Dave Zeltserman - Bad Karma

Shannon looked away from the photos, asked, “Was only Carver’s blood found in the bedroom?”

“Nope. We found both of theirs on the walls and carpet. Mostly only her blood in the hallway and living room, but we did find some drops of his.”

“Any blood from a third party?”

Daniels shook his head.

“What about her eye?”

“What about it?”

Holding his annoyance in check, he asked whether it had been found.

Daniels showed a grim smile. “The perps didn’t take it as a trophy, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was found under the bed.”

Shannon looked again at the photos taken from inside the bedroom. Other than Carver’s dead body and the gore splattered across the carpeting and walls, the room looked untouched. A large flat panel TV could be seen hanging opposite the bed, along with what looked like expensive stereo equipment next to it. “Anything stolen from the apartment?” he asked.

“Not that we can tell.”

“Do you mind showing me the medical examiner’s report?”

Daniels hesitated for a moment, but fished the report out of the folder and handed it to Shannon. He read through it quickly. Carver had been struck over thirty times with a blunt instrument, at least ten times in the head, the rest along his torso. Linda was hit once on the left side of her face with enough force to kill her, and four times on the back of her skull.

“So what’s your theory?” Daniels asked, his face once again a hard granite mask.

“A baseball bat was used?”

Reluctantly, Daniels nodded.

“Did you find it?”

“Nope. Probably in a landfill somewhere. Assuming only one bat was used.”

Shannon’s expression was impassive as he again studied the photos of Taylor Carver lying in a fetal position and Linda Gibson face down with her arms stretched out by her side.

“One person did this,” he said. “The killer attacked Carver first. Linda probably tried to stop him and he struck her near fatally on the side of the face. Must’ve thought he either knocked her out or killed her and went back to beating Carver. At some point she crawled away, and when he realized she was missing he found her halfway across the living room floor and finished her off with those four blows to the back of her head. He then went back to the bedroom and used the sheet to wipe the blood off his bat.”

“It could’ve been that way,” Daniels admitted. “Also could’ve been more than one killer.”

“Any indication that Linda was sexually assaulted? Or Carver, for that matter?”

Daniels made a face. “No indication with Carver. That’s a hard question to answer about Gibson. It appears they were interrupted in the middle of intercourse. There was a lot of bruising around her vaginal area, but it could’ve been caused by Carver. The only semen found on her came from him. There were no bruises on her wrists or ankles to suggest she was forcefully restrained.”

“While it’s possible more than one person was involved, I’d bet money against it. This looks like pure blind rage. Someone broke in there to get Carver, and Linda had the bad luck of being there with him. If there were two or more people involved, whoever followed Linda when she crawled out of the bedroom would have to be one sadistic cold-hearted sonofabitch to let her go on as long as she did, and I don’t see any evidence that there was an intention to torture either of them. This was brutal, but it was more to kill than to inflict pain.”

Daniels stifled a yawn, shook his head. “Yeah, well, I’m not convinced of that either,” he said. “It could’ve been as you said. It could’ve also been a couple of pervs trying to make it look like something it wasn’t. And who the fuck knows, this could still turn out to be nothing more than a thrill kill. Or maybe someone sending a message. As far as I’m concerned, until I get more information anything’s possible.”

“About someone sending a message, if you found a drug connection then I’d believe it, but without it, what’s the message?”

Daniels stared blankly at Shannon, then muttered under his breath asking how the fuck would he know. He abruptly collected the photos and shoved them back in his folder. He didn’t seem in any mood to talk as they made their way out of the interrogation room and through the station, and Shannon was too deep in his own thoughts to bother trying. They ended up driving separately to the dead students’ condo, Shannon in his late model Chevy Corsica, Daniels in his city issued Buick Century. Different scenarios buzzed through Shannon’s mind as he drove, and while he couldn’t disagree with Daniels’ assertion that it could’ve been some other way than what Shannon had described, none of the other scenarios made sense to him. His gut kept telling him that the murders were committed by a single person. That the person had a vendetta against Carver, and Gibson was killed only because she had been caught in the crossfire. He thought about Eli’s observation from a few days ago that at some level he knew the murders were committed by a single person. He would have to try to figure out what his subconscious had picked up on.

Daniels still wasn’t speaking as they parked and made their way to the condo. He stood grinding his teeth, watching while Shannon unlocked the deadbolt and removed the padlock from the door. Stepping inside, Shannon saw that the trail of the red smudges along the living room carpet were in fact handprints. From the blood splattering, he guessed that the killer had stood to the side of Linda Gibson when he smashed her skull in. He looked away from the blood-stained carpeting and surveyed the rest of the room. There was a matching cream colored leather sofa and loveseat not too far away from where Linda had been killed, both showing a spray of red dots. The book case, end tables and dining room table in the room were all walnut and expensive looking.

“Higher end furniture than I’d expect from college students,” Shannon said.

“Yeah, nicer stuff than I have in my own home,” Daniels agreed. “I checked the money transfers and deposits that were made to Linda’s bank account. Nothing unusual, at least nothing to explain this.” He paused, rubbing a thick hand across his jaw. “Maybe her parents were paying her cash under the table to keep quiet about the sexual abuse,” he offered without much conviction.

Shannon scanned the book case. It was filled with volumes by Kafka, Shaw, Nietzche, Camus and Sartre. He picked up a copy of Being and Nothingness by Sartre and flipped through it and found Carver’s name scribbled on an inside page before putting it back on the shelf.

“Anything show up when you looked at Carver’s bank account?”

“Nothing. None of this stuff was bought with credit cards, at least not with any cards they had on them.”

“Linda use one of her parents’ cards?”

“She didn’t have any in her pocketbook.” He scowled as he glared at the blood stains on the carpet. “I’ll put a call in and try to find out. I might have to subpoena their credit card records.”

Shannon shrugged his shoulders. “If they did pay cash for all this stuff and for what was in Carver’s mom’s home…”

“Yeah, I know,” Daniels said. “Points to drugs. I’m telling you, we found nothing tying them to drug activity.”

“Then how’d they get all this money? Either of them have a job outside of Carver’s teacher’s assistants position?”

“Not that we’ve been able to find.” He half-laughed, half-scowled. “Maybe they robbed a bank or something.”

Daniels looked like he wanted to punch someone. Not necessarily Shannon, but someone. At that moment he could’ve easily been mistaken for his old partner, Joe DiGrazia. The thought of that brought a slight smile to Shannon.