Page 38 of The Perfect Obsession
She also wondered if there might be some significance to the use of the tie.In the previous murders, the medical examiners suspected that scarves were the murder weapons.Why change it up now?Was that just the most convenient, easy-to-grab item?Or was there something more meaningful—symbolic even—about it?
“Who found her?”she asked.
“The husband, Alexander Krantz.The first officers found him in the yard when they arrived.According to them, he was hysterical, refusing to go back inside.We took him into custody.He’s in the back of that squad car over there.”
“Why did you take him into custody?”
“Because he told the first officers on the scene that her death was his fault, that he was responsible.He even admitted that it was his necktie beside her.”
“Wait, did he actually say that he killed her?”Jessie asked.“Could he have been speaking more generally about feeling responsible for her death?”
“I don’t know,” Frank conceded.“All I have is what the arresting officers told me.They seemed dubious about how upset he was, too.”
“Why?”
“They said it felt over the top.”
“What felt over the top?”Ryan said, joining them.
“Alexander’s reaction to Amanda’s death.They arrested him,” Jessie told him before turning back to Sergeant Frank, irritated.“Sergeant, is there such a thing as ‘over the top’ when someone finds their spouse dead?”
Sergeant Frank’s expression turned sheepish.Before he could reply, she continued.
“And did your officers know that in the three days prior to his wife’s death, three other women, including two he dated in high school, were murdered in the same way?”
“I don’t think they were aware of that,” Frank said.“I certainly wasn’t.”
“So is it possible that he freaked out the appropriate amount at the magnitude of all that?”Jessie wondered.
“That’s more your area than mine, Ms.Hunt,” Frank told her.“But I will say that having been involved with multiple women who were killed in a short space of time would make memoresuspicious of the man, not less.”
It was a fair point, one she hoped to address with Krantz when she spoke with him momentarily.
“So has he calmed down at all?”
“He was forcibly calmed,” Frank explained.“He started banging his head against the window, so an EMT had to sedate him.He’s really out of it right now.We were going to take him to the hospital before the station to check for a concussion.”
“Let’s make that happen ASAP,” Ryan told him.“The sooner he’s alert, the sooner we can question him.”
“I’ll have them take him now,” Frank said.“Did you want to check out the scene?”
“Please,” Jessie said.
She and Ryan followed Sergeant Frank inside, taking the same route that Amanda had guided them along yesterday evening.When they emerged into the cavernous living room, Jessie intentionally averted her gaze from the loveseat, hoping to take in the rest of the room first.In her experience as a profiler, she found that once she saw a body, she could focus on nothing else.So to avoid missing clues, she usually tried to save that for last.
There wasn’t much to see.Everything looked the same as the last time they were here, with one big exception.Resting against the side of the coffee table was a carry-on suitcase.Jessie recalled how just this morning, Amanda had said that she and Alex were planning to leave town tonight until the case was solved.Apparently, she was packed and ready for a trip she would never take.
Jessie walked over to the loveseat.Standing silently next to it was the deputy medical examiner, a small man with meticulously parted hair and a thin mustache.
“You believe the tie was the murder weapon?”Ryan asked him.
“We’ll need to test for fibers embedded in the skin, but preliminary indications suggest so.”
“Do you have an approximate time of death?”Jessie asked.
“Not yet,” the M.E.said.“It’s too early for anything definitive, but based on body temperature, I’d surmise it was in just the last couple of hours.”
Jessie finally allowed herself to look at the victim.Amanda’s brown eyes were open and had petechiae, broken blood vessels that caused red dots, typical after choking.Her brown hair was all over the place, likely a result of struggling against her attacker, who probably strangled her from behind.
