James Carol - The Quiet Man

‘How did I know you were going to say that?’

‘I’m not holding back.’

‘I’d expect you to say that, too.’

‘It’s the truth. Right now, I’m suffering from information overload. It’s making it difficult to see things clearly. I feel like there’s something staring me straight in the face but I just can’t see it.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Believe what you want.’ Winter paused. ‘Why did he change his MO? Why did he choose to strike in the morning rather than the evening? Why the bedroom rather than the kitchen? Why risk breaking into the house? Those are the questions that need to be answered. That’s how you’re going to catch this guy.’

Jefferies smiled then nodded his head like everything had suddenly become obvious. ‘Okay, I see how this works. This is the point where you get hit by a sudden moment of inspiration and tell me who did it. Just like Columbo, right?’

‘If only.’

Winter walked into the kitchen. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something. The problem was that the harder he chased it, the more elusive it became.

‘Still waiting for that Columbo moment,’ Jefferies said at his shoulder.

‘Tell you what. Give me your card and I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got anything worth sharing.’

Jefferies pulled a card from his wallet and handed it over. His face broke into a broad grin. ‘I’m getting a real sense of déjà vu here. They always promise to ring, but they never do.’

‘This is a two-way street, Jefferies. If you get anything worth sharing, you contact us.’

The grin turned to a laugh. ‘And why is it that there are always strings attached?’

Delaney was still waiting at the barrier when Winter got outside. She caught him looking and waved. He held up a finger to indicate that he’d only be a minute. Not that the interview was ever going to happen. He’d just used her as a stick to beat Freeman with. Anderton was on the sidewalk, lost in thought. Winter walked over and joined her in staring at the house.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m getting a new perspective. With the first three murders I was always inside the house. I hardly spent any time outside.’ She waved her arm in a loose arc that went from left to right and took in half a dozen houses. ‘I look over there and what I see is a row of houses that appear more or less the same. Except they’re not the same. One of them is now a murder house. So what made Myra Hooper and her son so special? What made them stand out?’

‘In other words, how did they appear on the killer’s radar?’

She nodded. ‘We’ve already established that this killer is highly organised. He didn’t just walk along this street and think to himself, you know what, that looks like a nice house, there are probably some nice people living there, I think I’ll go and knock on the door and turn their lives into a nightmare.’

‘He knows his victims’ routines,’ Winter said. ‘With the first three murders he knew that they got home before their husbands. He also knew that there would be enough time to set up the bombs and get out of there.’

‘That much I’ve already worked out. Tell me something new.’

‘Okay, how about this? The fact that he knows their routines is one of the reasons he changed his MO.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Because it’s summer break, Cody was at a kids’ club while his mom was at work. She picked him up on the way back, so they arrived home together. But the killer needed it to be staggered. He needed Cody out of the way so he could get everything organised. That’s why he broke into the house in the middle of the night. Cody would have been fast asleep and blissfully unaware of what was happening. When he woke up the next morning he went around the house looking for her. He opened her bedroom door and that’s when the bomb went off.’

Anderton shook her head in frustration. ‘What’s going on Winter? It’s like he’s taken his MO and just ripped the whole thing up.’

‘What if Cody was the target?’

‘So why not follow through?’ She paused for a second, then answered her own question. ‘Because of your interview with Delaney. Assuming Myra had seen it, she would have tried to topple the chair. But, like we discussed earlier, she couldn’t do that if he was using Cody for leverage.’

‘That’s how I see it, but we’re getting away from the point. How did he know their routine?’

‘Because he was watching them.’

‘Except we know from the previous murders that he wasn’t. No one saw him hanging around outside the houses. That’s the one part of his MO that won’t be changing any time soon. This guy lives in the shadows. He doesn’t want to be seen.’

‘Cameras?’

‘That’s the obvious solution. He sets up a camera to cover the front of the house, and removes it when he arrives to carry out the actual murder. Or maybe he does his surveillance a week or two before. After all, he’s just trying to get a rough idea of his victims’ day-to-day routines and that won’t change much from week to week. Leaving a gap would make it harder for a witness to connect him to a crime. You might remember someone suspicious hanging around your street the day before a murder. But two weeks? Or a month?’

‘And it would also explain why we didn’t find any evidence of camera surveillance.’

Winter turned full circle, wondering where you could hide a camera. The trees that bordered the left-hand side of the property were the best bet, but the angles weren’t brilliant. He crossed the street. The front yards on this side stopped at a line of tall fir trees that looked as though they’d been here since the houses were built. He walked to the right, glancing back every couple of steps to make sure he could still see the front of Myra’s house. He stopped when he lost sight of it. Anderton was doing the same, but in the opposite direction.

It took longer to walk back. Every tree needed to be checked. It was slow, careful work. Winter could see Anderton up ahead, mirroring what he was doing, checking the trees along her stretch. Ten minutes later he was starting to think this was pointless. If the killer had carried out his surveillance some time back in July then it was unlikely that they’d find anything. He glanced over and saw Anderton move in to get a closer look at something. Her body language changed in an instant. She was alert and poised, ready to jump for joy. Before she could call him he was already moving, covering the distance in less than ten seconds.

‘Take a look,’ she said.

She was pointing to a spot on the trunk about six feet up from the base. A ragged patch of the tree’s smooth bark had been stripped away from the trunk. It was roughly the size of a cigarette pack, maybe a little bigger. A couple of the nearby branches looked as though they’d been snapped off. There was an unobstructed view all the way to the front door of Myra’s house. Anderton pointed to the ground.

‘And this,’ she added.

There was a partial footprint in the dirt. Judging by the size, it had been made by an average sized woman, or a male who was below average height.

‘I’m thinking he might be getting lazy,’ she said. ‘There was nothing like this at the other crime scenes.’ She looked at the bare patch on the trunk again. ‘If he used superglue, it would have taken seconds to position the camera. Then all he had to do was snap those branches away to clear a sightline. Maybe he pretended to be a jogger. He stops to catch his breath, checks the coast is clear, then sticks the camera to the tree and carries on his merry way.’

‘And if he did use superglue that would explain the bald patch on the trunk. It must have come away when he removed the camera.’