Barry says as we approach, "but you look like you're having a shitty night yourself."
Barry is in his early forties. He's heavy without being fat, he's bald, he wears glasses, and he has one of the more homely faces I've seen--the kind of homely that becomes cute in the right light. In spite of these handicaps, he's always dating pretty, younger women. Alan calls it the "Barry phenomenon." Supreme confidence, without being arrogant. He's funny, smart, and larger than life. Alan thinks a lot of women find that combination of self-assurance and a big heart irresistible. I think that's just a part of it. There's a hint of unyielding strength in Barry that rolls through all that amiability like thunder in the distance. He's seen it all, he knows that evil is a real thing. Barry is a hunter of men, and at some level, right or wrong, that's always going to be sexy in an animal-scent kind of way.
I know his grumbling is all for show; we've lost track of who really owes a favor to whom, and in truth, neither of us really cares.
"Anyway," he says, pulling out a notepad, his own Ned, ready now to get down to business. "What have you got for me?"
"Ritual slaughter. Evisceration. An ocean of blood. The usual,"
I say.
I fill him in on what I know. It isn't much, but it begins the backand-forth rapport that works so well for us. We'll walk the scene and talk as we go, bouncing observations off each other, honing our conclusions. It might seem aimless to an observer, but it's method, not madness.
"Three dead?" he asks.
"Three that I saw, and I'm pretty sure that's it. Patrol cleared the house, and they didn't mention any other bodies."
He nods, tapping his pen on the notepad. "You're sure the girl didn't do it?"
"No way," I say, emphatic. "She didn't have enough blood on her. You'll see what I mean when we go inside. It's . . . messy. I'm also fairly certain that one of them was killed downstairs and then carried into the bedroom. Carried, not dragged. She doesn't have the strength for that."
He looks toward the house, thinking. He shrugs. "Doesn't really play for me, anyway," he says. "The girl doing it. What you described sounds like advanced killing. Not to say that sixteen-year-olds aren't doing some bad things these days, but . . ." He shrugs again.
"I sent Alan off to interview the neighbors. I didn't think you'd mind."
"Nope. He's the man when it comes to that stuff."
"So when can we go in?" I ask.
I'm anxious now, reenergized. I want to start looking at this killer. He glances at his watch. "I expect the Crime Scene Unit here any minute--another favor you owe me. Then we can slip on our paper booties and get to work."
I start outside the house. Barry and Callie wait, patient, listening. I examine the front of the home. I look up and down the street, at the homes on either side. I try to imagine what it would have been like in the daytime.
"This is a family neighborhood," I say. "Crowded. Active. It was Saturday, so people would have been at home. Coming here, today, was a bold move. He's either overconfident or very competent. Not likely a first-timer. I'm guessing he's killed before."
I walk forward, moving up the walkway and toward the front door. I imagine him, moving up this same path. He could have been doing it while I was shopping with Bonnie, or perhaps while I was clearing out Matt's master-bedroom closet. Life and death, side by side, each one unaware of the other.
I pause before walking through the front door. I try to imagine him here. Was he excited? Was he calm? Was he insane? I come up blank. I don't know enough about him yet.
I enter the home. Barry and Callie follow.
The house still smells like murder. Worse now, as time has passed, and the odors have begun to deepen.
We move to the family room. I stare down at the blood-soaked carpet. The CSU photographer is busy taking pictures of it all.
"That's a hell of a lot of blood," Barry observes.
"He cut their throats," I say. "Ear to ear."
"That'd do it." He looks around. "Like you said. No blood trails."
"Right. But all of this tells us things about him."
"Such as?" Barry asks.
"He likes what he does. Using a blade is personal. It's an act of anger, sure, but on another level, it's an act of joy. The way you kill a lover. The only thing more intimate is using your bare hands. It can also be the way you kill a stranger that you love. A sign of respect, a thank-you for the death they're giving you." I indicate the bloody room with a sweep of my hand. "Bloodletting can be intimate or impersonal. Blood is life. You cut the stranger you love so you can be close to the blood when it starts flowing. Blood is also a path to death. You drain pigs of blood pretty much the same way. Which way did he see them? As pigs, or lovers? Were they nothing, or everything?"
"Which do you think?"
"Don't know yet. The point is, however he viewed them, there wasn't any doubt. You don't kill with a knife if you're conflicted. It's an act of certainty. A gun gives you distance, but a knife? A knife has to be used up close. A knife is also evidence that the manner of death is as important to him as the death itself."
"How's that?"
I shrug. "A gun is quicker."
Callie is walking around the room, looking at the blood and shaking her head.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
She indicates a dark puddle near her feet. "This is wrong." She points at another pool off to the left. "That's wrong."
"Why, Red?" Barry asks.
"Blood-spatter analysis is a mix of physics, biology, chemistry, and mathematics. No time for a detailed course here, but suffice to say that physics, blood viscosity, and the carpet material itself tell me these two puddles are likely here by design." She walks closer to us, points to the much larger blood patch near the entrance to the family room. "Note the lines here." She leans forward, indicating a line of blood that widens as it moves away from us, ending in a somewhat rounded head with jagged edges. "See how it almost looks like a giant tadpole?"
"Yes," I reply.
"You see this all the time on a smaller scale. Castoff spatter produces a long, narrow stain with a defined, discernible head. The sharper end of the stain, or the 'tail,' always points back to the origin point. This is simply a larger version of that, and fits with someone getting their throat cut." She points. "You see it here, and here. And note the blood on the wall nearby?"
I look. I see more tadpoles, only smaller, along with a number of drops, big and little. "Yes."
"Think of blood in the body as contents under pressure. Poke a hole in the container and it flows out. Blood spatter is caused by the force of the flow outward, which determines speed and distance. Cutting an artery produces a lot of force. Smashing a hammer into a head creates a lot of force. However you slice it--pun intended--blood leaves the body, moves outward with greater or lesser force, until it impacts a surface, at which point it transfers that motion and energy to the surface, thereby creating a pattern against it. The results are your tadpoles, your droplets with scalloped edges, and so on, blah-deblah." She points again to the carpet and nearby wall. "You can see evidence of arterial spray near the baseboard, and in the lines of blood on the carpet. Spontaneous motion, with directionality created by force. This is murder. Those other two are not. If I had to guess, I'd say that blood was poured onto both those spots. From a container of some kind. They are pools, not castoff or spatter. The directionality would have come from above, and the size of the pools, as well as the lack of spatter near their edges, indicate a leisurely pour. Very little force."
Now that she's pointed it out, I can see it. The puddles in question are too orderly, too aesthetically proper, too round. Like syrup onto pancakes.
"So . . . he kills someone down here," Barry says, "and then . . . what? He decides he didn't get the room bloody enough?"