“Right.”
“All right, then,” Stone said, “I left at four. She died sometime between then and five. You’ve got a better window.”
“We’ve got a better window, if we buy your story.”
“He got here at four-fifteen,” Dino said. “I’m your witness, and the hotel staff can put me here since breakfast.”
The two cops looked at each other. “Okay,” Paulson said, “she died between four and five.”
“I take it there was a lot of blood,” Stone said. “Was it clotting yet?”
“It was slippery,” Paulson replied.
“Then closer to five than four.”
“Makes sense,” Paulson said. “The woman was wearing a negligee with a kind of robe over it.”
“It’s called a peignoir,” Stone said, then spelled it for him.
Paulson wrote it down. “Okay, if you say so. Is that what she was wearing when you last saw her?”
Stone took a breath to answer, then stopped.
“Let me make it easier for you,” Paulson said. “There’ll be a rape kit.”
“All right,” Stone said, “she was naked when I last saw her. She walked me to the elevator.”
Paulson made a note.
“But your rape kit won’t show anything from me, she was too fastidious a person. The fact that she was wearing the peignoir is an indication that she bathed or showered, then got dressed.”
“And why do you think she was fastidious?” Paulson asked.
“You’ll have to take my word for it,” Stone said.
“The word around town is that the lady has been receiving paying guests for some time,” Padgett said, speaking for the first time.
“I think that when you investigate further, you’ll find that the rumors about that are untrue, that she doesn’t need funds from men. She did tell me she had had a number of lovers since her husband’s death, and I knew about Brandon.”
“She tell you about him?”
“Dino and I left there yesterday, just as Brandon arrived.”
“That’s true,” Dino said.
“You know Brandon, do you?”
“Only by sight,” Stone said. “We spoke with his wife yesterday at their home, as part of our investigation. We saw him leave the house just before we arrived. Ms. Hart told me she had a weekly appointment with him, always on a different day.”
“So Brandon saw her both yesterday and today?” Padgett asked.
“So it seems.”
“That doesn’t sound like weekly to me.”
“No, it doesn’t. She didn’t explain the extra visit this week. I have to tell you, fellas, Brandon sounds like a better fit for this than me.”
“Maybe,” Padgett said, “but why would he see her weekly for months, then get off the elevator one day, bludgeon her to death, then call us?”