got to get on with it,” Ben said abruptly to the room, and walked past Gray as if he weren’t there.
In the kitchen, he determined that Meagher had, astonishingly enough, called for a crime-scene crew—borrowed from the county as the small city of West Fork didn’t have much need for one of their own—and the medical examiner. Both were en route, the young officer reported.
Ben nodded and, reluctantly, started upstairs.
Before he’d taken over, West Fork police would have turned the case over to the sheriff’s department because they had no officers experienced in homicide investigation. He might yet have to do that, if there seemed to be any doubt about tonight’s events—he knew he was emotionally involved, whether he liked to admit it or not. If it turned out the dead man wasn’t Hardesty, or Hardesty hadn’t been carrying a weapon, things could get messy.
A couple of the steps creaked under his weight. Had Faith’s ex spent enough time at the house to know to avoid them? Or were those faint sounds what had woken her?
In the hall at the top of the stairs, the first room on the right was Don Russell’s. Unsurprisingly, it had an air of disuse. On the left was Charlotte’s, where Ben had talked to her when she was recuperating from Hardesty’s last assault. Bathroom beyond, also on the left. And finally, Faith’s bedroom.
The door was wide open. The overhead light wasn’t on, but the bedside lamp was. Had Faith turned it on? If it was Meagher, if the idiot had done a thing in here but verify Hardesty was dead, Ben would string him up by his thumbs.
Ben pulled on the latex gloves he carried in his glove compartment, but didn’t have to touch either knob or door.
The body lay sprawled beside the bed. In fact, the dead man had been so damn close to the bed when the bullet—bullets?—struck, he’d slid down the side of it, fountaining blood on the quilt. Shit, Ben thought; from the quantity of blood, she’d likely gotten him right in the heart.
He pictured her at the range, taking methodical shot after shot, never flinching, her hands steady. Had she been envisioning this moment when she pulled the trigger? Seen her ex-husband in the white paper target?
Reality, Ben had long since learned, was one hell of a lot more brutal than anything the imagination could conjure.
He eased into the room with a sideways step to avoid walking where the intruder had. Sticking to the perimeter, he circled to a position near the foot of the bed and squatted on his haunches so he could see the face.
Rory Hardesty, Ben saw with relief. No mistake there, except on Hardesty’s part. He’d misjudged Faith, bigtime.
At first Ben couldn’t see any weapon, which worried him. Not to say Faith hadn’t had reason to shoot the bastard; he’d hurt her badly enough with his bare hands before, and it was well-documented. But this would be cleaner if he’d carried a gun or.
Ah. The knife had fallen out of his hand and lay in the shadow just under the bed. It was an ugly one with a thick black rubber grip, designed for the military or hunters, if Ben was any judge. The blade was at least eight inches long. He was willing to bet it would turn out to be the same knife Hardesty had used on Charlotte.
Oh, yeah. This one was open-and-shut, but he knew that wouldn’t make it any easier for Faith to live with what she’d done tonight.
He retreated as carefully as he’d entered the room. Now, how the hell had the son of a bitch gotten in? The easiest way would have been to knock out a pane of glass on the back door and reach in to unlock the new dead bolt, but he hadn’t done that. He clearly hadn’t made enough noise to wake either Don or Faith until he was upstairs and so close that in another few seconds Faith could have died.
Ben swore under his breath, pausing at the top of the stairs to get a grip on himself. He couldn’t let anyone see him falling apart at the idea of that knife descending toward Faith Russell’s breast. Or her throat.
Or—God—would Hardesty have wanted to carve up her face to punish her?
He actually shuddered and wanted to go back and kill the bastard all over again. He wished he’d done it in the first place. He could handle killing in a way he was terribly afraid Faith wouldn’t be able to. Especially not when the man she’d shot was someone she’d once loved.
Finally confident he could hide everything he felt, Ben went downstairs where both his officers waited with thinly disguised anxiety.
“Have you looked for the point of entry?” he asked.
Both heads bobbed. Burgess and Meagher exchanged a glance. Jason Burgess, who’d been a cop for two whole years, was the one to answer. “Yes, sir. The laundry room, sir.”
The door was behind the stairs. The window above the washer and dryer was missing its glass. The frame wasn’t large; it would have been a squeeze, but doable. This might have been the only room in the house with a closed door, which would have helped make the entry quiet. Also, Ben determined by prowling, the staircase and a storage space beneath it that was packed with boxes lay between the laundry room and the living room where Don had been sleeping. The pile of boxes would have offered dandy sound insulation.
He went outside, fetched a flashlight from his car and circled the house, where he found a painter’s stepladder under the window. The glass had been removed almost whole and leaned carefully against the house. Cut, presumably, although he didn’t see a tool.
He wondered if Hardesty had intended to reclaim the ladder once he was done inside and drive away to start his life anew, freed of his vicious compulsion once Faith was dead. Or would he have sat down on the side of the bed and called 911 himself, then waited for the arrival of the police as domestic abusers who killed sometimes did? Unless he proved to be carrying a handgun, too, which Ben wouldn’t know until the medical examiner was done with the body and photographs had been taken, Ben doubted Hardesty had intended to commit suicide, another popular option. Stabbing yourself would be a lot harder to do than pulling a trigger.
Satisfied with this first survey, Ben walked back around the house to find all his guests had arrived. He showed the medical examiner upstairs, and encouraged the crime-scene techs to start outside with the ladder and cut window, then returned to the living room. He hoped Faith was up to talking to him now.
Don was back in his hospital bed, the sheet and a thin blanket over him. On the sofa, Charlotte sat beside Faith, holding her hand. Gray stood with his back to the window, watching the two women. They all looked at Ben when he walked in.
“He got in through the laundry room,” he told them. “Took out the window glass neat enough, I’m betting he used a cutter. He either found a stepladder in one of the outbuildings or brought his own. It’s still standing under the window.”
“We have one,” Don said. “It’s damn near as old as the girls. Getting pretty rickety. Wood, with lots of paint splatters.”
Ben shook his head. “This one’s wood, but newish. Maybe he picked it up at his mom’s house.”
“Oh, no,” Faith breathed. “Has anyone told his mother yet? “
Trust her to worry about someone else.
“No,” he said. “I’ll do that eventually. The medical examiner is here right now, and the photographer is taking pictures. It’s going to be a few hours
