Roarke turned to Detective Aceves. “He killed the mother first, then the girls, saved the boy for last?”
The detective gave him a sharp look. “Looks like it.”
Singh had compiled a whole file, including floor plans, so Roarke knew the house had three levels: a basement game room that opened out on the back patio and yard, the main level of two-story living room, plus a master suite and guest room/library, and three bedrooms upstairs. A mountain chalet that spoke of long ski weekends in winter and boating trips in summer. Skiing and boating, he thought again. Delivery. A regular route. Something…
As they moved through the house he noted that there was a sameness to the look of all the three houses he had visited on the Reaper’s path of destruction. It was something in the slanted ceilings, the wood beams. He frowned, wondering.
The detectives led the agents down a short hall toward the master suite. The men hugged the wall, moving past the bathroom toward the open bedroom door.
Roarke braced himself as he stepped into the doorway.
It was bad. The peach-painted walls behind the bed were darkly curtained in Eileen Cavanaugh’s blood. She lay in bed half-in and half-out of the covers, her throat gaping open to severed cartilage, the bedclothes stiff with more congealed blood. She’d died alone with the monster… but mercifully quickly; she may even have been sliced open in her sleep. No more than a few moments of disorientation and terror, Roarke silently hoped.
The body was stiff and ghostly white, seeming frozen and inhuman in the chill of the house.
He did not move into the room. He wanted to get a look at the whole picture and let the detectives warm to him, then hopefully they’d let Lam and Stotlemyre do their work.
“The knife was from the kitchen?” he asked aloud.
“From a set in a butcher block on the kitchen island,” Aceves said. “But…” He stopped.
Roarke looked at him. “But?”
Aceves seemed to be debating with himself, then he finished, “Why use a knife on the family if he had a gun?”
Roarke nodded slowly. “Exactly.” He held Aceves’ gaze, and felt the beginnings of a bond.
Aceves turned from the door and indicated the upstairs with a jerk of his head. The team eased out of the hallway and toward the stairs. Aceves led, and Roarke started up behind him, staying against the chest-high wall of the staircase as they trod a careful trail upwards.
All the men were tense as they gathered on the upper landing, steeling themselves to go into the children’s rooms. Of course there was no way ever to prepare for what they were about to see.
The first room was the teenage girl’s: Shannon. Heartbreakingly typical, on the cusp of girl and woman; rock stars and actors Roarke didn’t recognize on the walls, the posters now spattered with Shannon’s blood. Her body was rigid as a mannequin’s, the pink comforter and the flannel pajama bottoms and tank top she wore were stiff with dark red from multiple stab wounds.
“Christ,” Epps said, in a voice that could have cut steel.
Roarke could see the girl still had earbuds in her ears. She’d fallen asleep with them or was still half-awake listening to music when she died. Like her mother, she probably — hopefully — never knew what hit her.
They all turned from the door and their queasiness was palpable.
The second bedroom door was the ten-year-old, Megan. It was clear at first look that Megan had not died as quietly as her mother and sister. She had heard something, known something. Her body was halfway under her desk. She had tried to crawl under it, or had been hiding under it. The killer had dragged her out to cut her; there were wide smears of blood underneath her body in the beige carpet. Roarke felt knots of anger and sorrow in his stomach, in his throat.
But the worst was yet to come.
In Robbie Cavanaugh’s room, there was blood everywhere, splashed on the wall, staining the carpet, spattering the shelves of video games and models. The boy’s body was on the bed, but there were signs of his struggle smeared into the rug. His arms were flung above his head and there were stab wounds in his neck and chest, too; he had been pierced so many times Roarke could see bits of his intestines, even from the doorway. His pajama pants were nearly black with it.
It was an outrage, this kind of carnage in a room so full of life. And while the other rooms had been like cold dark holes, there was a feeling in this room. Roarke had no idea really what he meant by that, but he could sense something live, like the echo of screams.
He said aloud, “Escalating.”
Beside him, Epps said, in a barely audible voice. “Yeah.”
“Holy Christ.” It was Lam speaking, from far away. “We have got to get this guy.”
Roarke closed his eyes, briefly, and had to steady his voice. “And the father?”
“Basement,” Detective Aceves said. “The game room.”
Stotlemyre rejoined them as they headed down the carpeted stairs to the game room. Roarke’s legs felt shaky as they descended.
There was a billiard table and a ping-pong table and a foosball table and a jukebox and a dartboard on the wall. And of course, a large flat screen T.V. A comfortable and well-stocked family room, including a wet bar with a locked liquor cabinet and a closet with door standing open, shelves packed with tennis rackets and snowshoes and ice skates. All the accoutrements of a well-off, athletic family in a room now tainted with the overwhelming presence of death.
The father was slumped in a club chair in front of the television with a rifle at his feet and a bloody cavern where his head had been. Blood and brains sprayed the carpet beneath him.
At first glimpse just about anyone would see it as a suicide.
“Basement is concrete block,” Epps said. “Family probably never heard ths shot.”
“The gun his?” Roarke asked, and heard the edge in his voice.
“From the cabinet upstairs. Guy is a sportsman,” Aceves answered.
“The gun cabinet wasn’t locked?”
“No—” Aceves said, and stopped, his eyes narrowing.
“Three kids,” Roarke said. The number of people who left guns around unlocked where any kid could find one any time was always staggering to him. Though that was never going to be a problem for the Cavanaugh children, now. But the liquor cabinet had been locked, despite the fact that Cavanaugh had been drinking. Habitual behavior was strong; if Cavanaugh had taken the gun out, he would likely have locked the gun cabinet. The Reaper might not have.
Roarke was betting he’d seen where the keys were hidden. After all, he’d been watching them. It was what he did.
Roarke turned back into the room and let himself imagine how it had gone this time. The father having a beer and watching the build-up to today’s games, the killer coming silently down the carpeted stairs…
Only something was wrong.
“The T.V. was on or off?” he demanded tersely of the detective.
“Off,” Aceves answered, surprised.
“That’s not right,” Roarke said. “It was on.”
“Sports fan,” Epps said. “Watching the pre-game chatter.”
“Exactly,” Roarke nodded. “The killer must have turned if off after. The father didn’t hear him coming.”
Detective Aceves shot a glance at the body. The chair wasn’t facing the big screen.
“Force of the blast spun the chair,” Lam said. “It’s on a swivel base.”
Lam and Stotlemyre approached the ruined body, one on either side, crouching in tandem on opposite sides of the chair. Both of them looked up at the same time, and Roarke and Epps automatically followed their gaze to the ceiling. Bits of blood and gray matter were crusted on the ceiling.
“Rifle was angled from below. The shot came up through his jaw,” Stotlemyre said.
“How the hell did the guy manage that?” Detective Lambert asked.
“Crawled,” Lam said. He waddled backward on his haunches, astonishingly limber, straightened, looked around him, and picked up a billiard
cue to simulate the weapon. He held the stick like a rifle, crouched with it, and then dropped silently to his knees, balancing on one palm and edging his way forward in a crawl while holding the “gun.” It was like watching the rehearsal of a stealth jungle attack in a war movie. He didn’t make a sound in the thick carpet. In no time he was beside the chair and angling the gun up toward the slumped corpse. He held the pose for a moment, staring up the line of the pool cue.
“Yep. Perfect angle. He was here, on the floor.”
Stotlemyre nodded thoughtfully, staring at the human tissue on the ceiling. “Smart fucker. He thought it through.”
“That’s a lot of control,” Epps said.
A lot, Roarke thought. The Reaper’s improved his game with age. Unless… He didn’t want to think it. Unless it’s not the Reaper.
He stared around the basement room, focused on the sliding glass doors leading out to the patio. The drapes weren’t drawn.
He said aloud, “The killer was watching the family in Reno. He knew when the father was isolated, T.V. was on, masking sound — that’s when he struck.” He turned to Aceves and Lambert. “The Reaper had a view of this room, and if the gun is Cavanaugh’s the guy also must have had a view of wherever the gun was locked up, knew how to get to it—”
Aceves said sharply behind him, “Hold up.”
Roarke’s heart sank. He’d blown it, overstepped. He turned back. Aceves was staring at him.
“You said ‘The Reaper.’ Are you shitting me? You think this guy is the Reaper?” He stared around at the agents.
So Aceves knew the case. Roarke said a quick and silent prayer that it would count in their favor. “We have evidence to suggest it. That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
“Holy Christ,” Aceves muttered, and looked at Lambert. “We need to find where he was watching from outside, process those areas. Now.”
Lambert nodded, and headed up the stairs.
Roarke turned to Aceves. “Did the family report a dead animal?”
The detective frowned. “How do you mean?”
“A pet killed, or the corpse of a wild animal left on the doorstep. Any time in the last week or so. This perp watches the house, leaves the animal, maybe as a message.”
“Definitely no reports like that that we’ve received,” Aceves said.
“Neighbors or friends of the family may have heard about it. It would help to nail down how long he was watching them.”
“You’re pretty sure about this,” Aceves said.
“It’s what he does.”
The detective nodded curtly. “Most people on this block were out of town for the holiday. I’ll start the deputies re-interviewing anyone in the neighborhood who was here, and branch out some. And we can put the query about missing pets on the Village website.”
Roarke was relieved; his team seemed to have passed some test, the detective not just accepting their presence but amenable to input. He seized the moment and stepped to the doorway to get the widest vantage of the room. “If it’s like the Reno massacre here’s how it went down. Family’s sleeping. The killer’s watching all this from outside, can see the father go downstairs to watch the sports channel. If he came at the father from the stairwell, then the point of entry was upstairs, unless he was hiding in the house. He does his commando thing, shoots the father, leaves the rifle. Then he goes upstairs and takes out the mother, then the two girls. Every one of them dispatched as quickly as possible. Then he takes his time with the boy.”
“Jesus,” Aceves said.
Roarke was on a roll. “Even so, he’s not here long. He doesn’t stay. He’s able to keep hold of himself up front, enough to make the father’s death look like a suicide. But then it all rollercoasters. He kills in an increasing frenzy, and saves the best for last.”
The detective was looking at him in a way that didn’t quite cover his revulsion, and Roarke remembered how it used to be, working BAU, the things that would come out of his mouth that would get him that exact look from anyone in the vicinity.
“More control up front and less at the end,” Epps said, and Roarke realized he was right.
“Yeah.”
“Not good,” Epps muttered, and he was right about that, too.
Aceves spoke. “We’ll get this house processed.” And then he glanced at Lam and Stotlemyre, and back to Roarke. “We’d appreciate your guys’ help.”
Roarke walked outside into the crisp cold of the forest air, a welcome relief after the heavy smell and feel of death in the house.
A major battle won; they had access to the scene now. It was up to Lam and Stotlemyre to bring him the evidence he needed.
He breathed in and looked out over the desert. Then while his team worked inside, he circled the house. It was a beautiful piece of property, desert and forest and a glimmer of the lake in the distance. The air was so clear and thin you could get drunk on it, and the vast surprise of the desert view really did make the mountain seem like some kind of faraway island. He was shocked to find himself thinking that he could live there. He felt a relief and an excitement in the idea of finding a refuge completely off the grid, somewhere he would not have to answer to anyone. Where he could get lost and…
And what? he asked himself sharply.
Get lost for what?
Not answer to anyone for what?
The forest seemed darker, suddenly, and he remembered the grisly business he was there for. He turned his attention back to finding the killer’s vantage point.
He had no sense whatsoever that he was being watched.
Chapter Thirty
Snyder arrived in the late afternoon, driven by Jones. He emerged from the car and stood stillg— tall, lean, craggy, looking up at the house like an arctic explorer contemplating the vastness of the tundra.
The coroner had done his work and two ambulances were just pulling up to take the bodies of the the Cavanaugh family down the mountain to the coroner’s office, but Roarke begged an extra ten minutes for Snyder to see the scene.
He showed the profiler into the frigid house, now dusted in Black Dragon fingerprint powder. Number markers dotted the carpet and floors, placed at key points in the layout.
The local forensics, now plus Lam and Stotlemyre, were vacuuming and plucking and dusting and photographing, lifting footprints from dust residue, cutting carpets and bedspreads to pieces to take with them to the county lab. Everyone seemed to have warmed to the idea of expert extra hands.
Back at the Bureau’s lab all the hair and fiber and particle evidence they picked up at the Reno crime scene would be cross-checked with the Arrowhead scene. Any trace evidence that was found at both scenes would likely be from the Reaper. That would be something they could work with, a hair, a print, a bit of sand or fiber to narrow down a location.
Roarke followed behind as Snyder moved through the rooms, taking the same path that Roarke and the team had taken. Roarke could see the profiler’s eyes processing the scene, years of ingrained police procedure crossed with an uncanny sense for the worst brutality that human beings could inflict on each other. Snyder absorbed details while taking in the totality of the scene. There was nothing good about what Roarke was reading on the older man’s face.
In the boy’s room, Snyder crouched beside the savaged body like a priest administering benediction.
In the basement game room, he took in the staged suicide scene with all the agitation that Roarke himself had felt, seeing it.
Finally they moved out through the glass doors into the yard. The sky was darkening and the wind slipped softly through the pine trees above them. When Snyder turned to Roarke his face was grave.
“I don’t have to tell you. This is very alarming. The level of staging indicates both a level of pre-planning and a control during the attack that is rare and disturbing.”
Roarke asked the question that had been nagging at him all afternoon. “Is it too controlled for the Reaper? And there’s also the anomaly that this was not a full moon
, when every other kill of the Reaper’s has been on the exact night of it.”
Before Snyder could speak, Roarke voiced the objection he knew would be coming. “And I know, I know. Sexual homicide is a very personal crime. There are no copycats on the books. Even so. Could we be looking at a copycat?”
Snyder took his time answering. “The question is who? And why?” His eyes were troubled. “These crimes are significant to you, because you are pursuing crimes directly related to the Reaper’s only known surviving victim. But what copycat would suddenly start to duplicate the Reaper’s crimes, coinciding with your investigation of Cara Lindstrom’s murders? It makes no logical sense. Who would even know to do it?”
That’s the question, Roarke thought. That’s exactly the question.
“How much sense does it make that the Reaper would start killing again just as we started investigating him?” he asked tensely.
Snyder shook his head. “You don’t know when he started killing again. It could have been years ago, and you merely found the latest ones because you were looking for recent crimes.”
“But two in one month…”
“Yes. It looks like decompensation. There’s another explanation. We are fairly certain the Reaper was/is a schizophrenic. And there’s no question that as a schizophrenic, the Reaper would have been receiving mandatory drug therapy while incarcerated, and almost no doubt that he would have discontinued the medication once he jumped parole. You are going to find more anomalies showing up as his illness takes over again.”
Roarke stared at him. “But if he was recently released, that brings us back to the coincidence of starting on the investigation of the Reaper just as he began killing again.”
“I know,” Snyder said. “I don’t have any explanation. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”
Blood Moon Page 21