LITMIR.BIZ

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Kate noted a nervous trembling in his hands. It was too evident to ignore at this point.

      “Was her husband home?” she asked, not letting him see that she was noticing his nervousness.

      “I don’t think so.”

      Kate looked over the report one more time. Based on the reports and his story, everything seemed to check out. But it seemed too damned coincidental to her. She eyed Mike for a moment, looking for some crack in his façade, but saw none.

      “Thanks very much, Mike,” she finally said. “We’re done here. I don’t want to keep you from your work any longer. Thanks for your help.”

      “Absolutely,” Mike said, taking the tablet back. “I hope you catch the guy.”

      “Yeah,” DeMarco said. “Same here.”

      The three of them left the coffee shop together, Mike giving an awkward wave as he got behind the wheel of the Hexco service truck.

      “He seems to check out,” DeMarco said as they got back into the car.

      “Yeah, he does. But the coincidence factor…”

      “Yeah, it kind of nags at you, doesn’t it?”

      “Well, that and the fact that he was shaking like a whore in church…”

      “Nice metaphor,” DeMarco said with a chuckle.

      They both watched as Mike pulled out of his parking spot. Neither of them spoke, though Kate found herself reaching for her phone, still wanting to find out if Melissa had left her a message…and just how upset she was.

      Later, she told herself. Got to keep my priorities straight.

      But that thought, like the potential waiting voice message, felt like a bomb tucked away in some long forgotten place, ticking down and waiting to explode.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      The Hix residence was about eleven miles away from the Hopkinses’ address. Located just outside of the Frankfield city limits, it was close enough to the town to offer Bannerman and his crew authority over the case. Chicago loomed just twenty minutes to the south, giving the section between something of a gray area when it came to jurisdiction. The neighborhood was a little less extravagant than the Hopkinses’, though not by much. The yards were smaller, most of them separated from the next by towering elms and oaks. In the falling rain, the trees made the houses and their yards look a little gothic as Kate and DeMarco pulled into the Hixes’ driveway.

      DeMarco used they key Bannerman had given them to enter. From what they had been told, the husband had moved just up the road to Chicago, to stay with his brother directly after the funeral. There was no indication as to when he might return.

      However, not too long after Kate and DeMarco had allowed themselves in, another car pulled into the driveway behind them. The agents waited at the door to see who the visitor was. They watched as a middle-aged blonde woman got out of a very nice Mercedes. Kate noted that the car had Realtor plates.

      “Hey there,” the woman—presumably a Realtor—said as she neared the stairs. She was clearly confused. “Can I ask who you are?”

      Kate flashed her badge, not being showy but also not wanting to beat around the bush. “Agents Wise and DeMarco, FBI. You’re a Realtor, I take it?”

      “That’s right. Nadine Owen. I’m here to give the house a final walkthrough before we put it on the market.”

      “I wasn’t aware it was going on the market,” Kate said.

      “We got the call yesterday morning. Mr. Hix won’t be returning. He’s got a moving crew coming in tomorrow to start packing everything up. I’m doing a checklist today to make sure the moving crew leaves it as is. Lord knows it’ll be a hard enough sell as it is.”

      “Why is that?” DeMarco asked.

      Kate knew the answer, having been involved in several cases in the past where a Realtor had come into play. “Realtors have to disclose when there has been a recent murder on a property,” Kate said.

      “That’s right,” Nadine said. “And in this case, Mr. Hix is donating just about everything he has. He was a mess when I spoke with him. He just doesn’t want all of the reminders of his wife in whatever place he chooses as his next home. It’s quite sad, actually.”

      That’s pretty suspicious if you ask me, Kate thought.

      “How long has Mr. Hix been in Chicago?” she asked.

      “He left the day after the funeral…so I’d say three days, I believe.”

      “If you don’t mind, we’d like to look the place over before you go about your checklist,” Kate said.

      “By all means.”

      The three women entered the house. Kate found it in immaculate shape. Again, it wasn’t quite as nice as the Hopkins home, but it was still more than Kate would ever have been able to afford. It wasn’t just the house, either; all of the furniture looked to be very expensive as well.

      As they walked through, DeMarco trailed behind Kate, scrolling through the electronic police reports. She read aloud the important parts as they did a walkthrough of the house.

      “Marjorie Hix was found dead in her bedroom, half in and half out of the master bathroom,” she read. “She, too, was choked to death but there was no blood or cuts as there were with Karen Hopkins. There was bruising around her throat but no signs of hand imprints. It is believed she might have been strangled with a belt or some sort of smooth rope.”

      The downstairs was mostly an open floor plan, the living room and kitchen separated only by one large column. The other area appeared to serve as the living room, a small but expensive-looking television situated between two bookshelves. An elegant-looking piano also helped to separate the areas. Kate knew very little about pianos but was fairly certain this one was a baby grand Steinway…and that it was likely valued at one year of her salary. It was hard to imagine the husband simply donating such an item rather than selling it. It sent a little red flag up in Kate’s brain.

      A reading area and mini-office space sat to the far left, tucked in a corner and looking out onto a spacious porch via a picture window. All in all, it looked rather plain and idyllic.

      “Remind me again what the reports say about evidence taken by the police,” Kate said.

      “The husband willingly handed over his own laptop, which was given back pretty quickly,” DeMarco said, still reading from the reports. “He also handed over Marjorie’s laptop and cell phone. There was a belt in the upstairs closet that was taken in by forensics as a potential murder weapon, but it was conclusively determined not to have been used.”

      After a bit more looking downstairs, they walked up the stairs on the right side of the floor plan, the stairs running parallel to the little office space. The upstairs consisted of a wide hall and four rooms: a bathroom, two guest rooms, and a massive master suite. They went directly to the master suite and stopped just inside the doorway, taking the place in.

      The bed was unmade, but other than that the room was spotless. Kate looked to the area in front of the bathroom and tried to picture a body there. She knew the crime scene photos were in the case files and she was sure she’d look at them later. For now, though, she was trying to picture the room like a killer might—a killer who had likely been invited in for some reason or another.

      The room was situated in a way where someone coming out of the bathroom would not immediately see someone coming into the room. If the killer had managed to sneak into the room while Marjorie Hix had been in the bathroom, he would have gone completely unseen.

      “No clues of any kind in the bedroom, huh?” Kate asked.

      “None listed in the report. Not even a single drop of blood. Nothing.”

      Kate walked around the room and stopped at the window closest to the bed. She had to draw the curtains back, but she saw that it looked out onto a back yard with a wooded lot beyond. She then went into the bathroom.

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