Live to Tell - Lisa Gardner [74]
“If Hermes walks in, why taser him?” Alex pointed out. “Someone walks in on a shooting, the perpetrator fires off an extra round. The perpetrator doesn’t set down the gun and dig through his pockets for a new weapon.”
“True, true.”
“I think Hermes went first,” D.D. agreed. “Perpetrator incapacitates the most obvious threat—the father—by stunning him multiple times.”
“Not exactly foolproof,” Alex commented. “Especially a hard-core drug addict. I’ve seen guys stunned half a dozen times and they’re still screaming bloody murder.”
D.D. chewed her lower lip. Considered it. “Given that Tasers are illegal in Mass., maybe our perpetrator has a truly illegal, illegal Taser. Meaning, as long as he was acquiring a black market Taser, he got one with super-sized voltage. For the military, commercial grade, etc. Maybe custom cartridges, which would explain why no confetti was left behind. For a buck fifty, you can buy just about anything on the black market. Why not a super-volt Taser, guaranteed to silently incapacitate your problem, while leaving no evidence behind?”
The more D.D. thought about it, the more she liked it. “Higher voltage might also explain Hermes’s massive coronary event,” she continued. “He wasn’t just hit by a Taser, he was hit by a Taser.” She glanced at Neil. “Any way the ME can study the burn patterns on Hermes’s chest to estimate size of the hit?”
“I have no idea,” Neil said, “but I can ask.”
“All right. Back to where we were. We know a Taser is being used, and it was strong enough to kill at least one man. So we’ll assume that’s part of the perpetrator’s plan. Incapacitate the father figure with a Taser. Next up is the second adult—the mother. She’s ambushed in the kitchen with a knife. Another silent weapon, maybe an attempt on the perpetrator’s part to remain undetected for as long as possible. Once someone notices, however—”
“Ishy, in the hallway,” Alex said.
“Yeah. Now the subject has to move fast. Ishy’s raising the alarm, there are two other kids capable of bolting for the neighbors’. The subject’s gotta tamp down, or the whole scene will spiral out of control.”
“So the subject grabs a gun—”
“One he’s taken off Hermes?” D.D. questioned.
“Unregistered, so no way to determine,” Alex said. “But subject has a gun and now it’s quick and dirty business. Fumbles the first shot with Ishy, but makes it right with the second. Then hits the girls’ room. Boom. Boom. Kids are done. It’s down the hall to the last member of the family.”
D.D. nodded. “All right. But the last member of the Laraquette family is a five-month-old baby. Infants can’t talk or bear witness. Why kill the baby?”
Neil and Alex were both silent for a minute, contemplating the matter.
“He has to kill the baby,” Alex said at last. “Because it has to be the whole family. It’s a script, remember? The family must be dead and the father must appear to have done it. So the baby must die. Then Hermes must be moved to the sofa and posed accordingly. It’s what the killer does. What he needs.”
“Not a gangland hit,” D.D. said slowly. “Because in a gangland hit, the shooter would want to take credit. He’d want it known that he’d eliminated his rival’s entire family, to strike fear into the hearts of other up-and-coming drug dealers. Plus, he wouldn’t mess around with four different weapons. Too much fuss. This isn’t about revenge. This is something deeper, something more personal to the killer.”
“A reenactment,” Alex murmured.
D.D. frowned, uncomfortable, not sure why. “Hermes’s death screwed it up. He was supposed to be stunned unconscious. Then, when the rest of the family had been eliminated, the killer could return, move Hermes to the sofa, wrap Hermes’s fingers around the gun, and complete the final act in the story. But Hermes had a heart attack, breaking with the script, and giving us our first clue.”
Alex said suddenly, “Hermes had the gun on him.”
D.D. and Neil turned to him. “How do you figure?”
“Because the gun has to come from inside the home. It’s part of the pattern, and