Red Dragon - Thomas Harris [4]
He could see and hear better afraid; he could not speak as con?cisely, and fear sometimes made him rude. Here, there was nobody left to speak to, there was nobody to offend anymore.
Madness came into this house through that door into this kitchen, moving on sizeeleven feet. Sitting in the dark, he sensed madness like a bloodhound sniffs a shirt.
Graham had studied the detectives' report at Atlanta Homicide for most of the day and early evening. He remembered that the light on the vent hood over the stove had been on when the police ar?rived. He turned it on now.
Two framed samplers hung on the wall beside the stove. One said “Kissin' don't last, cookin' do.” The other was “It's always to the kitchen that our friends best like to come, to hear the heartbeat of the house, take comfort in its hum.”
Graham looked at his watch. Eleventhirty P.M. According to the pathologist, the deaths occurred between eleven P.M. and one AM.
First there was the entry. He thought about that . . .
The madman slipped the hook on the outside screen door. Stood in the darkness of the porch and took something from his pocket. A suction cup, maybe the base of a pencil sharpener designed to stick to a desktop.
Crouched against the wooden lower half of the kitchen door, the madman raised his head to peer through the glass. He put out his tongue and licked the cup, pressed it to the glass and flicked the lever to make it stick. A small glass cutter was attached to the cup with string so that he could cut a circle.
Tiny squeal of the glass cutter and one solid tap to break the glass. One hand to tap, one hand to hold the suction cup. The glass must not fall. The loose piece of glass is slightly eggshaped because the string wrapped around the shaft of the suction cup as he cut. A little grating noise as he pulls the piece of glass back outside. He does not care that he leaves AB saliva on the glass.
His hand in the tight glove snakes in through the hole, finds the lock. The door opens silently. He is inside. In the light of the vent hood he can see his body in this strange kitchen. It is pleasantly cool in the house.
Will Graham ate two DiGels. The crackle of the cellophane irri?tated him as he stuffed it in his pocket. He walked through the living room, holding his flashlight well away from him by habit. Though he had studied the floor plan, he made one wrong turn before he found the stairs. They did not creak.
Now he stood in the doorway of the master bedroom. He could see faintly without the flashlight. A digital clock on a nightstand projected the time on the ceiling and an orange night light burned above the baseboard by the bathroom. The coppery smell of blood was strong.
Eyes accustomed to the dark could see well enough. The madman could distinguish Mr. Leeds from his wife. There was enough light for him to cross the room, grab Leeds's hair and cut his throat. What then? Back to the wall switch, a greeting to Mrs. Leeds and then the gunshot that disabled her?
Graham switched on the lights and bloodstains shouted at him from the walls, from the mattress and the floor. The very air had screams smeared on it. He flinched from the noise in this silent room full of dark stains drying.
Graham sat on the floor until his head was quiet. Still, still, be still.
The number and variety of the bloodstains had puzzled Atlanta detectives trying to reconstruct the crime. All the victims were found slain in their beds. This was not consistent with the locations of the stains.
At first they believed Charles Leeds was attacked in his daughter's room and his body dragged to the master bedroom. Close examina?tion of the splash patterns made them reconsider.
The killer's exact movements in the rooms were not yet deter?rnined.
Now, with the advantage of the autopsy and lab reports, Will Graham began to see how it had happened.
The intruder cut Charles Leeds's