“And your point-?”
“My point is that, as we both well know, that’s not how it works. In movies and bad TV shows, they show suicides still clutching the gun, but in real life, even the smallest gun has recoil. And a person who’s just blown a hole in her head is not going to be able to marshal the strength to resist it. Consequently, in most suicides, the gun is found a few feet from the body.”
Mike took a deep breath. What she said was true. But he couldn’t make himself agree with her. “I grant you, that’s typical. But it’s not a dead cert.”
“There’s no such thing as a dead cert. But when all the evidence points in a different direction-”
“Baxter, the paraffin test proved she had fired the gun.”
“The bullet in the ceiling.”
“She missed the first time.”
“Yeah, she missed, but what was the target? Herself-or an intruder?”
“Baxter, you’re living in fantasyland.”
“Am I? Or do you just not want to admit I’m right because that would damage your fragile ego?”
Mike fought to contain himself. “You know, you really are insufferable.”
“I don’t much care. Just so I’m right. And I am.”
Mike felt his entire body tensing like a much-too-tightly-strung guitar. “Look-let’s at least think about this, okay? Give it some calm, reasoned deliberation. Before you file a report.”
“Too late. I already did.”
“What?”
“I filed my report. Explaining my concerns about your rush to judgment.”
“I’m the senior officer on the case!”
“And you filed your report. Which was totally erroneous. So I filed mine as well.”
Mike turned one way then another, as if searching for a rag doll he could shred. “If you’ve filed a report suggesting Erin ’s death might not have been a suicide, Blackwell will have to keep the investigation open.”
“I would imagine so.” She slapped him on the shoulder. “Congratulations, partner. I think we’re going to be working together for a good long while.”
Chapter 11
Christina took another sip of her caffe latte and continued burrowing through the miserably thick file. She actually enjoyed bringing her work to bookstores in the evenings, and Novel Idea was just a mile south of their Warren Place offices. To some degree, coming here went against her natural instinct to avoid all things trendy, but hey-if you have to work late, at least you can have something to imbibe scrummier than that sludge Jones called coffee.
Although to get through a file like this one, she might need something stronger than coffee. She was wading through the police reports on the Faulkner home invasion, looking for any scrap of a hint of a detail that might lend some insight as to how to get Ray released. And it was making her sick.
Could there ever have been a more horrendous crime? This case had traumatized her profoundly the first time around, and now the nightmares were starting all over again. She closed her eyes and saw the crime-scene photos appear like some grisly slide show. Every single member of the family murdered, but for Erin, and in brutal and horrifying ways. Both parents, stabbed repeatedly. The father’s leg broken, plus several ribs. Her brother, cut almost beyond belief. Her sister, crumpled on the floor, a lovely polka-dot skirt draped across her legs. The whole family in one bloody heap, except for the baby, who was in the nursery, and Erin, who had been chained down in the basement. One day, they were a happy, normal suburban enclave, and the next-they were virtually extinct. What the hell was the world coming to?
By the time she got to her third latte, Christina had scrutinized every page of the reports, photos, and tech analyses, but she was no nearer to solving any of the central mysteries of the case. Such as-why? The police called it a robbery that went bad; the Faulkners’ considerable cash and jewelry had been taken (and never recovered). But surely that could have been accomplished without so much brutality, so much bloodshed. Couldn’t they have gotten the goods without torturing those kids? Without killing them all?
And then there was a second mystery, the one that had drawn so much attention at the triaclass="underline" Why was Erin chained downstairs while the rest of her family was killed in the living room? The prosecutor had suggested that Ray, in addition to being a brutal torturer/murderer and thief, was also some kind of sex pervert, and that he had put Erin away to enjoy later, like a chocoholic saving the last Godiva for a rainy day. But to Christina, that explanation only raised more questions. Such as: Why didn’t he come back for her? The bodies were not found for several days, after Erin freed herself. There was no sign that the killer had been rushed in any way. Why didn’t he return? Even if he decided against a sexual assault, why didn’t he kill her as he did the others? Leaving her alive could only create a potential incriminating witness. Why?
And then there was the greatest of all the mysteries: Why had the killer cut out their eyes? Why would he take the time? All the forensic evidence indicated that it was done after they were dead (thank God). So what was the point? It didn’t fulfill any need to make them suffer-they were long past it. What kind of twisted psychological compulsion would cause a person to do that? Christina couldn’t understand it-and suspected she never would. Which was too bad, because she would really like to come up with something useful for Ben, something that would give him some hope that they might be able to help Ray.
She pushed her chair away from the table and stretched her arms. She needed a break. She’d been at this too long. Actually, ten minutes was too long for this kind of material, and she’d been at it for more than five hours.
She passed from the café section into the book stalls, just to stretch her legs. Maybe she could browse the new crime novels; she might get some insight there. Or better yet, she’d go back to the science-and-nature section. Novel Idea had a great one; it was like visiting a mini-museum. Where you could buy stuff. Even before she arrived, she could hear the soothing trickling sound of water working its way down a stone fountain. Nice. She could go for a little Zen tranquillity at the moment. Maybe she could pick up a little trinket for Ben…
Or not. He never liked her presents anyway, although he did a nice job of faking it. She wasn’t even sure he liked the cat she’d gotten him, and he’d had Giselle for years now. Why she kept trying was beyond her.
Or beyond reason, as her friends would say. Her girlfriends gave her no end of grief for sticking with Ben so long. You could do better, they told her. You could be making the big bucks. Which was true, of course.
So why was she still struggling along on the seventh floor of 2 Warren Place at Kincaid & McCall? She couldn’t really explain it, not even to herself. But there was something about working with Ben that she just… liked. As unsophisticated as that seemed, it was the truth. She’d liked him the day they met, back when he was a naive and bumbling associate at Raven, Tucker & Tubb. She sensed there was something different about him, something special. She also sensed he wasn’t going to be around there long, and boy, was she right about that. Given how poorly he and Richard Derek got along, it’s a miracle Ben lasted as long as he did.