Collecting the Dead (24 page)

“He came because of the list.” Jimmy’s shaken. The words are heavy in his mouth, spilling into the room like bitter water, every syllable overenunciated. He thinks we should have foreseen this, prevented it.

He’s right. We should have.

“There’s nothing we could have done,” I say, tasting the bitterness.

“Why his eyes, his finger?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a message.” I shrug. “Maybe he just didn’t like the fact that Chas saw his list, so he cut out the offending parts. He’s a serial killer; he doesn’t need a reason.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jimmy shoots back. “Serial killers are driven by reasons. Just because we find them unfathomable doesn’t mean they don’t exist.” He pauses, staring at the empty vessel that was once Chas Lindstrom. “Trust me, he had a reason.”

As we stand by Chas’s body, empty of words, Noble Wallace comes through the front door with a young assistant from the medical examiner’s office on his heels. Behind them is Sheriff Gant, looking beaten and weary.

“Helluva thing,” he says as he comes up between Jimmy and me. He shakes his head, his big shoulders slumped. In a quiet voice he says, “We’re getting our asses kicked here, you know that, right?”

“Sorry, Walt,” Jimmy mutters.

“It’s not
your
fault,” the sheriff replies quickly. “You two have done one helluva job. More than we could have hoped for. I’m just stating the obvious.” He buries his hands in his jacket pockets. “We’re getting our asses kicked.”

Nob does a quick inspection of the body, noting the bindings, the missing finger, the missing eyes; the obvious. With the help of his assistant, Mark, he tips the body on its side. The advancing rigor mortis holds the limbs in position, like turning a fiberglass mannequin. It’s grotesque in its rigidity.

“No obvious puncture wounds,” Nob notes, running his gloved fingers along the back. “No powder marks. The blood appears to be limited to his face, neck, and shoulders, except for some splatter.” With a pair of scissors he cuts away Chas’s shirt and peels it from the body. “Bag that,” he tells Mark as he hands over the shirt.

“Lividity suggests he died right here, or was placed here soon after death.” Nob points out the purplish red skin discoloration where the blood has settled to the lower portions of the body as it lay on the floor, pulled down by gravity and the absence of a heartbeat.

Lividity
.

Another fancy word used in the death industry. It’s Latin for “black and blue” and is related to the word
livid
; which is why you can say
He was livid
, or
He was so mad he was blue in the face
, and you’re really saying the same thing.

*   *   *

The next half hour is a blur of activity as the crime scene investigators arrive and start setting up. The town house is secured front and rear and it’s not long before a crowd develops and the media arrives.

For my part there’s little to be done. Sad Face came in the front door and left the same way. He confronted Chas only feet from where he beat and killed him, and the only other place he went was into the kitchen, to the sink, where he washed the blood from his hands. He was careful to clean the sink thoroughly, and the shine on the bottle of bleach in the cupboard below tells me we won’t find any DNA.

Smart.

Before leaving he opened the fridge and I can see where he grasped the plastic rings on a six-pack of Coke, holding it in place or picking it up, I can’t tell which. One can’s missing, though. And he was careful to wipe away any prints.

I’m standing just outside the living room when Dr. Wallace finishes his site work and sends Mark to the van for a body bag and a gurney. Nob collects his work bag and takes a seat at the dining room table, where he carves out some notes and a few reminders.

Chas is alone.

That bothers me, for some reason; it always has. In my mind I picture loved ones in anguish over the news of such a death; I hear the flurry of questions:
Did they suffer? Where are they now? Are they alone?
When we lose someone, there’s something troubling about them being alone. We know they’re dead. It shouldn’t matter if they’re alone. But it does.

I move close to Chas and kneel beside him, muttering a small prayer. I stay with him until Mark comes back in and parks the gurney next to us. As he’s unfolding the body bag, I say, “Give me a minute,” and dig my iPhone from my pocket.

I snap a quick photo: another picture for the Book of the Dead.

Mark gives me a quizzical look.

“I collect them,” I say in a flat voice.

“You collect pictures of the dead?”

“It’s so I remember the ones I’ve failed.” It takes him a second to realize my meaning and then his face goes ashen and he drops his eyes. He wants to say something but can’t, and so I leave him to his task.

As I head for the front door, it catches my eye: a weeping wound on seasoned wood, but wood doesn’t bleed. It’s there for all to see, yet still invisible to the detectives and crime scene investigators milling about.

It’s only a spot, but it’s fresh … and it’s all Sad Face.

My partner is engrossed in conversation with a detective near the stairs, something about Chas’s eyes, something I probably don’t want to hear. I have to prod him a couple times before I get his attention—and then he looks annoyed, like it’s my fault I found evidence that could be crucial to the investigation.

“What?” Jimmy whispers forcefully after I drag him into the hall.

I tip my head to the front left leg of the hall table. He doesn’t see it at first, so I crouch and draw a circle in the air around it. He crouches beside me, still looking, and then his eyes go wide.

“His?”

I nod.

We’re like an old married couple that way: one-word conversations, gestures, the occasional grunt, and constantly finishing each other’s sentences.

“We’re going to need—”

“CSI,” I say, pushing myself upright. “I’ll get Palmer.”

Terry Palmer is a twelve-year veteran of the sheriff’s office and a certified CSI for the last five of those years. Like in a lot of jurisdictions, he’s a deputy first. The CSI part of his job is a collateral duty, like a pair of fancy shoes you only wear on special occasions.

“I’ve already taken a dozen blood samples from around the body,” he’s saying as I lead him into the hall. “I don’t think another’s going to make much difference.”

“This one’s different,” I insist.

“How so?”

There’s the rub.

I can’t very well say,
Because it has Sad Face’s shine all over it.
He would instantly have two questions:
What’s shine?
followed closely by,
What kind of meds are you on?

It’s the worst part of my job: keeping up the charade. I’m convinced that good lying is something you’re either born with or not. I’m in the
not
category and it’s usually Jimmy who has to come to the rescue with a good lie.

Still, I’ve gotten pretty good at the tracking lie because I don’t have to say much, just look at the ground, shine a flashlight, outline a heel print with my finger, and generally pretend that I know what I’m doing. It helps that I’ve gotten better at
real
tracking skills. I try to incorporate them into each search as much as possible, but it’s still the shine that shows me the way.

That doesn’t get me any closer to answering Terry Palmer’s question, though.

Looking down the hall to the front door, then to the kitchen, then down at the single red drop of abundant DNA, I race for the lie … only to be rescued by the truth.

It just pops into my head.

I don’t know why I didn’t realize it before.

“After killing Chas,” I say without missing a beat, “Sad Face went into the kitchen. You found evidence of blood in the sink, right?”

“We did.”

“Probably from him cleaning up; he had to have blood on his hands, maybe on his shirt, on his face—”

“—in his hair,” Jimmy adds.

“He made a bloody mess of Chas and some of that had to transfer.” I rest my hands on my hips and nod toward the kitchen. “So he’s at the sink cleaning up, and after he’s done he wipes everything down so there’s no DNA to work with, no evidence of blood.”

“He used bleach to wash everything down,” Terry confirms. “You can smell it when you get close. It’s everywhere.”

I know.

“And why would he use bleach if all the blood came from Chas?” I press.

Terry pauses, confounded. After a moment, he says the obvious: “He wouldn’t. He must have cut himself during the struggle.”

“Or Chas cut him. Either way, he’s now worried about leaving his DNA behind. Which means his DNA profile is already in the system.”

“Or he thinks it’s in the system,” Jimmy adds.

I give Jimmy a nod and continue. “I’m guessing he didn’t dump bleach on the carpet because it’s one big blood spot and the chance of his DNA being pulled from a random, cross-contaminated sample is almost beyond calculation.”
It’s starting to make more sense now.
“He was worried about dripping blood across the kitchen floor, though, and in and around the sink, hence the bleach.”

Taking a step backward, I gesture at the hall table. “Take a look at the blood drop. What side of the leg is it on?”

Terry frowns. “The side facing the kitchen.”

“Right. So after cleaning up it only makes sense that he’d leave the kitchen, come down this hall—”

“—and out the front door,” Terry finishes, “flinging a single drop from his hand, or maybe his forearm, as he passed the table. But that doesn’t mean the blood belongs to the killer,” he adds quickly. “He could have had some of Chas’s blood on a sleeve or elsewhere that he just missed.”

“He just finished cleaning every speck of blood from the kitchen sink and counter, then wiped it all down with bleach; do you really think he was careless enough to miss wet blood on his sleeve or arm?”

“It’s possible. He’d be in a hurry, more likely to make a mistake.”

I shake my head, now confident in my theory. “No. He bloodied his knuckles, or maybe Chas got a few blows in before he was subdued. Maybe a scratch, a torn fingernail, a bite; there are a thousand ways to draw blood in a fight, especially when you’re fighting for your life.”

Terry’s still skeptical.

“So he does a big cleanup job to hide his DNA but doesn’t realize he’s still bleeding all over the place?”

“Not all over the place,” I correct. “It’s just one drop; just one. I’ve checked the rest of the hall, the entry, and the kitchen: nothing. Just the one drop.”

Terry screws his mouth up, pushing his lips off to the left, then off to the right. After a few seconds he says, “All right.” Retrieving a cotton swab, he dampens it and kneels next to the leg of the table, gently rehydrating the blood and gathering it in the cotton fibers.

“I’d like to send that sample to the FBI lab, if you don’t mind,” Jimmy says.

Terry snorts. “Be my guest. The state lab is so overloaded it’d take months to get a response, and that’s if we’re given priority status.”

“We’re seeing the same thing everywhere,” Jimmy says. “Too much DNA, not enough qualified lab techs.”

“What makes you think the FBI lab will get it done quicker? I heard you guys are backed up worse than the state labs.”

“We are,” Jimmy replies. “But the STU gets priority processing.” Jimmy scratches down an address and hands the paper to Terry. “I wrote it down, but make sure you include the words ‘STU Priority’ and send it to the attention of Janet Burlingame.”

“STU Priority … Burlingame,” Terry says, glancing over the note. “And the results go to this Diane person?”

“Diane Parker. She’s our intelligence analyst. I’ll have her shoot you the original after she’s finished with it.”

“Roger that.”

As Jimmy and I make our way to the front door, Terry calls out, “A hundred bucks says it’s the victim’s blood.”

Jimmy and I stop instantly, like two bugs smacking the same windshield.

See, in law enforcement, a statement like that is the same as a double-dog dare. You’re saying the results are going to be
this
way, the forensic guy is saying it’s going to be
that
way.

As one, we turn in our shoes: two slow cogs on the same gear. Terry shoots us a big grin and then winks. The wink just makes it worse. I’m thinking that Jimmy and I are on the same page, which is to accept the bet and take the cocky bastard’s bill.

Apparently I’m mistaken.

Instead of hearing,
You’re on,
or
We’ll take that bet,
Jimmy simply shrugs and says, “Professional courtesy. I can’t steal your money.”

Terry chuckles. “Yeah, you know I’m right.”

Ooooo!
Sometimes I could just smack Jimmy. Come to think of it, sometimes I
do
smack Jimmy.

*   *   *

Redding is wearing on me.

Don’t get me wrong, the city is fabulous and I’d love to come back under better circumstances. It’s surrounded by mountains and beauty and has wonderful architecture, including the Sundial Bridge, an impressive city hall, and the Market Street Promenade, just to name a few.

I see it all in passing.

You get a different view of a city when you’re chasing a serial killer; it usually involves police stations, morgues, body dumps, and the seedier side of town.

We’ve only been back in Redding four days, but it feels like forty.

We’ve learned a lot and seen too much. We’re exhausted, our minds weighed down by the dead. After the scare with Jane and Pete, Jimmy just wants to see them and hold them. To say that we’re unfocused and unsettled and that our mojo’s been stolen by a serial killer who’s as brazen as he is ruthless would be an understatement.

At five-thirty Jimmy makes the call.

We’re heading home … but just for a day or two.

We’re not done with Sad Face.

Not even close.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

July 2

The view from Big Perch is magnificent year-round.

Each season has its own splash of color, but summers are particularly glorious. Today is no exception. By noon the sun starts baking the west-facing deck, and I’m forced to retreat under the awning to avoid an unpleasant case of sunburn. The Pacific Northwest isn’t exactly known for its sunburns, but when you have northern blood, as I do, it doesn’t take much to crisp the skin.