J. Bertrand - Pattern of Wounds

“How did he do this?” I ask, my voice shaking.

He swallows.

“How did he do it?”

David snatches his hand back, hiding it away. “There’s a game he likes to play.”

“With a knife.”

He nods. “You have to spread your hand out. You stab the knife between each finger. Really fast. I couldn’t do it. I tried to go too fast and this happened.”

“He made you do it?”

“And then he laughed. He can do it very fast. According to him, you have to be a real man to do it that fast.”

Aguilar beckons me over with a nod. I touch David on the shoulder, trying to reassure him, but he shrinks away ever so slightly. We walk a few paces off, far enough so he can’t overhear.

“That was Bascombe on the phone,” he says. “We have our warrant to search the house. We’re good to search for knives, records related to them, evidence connected to either victim-including Simone’s laptop and cellular phone-a pretty broad scope. Ordway and Lorenz are down the road from the house, keeping an eye on the place. They haven’t seen Bayard, which means he’s probably holed up in there.”

I call to David: “Is your mother at home?”

“She’s always at home. She doesn’t work.”

“Okay.” I lower my voice. “With what he just told us about the knife game, I think we’re good to go.”

“All right.” He glances at David, then back at me. He flips his phone open. “It’s been a long road, March, but I think you’ve got this one down. Should I do the honors, or do you want to?”

I take the phone and start to dial. Then I close it.

“You know what,” I say. “Let’s do this ourselves. I want to be there when they take the door. I want to get a look at this guy and see the house for myself. Agnieszka told Jack Hill there was an attic window he used to watch her from. I want to check out that view.”

“Your call. What about Junior over there?”

“We’ll drop him off downtown, keep him handy while we interrogate the old man. He might be useful, after all.”

David resists the idea of leaving his car and coming with us, but after some assurances he finally relents. While Aguilar drives, I turn sideways in the passenger seat to keep an eye on him. He looks at the floor, looks out the window, and eventually cracks an uncertain smile.

“Are you going to arrest him?” he asks.

“What would you think if we did?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I guess somebody should.”

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16 — 3:00 P.M.

The original structure must have been demolished to make way for the Bayard house, a looming brick box sitting on the lot like a big passenger squeezed into a coach airline seat. The walls crowd the sidewalk on the front and side, and a porte cochere juts over the wide drive.

With a couple of patrol units on the curb, I send Ordway and Lorenz down the driveway, giving them a minute to get positioned in back. Then I lead Aguilar and a couple of uniforms to the front entrance, including Nguyen, the officer who worked the perimeter the night Simone Walker’s body was discovered.

I punch the doorbell button while Nguyen uses the butt of his ASP baton as a knocker.

Kim Bayard opens up with a broad and puzzled smile, eyes roving from one man to the next in increasing perplexity. I hand her a copy of the search warrant and ask for her husband. I call into the house over her shoulder.

“Mr. Bayard? Dave Bayard? It’s the Houston Police Department.”

“I don’t understand,” she says.

Nguyen maneuvers her back and starts explaining the warrant. She listens, polite and attentive, the same way she’d listen to the mechanic outlining repairs to her car. Aguilar and I ease our way through the door and across an ocean of blond hardwoods, pausing at the foot of a circular stairway hemmed with more wrought iron. At the top of the stairs, Dave Bayard stands with one hand on the railing.

“What’s going on?” he says.

My first glimpse of the killer.

Bayard dresses like a high school math teacher. Medium height with a broad muscled chest concealed under a sleeveless v-neck sweater and a checked shirt. The crease in his gray wool slacks sharp as a knife. His salt-and-pepper hair, clipped short and receding on the sides, creates a thin promontory over his high forehead. His skin brown, his hands large and rough.

The blue light of a telephone earpiece twinkles in his right ear. He touches it and speaks in an undertone: “Some people are here. I’m gonna have to call you back.”

I wait until he’s halfway down to mention the search warrant. His eyes narrow. He pauses. The annoyance of a moment before ebbs out, replaced by a rush of anxiety.

“Please join us,” I say.

He continues down the stairs, watching every step. Afraid of slipping.

When he reaches the bottom, I lay a heavy hand on his shoulder, all but claiming him. Like his son, he exudes a quiet, calculating intelligence, watching everything, taking in the smallest details. But there’s something else, an explosive physicality. Like the corporate lawyer said, a man made for the field rather than the front office.

“What can I do for you, officers?” he asks.

“We have a warrant to search these premises,” I say. “We are investigating the murders of Simone Walker and Agnieszka Oliszewski.”

At the mention of their names, Kim Bayard yelps audibly, covering her mouth with a ringed hand. Bayard’s mouth turns down, either at my words or his wife’s reaction.

“Don’t worry, babe,” he says, jaw clenched. “It’s only natural with the one girl getting killed in our backyard. Isn’t that right, officers? You have to be thorough, don’t you?”

Like his clothes, his voice contradicts his body language. He sounds calm, but looks like he’s ready to run. Or fight.

I exchange a look with Aguilar. “Your wife has a copy of the warrant. We’d like you to accompany us as we search. If anything is removed from the property, we’ll provide you with an inventory before we go.”

“I see.” He glances at the warrant in his wife’s hand. “And you have to do it right this minute? I was actually on a pretty important call.”

I don’t dignify the question with an answer. I motion Nguyen toward the back of the house to let the others inside.

“I think. .” Bayard rubs his chin, uncertain. “Maybe I should call my attorney.”

“You’re welcome to,” I say. “But we won’t be taking a statement here. We just need to search the property. Like you said, a woman was murdered, practically in your backyard. We really do need to be thorough.”

I can see him processing his risk level, going over in his mind everything he stands to lose. His jaw relaxes. He lets out a deep breath.

“Kim,” he says. “Just to be on the safe side. I think you’d better call.”

I move my hand to his elbow, asserting more control. “Now, if you don’t mind, sir, we have a search to conduct.”

My first impulse is to head to the attic. Look for the window with a view of Dr. Hill’s pool. But a proper search must be systematic, deliberate. We must divide the house into quadrants, assign every officer with a task, ensuring that nothing is missed and every discovery is properly witnessed and documented. I keep Bayard by my side, judging his reaction as we move from one part of the house to the next.

He makes an effort to appear affable, probably thinking that’s how innocent people react, friendly and helpful.

He’s wrong, of course.

No one is more inconvenienced, more outraged by the invasion of privacy than the man who has nothing to hide. Knowing what a waste our efforts are-he’s done nothing, after all-an innocent man grows increasingly irritated and impatient. Of course, everyone has something to hide, and when you’re innocent and those little secrets are revealed anyway, you feel the injustice keenly.