Cody McFadyen - The Face of Death

Dean's eyes are wide and turning into the eyes of the dead, gray and filmy, like soap scum in a bathtub. Laurel's eyes are closed. Both of them have their lips pulled back, reminding me of a snarling dog, or someone being forced to smile at gunpoint. Dean's tongue protrudes, while Laurel's teeth are clenched together. Forever now, I think. She'll never pull her teeth apart. Something tells me that this carefully cared for woman would have hated that.

"He would have used a weapon to intimidate them, and it wouldn't have been just a knife," I say. "Not threatening enough for so many victims. It would have been a gun. Something big and scary looking."

From the collarbone down, it's as if they each swallowed a hand grenade.

"A single long slice on each of them," Barry says. "He used something sharp."

"Probably a scalpel," I murmur. "Not clean, though. I see signs of hesitation in the wounds. Note the ragged spots?"

"Yep."

He cut them open with a halting, trembling hand. Then he reached into them, grabbed hold of whatever he touched, and pulled, like a fisherman cleaning a fish. Standing over Mrs. Kingsley now, I'm able to make out the middle third of her spine; key organs aren't there to block my view of it.

"Hesitation cuts are odd," I murmur.

"Why?" Barry asks.

"Because in every other way he was confident." I lean forward for a closer look, examining the throats this time. "When he cut their throats, it was clean, no hesitation." I stand up. "Maybe they weren't hesitation marks. Maybe the cuts were uneven because he was excited. He might have come to orgasm slicing them open."

"Lovely," Callie says.

In contrast to Dean and Laurel, the boy--Michael--is untouched. He's white from blood loss, but he was spared the indignity of being gutted.

"Why'd he leave the boy alone?" Barry wonders.

"He either wasn't as important--or he was the most important one of all," I say.

Callie walks around the bed at a slow pace, examining the bodies. She casts looks around the floor, squints at the blood on the walls.

"What do you see?" I ask.

"The jugular veins of all three victims have been severed. Based on the color of the skin, they were bled dry. This was done prior to the disembowelment."

"How can you tell that?" Barry asks.

"Not enough blood pooled in the abdominal cavities or visible on the exposed organs. Which is the general problem: Where's the rest of the blood? I can account for place of death for one of the victims--the family room downstairs. What about the other two?" She gestures around the room. "The blood in here is primarily on the walls. There are some blotches on the carpet, but it's not enough. The sheets and blankets from the bed are bloody, true, but the amount seems superficial." She shakes her head. "No one had their throat cut in this room."

"I noticed the same thing earlier," I say. "They were bled out somewhere else. Where?"

A moment passes before we all gaze down the short hallway that leads from the master bedroom to the master bathroom. I move without speaking; Barry and Callie follow. Everything becomes clear as we enter.

"Well," Barry says, grim, "that explains it, all right."

The bathtub is a large one, made for lazing around in, built with languor in mind. It's a little over one-quarter full of congealing blood.

"He bled them out in the tub," I murmur. I point to two large rusty blotches on the carpet. "Pulled them out when he was done and laid them there, next to each other."

My mind is moving, my perception of the connectedness of things picking up speed. I turn without speaking and walk back into the bedroom. I examine the wrists and ankles of Dean and Laurel Kingsley. Callie and Barry have followed and look at me with their eyebrows raised.

I point at the bodies. "No marks on their wrists or their ankles. You have two adults. You get them to strip naked, you put them into a tub, one at a time, you slit their throats, one at a time, bleed them out, one at a time--does that make any sense?"

"I see what you mean," Barry says. "They would have been fighting back. How does he get it done? I don't think saying 'Take a number, I'll kill you next' would've cut it."

"Occam's razor," I reply. "The simplest answer: They weren't fighting back."

Barry frowns, perplexed, and then his face clears and he nods.

"Right," he says. "They were out cold. Maybe drugged." He makes another note on his pad. "I'll have them look for that during autopsy."

"You know," I say, shaking my head, "if that's true, then that makes three bodies he had to carry, including one he'd had to have moved up the stairs." I look at Barry. "How tall would you say Mr. Kingsley is? Six feet?"

"Six or six-one." He nods. "Probably weighs one-ninety."

I whistle. "He'd have to muscle Kingsley into the tub, drugged . . ."

I shake my head. "He's either tall or strong or both."

"Helps." Barry nods. "We're not looking for a little guy."

"Of course, there could have been two of them," Callie says, glancing at me. "We know about tag teams, don't we?"

She's right. Partnerships in murder are not uncommon. My team and I have chased more than one twisted coffee klatch.

"No visible evidence of sexual violation," Barry notes, "but that doesn't mean much. We won't know for sure until the medical examiner gets a good look at the bodies."

"Have them check the boy first," I say.

Barry raises a single eyebrow at me.

"He wasn't gutted." I point to Michael's body. "And he's clean. I think the killer washed him, postmortem. It looks like he combed his hair. It might not have been sexual--but there was something going on there. Less anger at Michael, for whatever reason."

"Gotcha," Barry says, jotting in his notepad.

I gaze around the room, at the streaks of blood on the walls and ceilings. In some places it seems splashed, like an artist had tossed a can of paint onto a blank canvas. But there are intricacies as well. Curls and symbols. Streaks. The most obvious thing about it is that it is everywhere.

"The blood is key to him," I murmur. "And the disembowelment. There's no evidence of torture on any of the victims, and they were bled out prior to being cut open. Their pain wasn't important to him. He wanted what was inside. Especially the blood."

"Why?" Barry asks.

"I can't say. There's too many possible paradigms when it comes to blood. Blood is life, you can drink blood, you can use blood to tell the future--take your pick. But it's important." I shake my head.

"Strange."

"What?"

"Everything I've seen so far points to a disorganized offender. The mutilation, the blood painting. Disorganized offenders are chaotic. They have trouble planning and they get caught up in the moment. They lose control."

"So?"

"So how is it that the boy wasn't gutted and Sarah is still alive? It doesn't fit."

Barry gives me a considering look. Shrugs.

"Let's go see her room," he says. "Maybe there'll be some answers there."

11

"WOW," CALLIE REMARKS.

The reason for this soft exclamation is twofold.

First, and most obvious, the words written on the blank wall next to the bed.

"Is that blood?" Barry asks.

"Yes," Callie confirms.

The letters are large. The slashes that form them are angry, each one a mark of hate and rage.

THIS PLACE = PAIN

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Barry gripes.

"I don't know," I reply. "But it was important to him."

Just like the blood and the disembowelment.

"Interesting that he wrote it in Sarah's bedroom, don't you think?"

Callie asks.

"Yeah, yeah, puzzle puzzle cauldron bubble," Barry grumbles.

"Why can't they ever write anything useful. Like: 'Hi, my name is John Smith, you can find me at 222 Oak Street. I confess.' "