The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [58]
Next they brought in the lights. The 500-watt quartz light that helped highlight unseen hair and fibers. The ultraviolet radiation light with a 125-watt blue bulb to fluoresce hair, fiber, and body fluid. The blue-green luma light also to reveal hair, fiber, body fluids, and fingerprints. Finally they even dragged in portable laser lights and infrared. All the toys the CPAC boys never got to play with, never had the resources for, that were now being offered up to them from other states, other agencies, and the FBI.
Half the state police force looked under every stone and twig for the elusive Jim Beckett while the other half dismantled his house in search of evidence of his crimes. Their first discovery was a six-month supply of birth control pills stuffed behind a piece of insulation in the attic, right over the boxes labeled
SAMANTHA’S OLD CLOTHES, TWO MONTHS.
“They’re mine,” Theresa told them. Her gaze rested on Difford. “I got them from a clinic in North Adams. He wanted a second child. I couldn’t . . . I just couldn’t.” She added without thinking, “Please don’t tell Jim. You have no idea what he can do.”
Then, her own words penetrating, she sank down onto the sofa. One of the officers, a victim trauma expert, sat down next to her and placed an arm around her shoulders.
In the front hall closet they found a family pack of condoms. Theresa said Jim never used them, so the condoms were sent off to the lab for the latex to be analyzed and compared with residue found in the victims. They also discovered five baseball bats and a receipt for an even dozen. Later, analysis of the fireplace ashes revealed wood compatible with the kind used in the bats, plus a chemical compound reminiscent of the glaze finish.
They also recovered four test tubes containing premeasured amounts of a blue liquid identified as the sleeping drug Halcion, as well as the Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties, a virtual bible of most drugs, their manufacturers, their properties, and side effects.
In the attic, tucked behind a loose board, they retrieved a stun gun and a rubber mallet. But they couldn’t find any direct links between Jim Beckett and the victims. Not the trophies serial killers were liable to take, or any traces of blood or hair.
What they did find was copies of files requested by Beckett from Quantico’s Training Division. The files contained the profiles and interviews of several serial killers. Beckett had gone through and marked them up with such notes as HIS FIRST MISTAKE. HIS SECOND MISTAKE. THAT WAS SLOPPY.
At the end they found one last summary comment: DISCIPLINE IS THE KEY.
And the week turned into six months without any sign of Jim Beckett.
Now Difford rose off the sofa. He looked out the window of the safe house and identified the unmarked patrol car keeping guard across the street. He checked the front door and then, because he still remembered what had happened that one dark night, would always remember what happened that night Beckett returned for his revenge, Lieutenant Difford checked the closet.
All was clear.
He walked down the hall of the tiny bungalow and opened the last bedroom door. Samantha Beckett slept in a puddle of moonlight, her face soft and smooth and surrounded by beautiful golden hair. Difford leaned against the doorjamb and just watched her.
She looked so unbelievably tiny. She still cried for her mommy. Sometimes she even cried for her daddy. But she must have a lot of Theresa’s blood in her, because at four years of age she was also a real trooper. Most afternoons the kid beat the pants off him in dominoes.
Difford sighed. He did feel old, but maybe these were the days for it.
“God, Theresa, I hope you know what you’re doing,” Difford muttered.
He tucked the blankets beneath Samantha’s chin, then finally closed the door.
“I failed your mom,” he confessed in the hush of the darkened hallway. “But I won’t fail you, kid. I swear, I won’t fail you.”
He sat down in the living room, the light on, his police revolver across his knee.
He still couldn’t bring himself