“Did he say anything about Simone? Or Agnieszka?”
He shakes his head. “He didn’t say a word to me. My father kind of talks to the room, if you know what I mean. He went into his office for some kind of conference call. He’s trying to get a new company to hire him.”
“But you’ve talked to him about Agnieszka before, right?”
He cocks his head. “She told me he was looking at her, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“What did you do when she told you?”
“What did I do?” He blinks. “I didn’t do anything. I told her to be careful of him. I told her he’s a bad person. She wanted to complain, to call the police. I didn’t think that would be a good idea.” He pauses. “He’s killed people, you know?”
He says it with a doubtful lilt in his voice, like he’s not sure we’ll believe him.
“You told her that?”
“He told me. It happened over there. In Africa. He said some guys tried to force him into the back of a car, and he stabbed them.” He stops. Wipes his hand over his mouth. “I know it sounds crazy, but I didn’t doubt him for a minute. He has all these knives. He has a stone to sharpen them, and he’ll sit upstairs and you can hear the scraping sound. If it sounds crazy, well. . he’s crazy. He likes to hurt people.”
“Did he ever threaten to hurt you?”
“He did hurt me. He did this to me.”
David draws his left hand from his pocket and holds it up, fingers splayed. The ring finger juts crookedly, with a fat notch of skin missing near the knuckle, the surface covered in shiny scar tissue. A similar scar runs down the side of his middle finger, like someone flayed the skin with a sharp blade. I take him gently by the wrist, pulling the hand closer. He trembles at the touch.
“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.”
CHAPTER 25
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.”