The Detective D. D. Warren Series 5-Book Bundle

by Lisa Gardner

  The table was old-looking, a warm-hued oak. A nice table, she was willing to bet, maybe an antique. The chairs, on the other hand, were more blue folding chairs, companions to the ones on the front porch. So the residents could afford a solid wood table, but not yet the chairs. That fit with the overall feel of the space. Freshly painted, but conspicuously empty.

  The dishes were thin white Melamine. Simple, but set off against bright red place mats and blue linen napkins. Red, white, and blue again. A theme to the household.

  “Maybe they started to argue,” Phil theorized. “They were eating together, had a few beers, then started to get into it. Maybe she tried to walk away, and that set him off.”

  D.D. nodded absently, still walking around the table. The hardwood floors appeared recently refinished, buffed to a high gloss that glimmered with hints of her own reflection as she walked across. They’d been working on this space. Sweat equity would be her guess. A working-class family building a future together, trying to get ahead during tough economic times, until …

  “Where’s Neil?” D.D. asked, referring to the third member of their homicide squad.

  “Upstairs. Top two floors are midrenovation. We think the activity was confined to this level, but then again, lots of power tools and sharp objects to account for.”

  D.D. nodded. Given the red ball call-out, she’d expected to find the scene crawling with investigators. Instead, it was pretty quiet. But three floors to search, secure, then process, that explained a lot. Plus guys would already be out, canvassing neighbors, tracking down known associates. Crime scenes like this were best worked fresh. Throw a lot of bodies at it, get in, get out, get it done.

  “What do we know about the residents?” she asked.

  “Single family. Mom, dad, three kids. Second marriage for both, so not sure yet whose kids were whose. Patrick Harrington would be head of household. Date of birth nineteen sixty-eight. Recently unemployed. Had been working for a local hardware store, but it went out of business.”

  “When?” D.D. squatted to study the area rug under the table. Neutral beige; it appeared recently vacuumed. Freshly swept porch, newly vacuumed rug. She added clean freak next to patriotic on her mental list of household traits.

  “Couple of weeks or so. Neighbor said the couple bought the whole place at a foreclosure auction eight months ago. They planned on fixing it up, using his skills and employee discount, no doubt, then they’d live in part, rent part. They just got the downstairs completed, however, when, boom, he lost his job. Goodbye, hourly wage. Goodbye, employee discount.”

  “Hello giant mortgage with no rental income,” D.D. finished for him.

  “Yep. Had to suck.”

  “So couple’s stressed.” D.D. straightened up. “What did she do?”

  “Denise Harrington worked as a receptionist at a dentist’s office. Mrs. Nancy Seers, lives across the street, said Denise got off work by three each day so she could meet the kids’ bus. That was a priority.”

  “Ages?”

  “Ummm …” Phil flipped through his notes. “Nine, twelve, and fourteen. Boy, girl, boy.”

  D.D. nodded, turned away from the table, and headed back into the kitchen. A frying pan remained on the stove. Smelled like olive oil and chicken grease. Next to it was a giant pot, like the kind used for corn on the cob or pounds of pasta. More signs of meal prep on the counters: a half-used head of lettuce, bag of carrots, partly sliced cucumber.

  She looked for additional beer cans, finding three more in the trash. She opened the refrigerator, found it fairly loaded—proof of recent grocery shopping?—with the usual assortment of bread, eggs, lunch meat, produce, and mystery meals in Tupperware. The refrigerator door yielded two dozen condiments and a half-consumed bottle of Cavit pinot grigio. No more beer. So, assuming that a six-pack had been purchased, then all six beers had been consumed.

  But six cans of Bud split between two grown adults? Or even mostly consumed by one? Not enough for a drunken rampage. She didn’t buy it.

  Jack McCabe from the ID unit had entered. He looked at the food-covered counters, sighed heavily. “It’s been photographed?” he asked.

  “It’s been photographed,” Phil assured him.

  Jack sighed again. D.D. didn’t blame him. Processing this scene would be painstaking and, most likely, unproductive. But you had to do what you had to do.

  “Start with the knife,” she told him.

  “There isn’t a knife,” Jack said, staring at the counter.

  “There has to be some kind of knife,” D.D. said, gesturing at the sliced cucumber.

  “Oh, there’s a knife,” Phil said.

  “Ah fuck,” D.D. said, and followed Phil into the hallway.

  Halfway down the hall, they encountered the first sign of blood spatter. It started midway on the high-gloss floor, then continued toward the back of the house, presumably toward the bedrooms, in a mix of spots and streaks.

  A man in a brown suit was standing farther down the hall, next to the blood trail. He appeared to be sketching the marks and the corresponding evidence placards.

  “You should see this,” he said, so D.D. and Phil walked over. “Note that the droplets actually radiate in two different directions, plus the smear marks, here and here?”

  D.D. crouched down, obediently peered at the spatter. True enough, half the droplets seemed to spray forward, the other half sprayed back, and yes, there were two distinct smear tracks, as if two items had been dragged through the bloody mess.

  “He caught her first in the bedroom,” the man was saying conversationally. “Struck the first blow. She got around him, though, and ran this way. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it.”

  “He stabbed her again?” D.D. asked, frowning.

  “No. That’d give us spray arcing across the wall as well as castoff, most likely on the ceiling, depending on the direction of the blow. He just grabbed her. By the hair maybe. Then dragged her to the back of the house, with the others, where he finished her off. See, first pattern of droplets are from her running toward the door. Second set is from her traveling the opposite direction. While the smears—”

  “Heels of her feet,” D.D. murmured.

  “Yep. Helluva thing to do to your own stepdaughter.” The man finished up his sketch, stuck out his hand. “You must be Sergeant Warren. Alex Wilson. I’m Phil’s shadow for a month.”

  D.D. glanced at Phil; he shrugged. “True, just heard it myself about thirty minutes ago. You know how it is: We’re always the last to know.”

  D.D. took the man’s hand, but she was frowning. “And your affiliation is …?”

  “Detective, back in the day. ’Bout eight years ago, I traded in fieldwork for teaching at the Academy. Been feeling a little rusty, however, so I asked permission to shadow a detective off and on for a month. Eight years is a long time in the biz. Between all the advancements in digital photography and digital fingerprinting, I’m starting to feel like a walking, talking dinosaur.”

  “You worked for the BPD eight years ago?”

  “Nope. Worked out of Amherst. Why?”

  “Just making conversation.” D.D. continued to study the man. She pegged his age for early forties, which was uncomfortably close to her own, given that he’d just referred to himself as a dinosaur. He wasn’t too tall, maybe five eleven, still relatively trim. His short dark hair was liberally sprinkled with silver, and his blue eyes crinkled at the corners when he frowned. A working man’s George Clooney. She could appreciate that.

  So, Alex Wilson from Amherst. She’d have to ask around.

  “All right, Professor. What else do you have to show us?”

  “I think it started with the wife.” Alex led them down the hallway, keeping to one side in order to avoid the blood trail. “Maybe they started arguing at dinner, dunno. But he followed her into the bedroom, got her from behind. This one was quick. One hard blow, severing the spinal column at the base of the skull. Even if she lived long enough to scream, the blow would�
��ve paralyzed her. She went down on her knees, her heart stopping before she bled out.”

  Alex passed through a doorway on the right. D.D. found herself in a fairly large bedroom furnished with a king-size mattress and two mismatched dressers that looked as if they’d been picked up at a rummage sale. The bed was topped with an old flowered quilt. Two pink-colored sheets served as curtains over the windows.

  On top of the largest dresser sat an assortment of framed photos, including an eight-by-ten of a smiling sandy-haired bride and grinning dark-haired groom. On the floor in front of the dresser was a conspicuously large dark stain covering at least a dozen floorboards. What was left of the sandy-haired bride, presumably.

  “Where’s the body?”

  “You’ll see,” Alex said. He led them back into the hall, stepped gingerly over the blood spatter and into the next bedroom. This one was smaller and painted a rich blue. Posters of Tom Brady peppered one wall, while rows of shelving containing signed footballs and various sports trophies covered the others.

  To the right, a twin mattress bore a Patriots-themed comforter. Directly ahead stood a card table that appeared to serve as a desk, with a metal chair half pushed back. Beside the chair, on the floor, loomed another dark stain.

  “Oldest son,” Alex supplied. “Maybe he heard the disturbance in his parents’ room. Stood up to take a look. To judge from the trophies, the kid’s athletic and he’s a decent size for his age. After the mom, the next logical threat. So the subject entered the room quickly and decisively. Kid’s probably still thinking, What the hell? when the subject catches him in the side, slicing between the ribs, straight into the heart.”

  “Single blow again?” D.D. asked sharply.

  “These two, yes.”

  “First in the back of the neck, then between the ribs. I’m thinking the subject has had some training,” she said.

  “I’m guessing special forces. Stabbing’s messy business, but this guy has it down to a science.”

  “All right,” D.D. said briskly. “Mom’s down. Oldest son is down. Now what?”

  “Got two left. Twelve-year-old girl, nine-year-old boy. Probably hoped to take them one at a time, but turns out both of them are in her room.”

  Alex vacated the blue room and they proceeded single file down the hallway again. This time the blood spatter turned, leading them through a doorway into a bright pink room bearing purple window valances and half a dozen posters of Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers.

  “Now things are a little more complicated here, as you can see.” Alex gestured to the floor, which was a dizzying array of spray droplets, blood pools, and yellow evidence placards. “I’m guessing, purely to judge by the condition of the bodies, that he got the boy first.”

  “Why the boy?”

  “Single mortal wound. Look at the bed.”

  D.D. belatedly realized the purple comforter wasn’t really purple. It used to be a dark pink, the original color now skewed by another sizable pool of blood, with a matching spray pattern arcing across the opposite wall.

  “The kids knew,” Alex said, more softly now, less academic. “No closets in the room. So they huddled in the corner. Brother and sister together, taking a last stand. The subject came in. He must’ve been a sight by then. Covered in back spray from hammering down the first death blow, let alone the second. Kids stood shoulder to shoulder, next to the bed.

  “Boy broke first, that’s my guess,” Alex continued. “Tried to get around the subject by springing up onto the bed. Didn’t work. Subject sliced open the kid’s throat as the boy attempted to bolt past. Game over. Girl’s probably screaming by then. But she doesn’t freeze, which is interesting. Most people facing such a scene …”

  Alex’s voice faded, then he cleared his throat, continued on: “The girl runs. Takes advantage of her own brother’s death to sprint for the front door. Of all of them, she’s the only one who gets a chance. He wounds her. Right here.” Alex pointed with his pencil to a round smeared spot. “Maybe the subject was aiming for her neck, but got her shoulder instead. The blow knocked her off balance, hence smudge here and smudge there, probably made by her feet, but she keeps on trucking, God bless her.

  “Gets halfway down that hallway, running the race of her life. And then—”

  “He catches her,” D.D. fills in, then pauses. “But doesn’t kill her? Drags her away?”

  Alex shrugged. “Who knows? She’s the last one left and he has her incapacitated. Maybe he realized he didn’t have to rush. Or maybe he just wanted her to suffer a little more. She got away. That pissed him off.”

  “Sexual assault?” D.D. asked.

  “Ask the ME. Clothing is intact. Nothing obvious.”

  “You think she’s the stepdaughter?”

  “Spitting image of the mom, doesn’t look a thing like the dad.”

  “So maybe his goal was sexual in nature. Was attracted to her, wanted her for himself.…”

  Alex looked at her.

  “Come on, I’ll show you the rest.”

  The back of the house opened onto a screened-in porch. Kind of place to hang out during the mosquito-filled summer evenings. This area obviously hadn’t been included in the renovations; several screens were ripped, the linoleum floor peeled back at the seams. But that was okay. The ripped floor was now covered in blood, while the lone piece of furniture, a broken-down futon, had, according to Alex, become the resting place of an entire family.

  “He laid them out side by side. First the mom, then the oldest son, then the daughter, then the youngest son.”

  Alex pointed toward the blood-soaked mattress, currently buzzing with flies drawn to the scent of fresh kill.

  “ME has the bodies?” D.D. asked.

  “Yeah. Given the heat and fly activity, body removal was a priority.”

  “You’re saying the daughter was killed back here, though?”

  “On the futon, I think. ME will have to analyze, but it looks like he brought her back here, then strangled her—manual asphyxiation. Patrick’s a big guy. It wouldn’t have taken him that long.”

  “Then he moved all the other bodies?”

  “I’m guessing in that order. He’d want her taken care of first, then he’d tend to housekeeping.”

  D.D. frowned, not liking it. “You’re saying the subject carried three bodies through the house to this one room. Why don’t we see more blood? Seems like we should see trails of it everywhere.”

  Alex shrugged. “ME can tell you more, but I’m guessing the bodies had already bled out. Kept the process clean.”

  D.D. frowned. “I don’t get it. We’re talking the dad, right? First he slaughters his family person by person, then he brings them together for one last family reunion?”

  “I think he was apologizing.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “If we assume the father did it, then he’s a family annihilator,” Alex stated. “Now, maybe the event started impulsively—got in a fight with the wife and it went too far. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe this is what he’d planned all along. But think of the nature of a family annihilator: Why do these guys kill?”

  D.D. looked at him. “I don’t know. Why do these guys kill?”

  “Because they think they’re doing their family a favor.”

  “Yet another reason I’m single, now that you mention it.”

  Alex smiled wryly. “Times were hard. I bet when we dig deeper, we’ll find the financial picture even bleaker. Maybe they were facing foreclosure, about to be kicked to the curb. The pressure mounts. The father starts thinking he’d be better off dead, but he doesn’t want to hurt his family. That gets him thinking that they’d be better off dead. It’s too cruel to just kill himself. So he’ll do right by them—he’ll kill them all.”

  “Shit,” D.D. said, staring down at the blood-churned floor, swatting away another buzzing fly.

  “He takes them out one by one. Then he carries each one of them back here and lays them down side by side. Maybe he prays
over them then. Or says absolution, or gives them some little speech he’s already prepared in his head. I love you, I only want what’s best for you, I’ll see you soon. Then he picks up the twenty-two and taps one to the forehead.”

  “He shot himself?” Phil spoke up. “Pussy.”

  “True. Especially given that he didn’t get the job done.”

  D.D. did a double take: “Are you saying—”

  “Yep. Father’s undergoing surgery now at Mass General. With any luck, they’ll save him. Then we can nail his ass.”

  “The father’s still alive,” D.D. murmured, looking at the blood, waving away the hungry flies. She finally smiled. It was a distinctively wolfish expression on her face. “I think we’re gonna have some fun with this after all.”

  They were walking back toward the front of the house, past the dining room, when it came to her. She drew up short. Belatedly, Phil and his shadow followed suit.

  “Hey, Professor,” she said. “I got a question for you.”

  Alex arched a brow, but waited.

  “Okay, so father kills the mother, the fourteen-year-old boy, the nine-year-old boy, and the twelve-year-old daughter, then shoots himself in the forehead.”

  “Current theory, yes.”

  “Based upon blood evidence.”

  “Based upon preliminary exam of the blood evidence, yes.”

  “It’s an impressive analysis,” she told him. “Very well done. I can tell that you’re hell on wheels in the classroom.”

  Alex didn’t say a word, which confirmed that he was as smart as he looked.

  “But there’s another major piece of evidence.”

  “Which is?”

  “The dining room.”

  Alex and Phil turned toward the dining room.

  Phil asked the question first: “What about the dining room?”