Free Murder in Honolulu: A Skye Delaney Mystery by R. Barri Flowers

allowed me access to areas normally off limits to civilians.
It didn't hurt to be accompanied by a well-respected homicide
detective either.
    "Aloha, Skye," said Sumiyo Ishimoto, a
forensic specialist and ten year veteran of the force. She almost
looked like one of those TV forensic specialists complete with the
white jacket. Her jet-black hair was in a loose chignon and she was
several months pregnant with her third child.
    "Hey, Sumiyo," I said.
    "Nice to see you again," she said and then
frowned. "Wish it were under different circumstances, though."
    "Me, too." I flashed Ridge a quick look of
despair.
    "Sorry to hear about Carter—" Sumiyo seemed
unsure what to say after that. Ridge came to her rescue.
    "It's a shock to everyone in the
department," he said, adding: "And probably lots of other people on
the island." He scratched his pate and asked her: "What did you
come up with?"
    Sumiyo sighed. "Not much in the way of
fingerprints, I'm afraid." She put on her gold-rimmed glasses and
opened a folder. "The only legible prints lifted from the house
belonged to Skye, the housekeeper, and"—she looked directly at
Ridge—"we matched an index finger and thumb to you, Ridge..." She
batted her lashes and he seemed to cringe before recovering
quickly.
    "That's it?" Ridge asked.
    "Of course, we also found prints from the
victim—"
    Ridge gave me a disappointed face. I
returned it. To Sumiyo, he said: "Mind if I take a look at that?"
His eyes lowered to the report in her hand.
    She offered it to him.
    I read the report over his shoulder while
Sumiyo was saying: "The hair strands we have appear to be
consistent with those from Carter's head, and dog hair. Of course,
DNA tests will confirm it."
    The evidence for suicide seemed to be
mounting. Short of the autopsy results, which weren't due until
tomorrow, it now appeared that the person Ollie bit (assuming it
wasn't Carter) offered the best chance for a case of murder.
    Sumiyo seemed to be reading my mind. "I did
come up with something interesting on the blood samples we got from
the vet," she said looking at me. "And those taken from your
bathroom—"
    "Lay it on us," Ridge said eagerly.
    Sumiyo led us to a table where the results
of her lab work still lay. She lifted a clipboard. "First of all,
the preliminary DNA results show that the samples almost certainly
came from the same source," she said. "And, secondly, it seems that
your dog bit someone with a rare blood type."
    "How rare?" I asked.
    "Very rare," she said. "Someone is walking
around this city with AB negative blood and a very painful dog
bite. I'm guessing it's a shoulder wound or a defensive wound on
their arm or hand—"
    Ridge wrote something down and then glanced
at me. "Hmm.... Rare blood type. That should narrow things down for
us."
    "I'll call the medical examiner's office to
get Carter's blood type," Sumiyo said. "If only to rule out—"
    "That won't be necessary, as far as ruling
out goes," I interjected. "If I'm not mistaken"—and I was
not—"Carter's blood type is AB negative."
    I was starting to believe that Carter's
death was a suicide, and that Ollie must have bitten him. Maybe
that also accounted for the scratches I'd seen on Carter's legs. I
deduced that Carter probably surprised Ollie when he entered the
house without my presence and Ollie thought he was an intruder,
which he was, and bit him.
    But that still didn't tell me why Carter
would kill himself. Nor did it end my suspicions as to the timing
of his death. I found it more than a little shaky that Carter died
before I could tell him that his wife was seeing another man and
doing drugs.
    Was that merely coincidence of the worst
kind?
    Then there was that reporter who seemed to
know Carter had hired me, even though Carter had seemed to go out
of his way to keep his suspicions from becoming public knowledge.
What was that all about?
    There was one more thing that just didn't
sit right with me about Carter's death. Other than some scratches
on his