Indelible

"But it looks scattered," Jeffrey said, pointing to the hairline ribbons of red radiating from the circular drops.

"The blood hit the wall straight on, but it still splattered back." She used a straight pin to point this out. "This is where the bulk of the impact took place."

"All right," he agreed, though she could tell he still did not buy it. "What can the rest of this tell us?"

"Watch," she told him, picking at the end of the thread. She pulled it out a few yards, then bent to the carpet to match it to the blood. "I'm just guessing at the angle, and of course I'll have to adjust it – probably up – for the parabolic, but I -"

"What are you talking about?"

"Basic trigonometry," she answered, thinking it was obvious. "I really don't have the right equipment, so this is just a hunch, but the formula goes something like, the ratio of width and length of the bloodstain equals the angle of impact…" She had lost him again, so she said, "Go find some tape."

"Masking? Duct? Scotch?"

"Anything sticky."

While Jeffrey searched the house for tape, Sara went about lining up the thread. She used the pins to attach the ends to the carpet and spun out the thread in lengths of ten to twelve feet.

"Will this work?" Jeffrey asked, handing her a roll of electrical tape.

"It should," Sara said, peeling off strips of tape and sticking them to her arm. She found the major splatters on the bedside table, careful not to touch the chunks of flesh that remained. She wished she had put on a pair of gloves before starting this, but it was too late now.

She told Jeffrey, "Stand here," pointing to the foot of the bed.

"What are you going to do?"

"There's nothing to attach the thread to on this end," she said. "I need to use you."

"Okay," he agreed, and she went back to each piece of thread, probably thirty in all, and judging the angle as best she could without the proper instruments, she followed the angle of the splatter, pi

"His head was here," Jeffrey said, indicating the point at which all the string converged. The black electrical tape represented the area of impact, like some sort of forensic spider on a web, showing the exact spot where the bullet exploded out blood, bone, and brain.

Sara had already gotten her jeans dirty crawling around on the bloody carpet, but she was hesitant to put herself where Swan had been kneeling when he was shot. He must have been a few feet from the bed when the bullet hit. She said, "He was a little shorter than I am, so his head must have been about here, give or take a few inches because of miscalculations on my part."

"Jessie was in bed," Jeffrey said, not moving because of the string. "Swan must have been on his knees in front of her."

Sara saw what could have been an outline of a handprint. "Here," she said. "Do you see this?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Swan must have had his hand there. Maybe he was leaning against the bed, using it for balance."

"He was facing this way," Sara said, indicating the bed. "The bullet entered the side of his head, here," she put her fingers to the space above her ear. "It came out low on the other side." She indicated the glob of flesh still stuck to the bedside table. "This is his earlobe."

"So it fits," Jeffrey said. "Robert was standing over here about where I am and Swan was kneeling beside the bed, doing whatever."

"He was facing Jessie."

Jeffrey's shoulders slumped, and the string went with him. "What he said was right, then. He didn't even give him a warning. He just shot him in cold blood."

"Let's get these off," Sara said, meaning the pins. "This doesn't tell us why."

"The why is clear enough," he said, helping her with the pins. "He saw another man fucking his wife. I'd feel the same way."

"You wouldn't shoot someone."

"I don't know what I'd do," Jeffrey said. "If I saw you with somebody else…"

"Robert saw them first," Sara said, still trying to think it through. "He wasn't carrying his gun when he walked in the first time."

"No," Jeffrey agreed. "He must have gone back out into the room or his truck or wherever the fuck it is he keeps his gun."

"Then he came back," Sara continued. "That's premeditation."

"I know," Jeffrey said, dropping some pins into the plastic box.

She wound up the string, wondering what they were going to do now. Robert had already confessed. Their purpose here had been to try in some way to break his story. They had done nothing more than proven he had shot the man with premeditation. It was the difference between ten years with early release and death row.

Car tires screeched outside, and Jeffrey said, "I wonder what -" just as a door slammed. They both walked to the front of house to see who was there. Jeffrey threw open the door just as a woman was raising her fist to bang on it.

"You!" she screamed, her voice reminding Sara of a gravel truck. "You fucking bastard, I knew you'd be here!"

Jeffrey tried to close the door but the woman inserted herself in the house. The smell of her hit Sara first, the metallic tinge of menstrual blood, though the woman was well past that time in her life. She was enormous, probably a hundred pounds overweight, with a face that was a mask of sheer rage.

"You fucking pig!" the woman screamed, punching her hand into Jeffrey's chest.

"Lane -" he began, holding up his hands to stop her.

"You killed my daughter, you murdering bastard!" she bellowed. "You and your fucking friends aren't going to get away with this!"

Jeffrey tried to push her out the door, but she was able to keep it open by sheer force of weight. She punched her hands into Jeffrey's chest again, this time hard enough to knock him back into the house. The door flew open as he fell to the floor.

Sara went to him, telling the woman, "Stop!" before she could help herself.

She turned on Sara, giving her the kind of up-and-down appraisal that she would probably give a leper. "I heard about you," she said. "You fucking slut. You don't even know what kind of trash you're with."

Jeffrey had managed to stand, but he was breathing hard, and Sara wondered if the force of the punch had broken one of his ribs.

Sara hissed, "Who is this?"

"Eric!" the woman called back into the yard. "Get in here. You, too, So

Jeffrey leaned hard against the wall, like he needed help to stay up. Sara was about to ask him what was going on when she saw two young boys walking up the porch stairs. They were pitiful creatures, undernourished and filthy. Sara was reminded of two baby birds who had fallen out of their nest and been abandoned by their mother, and she felt angry just looking at them. What sort of person could allow such neglect? Who could treat two children this way?

The woman grabbed one of the boys by the back of his neck and thrust him toward Jeffrey. "Say hello to your father, you little bastard."

Sara caught the boy before he fell. Under his dirty gray shirt she could feel his ribs poking through.

The woman said, "This is the asshole who raped your mama."

Sara felt as if her throat had closed. She looked at Jeffrey but he would not meet her gaze.

"Rape?" Sara managed, the word echoing in her head like a bell.

"You pig," the woman told Jeffrey. "Be a fucking man and take some responsibility for once in your pathetic life."

"Please," Sara said to the woman, trying to concentrate on the things she could control. "Don't do this in front of the children."

"Don't do what?" the woman demanded. "Boy needs to know his father. Ain't that right, Eric? Don't you wa