Page 12 of The Perfect Betrayal

She shrugged noncommittally.

“Based on what we know about Peterson’s history, I think it’s a good bet, but I don’t want to say it’s a lock,” she said. “But let’s assume it was a ‘she’ for now, I’m not totally convinced about the panic or drowning parts.”

“Why not?”

“For one thing, there was only one knife missing from the collection of four in the galley,” she said. “That suggests she had the foresight to get rid of the murder weapon.”

“But that doesn’t mean she didn’t panic,” Riddell pointed out. “She could have freaked out after the stabbing and just thrown the knife in the ocean on instinct.”

“That’s very possible,” Jessie conceded, “but let me ask you: was she also freaked out when she got rid of just one champagne glass?”

“What are you talking about?” Riddell demanded.

“There are slots for four glasses below,” Jessie said. “Two are still there. One is out here on the deck. Where’s the fourth?”

Riddell looked at the mostly empty glass resting on a small, secured table.

“Maybe it rolled off the deck,” he said.

They both looked at the protective railing that extended a foot above the deck. She knew he was thinking the same thing as her: the seas would have to be pretty rough for that to have happened, which hadn’t been the case yesterday, and the remaining champagne glass was undisturbed on the table. How could one glass tumble off the boat and the other be intact? But she let that go, as there was a larger point to make.

“Maybe,” she said, “or maybe she dumped it, just like the knife, to avoid leaving any fingerprints or DNA.”

Riddell considered the idea silently for a moment.

“There were two plates sitting in the sink down below,” he noted. “We can have them checked for those things.”

“Definitely,” she agreed. “I assume the crime scene unit will check the whole boat. But I’m not optimistic that they’ll find much.”

“Why not?” he pushed, clearly irritated by her hesitancy. “Just because of two missing galley items that can be reasonably explained away?”

She walked him through it.

"The missing knife and glass could just be dumb luck for our killer," she conceded, "or they could suggest that this person—likely a woman—was careful. Plus, there's what you said earlier."

She was throwing Riddell a bone, who looked like he desperately needed one in order to stay civil.

“What I said?”

"Yes, about the killer not being too concerned about leaving a mess," she said, pointing at the pool of blood. "She could have cleaned it up to hide that the murder was committed here, at least for a while. But she didn't seem interested in that. This is just a hunch, but it feels like our murderer was trying to send a message. It feels like this might have been planned in advance, which is why I doubt she drowned."

“Explain that,” he said, interested enough to forget to be surly.

“Well, if thiswasplanned,” she replied, “then our killer would have anticipated having to swim back to shore. In which case, they would probably be pretty good at it.”

Riddell nodded, apparently satisfied with the logic behind her theory.

“We’ll have the yacht club security cameras checked to see if we can catch anyone getting on the boat with Peterson. If so, it shouldn’t be that big a leap to identify her.”

Jessie didn’t respond to that. Riddell noticed.

“You disagree?” he challenged.

“I’m just not as confident as you,” she replied. “If whoever did this was so careful on the boat, I’d be surprised if they were careless on the dock.”

“You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about what kind of killer we’re dealing with,” Riddell said. He wasn’t quite confrontational in tone, but he was clearly a little irked by her methods.

“No,” she pushed back. “I’m just going where the evidence takes me. And using what that evidence suggests about the person we’re after. Plus there’s one huge fact we didn’t even mention yet that makes me feel like we’re on the right track.”

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