Lisa Gardner: Live to Tell

“Single blow again?” D.D. asked sharply.

“These two, yes.”

“First in the back of the neck, then between the ribs. I’m thinking the subject has had some training,” she said.

“I’m guessing special forces. Stabbing’s messy business, but this guy has it down to a science.”

“All right,” D.D. said briskly. “Mom’s down. Oldest son is down. Now what?”

“Got two left. Twelve-year-old girl, nine-year-old boy. Probably hoped to take them one at a time, but turns out both of them are in her room.”

Alex vacated the blue room and they proceeded single file down the hallway again. This time the blood spatter turned, leading them through a doorway into a bright pink room bearing purple window valances and half a dozen posters of Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers.

“Now things are a little more complicated here, as you can see.” Alex gestured to the floor, which was a dizzying array of spray droplets, blood pools, and yellow evidence placards. “I’m guessing, purely to judge by the condition of the bodies, that he got the boy first.”

“Why the boy?”

“Single mortal wound. Look at the bed.”

D.D. belatedly realized the purple comforter wasn’t really purple. It used to be a dark pink, the original color now skewed by another sizable pool of blood, with a matching spray pattern arcing across the opposite wall.

“The kids knew,” Alex said, more softly now, less academic. “No closets in the room. So they huddled in the corner. Brother and sister together, taking a last stand. The subject came in. He must’ve been a sight by then. Covered in back spray from hammering down the first death blow, let alone the second. Kids stood shoulder to shoulder, next to the bed.

“Boy broke first, that’s my guess,” Alex continued. “Tried to get around the subject by springing up onto the bed. Didn’t work. Subject sliced open the kid’s throat as the boy attempted to bolt past. Game over. Girl’s probably screaming by then. But she doesn’t freeze, which is interesting. Most people facing such a scene…”

Alex’s voice faded, then he cleared his throat, continued on: “The girl runs. Takes advantage of her own brother’s death to sprint for the front door. Of all of them, she’s the only one who gets a chance. He wounds her. Right here.” Alex pointed with his pencil to a round smeared spot. “Maybe the subject was aiming for her neck, but got her shoulder instead. The blow knocked her off balance, hence smudge here and smudge there, probably made by her feet, but she keeps on trucking, God bless her.

“Gets halfway down that hallway, running the race of her life. And then-”

“He catches her,” D.D. fills in, then pauses. “But doesn’t kill her? Drags her away?”

Alex shrugged. “Who knows? She’s the last one left and he has her incapacitated. Maybe he realized he didn’t have to rush. Or maybe he just wanted her to suffer a little more. She got away. That pissed him off.”

“Sexual assault?” D.D. asked.

“Ask the ME. Clothing is intact. Nothing obvious.”

“You think she’s the stepdaughter?”

“Spitting image of the mom, doesn’t look a thing like the dad.”

“So maybe his goal was sexual in nature. Was attracted to her, wanted her for himself…”

Alex looked at her.

“Come on, I’ll show you the rest.”

The back of the house opened onto a screened-in porch. Kind of place to hang out during the mosquito-filled summer evenings. This area obviously hadn’t been included in the renovations; several screens were ripped, the linoleum floor peeled back at the seams. But that was okay. The ripped floor was now covered in blood, while the lone piece of furniture, a broken-down futon, had, according to Alex, become the resting place of an entire family.

“He laid them out side by side. First the mom, then the oldest son, then the daughter, then the youngest son.”

Alex pointed toward the blood-soaked mattress, currently buzzing with flies drawn to the scent of fresh kill.

“ME has the bodies?” D.D. asked.

“Yeah. Given the heat and fly activity, body removal was a priority.”

“You’re saying the daughter was killed back here, though?”

“On the futon, I think. ME will have to analyze, but it looks like he brought her back here, then strangled her-manual asphyxiation. Patrick’s a big guy. It wouldn’t have taken him that long.”

“Then he moved all the other bodies?”

“I’m guessing in that order. He’d want her taken care of first, then he’d tend to housekeeping.”

D.D. frowned, not liking it. “You’re saying the subject carried three bodies through the house to this one room. Why don’t we see more blood? Seems like we should see trails of it everywhere.”

Alex shrugged. “ME can tell you more, but I’m guessing the bodies had already bled out. Kept the process clean.”

D.D. frowned. “I don’t get it. We’re talking the dad, right? First he slaughters his family person by person, then he brings them together for one last family reunion?”

“I think he was apologizing.”

“Excuse me?”

“If we assume the father did it, then he’s a family annihilator,” Alex stated. “Now, maybe the event started impulsively-got in a fight with the wife and it went too far. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe this is what he’d planned all along. But think of the nature of a family annihilator: Why do these guys kill?”

D.D. looked at him. “I don’t know. Why do these guys kill?”

“Because they think they’re doing their family a favor.”

“Yet another reason I’m single, now that you mention it.”

Alex smiled wryly. “Times were hard. I bet when we dig deeper, we’ll find the financial picture even bleaker. Maybe they were facing foreclosure, about to be kicked to the curb. The pressure mounts. The father starts thinking he’d be better off dead, but he doesn’t want to hurt his family. That gets him thinking that they’d be better off dead. It’s too cruel to just kill himself. So he’ll do right by them-he’ll kill them all.”

“Shit,” D.D. said, staring down at the blood-churned floor, swatting away another buzzing fly.

“He takes them out one by one. Then he carries each one of them back here and lays them down side by side. Maybe he prays over them then. Or says absolution, or gives them some little speech he’s already prepared in his head. I love you, I only want what’s best for you, I’ll see you soon. Then he picks up the twenty-two and taps one to the forehead.”

“He shot himself?” Phil spoke up. “Pussy.”

“True. Especially given that he didn’t get the job done.”

D.D. did a double take: “Are you saying-”

“Yep. Father’s undergoing surgery now at Mass General. With any luck, they’ll save him. Then we can nail his ass.”

“The father’s still alive,” D.D. murmured, looking at the blood, waving away the hungry flies. She finally smiled. It was a distinctively wolfish expression on her face. “I think we’re gonna have some fun with this after all.”

They were walking back toward the front of the house, past the dining room, when it came to her. She drew up short. Belatedly, Phil and his shadow followed suit.

“Hey, Professor,” she said. “I got a question for you.”

Alex arched a brow, but waited.

“Okay, so father kills the mother, the fourteen-year-old boy, the nine-year-old boy, and the twelve-year-old daughter, then shoots himself in the forehead.”

“Current theory, yes.”