Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 27)

He raised eyebrows at me in a classic exasperated look.

“It’s still two days extra to figure out who did it and who framed Bobby for it, but before any of that happens, the prints have to not match his feet.”

“You think someone walked through the victim’s blood not because they forgot, but because they wanted to frame Bobby?” he asked.

“It’s a working theory,” I said.

“How tall do you think Muriel is?” he asked.

“So you didn’t like her either,” I said.

“How would anyone like her?” he said.

“No arguments from me.”

“Todd is taller than he looks. He slumps. It rounds his shoulders and makes him look shorter.”

“He’s not slumping to hide his height, Newman.”

“I didn’t say he was. I’m just saying that if we get a viable print, we can ask them both for a sample to match with.”

I shook my head. “Muriel is about the same height as Bobby. Her high heels have to be adding at least five inches.”

“They didn’t look that tall to me.”

“You’ve never had to wear stilettos,” I said.

He frowned at me. “What has that got to do with anything?”

“Once you’ve worn enough high heels, you’re a better judge of them on other people, that’s all. Just like I didn’t realize the husband was slumping, and you did.”

“I’m tall and a man. I notice height in other men.”

“They’ll never agree to letting us take prints of their feet,” I said.

“They might if Duke told them it was to clear them of suspicion. Since we found them in the house stealing, they’re now suspects,” Newman said.

“Maybe, but only if they’re not guilty.”

“I was regular police for two years before I became a marshal. Trust me, Blake, guilty people do a lot of stupid things, just like innocent people.”

“I’ve been a lot of things, but never a regular cop, so if you tell me that it’s worth a try for them to possibly implicate themselves, I’ll vote with you.”

“Thanks. I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“You’re welcome.” I glanced at the bedroom and finally let myself go inside to see if I could find anything else that would buy us more time. I couldn’t really see either Muriel or Todd walking barefoot through Ray’s blood. It was one thing to walk through your brother’s blood in shoes, but barefoot was more hard-core. Of course, if they’d killed him and framed their nephew, what was a little barefoot promenade compared to a double murder? Because make no mistake: If we couldn’t get Bobby free of this, he was going die within days of the man who raised him.

12

I STARED DOWN at the bed. The bedspread was crumpled to one side of the bed along with most of the pillows. The sheets were so tangled that it was impossible to imagine anyone sleeping in them or on them without smoothing them out first. There was blood on them, but not as much blood as had been on Bobby’s skin when we saw him in jail.

“There’s a little bit of blood where someone touched the sheets, but the front of his body is way more coated than that,” I said.

“Did you notice that it was down one leg past the knee?” Newman asked.

“Yeah.”

“So how did he get into bed without getting more blood on the sheets?”