Page 35 of Killer Clone

An MNPD officer strode out of the bedroom holding an evidence bag containing a laptop. As he swung the bag, the laptop bumped against the wall.

Stella winced. “Be careful with that. And get it straight to Agent Mackenzie Drake. Did you find a cell phone?”

The officer hugged the computer to his chest and shook his head. “Wasn’t on the victim either.”

Stella let him go. A missing cell phone was unusual. And very annoying.

But the day was almost over. The photographer was taking his last shots, and the victim was on his way to the forensic center to join Patrick Marrion. A couple of forensic techs were carting the sofa out to the parking lot, while a third ran a box cutter around the edge of the carpet.

They were almost done, and by the time they were finished, there’d be little left of this place.

Not that there’d ever been much.

The bedroom contained a twin bed and a small pile of laundry. These items filled most of the space. The living room had held a two-seat sofa, a cabinet with a television, and a single sideboard with a lamp.

That lamp, its shade ruined by a single spray of blood, was now also sitting in the forensic box truck, together with the cabinet and the laptop.

Otto’s apartment was basic. Smaller even than the studio Stella had once lived in a lifetime ago.

The forensic tech tugged on the edge of the carpet, which came away from the floor with a loud rip. He swore quietly. Blood had soaked into the floorboards, and they’d need to take those as well.

“Mind your backs.”

Anja moved out of the doorway, stepping in front of Stella as one of the forensic techs returned from the parking lot. Despite the cold air, sweat dotted his forehead, the combined result of his Tyvek suit and the effort of moving a small sofa.

The rest of the team had already left, Stacy to report to Slade, and Hagen and Ander to join the police to inform Otto Walker’s next of kin. Stella and Anja stayed to oversee the site, direct the techs, and make sure the photographer got clear shots of the marks on the wall.

They’d need those shots.

Stella would have to contact the expert on the Akkadian cuneiform they’d used in the Claymore Township cases to find out if the marks were the same. Maybe a difference in the style or the handwriting or the meaning could yield a clue. Some of the marks did look different, but Stella wasn’t sure whether those changes were made intentionally, or if they were the resultof bad copying from the photographs in one of David Broad’s articles. A forensic document examiner might help as well.

Someone—say a copycat—might’ve just seen this stuff online or read a description and not known what they were doing as they marked up Otto’s wall with his blood.

That didn’t feel like the most likely scenario, however.

There were very few people who knew what cuneiform meant, and far fewer of them were killers. In fact, for Stella, there had only ever been one person who fit that description—Maureen King.

But she was dead.

Her husband and coconspirator, Sheriff Douglas King, fit that description as well.

But he was also dead.

There was another aspect of Otto Walker’s murder that troubled her—the fact that his throat had been cut with the same kind of violence as had been afflicted on the victims in Claymore Township.

Whoever killed Otto Walker did not share the same level of technical and anatomical skill as the killer of Patrick Marrion—most likely Otto himself.

All the signs led back to Claymore Township. But again, therein lay the issue. They’d solved that case.

Still, Stella needed to contact Claymore Township’s new sheriff. She looked at the time. It was almost half past five. She hoped he was still in. Especially since his time zone was an hour ahead of Nashville’s.

She stepped outside to make the call. On the landing, she took a deep breath of the crisp late-afternoon air. There was something dirty in the atmosphere of a crime scene. A hidden stain always seemed to cling to the walls and stick to the fittings, even after the place had been stripped.

Stella looked up the number and phoned Pennsylvania.

After a few rings, a gruff voice sounded on the other end of the line. “Sheriff Deacon. Speak.”

“Hi, Sheriff, it’s Special Agent Stella Knox.”

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