Free CUTTING ROOM -THE- by Jilliane Hoffman

Lunders, age forty-six. A background check on her revealed that she was the wife of Frederick Alastair Lunders, age sixty-seven. An insurance check on the vehicle listed Talbot Alastair Lunders, age twenty-eight, as an additional authorized driver of the vehicle. I pulled Mr Lunders’s driver’s license and identified him as the guy captured on the surveillance video leaving Menace with Holly Skole. Marie Modic also identified him through his DL — his driver’s license photo. A search warrant for the Mercedes was obtained and executed on May thirteenth.’
    â€˜What did you find?’
    â€˜A lipstick compact was recovered under the front passenger seat of the car, along with three long blonde hairs that the lab subsequently confirmed matched the chemical composition of Ms Skole’s hair dye. Fingerprints were also lifted from the lipstick case, which matched both the index and thumbprints on Ms Skole’s right hand. DNA analysis of the lipstick is pending. Fingerprints matching Ms Skole’s right thumb and right palm were also found on the inside door handle of the passenger side of the vehicle. So we know she was in that car.’
    â€˜Objection.’
    â€˜Overruled.’
    â€˜Was the defendant present when the Mercedes was seized?’
    â€˜Yes. It was seized from the parking lot of Flower & Honey Bath Products in Palm Beach, where Mr Lunders works. He appeared very agitated and upset, pacing the lot, threatening to call his attorney. His mother accompanied him. She wasn’t very happy, either. At that time I asked him if he wanted to talk about the disappearance of Holly Skole. He declined.
    â€˜Three days later, while lab results were pending, I learned that the very afternoon the Benz was seized, Mr Lunders had gone and listed his 2008 Cigarette High-Performance Top Gun for sale through a broker in Coconut Grove, Miami. The racing boat was being offered for thirty percent less than other Cigarettes listed for sale of the same year and style. That raised my eyebrows way up. So I ran a system search of airline flights and learned that one T. Lunders was booked on a one-way JetBlue flight out of Palm Beach International to New York’s JFK the following afternoon. And a T. Lunders and A. Lunders were also booked on a Lufthansa flight to Zurich the day after that. His mother’s name is Abigail Lunders. Based on that, Mr Lunders was asked to come down to his boat broker to provide additional paperwork to facilitate the pending sale of his boat. When he arrived at the marina, I approached the defendant, identified myself once again, and told him his boat was being searched pursuant to a homicide investigation. Mr Lunders didn’t like that; he again declined to talk to us.’
    â€˜Objection!’ Varlack barked. ‘The defendant has a right against self-incrimination! He doesn’t have to talk to the police if he doesn’t want to and that can’t be used against him. That’s Criminal Law 101!’
    Steyn frowned. ‘Was the defendant free to go at that time?’
    â€˜I had not yet taken him into custody,’ Manny replied.
    â€˜That, I’m thinking, is going to be up for debate in a future motion,’ the judge replied with a cocked eyebrow. ‘Sustained.’
    â€˜The fingerprint analysis of both the lipstick and the prints left on the interior passenger door of the Mercedes confirmed Ms Skole had been in Abigail Lunders’s vehicle,’ Manny continued. ‘Based on the prints and hair of the victim being found in his car, the video surveillance of her getting into the defendant’s car, and then the quick sell-off of his worldly possessions and his impending flight from the jurisdiction to a country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US, a decision was made to arrest him for the murder of Holly Anne Skole.’
    That was enough for the judge. Particularly the Switzerland flight. As much as