perp, or were Edwards and Mayberry involved in the
woods murders in some way?’’
Diane didn’t know the answer to that question, and she guessed that Garnett didn’t really expect an
answer.
‘‘I can tell you that the person who tied the knots
on the hanging victims was not the same person who
tied the knots for Chris Edwards.’’
‘‘How can you possibly tell that?’’ asked Garnett.
‘‘I know you’re some kind of expert in knots, but . . .’’ ‘‘My examination is not yet complete, but I’ve seen
enough to know that the same person probably tied
Blue, Red, and Green Doe, but not Chris Edwards.’’ ‘‘Blue, Red, and Green Doe?’’ said Garnett. ‘‘Until we determine their identities, we refer to
them by the color of cord used to secure the rope
when we cut it from the victims.’’
Garnett’s mouth twitched into almost a smile. ‘‘Go
on.’’
‘‘The nooses on the Cobber’s Wood bodies were
tied by first making a loop with a bowline knot, then
pulling the other end of the rope through to make a
noose. I haven’t yet looked at how the rope was tied
to the tree limb.’’
Jin jumped up and left the room. It was such a quick
movement, they all looked after his retreating back. ‘‘He’s going to get something,’’ said Neva. ‘‘You get
used to his energy after a while.’’
Diane’s cell phone vibrated in the pocket of her
gray blazer. She fished it out and looked at the caller
ID. Denver, Colorado. Who did she know in Denver?
She didn’t recognize the number. Probably wrong. She
let the voice mail pick it up.
‘‘I hate those things,’’ said the sheriff. ‘‘They’re al
ways ringing at the wrong time, but you can’t do with
out them. They cause a lot of automobile accidents.’’ ‘‘Actually, more accidents are caused by drivers not keeping their eyes on the road. Cell phones are way
down on the list,’’ said David.
‘‘You don’t say?’’
Jin came back and handed Diane a stack of photo
graphs. She flipped through them until she came to
zooms of the rope tied around the tree. It showed the
rope wrapped twice around the limb with the standing
end of the rope going under the two loops around the
tree. It had an interesting twist—a stopper knot on
the end to make sure the rope wouldn’t slip back
through and release under the weight of the victim.
The perpetrator had also tied a stopper knot on the
end of the bowline knot and one on the end of his
handcuff knot. The stopper knot was set—tightened.
She had not yet examined what kind of knot he used
for the stoppers, but she’d bet they were all the
same knot.
‘‘Okay,’’ she said, ‘‘this is an anchor bend used on
the limb, also called a fisherman’s bend—it was at one
time used to tie anchors to ships.’’
She handed the photos to the sheriff and Garnett.
The chief of detectives smiled as he exchanged photos
of the knots with the sheriff. Diane had observed that
talking about knots did that to people—it made them
smile, as though they were gaining secret knowledge
about a really cool skill.
David and Jin noticed it too. It was one of the
things she valued about the two of them. They ob
served everything. Jin, especially, could maintain
pleasant eye contact, all the while taking in subtle in
formation about a person.
Neva sat very still with her hands clasped in front
of her. She mostly looked at the table, occasionally
making eye contact with Jin or David.
Diane handed her the stack of photographs. ‘‘Have
you had a chance to look at these?’’
She felt that giving Neva something to look at and
study might help her be less self-conscious, a quality
that would make her a better criminalist. Neva took the
photographs, glanced at Diane, and began looking
through them.
‘‘The rope that hung Chris Edwards was tied with
a granny knot, both on the closet rod and on the loop
that made the noose. It wasn’t a noose that tightened.
It was made so that when his head was raised, he
would stop choking.
‘‘I suppose Dr. Webber told you that there was
blood in his hair. She believes the killer may have
grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head back to
stop him from suffocating as part of an interrogation
or torture. I think she’s right.’’ Diane saw the sheriff
give a subtle nod.
‘‘His hands were tied together by coiling the rope
three times around his wrist and securing it with a
granny knot. The hands of the three victims from Cob
ber’s Wood were all tied with handcuff knots. And
several coils of rope were wrapped around their hands,
securing their fingers and thumbs.’’
Diane turned to David. ‘‘Have you had a chance to
check the ropes for blood?’’
David nodded. ‘‘All the ropes that bound their
hands had blood.’’
‘‘So it appears probable that at some point after he
bound their fingers up tight, he cut off the fingertips.’’
The sheriff and Garnett winced.
‘‘He also added another twist, so to speak. The rope
from the handcuffs had a noose in the end that looped
around the victims’ necks. They were tied so that if they struggled and tried to get their hands loose,
they’d choke themselves.’’
‘‘Wasn’t taking any chances,’’ observed the sheriff. ‘‘I still don’t understand why you’re saying the
woods victims and Edwards weren’t tied by the same
person,’’ said Chief Garnett.
‘‘Significantly different knots,’’ said Diane. ‘‘The
person who tied the knots on the Cobber’s Wood vic
tims had knowledge and skill with knots. He knew
how to set them and finished them off so they
wouldn’t slip. The person who tied Chris Edwards’
rope used granny knots. A granny knot is an incor
rectly tied square knot. Even if he had tied a square
knot correctly, it wouldn’t have been the right knot
for that situation.’’
‘‘What do you mean?’’
‘‘Square knots slip easily. That would make it easier
for the victim to untie himself. The person who tied
the hands of the Cobber’s Wood victims with handcuff
knots wouldn’t have used a granny knot on Chris
Edwards.’’
‘‘Maybe he was in a hurry,’’ said Garnett. Diane shook her head. ‘‘If you know how to tie a
handcuff knot, it’s just as fast to tie as wraps of rope
secured with a granny knot.’’
‘‘If I’m not mistaken, aren’t granny knots hard to
untie? That seems like it would be an advantage,’’ said
the sheriff.
‘‘A good knot doesn’t slip under pressure, but is
not impossible to untie. Knots such as the handcuff
knot and the bowline knot are used by people who
kn
ow their knots because they work best for what
they do.’’
Diane could see Garnett wasn’t convinced. The
magic of knots was evaporating rapidly for him. ‘‘All the victims were hung and all had their hands
tied behind their backs,’’ Garnett said. ‘‘The perp had
a lot of time in the woods to get his knots right. He
was in a hurry at the Edwards house.’’
This time it was David who rose from his chair—
more leisurely than Jin—and came back with props.
He handed Diane a length of rope. She took the rope
in her right hand and maintained eye contact with
Garnett and the sheriff. They watched her fidget with
the rope.
‘‘It doesn’t matter if he was in a hurry. It’s not faster
to do it wrong if you know how to do it right, and
our Cobber’s Wood guy knew how to do it right.’’ She held up the knot she had just tied. ‘‘This is a
bowline. It’s called the king of knots because it’s very
useful—it holds well and is easy to untie. It’s a per
sonal favorite of mine.
‘‘I’m not someone who is extraordinarily gifted in
knot tying. I’m a caver, and sometimes we have only
one hand free to tie a knot, and sometimes we’re in
very low light or darkness while we’re tying them, and
our lives are depending on a good knot. Cavers learn
to tie knots with one hand without looking. I believe
our Cobber’s Wood perp was good at knots. He could
have done it under stress and in a hurry.’’
‘‘Are you saying he may be a caver?’’ asked
Garnett.
‘‘No. I’m just trying to convince you that people
who know how to tie knots know how to tie knots.’’ The sheriff laughed. ‘‘Then are you saying that ex
pert knotters never make mistakes?’’
‘‘No. We certainly do, but rarely do we tie granny
knots. All I’m saying is that the person who tied Chris
Edwards didn’t know knots or rope. The rope he used
was old and worn, and there was an overhand knot in the middle between Edwards’ neck and the clothes
rod from which he was hanging.’’
‘‘So,’’ asked Garnett, ‘‘what does that mean?’’ Diane took the rope and tied an overhand knot,
pulling it tight. ‘‘I just decreased the strength of this
rope by fifty percent.’’
‘‘You’re kidding.’’ Garnett spoke in a way that sug
gested all his ropes had knots in them.
‘‘No, and in a worn rope, that’s significant. Chris
Edwards was a husky, athletic young man, and a big
portion of his weight was going to be on that rope
that was barely adequate. It was another bad choice,
like the square knot. The perp didn’t know what he
was doing.’’
‘‘But it didn’t break,’’ said Garnett.
‘‘No, it didn’t, but it was too close to the breaking
point to be a safe choice.’’
‘‘Well, you’ve convinced me about the ropes,’’ said
the sheriff. ‘‘But that still doesn’t tell us if the murders
are connected.’’
‘‘No, it doesn’t,’’ said Diane. ‘‘The evidence we’ve
looked at so far seems to indicate it might have been
a single perp at the Edwards crime scene. But we
don’t yet have any indication from Cobber’s Wood to
point to a single perp or more than one.’’
‘‘Could have been a whole gang of ’em,’’ said the
sheriff. ‘‘And for reasons we don’t know, one of them
might have killed Chris Edwards. It might not be the
same one who did the rope work in Cobber’s Wood.’’ ‘‘But the evidence does give us an MO for the per
son who tied the knots on Chris Edwards,’’ said
Diane. ‘‘He probably always ties knots the same way
because he doesn’t know any other way.’’
‘‘I see what you mean,’’ said the sheriff. ‘‘If we find something all tied up in a suspect’s house, for instance, the way he ties his knots might connect him to one
crime scene or the other.’’
‘‘Yes. It can’t be the only evidence, but...’’ ‘‘But it’ll give us and the suspect something to talk
about in the interrogation room,’’ said the sheriff. ‘‘I have to agree with Chief Garnett,’’ said Diane.
‘‘It’s too big a coincidence that Edwards was killed
just after he and Mayberry discovered the bodies.
Have you found Steven Mayberry yet?’’
‘‘No. Nor have any of his friends or relatives seen
him. Frankly, we don’t know if he’s on the run or if he
met with the same fate as Edwards. Have you found
anything else interesting from the Cobber’s Wood
crime scene?’’
‘‘Orange carpet fibers. Jin’s working on the brand.
We’ll be able to tell you something about the se
quence of events when we’re finished looking at the
tracks and other impression evidence. We also found
brown shed human hair.’’
‘‘Shed hair,’’ said the sheriff. ‘‘So you can’t do any
thing with that. As I understand it, you can’t get DNA
from shed hair—you need the root. Is that right?’’ Jin glanced over at Diane. He raised his chin and
eyebrows so slightly that probably only she and David
noticed. She knew what he was urging her to tell them.
He’d been talking about it ever since he read the arti
cle, and now here was a chance to give it a try. Well,
why not? she thought. The sheriff was apparently en
amored with DNA.
‘‘Tell me what you know about DNA,’’ she asked
the sheriff.
Sheriff Braden shifted in his chair and gave her a
long stare. ‘‘Now, I’ve always heard you can’t get DNA from hair that’s been shed because it doesn’t have the root, and that’s where the DNA is. Are you
saying that’s not true?’’
‘‘It’s not precisely true. Shed hair does have nuclear
DNA, just not much of it. The root of a hair has about
two hundred nanograms of nuclear DNA. The shaft
has less than ten—not enough even for a normal PCR
test. Added to that little difficulty is that the pigments
in the hair can inhibit the PCR reaction.’’
‘‘PCR—that’s the test that copies DNA?’’ said
Garnett.
‘‘Yes,’’ the sheriff answered. ‘‘That’s it.’’
‘‘Polymerase chain reaction,’’ said Diane. ‘‘It’s a
powerful method that can be used on degraded and
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