Live to Tell - Lisa Gardner [75]
“Patrick lived,” D.D. pointed out.
“The risk you take with a twenty-two,” Alex countered. “But the gun was registered to Patrick, remember? That’s all he owned, and I bet if we ask his neighbor Dexter, he’ll agree that Patrick was conscientious about handgun safety in a household with three kids. I bet he kept the twenty-two in a lockbox. So the killer had to wait to access it and use it. Hermes, on the other hand—”
“Probably had it stuffed in the waistband of his jeans,” D.D. finished for him. “Lucky he didn’t blow off his nuts.”
“Lucky he ate so much fast food, and suffered a heart attack.”
“So now all we have to do is find some kind of link between the Harringtons and the Laraquette-Solis family,” D.D. said. “And figure out why someone’s idea of fun is murdering entire families. Then we catch him. Preferably in time for the five o’clock news. Ideas?”
She looked at Alex, he looked at Neil. Neil looked back at her.
“Trace evidence,” Neil said finally, with a small shrug. “Hair, fiber, prints, some link between the two crime scenes.”
“Look for parking tickets,” Alex offered. “Subject had to come and go, and let’s face it, parking in the city is a bitch, especially during the summer months.”
“Footprints outside the windows.” Neil again, getting into the spirit of things. “Subject probably scoped out the place first.”
Alex’s turn: “Reinterview the neighbors. To pull off something this sophisticated, the perpetrator had to have reconned. Did any of them notice the same car driving around the block several times? Or a new face suddenly taking walks in the morning, only to disappear again? Guy had to get his intel somehow.”
D.D. wrote down the list, added two of her own: ballistics, in case the slugs bore any similar markings between the two scenes, and also the ME’s report on Patrick Harrington. If he had Taser burns on his chest, the scenes were linked. No doubt in her mind.
“Neil,” she said, tapping that last item, “get back to the ME for us, will you? Couple of days is too long to wait for Ben to reexamine Patrick. We need the ME’s report tomorrow morning at the latest, even if it’s only his preliminary opinion. But this matters. Matters a lot.”
Neil nodded, then there was a rap on the door. Phil stuck his head in.
“Miss me?” the third member of their squad asked. “I’ve been looking all over the damn place for you. What’s with the conference room?”
“More space,” D.D. said. “Neil caught a break from the ME. Turns out Hermes Laraquette actually died from a Taser, and the whole suicide-on-the-sofa thing was staged. Now we just gotta link the Harrington scene to the Laraquette-Solis scene and we’ll be able to prove we’re looking for a single predator who likes to reenact family annihilations. Why? What’d you do with your afternoon?”
“Tell me you love me.”
“Is this more or less than I love a medium rare cheeseburger?”
“Definitely more. I’ve linked the Harringtons to the Laraquette-Solis family. Remember the Laraquettes’ four-year-old girl with the cuts all over her limbs?”
D.D. nodded her head; not an easy thing to forget.
“Child services was called, and the girl was taken into temporary state care, and guess what? Mommy and Daddy aren’t the ones who hurt her. She does it to herself. A form of self-mutilation that has something to do with compulsion, depression, anxiety, yada yada yada. To make a long story short, the girl can’t stop slicing her own skin. Uses everything from sharpened twigs to paper clips to the tabs from Coke cans. Well, nine months ago, Tika got her hands on a disposable razor and starting working on her neck. By the time Mommy noticed, girl was covered in blood. Mom rushed her to the emergency room, where she was diagnosed as an immediate threat to herself and