Макс Коллинз - You Can’t Stop Me

Fox looked at the photos with eyes that indicated he was well beyond seeing anything in these much-viewed crime scene shots.

Carmen asked, “Did you dust that room for prints?”

“Why, no.”

“How about the state crime lab? Were you there when they processed the scene?”

“I was. They didn’t consider the bedroom part of the crime scene.”

“So they didn’t check the Winnie the Pooh snow globe for fingerprints?”

Perplexed, the sheriff said, “Nobody thought the killer went in that room — nothing was out of place.”

Carmen leaned in and tapped the closeup shot of the snow globes. “Except Winnie the Pooh,” she said.

“Be damned,” Fox said, and shook his head and grimaced, handing the closeup picture to Laurene.

Laurene looked at the photo. The snow globes all faced the same direction, except one — Winnie the Pooh had his back to the bed.

“He picked that one up,” Laurene said.

“Well, someone did,” Fox said. “We’ll see if we can find out who.”

“If the whole family has been dead for almost two years,” Laurene asked, “where’s the snow globe now?”

“No idea,” Fox admitted glumly. “But I am damned sure going to find out.”

To Carmen, Laurene said, “Hell of a catch, girl. That’s two for you. Maybe it’s time you joined the crime scene team and I took over as host.”

Carmen smiled, chagrined. “I’m happy doing what I do.”

Everyone on the Crime Seen! team was aware that all of this had been caught on camera. Funny, Laurene thought, how the knowledge that they were putting on a show as well as chasing a killer colored her perceptions.

Fox said, “I should mention there’s a new family living in the house now. You want to go out there?”

After a moment’s consideration, Laurene said, “Let us run with what you’ve given us for right now. If we need to visit the scene, we’ll go out later.”

“But you will call me if you go?”

“Absolutely, Sheriff. You’d be a big help. Hey, you’ve been a big help. Thank you.”

“No problem. Who wouldn’t want this thing cracked? Now, can I ask a question...?”

“Of course.”

“Is this the same bastard who killed J.C. Harrow’s family?”

Laurene locked eyes with the man. “Can’t be sure... but it’s very damn likely the ‘same bastard’ who took out the Ferguson mom and kids in Florida.”

Fox sighed. “You’re covering a lot of hunting ground.”

“Yes. But we are closing in. We know to a near certainty that he’s targeting only the families of civil servants.”

The dark brown eyes flared. “ Why in hell?”

“Pretty soon, Sheriff... we’ll ask him .”

After their good-byes, Laurene, Carmen, and the camera crew caught up with Jenny and Choi in the lab.

Choi took the ball: “First, the tires are so worn, he coulda replaced them by now.”

Laurene just gave him a look.

“Tire size 275/70R18, is very popular for light trucks and SUVs. This particular one’s manufactured by Michelin, and is the standard tire on the Ford F-150 pickup.”

“Does that help us?”

“Oh, sure,” Choi said, his smile mirthless. “Thanks to declining sales over the last five years? Leaves us only about four million F-150s, plus whatever vehicles bought them as aftermarket tires.”

“So, then, that was sarcasm.”

“I been saying you aren’t dumb, Laurene. Ask anybody.”

She sighed. “Keep digging, Billy. See if you can do something to make this a more manageable number.”

His eyebrows went up. “For instance...?”

“Start with Kansas. That’s where our errant Florida corn leaf came from — make it Fords sold in Kansas in the last, say, ten years.”

Choi smirked. “That’s still going to be a bunch.”

“But a smaller bunch,” Laurene said. “Didn’t Marshal Ferguson say he saw a blue pickup the night his family was killed?”

Choi snapped his fingers. “Right! That will help narrow it down.”

“Go,” Laurene said.

Practically bouncing, Choi moved back to his computer, and his fingers were soon flying over the keyboard.

Jenny gave Laurene a glance, which was enough to summon the African-American crime scene analyst to the petite blonde’s side.

Looking up like a little girl about to show Mommy her latest drawing, Jenny said, “Sheriff said Mr. Hanson was the county comptroller?”

“That’s right.”

Laurene liked where this was headed already — Harrow had told her Jenny was smart; now Laurene was seeing just how quick the girl really was.

“I checked on shooting deaths involving the families of public servants in the last ten years.”

“And?”

“Ten years ago, a member of the board of supervisors in McCracken County in Kentucky found out his wife was having an affair. He shot her and their three kids, her lover, and himself.”

“Jesus,” Carmen whispered.

Laurene could only think that it must be nice, being able to still be surprised by the evil that people could visit on each other. She’d been at it long enough that such revelations rarely made an emotional blip.

Jenny was saying, “Nine years ago, zero killings of that nature. Every year ever since? At least two, sometimes three separate instances.”

Carmen gasped — Laurene hoped it wasn’t just for the camera — but this news was news worth gasping over.

Laurene said, “That’s like... twenty something.”

“Oh, you can do math.”

It did not seem to be sarcasm — Jenny was no Billy Choi.

Jenny was saying, “Twenty-two, so far.”

Carmen, still stunned, asked, “How... how is that possible?”

“Killing strangers,” Laurene said, “is easy. So is getting away with it.”

From his computer, Choi called, “You mostly get killed by people you know!”

“Eighty percent of the time,” Jenny said.

“What I want to know,” Laurene said, shaking her head, “is how in the hell this SOB could carry out twenty-two such acts, murdering... how many?”

“Fifty-three women and children,” Jenny said. “Twenty-two mothers and thirty-one children. Eighteen boys, thirteen girls.”

The lab fell silent. Only the faint mechanical hum of sound and camera and computers could be discerned.

Finally Laurene asked, “How did he kill fifty-three people... and no one caught on?”

Jenny shrugged. “Killings may not all be his. But to answer your question? Small jurisdictions with limited police presence, spread across the country.”

Choi left his computer. “You know, in sleepy little Davenport, Iowa, they’ve had over two dozen bank robberies in the last ten years.”

They all looked at Choi expectantly, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I mean, you didn’t hear shit about twenty-one of them. Those other three though, they all happened in 2004 when George Bush and John Kerry were campaigning in town at the same time. That got the attention of the national media, made CNN and MSNBC, and still generates a kajillion hits on Google.”

“What are you saying?” Carmen asked, suddenly defensive. “That this is somehow the media’s fault?”

“No, not all,” Choi said.

Laurene said, “I think what Billy boy is saying is that this is a really big country, and it takes something completely off the charts to catch our attention... and he’s right. Our unsub has been operating below the radar. Hell, until fifteen minutes ago, we thought he was going exclusively after law enforcement... and, Carmen, before you found that leaf thing? We didn’t even know this monster was out there.”