I took another deep breath. My legs had stopped feeling and my pulse was light and fast. I felt Marty's hand lock onto my arm and yank up.
"There's more," he said.
One foot in front of the other, that choking, meaty, slaughterhouse stink all around me, I followed Marty from the room.
We stood in the hallway, our backs against the wall, and smoked. The ceiling seemed terribly low. It was dark, too, even with the recessed flood lamps bearing down from above. A uniform jangled by, his face averted, crossed himself, and headed into the twins' room.
"You make enough money to get out of this business, then come back for this kind of shit," Marty said. "Does it really pay that well?"
"Go to hell, Martin."
"Wish I could."
"Damm… damn."
"He does, He does. Mom and Dad are in the master. There's a daughter, too, but she must have been gone. Her bed's made up and she isn't anywhere around."
I went in. It looked as if something had fed there perhaps-captured prey, torn it apart, partaken. Or maybe not eaten at all, but simply shredded the room and the people in it, searching for something very small, very hidden, very important. The smell was strong. Both bodies-smallish dark-skinned bodies-were opened and emptied like drawers. Their contents were everywhere, strewn around the floor, hurled against walls, piled on the bed, strung from the blades of the ceiling fan, flung onto the lamp shades, the blinds, the television screen, the dresser, hung from the top fronds of a palm that stood by a window, splattered against that same window and drying now from red to black in the golden summer sunlight of morning. The carcass of Mr. Wynn, on his back, arms out, was spread across the bed. Mrs. Wynn was hanging in the shower stall, tied by her hair to the nozzle fixture. Some of what had been inside her was spilled out in a pile over the drain, which had backed up, making a pool of blood.
The two Crime Scene men were going to work with a video camera and evidence bags when I left and found Martin, still in the hallway.
I heard a muted commotion from the living room, followed by Sheriff Daniel Winters and his entourage coming briskly toward us up the hallway. Their footsteps had a ring of assurance. Winters is a tall, very thin man, bespectacled, a sharp dresser. Gray colors his hair at the temples, and his eyes, behind the glasses, are black, hyper-vigilant, and consuming. He often stoops, catches himself at it, straightens himself, then slumps back into his characteristic posture again. There were three men besides Dan-two assistant DAs I knew, a uniform I'd never seen-and a pretty red-haired woman named Karen Schulz, the Sheriff's Department Community Relations director. Winters nodded at me on his way past, then took Martin by the arm without a word and led him into the master suite. The prosecutors and deputy followed. I heard Winters's shocked expletive, then heard it again, filled with outrage, disbelief, dread.
Karen Schultz studied me with her always-alert green eyes. "We're going to have to hold back a lot of this, Russell
"You just say what."
"I need to see your copy before you file."
"You can see it, but I won't change it. Tell me what to sit on, and I'll sit on it."
"We'll admit the possibility of a link to Ellison; Fernandez."
"That's why I'm here."
"But nothing positive until the ME's done and all the labs are complete. You will use the words possibly linked and say we are attempting to establish a definite connection. You not encouraged to use the term serial killer."
"Repeat offender sounds a little trivial."
She sighed, glanced toward the door of the master suite, then looked back at me. Karen Schultz's hair was straight and luxurious, her skin pale, her nose freckled. She never smiled. "Go ahead with it for the Journal if you want, but if we can't connect the scenes, you're the one who'll be wearing the ass ears."
"What time is the press conference?"
"Four tomorrow. That vets out to a two-day scoop on all the other print. Spin Dina well."
"I will. Thanks."
She looked again at the door to the master. "Gad, I hate this," she said.
All I could think of to say back was, "I'm sorry."
I loitered, taking notes, getting the basics, sneaking off to a little laundry room with a door that opened to the backyard, so I could smoke, breath fresh air, and have a drink from my flask.
The detectives quickly determined that Mr. Tran Wynn had been forty-one years old, a physician. Maia was thirty-six and had worked for a local aerospace firm.
The twins-Jacob and Justin-were two.
The daughter, Kim, was blessedly gone. Where? I looked into her room. The bed was made, and the cops had found the door open, whereas the doors to the twins' room and the master suite were both closed. Karen Schultz demanded another search of the house for Kim, which proved fruitless. Winters ordered a door-to-door canvass of the neighborhood for the girl, after Martin and DA assistants all impressed on him that for the killer to take the girl alive would be "out of profile." APB pending. Bloodhounds considered.
"No story until we find the girl," said Karen. Her face was so pale, her freckles showed even darker.
They didn't want Kim reading about the death of her entire family-her entire universe-in the evening Journal. I didn’t either. "Don't worry," I said. "The Wynns are Vietnamese, aren’t they?"
Karen nodded. "The last name is an anglicized version of Nguyen-pronunciation is similar. Jacob, Justin, and Kim? I say Tran and Maia were trying hard to fit in as Americans."
"A lot of Catholics came down from the North," I said
"I guess the Wynns should have stayed put. Least they could have been buried in their own ground."
Half an hour later, Martin found me in the laundry nook and waved me back to the living room. I'd already filled ten pages in my notebook. "You'll like this," he said. Winters, the two assistant DAs, both CS men, and Karen all stood in a loose semicircle facing the Wynn's impressive stereo system. One of the uniforms hit a button and the loud hiss of a tape can through the speakers. It continued for ten seconds or so, and realized it wasn't all hiss-it was also the sound of ocean water on sand, or maybe cars on a highway, or both.
The voice that came on next was a man's-slow, deliberate, almost pleasant. The words were spaced out and careful enunciated, as if for a student to hear and repeat:
" Coming… Seeing… Having… Willing Cleaning… Taking… Jah…"
Then more waves, tiny voices in the far background, and a long inhalation, followed by silence. What came next was the same ocean-heavy background, the same voice, but now it was slurred, badly garbled, as if the man was in a drug stupor or falling off to sleep:
"Ice-a h-h-homing gen spoon. O-o-ouch treble t-t-tings. A-a-ax is cute me. G-gren duffel m-m-m'back. G-gren duffel m-m-m'back. M-m-make m-m-m'do tings. C-c-cun seed brat cun wormin from he…"
Then the end of sound, just the near silence of the Wynn's speakers.
We listened to it again, then a third time.
"Green duffel," said Assistant DA Peter Haight.
"Green duffel on my back," said Winters.
"Green devil on my back," said Marty. "Makes me do things."
"Execute me," I said.
Parish stared at me.
"That's what I heard, too," said Karen.
The most pressured of silences came over us. Winters looked around, studying each face in the group. Heads shook. Karen asked to hear it again. We listened.
Suddenly, a cold wave of astonishment rose up and broke over me.
Something was very wrong here.
This I could not believe.
Not only what we were hearing but the fact that the dicks had found it so quickly. A houseful of death and blood, latents, footprints probably, hair and fiber almost assuredly, and these guys turn on the goddamned stereo? Winters must have read the amazed doubt on my face. He looked at the two assistant DAs and the two CS investigators and told them to beat it.