“New Year’s past,” Knight said. He swallowed and moved toward the door, adding bitterly, “They were to be married on Christmas Eve. Another tragedy. Just what I need in my life, isn’t it?”
Pottersfield’s expression twisted in pain and anger, and she looked at the kitchen floor as Knight went by her and out into the garden.
The air in the garden was still, growing hotter, and stank of death and gore. On the flagstone terrace, five quarts of blood, the entire reservoir of Sir Denton’s life, had run out and congealed around his decapitated corpse.
“The medical examiner thinks the job was done with a long curved blade with a serrated edge,” Pottersfield said.
Knight again fought off the urge to vomit as he tried to take in the entire scene, to burn it into his mind as if it were a series of photographs and not reality. Keeping everything at arm’s length was the only way he knew to get through something like this.
Pottersfield said, “And if you look closely, you’ll see some of the blood’s been sprayed back toward the body with water from the garden hose. I’d expect the killer did it to wash away footprints and such.”
Knight nodded and t
hen, by sheer force of will, moved his attention beyond the body, deeper into the garden, bypassing forensics techs gathering evidence from the flower beds, to a crime scene photographer snapping away near the back wall.
Knight skirted the corpse by several feet and from that new perspective saw what the photographer was focusing on. It was ancient Greek and one of Sir Denton’s prized possessions: a headless limestone statue of an Athenian senator cradling a book and holding the hilt of a busted sword.
Sir Denton’s head had been placed in the empty space between the statue’s shoulders. His face was puffy, lax. His mouth was twisted to the left, as if he were spitting. And his eyes were open, dull, and, to Knight, shockingly forlorn.
For an instant, the Private detective wanted to break down. But then he felt himself swell with outrage. What kind of barbarian would do such a thing? And why? What possible reason could there be to behead Denton Marshall? The man was more than good. He was…
“You’re not seeing it all, Peter,” Pottersfield said behind him. “Go look at the grass in front of the statue.”
Knight closed his hands into fists and walked off the terrace onto the grass, which scratched against the paper booties he wore over his shoes, making a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. Then he saw it and stopped cold.
Five interlocking rings, the symbol of the Olympic Games, had been spray-painted on the grass in front of the statue.
Over the top of the symbol, an X had been smeared with blood.