Val looked at the lamp in the image, and experienced the sickening feeling she had felt the first time she saw it. It caught her eye the day she’d found Julia dead. The sight of the blood on the ceramic surface had made her knees buckle then, and it did so now. The noticeable reddish-brown stains in the image were glaring. It was one of the few things in the room that did have visible blood, obviously missed by the killer in the cleanup attempt—after he took Julia apart.

“The spatter shouldn’t be on that specific part of the wall because this lamp is in the way. There’s spatter on the lamp and there’s spatter behind the lamp,” Jack said. “When blood is traveling from the victim and spraying on an object, it will be blocked from depositing on any surface behind the object. There should be a blank spot on the wall if this lamp was there during the attack. There is no void.”

“We noticed the issue of the lamp, but really it’s insignificant,” Warren said. “Colin spent quite a while cleaning the room and he obviously must have moved it there at some point after he murdered his wife.”

Thomas chimed in. “Oh, it was moved from somewhere, Detective Warren, you’re right about that. It wasn’t on this nightstand to begin with. That’s why there isn’t a blank spot on the wall. This lamp was placed here after the attack was completed. It couldn’t have been anywhere on this table while Julia was being stabbed. Not only is there no blank spot on the wall, the spatter pattern on the lamp is going in the opposite direction than on the wall. That, gentlemen, is also impossible if the lamp was here during the attack. So, it’s not the blood on that part of the wall that’s the problem. It’s this misplaced lamp. My question is why put it here?”

Val felt her jaw drop open slightly. She wanted to ask questions, learn more, but she just listened, amazed by what she’d just heard. Thomas Hayden was impressive on Crime in the City, but he was even more so in person. Jack was brilliant too and she began to wonder why he was never featured on any of Thomas’s broadcasts.

“Maybe Colin needed some light while he was cleaning the blood?” Gavin said sarcastically.

“If the lamp was moved, if the killer had his hand on it then it should have been cleaned too. The blood on this lamp is obvious. It couldn’t have possibly been overlooked. Why leave the blood here when such meticulous cleaning occurred in this room?” Thomas added sharply. “Someone would have had to be blind to miss this. That fact makes me think this lamp was placed here, purposely.”