"You think you're smart, don't you?" said Crystal. "Always a smarty-pants. Well you ain't smart enough to steal what's mine. I'm going to get me a lawyer and have you arrested." She turned to Diane as if she had just now noticed her standing there.

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?"

If this wasn't so dreadfully serious, Diane would have laughed at the comic pair these two made. It occurred to her what Frank told her about Detective Janice Warrick allowing Gil McFarland into the crime scene. If she had done that, then she also may not have adequately interviewed him. Looking at Crystal and Gil standing there with their faces twisted in anger, the pair looked to her like suspects.

They're off guard-the thought flashed through her mind and before she realized it, Diane made a decision to play a hunch. "I'm going to examine the crime scene for Star and her attorney. Since she's innocent, we intend to find evidence of the guilty party. Considering the two of you don't have alibis, I'd leave here and not cause trouble." Frank glanced briefly at her and back at the McFarlands.

"What do you mean we don't have alibis?" screeched Crystal. "We were together-all day and all night."

"That's what I mean," said Diane, pushing. "You alibi each other. That's not really an alibi, is it?"

"Listen here. Just what are you saying?" asked Gil. "We didn't have nothing to do with this. We . . . we was at a car show."

"Yeah," agreed Crystal, "a car show."

"What car show? Why didn't you tell the police?"

"They didn't ask, Miss Smarty-Pants."

"So you made that up just now." Diane pressed her advantage. "Making something up on the spur of the moment won't do any good. At an event like a car show, many people would have seen you. You won't be able to find any because you weren't there."

"Now just how the h.e.l.l do you know?" said Gil. "You sure as h.e.l.l wasn't with us."

"She's right." The McFarlands whirled around at the sound of a new voice in the argument. The security guard Frank hired had come up and stood just a few feet away. He had a thin smile that threatened to break into a grin. "I'm what my wife calls a car nut. I go to and organize car shows, and I know there wasn't any in the South-east then."

"There's that 'un at Gatlinberg that's year round," said Gil. "That's the one we went to."

"No, sorry. Closed for renovations." The guard now grinned broadly.

"Well, ain't you the la-dee-da know-it-all," said Crystal. She spun around to Frank and Diane. "We don't have to tell you nothing. We didn't do nothing, and you can't prove no different."

"That's what the lady is here for," said Frank.

"Now, just a minute. That's my son's house. I've been in there."

"And I was there with the detective looking to see if anything was stolen," said Gil.

"To carry stuff out," said Frank. "How will that look to a jury? You should never have been allowed in the crime scene. It looks to me like you were trying to cover up the fact that your prints were in the bedroom already, and I don't think either George or Louise would have ever invited you into their bedroom."

"You ain't going to find nothing, 'cause there's nothing to find," said Crystal. "Come on, Gil, darlin', we'll go get ourselves a lawyer who'll tell them a thing or two." She and Gil headed for their car. Crystal suddenly turned to Frank. "Tell that Star she can't inherit a thing if she's convicted of George's murder. And she will be. That brat did it. You mark my words-his property and everything will be mine." She raised her chin high, daring Frank to disagree.

"No, Crystal, you won't. Even if Star is convicted of her parents' murder, you aren't in the will."

Crystal stared openmouthed for a moment. "What? You telling me all this goes to somebody else? Who?" Frank didn't answer. "They can't cut me out-I'm the closest blood relative George's got. It's not legal. Gil's cousin's daughter's a paralegal, and I know for a fact you can't cut blood out of your will. We'll just see about this."

The three of them watched the McFarlands get in their '92 Lincoln and drive off, white smoke billowing from the exhaust.

"Well, that was interesting," said the guard.

"It was something," said Frank. Frank introduced Diane and started to lead her into the house.

"I'd like to take a look at the spot where Jay was shot before it gets dark."

He led her to the place where Jay was found, near a live oak with a thick trunk and broad canopy. Diane wondered how old it was-decades older than Jay.

"Here," said Frank, squatting next to a place where someone had dug into the ground.

Diane squatted beside him, scanning the area. "This is where they found the bullet?"

"I believe so."

The sun was sinking behind the tree line; however, a remaining flicker of sunlight reflected on something. She took a pair of tweezers from her pocket, along with an evidence bag and picked up the object.

"What is it?" asked Frank, looking at the curled piece of clear plastic about the size of two postage stamps.

"Plastic."

"Is it important?"

"Might be." Diane put the fragment into the bag and planted a ribbon and nail in the ground. "The pictures aren't clear about which direction the body lay." Frank stood, hesitating for a moment before he spoke. "I know this is hard," said Diane.

"Yeah. I just remembered, today's Louise's birthday." Frank pointed to the house. "Jay's head was pointing toward the house."

"Do you know if they found any gunpowder residue on his jacket? I didn't see any, but . . ." She let the sentence hang as she backed up from where Jay had fallen. "If Detective Warrick's saying he was coming home and was surprised by his sister, why was he shot in the back?"

"I guess she'd say she couldn't face her brother."

"But she'd just killed her parents in their bed." Diane looked around the gra.s.s where she stood. She squatted and scrutinized the area again. Just a couple of feet in front of her she found another plastic fragment smaller than a postage stamp. She bagged it and marked the place.

"Did the crime scene find more of these pieces? I don't see any tags. . . ."

"I don't know what they found. I'll see if I can find out. You think it means something?"

"Possibly." She handed him the bag and he put it in his jacket pocket. "We need to have it a.n.a.lyzed." Diane glanced over at the guard sitting on the porch, watching them. The cost for Star's defense was mounting and it had just begun. Unless the murders were solved soon, there wouldn't be much for Crystal McFarland to fight over.

Diane examined the tree trunk, but saw no obvious blood spatters. She also looked around for more pieces of plastic, but found none.

"OK. Let's go to the house now."

"I think I'll tell Harry he can take a break. How long will we be here?"

"All night."

Chapter 13

Diane stood in George and Louise's bedroom and stared at the bare bloodstained mattress. It had been new; now it was ruined. Before it was a crime scene, their bedroom probably had an airy brightness, with its light pine furniture, green iron garden bench at the foot of the bed, and floral-patterned wallpaper. It was the wallpaper that drew her attention away from the bed and created a frown on her forehead.

Frank stood next to her, his gaze darting from the chest of drawers to the dresser covered with family photographs, to a new green wrought iron headboard still in its box leaning against a wall, and finally to the bed and the bloodstained wall next to it.

"Louise was redecorating the bedroom. You should have heard George complaining on poker night. Said he had to win big just to pay for the new headboard. It's all unfinished. Jay's too-unfinished."

Unconsciously, she grasped Frank's hand and squeezed it. He squeezed back.

"This is going to take all night?" he asked.

She nodded, her thoughts focused on the scene before her. The room smelled of death. It emanated from the mattress, the curtains, the walls. And the house was hot. She felt her scalp p.r.i.c.kle with sweat, and she hadn't even begun yet. It was going to be an unpleasant night. She took two pairs of latex gloves from her kit and handed one pair to Frank. He took the gloves but looked at her quizzically.

"You think we still need to protect the crime scene, after all the people that have trampled through here?"

"The gloves are not to protect the crime scene," she said. "They're to protect us from the crime scene."

"It is pretty ripe in here," he said.

"You'll get used to it."

She looked in dismay at the wallpaper as she pulled on her gloves. Antique red roses, gold b.u.t.tercups, baby's breath and green leaves against a background of tiny flecks of color-and overlain by blood spatters.

She gestured to an area of fine spattering. "See this fine mist pattern here?"

Frank studied the wall, squinting. "Yes."

"This is high-impact spatter from a gunshot. But where the drops are larger-here-these are places of medium impact. And this line of spattering that leads upward to the ceiling. That's castoff from whatever was used to strike them."

"I sort of see. Kind of hard to see on top of that wallpaper."

"That's going to be a problem. It's difficult enough, but the pattern on the wallpaper makes it like a hidden-picture illusion."

"You saying they were shot and beaten?" He asked, as if he had just realized what she had said.

Diane nodded.

"The autopsy will give us the details of that," he said.

"But the autopsy can't tell us what this spatter can. Up on your trig?"

"Trig?"

"Trigonometry."

"Oh. Yes, math I understand."

"a.n.a.lyzing blood spatters is mostly geometry-you take the two-dimensional pattern from the wall and project to three dimensions."

Diane looked over at Frank. This was the blood of his friends that she was at the moment being so dispa.s.sionate about. He was already getting a five o'clock shadow and, though most of the time it made him look s.e.xy, it now made him look more melancholy. "Are you all right with this?" she asked.

"I'm fine." His voice was a little too sharp, but Diane took him at his word and continued.

The only way to do a good job is to find your objectivity and hang on to it like an anchor. That was one of the things that Santos took away from her-for a while.

"What I'll be a.n.a.lyzing is the medium-impact spatter, and I have to measure the two axes-the length and width-of the drops."

Frank turned his face to her, his dark eyes startled. "You're kidding. All of them?"

"Not all, but a significant enough number to make sure I get reliable results."

"I guess that will take all night and then some. d.a.m.n, how can you even see them?"

"It'd definitely be easier if she'd chosen plain white wallpaper. I'll use a magnifying gla.s.s."

She picked up the gla.s.s from her case and showed Frank magnified spatters of blood that had hit the wall.

"A spatter that hits the wall head-on at a perpendicular angle will be round. As the angle of impact gets smaller, the more elongated the drop becomes. See the little tail on most of these drops here?"

"If I hold my head just right and put my tongue between my left molars."

"Now you're getting the idea. The drop goes in the direction of the tail, like a comet. If you've ever spilled anything that has any viscosity at all, you've noticed that phenomenon. Ever have a bottle of ketchup blow up on you and spatter across the table?"

"As a matter of fact, that happened in a restaurant once. Covered me and the people at the next table. I impressed that date. But I don't recollect observing the shape of the drops of ketchup."

Diane watched his face as he smiled. He was trying hard. The thing she had remembered most about Frank was his smile-it made his eyes squint with a mischievous twinkle that made you think he was sharing a joke with you, and it never failed to make her smile back at him. This one was short-lived. She wished she was someplace else, doing anything else.

"If I were to draw a line along the longest axis of the drops, I'd have the two-dimensional point of convergence."

"Which tells you what?" he asked.

Diane hesitated a moment, biting her lower lip.

"Go ahead and tell me. I'll have to explain it to Star's lawyer-or maybe throw it in Warrick's face. No way you can make it any harder for me than the fact that they're dead."

"I know. I'm sorry. OK. When the perp strikes a blow on a victim, blood is spattered on whatever surface is near. All of those drops in that spatter are part of a set that defines that particular blow. For a.n.a.lysis purposes, they all belong together. When the perp swings his . . . his weapon, it will have blood on it, and that blood will be cast off, making a trail across the wall, the ceiling or whatever, depending on how he swings it. The victim, if he isn't unconscious with the first blow, will move around. When he is. .h.i.t again, it will leave another set of spatters, but at a different angle, with a different point of convergence. Finding the different lines of convergence can tell me how many times the victim was struck and where the victim was located at the time of each blow."

Frank nodded. "That makes sense. So if you know that the more elongated the drop, the more acute the angle of impact, then you can compute the angle. What is it? Something like, the sine of the angle equals the width over the length?"

"You are are good at trig." good at trig."

"I was going to get a degree in math until my father asked what kind of job I could get with it. I went into accounting instead."

"And that led to crime?"

"I was determined to make as little money as possible."