In one of Barber’s notes, he wrote that when the police arrived, there was water in the tub, a damp towel draped over the side of it, and another, larger damp towel on the bedroom floor not far from where the body was found. He speculated that when the killer heard Mrs. Finlay drive up, he may have hid himself and watched her undress to take a bath, which may have sexually excited him. At the point when she may have had nothing on but her ruffled blue tennis panties, he confronted her, and when she started screaming, he noticed the hammer on the windowsill and used it.
What Barber didn’t entertain, at least not in writing, was the possibility that Mrs. Finlay was in the tub when her assailant appeared, that in fact her assailant might have been someone she knew so well as to allow this person to come into the bedroom, perhaps even talk to her while she was still in the tub or drying off, maybe a close female friend or relative, maybe someone who didn’t always get along with her. It never seemed to occur to Barber that Mrs. Finlay might have been murdered by someone very close to her, the crime then staged to look like an attempted sexual assault that went as far as her tennis panties being pulled down to her knees before her enraged assailant beat her to death.
According to the statement of one of Mrs. Finlay’s tennis partners, Kim and Mrs. Finlay had gotten quite hostile toward each other over the summer, and Mrs. Finlay had begun saying things like Chinese people should work in Laundromats, not marry people like her nephew. Sykes sure as hell would have been on high alert if she had been the detective and someone had told her that, would have zeroed in on all of it, would have connected the dots, decided Kim and Mrs. Finlay pretty much hated each other and maybe when Kim dropped by the house after tennis that day — after yet another shopping spree charged to Mrs. Finlay’s country club account — they got into an argument that went no place good.
“Still sounds mighty circumstantial to me,” Rutherford the sheriff says from beside the showcase of pistols that is propping him up.
“The DNA isn’t circumstantial,” Win replies, and he keeps looking at Sykes, as if to remind the sheriff that the two of them are in this together.
“Don’t understand why they didn’t get the DNA back then. You sure something didn’t get contaminated after twenty years?”
“They didn’t do DNA testing back then,” Win says, looking at Sykes, and she nods. “Just standard serology, ABO typing, which certainly indicated that the blood on the tennis clothing was Mrs. Finlay’s. But what they didn’t test twenty years ago were areas of clothing that might yield other biological information.”
“Like what areas?” the sheriff asks, getting an impatient look on his face.
“Areas that rub against your skin, areas that might have sweat or saliva, other body fluids. Get it from all sorts of things. The inside of collars, under the arms, the brims of hats, socks, the inside of shoes, chewing gum, cigarette butts. We need highly sensitive DNA technology for tests like that. PCR. STR. And by the way, when DNA is contaminated, you don’t get false positives.”
Rutherford doesn’t want to get into it, says, “Well, George and Kim aren’t going to give you any trouble. And like I told you, I know they’re home. Had my secretary call them up, pretend she was collecting money for the FOP hurricane fund. You ever seen anything like all these hurricanes? The Lord Almighty’s unhappy with something, you ask me.”
“Plenty to be unhappy about,” Sykes says to him. “Plenty of ambition, greed, and hatred, the very same things that led to Mrs. Finlay’s murder.”
Sheriff Rutherford says nothing, won’t look at her, has been addressing his every comment to Win. It’s a man’s world, probably explaining why there’s all these hurricanes, punishment for women not staying home and doing what they’re told.
“Before y’all head out,” the sheriff says to Win, “I’d like to clear up the train part, because I’m still suspicious it was a homicide, like maybe there was some sort of organized crime involved, Dixie Mafia or something. And if that’s so”—he slowly shakes his jowly head—“then maybe we should be approaching this different, bring in the FBI.”
“No way it was a homicide.” Sykes is adamant. “Everything I’ve found out about Mark Holland’s case indicates suicide.”
“And what’s everything?” the sheriff asks Win, as if it’s Win who just made that claim.
“Like the fact that when he was married to Kim, she went through his money and was cheating on him, having an affair with Mark’s best friend, another cop. Mark had plenty of reason to be depressed and angry,” she says, looking right at the sheriff.
“Might not have been enough for Barber to run with,” Win adds, “but it should have caused him to ask a few questions about Kim’s character and morals. Which he clearly did, since he contacted the medical examiner’s office in Chapel Hill, then stapled a Polaroid photograph of Holland’s remains to the personal-effects inventory from Mrs. Finlay’s autopsy.”
“A personal-effects inventory that had tennis clothes on it? Because the tennis clothes were size six, he made some Sherlock leap to a train fatality?” Rutherford peels open a stick of spearmint gum, winks at Win, says, “Guess I’ll leave my DNA on it, huh?” Then, “Go on.” Chewing. “Go on, then. I’m listening. Hook that up with the train fatality. Hope you can.” Chewing.
“Ten,” Sykes says. “The tennis clothes were size ten.”
“Well, not that I’m an expert on women’s attire, but I can’t see any connection between this poor cop being run over by a train and this dead old lady’s tennis clothes. You implying Detective Barber figured those clothes were too big to fit Mrs. Finlay?” He says all this to Win.
“I bet Barber didn’t notice,” Sykes says.
“Don’t think I would have,” the sheriff says to Win. “How ’bout you?” He winks at him again, chewing.
“Detective Garano’s the one who did notice,” Sykes says.
“Possibly a simpler answer is the bloody tennis clothes were what Barber submitted to the TBI labs for testing,” Win suggests. “He had a copy of it, stapled it to the morgue photo. Tucked them inside his September MasterCard bill, maybe because that’s where the previous month’s charges were listed for his trip to the ME’s office in Chapel Hill. People do things, don’t think about them. Who knows.”
“That sure is the truth,” Sykes agrees, thinking of the case file Toby Huber stupidly stuck in the oven.
“A lot of details never make sense,” Win goes on. “A lot of holes never get filled in. A lot of what is reconstructed probably looks very little like what really happens in those minutes, those split seconds, when a violent outburst ends someone’s life.”
“You some kind of philosopher or something?” Rutherford narrows his eyes, chews his gum.
Win gets up from his chair, looks at Sykes, gives her the signal.
“We just need a little time to give them the happy news, then you can pick them up,” Win says to the sheriff.
At least he said “we,” Sykes thinks. He didn’t have to include her. It’s his case, she thinks, but no matter how often she reminds herself of that, she feels disappointed, depressed about it, resentful. After all those dark places and boxes and phone calls and missed Academy classes and everything else, it certainly feels like her case, and it would feel pretty damn good to tell Kim and George Finlay they didn’t get away with it, that they’re about to find themselves in handcuffs and end up in a very different Big House from what they’re used to — this one with razor wire.