over the stream of information Finn just fed into it. This case was tough to figure out, especially since she had no real sense of the killer or the victim. What made her job easier, as sad as it might be, was when the perp committed multiple offenses. Serial killers had their own unique signatures, and once you identified the signature, a profile was often quick to follow.
“This case won’t have one,” she mumbled to herself.
“What?”
Finn’s voice jerked her from her thoughts. “A signature,” she clarified. “We’re assuming this is the perp’s first offense, right? That he or she isn’t a serial killer that decided to move to Serenade.”
“Right.”
“Then there won’t be a noticeable signature. Which means we need to examine the MO. Most violent crimes hinge on one or both of those aspects.” She paused. “Other than Cole Donovan, who else had motive to kill Teresa?”
“That’s the problem. I can probably list a dozen people off the top of my head who had a run-in with her.”
“Such as?” she prompted.
“One of the other waitresses at Sully’s Bar, who accused Teresa of sleeping with her husband. Mr. Jensen from the gas station, who she belittled for having a lisp. Parker Smith, the man she screwed around on Cole with—she pissed Parker off pretty badly when she dumped him in front of the entire town at Martha’s Diner—”
Jamie let out a low whistle. “Okay, I get the point. So obviously she wasn’t Ms. Popularity.”
Finn barked out a dry laugh. “Those examples were just from the past two months. Honestly, I wish she’d never come back to Serenade. Life was so damn peaceful while she was gone.”
“Where did she go?” Jamie asked curiously.
“She went to Raleigh for about six months after she and Cole split up, said she was moving on to bigger and better things.” He snorted. “Came back like a dog with its tail between its legs about two months ago.”
“Okay.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Okay, I think the first thing you need to do is talk to some of these people she ticked off.”
“Already on it. Max and Anna have been interviewing up a storm.” Finn suddenly groaned, his blue eyes honing in on hers. “So can you help? Jesus, Jamie, I need something to go on. Anything. Just point me in any direction.”
She could sense his quiet urgency. She knew what it was like, working a case that continued to remain unsolved. But she wasn’t a miracle worker, and profiling wasn’t something you could do without anything to go on.
“I’ll need to see the case files,” she finally said. “Including the crime scene photos. Maybe I can come up with a workable profile if I have more details.”
“Done. Anything else?”
“I want to speak to Joe Gideon,” she decided. “He’s the only one who can back up Cole’s alibi, if Cole is telling the truth. Does Gideon hate Cole enough to lie about seeing him that night?”
“Possibly. But Gideon’s not budging on his story. And neither is Donovan.”
“So if the encounter actually happened, then Cole is most likely innocent. And if the disgruntled neighbor is telling the truth, then Cole—”
“Shot his ex-wife in the heart to stop her from messing around with his finances.”
She leaned back in the chair. “All right, so I’ll see what I can get out of Gideon.”
“Good luck with that. He’s been interviewed four times already, twice by me, the other times by my deputies. I’m not sure you’ll be able to get anything new from him.”
She grinned. “You’d be surprised what people tell me. There’s a reason most of the agents call me in when they’re getting nowhere with a suspect. I have a sixth sense about people, you know that. And suspects always seem to spill their guts when I’m around.”
He went quiet for a beat, and when he spoke, she could hear the admiration in his tone. “Did you really get
