“That’s not a lot of time. Two minutes,” countered Sam.
“Two minutes can feel like eons if you have murder on your mind. What does that tell us?”
“Lady Dover didn’t regard him as a threat,” Aldridge supplied.
Kendra nodded. “He didn’t do anything to alarm her, to make her afraid of him. He was not in a rage—or he hid his rage well.”
“Or, as we discussed last night, she felt confident enough to appease his anger.” The Duke’s gaze strayed to the portrait again.
“Yes, but the point is the killer didn’t take out the stiletto and stab her immediately. The rage that took over during the stabbing was absent while they were downstairs.” Kendra looked at Sam. “There was only one glass of whiskey?”
“Aye.”
“I wonder if she made the drink for him, or for herself?” It was a rhetorical question, but Sam answered anyway.
“It was for him, I reckon.” He caught her look and shrugged. “Whiskey ain’t a lady’s usual drink.”
“Hmm.” Kendra decided to let that bias go. “Whoever the drink was for, Lady Dover must have been holding it when he attacked her.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “How’dya know that?”
“Because the killer needed his hands free. We have to assume his weapon was concealed somewhere on him.” Kendra positioned herself in front of the bloodstained sofa, imagining Lady Dover facing her killer. Holding the glass in one hand, the fan in another. “If the drink was hers, she could have been sitting. If she’d made the drink for him, she could have been standing here, offering it to him. The killer needed to retrieve the stiletto. He then moved forward, bringing up his hand with the weapon . . .”
Kendra began counting as she went through the motions. Putting her hand in her pocket—“One”—pulling out the imaginary knife—“two”—lunging forward toward the sofa and raising her fist—“three”—bringing down her hand in a slashing motion—“four.”
She straightened, glancing at the Duke and Sam. “If the killer had been holding the glass, he’d have had to put it down, most likely on the side table there. It wouldn’t have been kicked under the sofa.”
“Yes.” Aldridge nodded. “Yes, that is an excellent deduction, my dear.”
Kendra changed positions, putting herself where Lady Dover was during the attack. “Most of Lady Dover’s wounds were on the left side, but they were frontal lacerations. She was facing her attacker. Holding the drink. Let’s say she was standing . . .” Kendra pretended to hold a glass. “He brought the knife out.” She opened her closed hand, and brought her arms up to her face, as though to ward off an attack. “She dropped the glass, and tried to protect herself—protect her face. That’s what she cared about the most. Unfortunately, it left her chest exposed. Dr. Munroe said it only took two seconds. By the time she collapsed on the sofa, she’d already been stabbed multiple times.”
“Jesus.” Sam’s gaze sharpened in horror, clearly visualizing the scene.
“When he came at her, he could’ve kicked the glass, and it rolled under the sofa. Or she did it herself.”
“The fan and her hair frippery also fell ter the floor during the struggle,” added the Bow Street Runner.
Kendra had to pause to shake herself free of the dark imaginings. She circled the room, then came back to the sofa. “As far as I can tell, the blood spatter is contained to the sofa. Another indication that she didn’t have a chance to run or crawl away. Even though she’d collapsed, he kept stabbing her, a frenzy brought on by adrenaline and rage. After it was over, he would’ve been shaking, burning through adrenaline like that.”
“But he still took the time to mutilate her face,” Aldridge pointed out.
Kendra’s gaze was thoughtful. “Yes. That means he stayed to calm down before he disfigured her.”
“Cold bastard,” Sam muttered.
“Yes—and no.” Kendra considered the crime, and shook her head. “It’s an anomaly. The rage that drove the attack was hot. But what was done to her face . . . It’s not easy to carve up a human being’s face. That’s why the right side of her face had those two slashes—hesitation marks. It took him two tries before he got himself under control, and succeeded. Again, that takes time.”
Sam scowled. “But why, Miss? Why’d he feel like he had ter keep trying?”
Kendra realized Sam hadn’t been around for their discussion last night. “I don’t know. It might have been a form of retaliation, a final insult. She prized her beauty, so the killer wanted to mutilate her. It’s something we need to figure out.”
Kendra looked around and tried not to think about all microscopic evidence that she was leaving behind. But even if she had the ability to collect and process it, the crime scene had been compromised—they’d had fucking civilians walk through it, like it was some sort of exhibit. And that wasn’t even to mention the robbers.
“Okay, I’m done here,” she said. “Let’s go through the rest of the house.”
In particular, Kendra wanted to go through Lady Dover’s bedroom. It was the most personal of all the rooms and had the potential to yield the best evidence, like a memento a lover had given her, a diary in which she’d written, or letters she may have kept.
Every century, every decade, people left bits and pieces of themselves behind in some sort of paper trail. In the twenty-first century, the paper had become figurative, but the trail was still there—Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Hell, Facebook was her timeline’s version of a diary, where people spilled their thoughts and desires, both bright and dark, for public consumption. These were digital bread crumbs people left behind for investigators like herself to sift through.
How many times had she collected evidence against murderers who’d first begun their plan with the assistance of Google? Visiting websites to give them instruction on how to commit or hide their offenses? She’d only needed time and resources to pull back the layers.
Unfortunately, the layers had already been peeled back in Lady Dover’s bedroom. The thieves had made their way through here, too—the vanity had been picked clean. No combs or brushes or jewelry boxes remained. Not even a goddamn real breadcrumb had been left behind. If Lady Dover had letters tied together with a ribbon or a diary where she’d penned her thoughts, they were gone too.
But there was still something to learn here. Like the drawing room, the bedroom was ultrafeminine in its décor. Lady Dover had favored pastels, Kendra knew, as they’d complimented her golden beauty. She was the jewel, and this was her setting.