He lowered the light to the ground. There wasn’t as much blood as he remembered. Trisco might be in pain right now, but wasn’t mortally wounded. The thought crossed Teddy’s mind that he was about to interfere with a crime scene. That he should return to the house and call 911 immediately, even Nash. But then the downward cycle would begin all over again, he thought. The local cops would listen to his story and have evidence to gather whether they believed him or not. Rumors would follow, history unearthed. The house would be a crime house again, irrevocably linked to murder. People would drive by and point, just as they had when his father was arrested. Some would get out of their cars and have their pictures taken in front of the house. If his mother was in the yard, they might even ask her to pose with them. It had happened before. Not to his mother, but to him just after his father’s death. A middle-aged couple had parked across the street and wanted to take a picture while he raked leaves in the front yard. They were strangers, but seemed friendly. Teddy wasn’t sure if he was supposed to know them or not. He was just a boy at the time, trying to sort his way through the confusion. They wanted a picture of him standing before the house and he agreed. When he told his mother about it, she called them ghouls and started to cry.
Not this time.
Teddy knelt down and scooped the bloodstained snow into the bag. As he stood up, he spotted the glass he’d dropped before the struggle. A candy wrapper lay beside it in the snow. He moved toward it, carefully eyeing the wrapper without touching it. Flipping it over with a stick, he read the label. It was the wrapper from a grape-flavored Tootsie Pop. It looked like something was smeared on it and he moved closer. When it registered that he was staring at cum, he flinched. He looked at the window, playing the scene back in his head. Trisco had been spying on his mother with his dick out. The sick motherfucker had been jerking off.
He shuddered, fighting off the urge to vomit. After he caught his breath, he flicked the wrapper inside a second plastic bag with the stick. Holding the bag to the light, he pressed the seal and double checked its grip. Then he glanced back at the house and saw his mother in the kitchen ready to go. She looked so innocent. Almost like an angel. He knew she hadn’t asked for this.
As he stood up and crossed the lawn with two samples of the serial killer’s DNA, he thought about firing the shotgun. The feel of the kick, and the roaring sound it made. He could see the window exploding into the car. The wheels gripping the asphalt beneath the snow. The license plate fading into the gloom. The plate was issued in Pennsylvania. Teddy had always been good at remembering numbers. This was one he wouldn’t need to write down. D07-636.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Teddy stood over the jury table, cupping his hands around the coffee mug and soaking in its warmth. Nash was at his desk, on the phone with an agent from the FBI’s field office in Center City. He’d given the agent Trisco’s license plate number and was trying to explain why Teddy collected blood and semen samples on his own and fucked up the crime scene. It didn’t sound as if it was going very well. Nash sipped his drink undaunted. Not his usual coffee, but a glass of Skyy vodka poured over ice.
Teddy shuddered. He could still hear Trisco laughing. Still see him in the snow giggling with the knife spiked through his leg like a lightning rod.
His decision to touch the evidence had been made in the heat of the moment after firing a gun at another human being. He’d been worried about his mother, his own family and their past.
He shook it off. What mattered was that he and Nash weren’t alone anymore. They were working with the FBI again, and had been the minute they returned from their meeting with Trisco’s psychiatrist that afternoon. They’d called Nash’s friend in Washington and given Dr. Westbrook a full report. The field office had been mobilized, and the FBI would be running their own stealth investigation in spite of Holmes’s bogus confession to the district attorney.
Teddy looked at the stack of faxes on the jury table that had been coming in from the field office all night. Before his arrest five years ago, Edward Trisco III had been a promising artist of some talent. His name was mentioned in several art journals, and the reviews in most cases were better than good. But as his insanity burgeoned, Trisco seemed to lose his edge. His last one-man show had been a disaster, and the articles began to dwindle off. When he kidnapped the model, they stopped all together and his career was over.
A copy of the model’s initial statement was here. The one she had made before Trisco’s parents choked her with fistfuls of cash. Teddy picked it up and began reading. When Trisco wasn’t painting the girl, he kept her in his bedroom closet, bound and gagged. He’d broken three of her fingers and managed to sprain her wrist. Bite marks were visible on her body and photographed by a police photographer after her escape. As Teddy studied the photos, it didn’t seem as if she and Trisco met at a party, got high, and had a falling out.
He turned away and glanced out the window. The streets were empty, the hour late. He couldn’t shake the image of Trisco’s face. The one haunting Holmes in his dreams. There was something familiar about it. He’d seen him before, but couldn’t remember where. That off-center look in his eyes. His madness in full bloom. Teddy couldn’t believe that Andrews hadn’t seen some trace of his insanity five years ago. Even if he was blind, Teddy wondered how Andrews could give Trisco a pass after reading the victim’s statement. And what about Trisco’s family? What were they saying to Andrews as they handed him a check written in blood for his campaign?
Edward’s a good boy at heart. He had a crush on the girl. He didn’t mean to sprain her wrist, break her fingers and bite her. He would’ve untied her and let her go. Edward’s a good boy and would have let her go….
Nash hung up the phone and sipped his drink. He looked pale and subdued, more worried than Teddy had ever seen.
“They want the DNA,” he said.
“Are they pissed?”
“They want it. Let’s leave it at that. Two agents in plain-clothes are driving out to your house. They’ll take a look and keep an eye on things.”
“What about the license plate?”
“They’re working on it,” Nash said. “But the results are in from earlier this evening and they aren’t good. They’ve run Trisco through their computers in Washington. They’ve checked telephone records and looked for a street address. Trisco doesn’t have a bank account or a single credit card issued in his name. He lives without health insurance or even an auto policy. According to the IRS, he hasn’t filed a tax return in five years. After his release from Haverhills, Edward Trisco dropped off the map.”
“What did they say?”
“That he fits the profile. And he’s living under another name.”
Teddy felt the push of anger rising up his throat. If Andrews had done his job five years ago, none of this would be happening. When Teddy noticed that his hand was shaking, he hid it behind him as he leaned against the wall. He thought about Trisco wearing socks over his shoes in order to mask his footprints in the snow. Trisco’s brain damage might be measurable, but on what scale? Teddy guessed that the license plate number he’d seen on the back of his car was nothing more than another dead end.
“What about the hospitals?” he said. “He’s wounded.”