Chapter 42

Hang new house numbers or polish existing ones, and ensure they can be seen from the street.

Leaving the shop, I drove immediately to the police station. I decided against going inside since I knew I couldn’t carry several knives in with me. I also didn’t want to explain to the officers at the desk why I needed to see the detective.

Instead, I pulled out Detective Spangler’s card and punched his number into my cell phone. He answered on the third ring.

“Spangler.”

“Ah, Detective Spangler, this is Laura Bishop. I have something I think you need to see. I’m in my car in the lot outside. Can you come down and take a look at it? I can’t bring it into the station.”

He covered his phone, but I still could hear murmuring in the background. “Can you wait for a few minutes? I’m in the middle of something, but I might be able to get away shortly.”

It was a pleasant day, so I got out of my car, reached into the backseat to retrieve the bag containing the knife set, and walked over to stand in the shade of a large maple tree nearby. Anyone seeing the detective meeting me in the parking lot would assume our meeting was personal, but I didn’t care. I wanted to hand him the knife set and get back to my business. Besides, I didn’t want him looming over me as I sat in my car.

About ten minutes later, he walked up to where I stood. “What do you have there?”

“Good morning to you too, Detective.”

“Sorry, it’s been a hectic morning. I ducked out of a meeting to see what you have. I hope it’s important.”

Annoyed that he thought I might have stopped by just for a chat, I picked up the bag at my feet and thrust it to him. “Careful. It’s a knife set. Don’t reach inside the bag.”

He looked puzzled, opened the bag, and peered inside. “A knife set?”

“Not just any knife set. Look closely at the handles. Look familiar?”

His eyes widened. “Yes, they do. Where did you find this?”

“At the resale shop down on Main Street. If you look closely, you’ll see one knife is missing. One of the employees at the shop said a man brought it in last week. Said he’d found it in a dumpster. The employee said the man told him where, but he couldn’t remember. I asked him to give me a call if the location came to mind.”

“The knife handles have an unusual design. I’ll give you that.” He rubbed his chin with his hand.

“Exactly.” I was starting to feel hopeful.

“But other people in town could have the same set, and plenty of them with pieces missing. I don’t know what we gain finding this.”

“But why would someone throw out an expensive set of knives?” I wasn’t giving up easily.

“You got me there.”

“If this is the set, it helps narrow the number of suspects in Ian’s case. And once we can identify his killer, we might be able to link his murder to Damian’s.”

“There you go again with the we.”

“Don’t you agree it narrows the search—even if only a little? If someone came from out of town intending to murder Ian, that person might have brought a knife but not a whole set. It must have been someone who lives locally.” There goes the theory that someone could have followed Ian from New Zealand. “It also shows premeditation. If Warren didn’t have a set like that at the funeral home or in his apartment upstairs, the killer had to have brought the knife with him.”

“You are still going under the assumption that the knife came from this set. Have you considered someone could have owned a single knife with this design without owning a whole set? We have nothing to link this set to the murder. With a pretty questionable chain of custody of the evidence, I’m not sure the evidence would be admissible.”

“What about fingerprints on it?”

“Okay. Say the knife came from this set. Even if we got prints from it, unless we have prints in our system to match them against, they wouldn’t do us much good. We’d have to fingerprint every person in Louiston, searching for a match.”

“You could start with the other people named in Doris Becker’s will,” I said.

He leaned his head back and expelled a long, drawn-out breath. “Are you trying to tell me again how to do my job?”

“If it would help solve two murders, yes.”

He shook his head as though in disbelief, tucked the bag under his arm, and walked away.

I thought about the sixty-five dollars I’d paid for the evidence. With my tight budget, I started to pull the receipt from my purse and chase after him but decided against it. I couldn’t ask him to reimburse me for the cost of the evidence. That might look suspicious. Once Monica was set free, I’d collect it from her.

I felt in my bones that we were getting close to discovering something—at least about Ian’s death. But when it came to Damian’s death, would we discover something that would help free Monica or confirm her guilt?