the surveillance footage been trying to tell her by attaching the photograph of her brother to Christian Manhoff’s body, anyway? Besides ‘fuck you’, of course. That part of the message hadn’t been very difficult to figure out.
It was clear she’d been calling Dana out by name – literally, just as Nathan Stiedowe had done during the Cleveland Slasher investigation – but to what end and for what purpose? And could the woman in the video be a murderer? Just like Dana’s brother had been? Could Dana be sure of that? Had the woman in the video been the same person who’d shoved a large rawhide bone down Christian Manhoff’s throat until he’d choked to death on it? Or was the woman in the video simply connected to the murder somehow? And if so, just how, exactly, was she connected to it?
Dana shook her head and took several deep breaths through her nostrils. Nothing made any sense to her. Still, what else was new? She’d been in a daze ever since she’d first emerged from her coma three days earlier and it didn’t look like she’d snap out of it anytime soon. That being said, Dana knew she’d need to do just that. And quick. One person was dead already and there could be more to come soon. Would probably be more to come soon. With suspects like this one – people who went to such great lengths to actually draw attention to their terrible crimes – there were always more to come.
But Dana didn’t see how the woman in the video could have possibly pulled off the murder by herself. She just didn’t appear physically capable.
Christian Manhoff had been a big man. A huge man, even. He must have outweighed the woman in the video by at least a hundred and fifty pounds. Surely the woman in the video couldn’t have overpowered him. She looked tall, sure – taller than the average female and certainly a lot taller than Dana – but she didn’t look anywhere near strong enough to pull off the deed by herself. So did that mean she’d had assistance killing Christian Manhoff? And if so, from whom? Or – for some odd reason – had the woman in the video simply been piggybacking on a murder that had already committed by someone else, one to which she had no other link?
Dana didn’t know, but she sure as hell planned to find out. Flipping open her cellphone, she accessed her e-mail account and downloaded the attached zip file she’d sent herself a few minutes earlier before watching the autopsy video several more times, her heart pounding progressively harder against her ribcage each time through until she thought it would explode like a time bomb inside her chest.
On the fourth or fifth repeat viewing, Dana finally noticed the watch strapped around the woman’s left wrist as she entered the autopsy room and held up the photograph of Nathan Stiedowe to the camera.
Dana paused the video and selected the portion of the image featuring the watch before zooming in. The watch had caught Dana’s eye mostly because it looked so out of place when compared to the rest of the woman’s hopelessly trendy attire. The dress the woman in the video had been wearing looked like it had cost a pretty penny, indeed – along with her shoes, jewellery and haircut. Something of a closet clotheshorse herself, Dana knew quality when she saw it, and the bird-flipping, profanity-mouthing woman’s get-up in the video was definitely quality.
Dana bit down gently her lower lip – an unfortunate habit she’d formed in grade school and still hadn’t quite gotten over yet – while she continued to think things through. She rubbed at her aching neck and wished like hell that the tension residing there would find somewhere else to live already. The woman’s wardrobe had obviously selected with care and the cheap watch stuck out like sore thumb. It was almost like topping off a piece of perfectly prepared filet mignon with a healthy dollop of two-dollar whipped cream you’d picked up at the grocery store as an afterthought: a small addition but one that was nonetheless large enough to completely ruin the overall presentation.
Simply stated, the watch was a piece of junk. Something a kid might wear.
The watch itself consisted of a worn red-leather strap and what appeared to be a cartoon character using its hands to point out the hour and minute.