The professor had her hand on a book. “The Bible?” Alex asked, surprised.
“It’s possible she was in pain and seeking comfort,” said Turner.
Reluctantly he added, “It’s also possible this was staged.”
“Seriously?”
“Look closer.”
Marjorie Stephen’s hand was gripped around the book, and one of her fingers was tucked between the pages, as if she had been trying to keep her place when she lay down to die.
“Where did she stop reading?”
Turner pushed up the pages with a gloved hand. Alex forced herself to lean in.
“Judges?”
“You know your Bible?” Turner asked.
“Do you?”
“Well enough.”
“Is that part of police training?”
“That’s six years of Sunday school when I could have been playing baseball.”
“Were you any good?”
“Nope. But I’m not any good at scripture either.”
“So what am I missing?”
“I don’t know. Judges is boring as hell. Lists of names, not much else.”
“And you pulled security footage or whatever?”
“We did. Plenty of people in the building at that time, but we’ll have to sort through the lobby tapes to see if anyone wasn’t supposed to be here.” He tapped the desk calendar with his gloved finger. On the Saturday of Marjorie Stephen’s death, she—or someone—had written, Hide the outcasts. “Ring any bells?”
Alex hesitated, then shook her head. “Maybe. I don’t think so.”
“It’s also from the Bible.”
“Judges?”
“Isaiah. The destruction of Moab.”
Turner was watching her closely, waiting to see if any of this would spark.
Alex had the distinct sensation of letting him down.
“What about the professor’s family?” she asked.
“We informed the husband. We’ll talk to him tomorrow. Three kids, all grown. They’re driving and flying in.”
“Did he say if she was religious?”
“According to him, the closest she got to church was yoga every Sunday.”
“That Bible says otherwise.” Alex knew the look of a well-loved book, spine broken, pages dog-eared and marked up.
Now Turner’s lips quirked in a smile. “It sure does. But look again. Look at her.”
Alex didn’t want to. She was still reeling from what she’d seen at Black Elm and now Turner was testing her. But then she saw it.
“Her rings are loose.”
“That’s right. And look at her face.”
No way was Alex gazing into those milky eyes again. “She looks like a dead woman.”
“She looks like an eighty-year-old dead woman. Marjorie Stephen just turned fifty-five.”
Alex’s stomach lurched, as if she’d missed a step. That was why Turner thought the societies were involved.
“She hadn’t been ill,” he continued. “This lady liked to hike East Rock and Sleeping Giant. She ran every morning. We spoke to two people with offices on this hallway who saw her earlier today. They said she looked normal, perfectly healthy. When we showed them a photo of the body, they barely recognized her.”
It smacked of the uncanny. But what about the Bible? The societies weren’t the type to quote scripture. Their texts were far rarer and more arcane.
