Dying Echo A Grim Reaper Mystery - By Judy Clemens Page 0,10
here was basically a lie.”
“You want to tell your brother that? Or do you think he found out on his own?”
“He did not do this! Look at the life this girl was leading. She probably dragged her past to town with her, and that’s what killed her. Her own lies. Not my brother.”
Watts smiled, but it wasn’t friendly. “So you’re saying this woman—who your brother happened to be in a romantic relationship with, by the way—brought this on herself?”
“Well, it can’t have been Ricky’s fault. Who would he have in his life who could do something like that? He doesn’t know those kinds of people.”
Don and Watts stared at her silently. Death let out a laugh, for a moment forgetting Mockingbird.
Casey went hot, and ran her fingers through her hair. “Look. I don’t mean she got herself killed on purpose. Of course not. I feel terrible for her. I mean, the poor girl was tortured. And raped. No one deserves that. But you have to believe me. Ricky would not do that. To anybody.”
Watts looked into the bottom of his mug. “Can I show you something?”
“Nothing will convince me he’s guilty.”
“Please. Just take a look.”
“I won’t—”
“For heaven’s sake,” Death said. “Don’t make the man beg.”
Casey held up her hands. “Fine. Show me.”
Watts took his empty mug. “You stay put.”
“Well,” Don said when Watts was gone. “That went well.”
“You mean the part about me basically saying the poor woman was asking for it? I can’t believe I said that.”
Death snorted. “Like you’re usually a ray of sunshine.”
“You’ve been under a lot of stress,” Don said. “It’s understandable.”
“No,” Casey said. “It’s not.”
Watts was back soon. Casey expected him to be carrying folders with the same things Don had showed her in the office—grisly crime scene photos and notes explaining why her brother was the guilty one. But he had only one clear plastic bag. He set it on the table in front of her. “Any idea what this is?”
She did. It was one of Ricky’s old T-shirts, with Colorado U’s name printed across the front. She knew it was his because the collar had a blood stain on it from when she’d accidentally busted him in the face when he’d volunteered as her sparring partner. He hadn’t done that again. And he hadn’t thrown away the stupid shirt.
Watts held it a little closer. “Recognize it?”
“It’s my brother’s.”
“Yes. Guess where we found it?”
“The victim’s house, probably, since it’s in an evidence bag. But that doesn’t mean anything, assuming she really was his girlfriend. There’s bound to be lots of his stuff there.”
“I’m sure there might have been. But do you think all of his ‘stuff’ has this?”
He flipped the bag over. The bottom half of the shirt was spattered with blood. New blood. Not from when Casey had busted his nose.
Casey stared at it. “This is your evidence? A shirt from her apartment that anybody could have put on? Or maybe they used it to mop up the blood when they were done. Don’t tell me you haven’t considered that someone else wore it, then left it there to make Ricky look like the attacker.”
“Of course I would have considered that.”
“Would have?”
He set the shirt on the table. “We didn’t find it at the crime scene. We found it in your brother’s house.”
Chapter Five
“I don’t understand it,” Casey said.
“Doesn’t seem too confusing to me,” Death said from the driver’s seat. They were waiting for Don to finish up the last of the paperwork which would make Casey a completely free woman. “They found her blood on Ricky’s shirt. In his house. Perhaps he’s not the golden boy, after all.”
“There has to be an explanation.”
“Of course there is. Maybe he was there.”
Casey spun sideways. “Maybe if you were better at your job, you could find out these things right at the beginning.”
“You mean at the end. For them. But I told you. She didn’t say the names of the men. And the way things were during her last few minutes, Ricky could have been there and she wouldn’t have known. She wouldn’t have been all too coherent just then.”
Casey collapsed back against the seat. “It’s all just…too awful.”
Don got in the car, barely missing Death, who oozed to the back, and sat for a moment with his eyes shut. “Your part went remarkably well.”