Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [21]
“You’re looking at those little marks on their arms. Any idea what might have made them?”
“Stun gun.”
“A stun gun? You think he—”
“Stunned his victims? Yes, so they could be easily and quietly tucked into the van. They work by giving an electrical charge to the victim. If the charge is strong enough, it can knock a grown man to his knees, but not necessarily knock him out. So you can be rendered totally helpless but be conscious, or semiconscious, depending on how high the current is. The current runs between two prongs that hold the electrodes, and if the prongs come in contact with the skin, they can leave small marks that look like burns. Like these on the backs of our victims’ arms.” He shuffled through the stack of photographs. “Which explains why neither Kathleen Garvey nor Amy Tilden appeared to have struggled. Of course, we’ll have to wait until the Meyer autopsy is finished to see if there are similar marks on her.”
“But there won’t be, will there? That’s why he roughed her up so badly. He hadn’t been able to stun her.”
“My guess is that he might have taken her by surprise, and she could have reacted before he did.”
“You mean, kicked him or punched him . . .”
“. . . or possibly knocked the stun gun out of the way. He isn’t used to having to fight for what he wants. He’s been taking the easy way, and it’s been working quite nicely for him up until now.”
“I guess that could have made him angry enough to work her over the way he did.” Kendra sighed. “Sometimes I hate this job.”
“Why do it, then? Don’t you have a degree in art history and a minor in communications?”
“I’m lucky. I’ve always had a talent for drawing faces. I took some studio courses when I was in college, and even flirted with the idea of becoming a painter for a time.”
“Then surely there are other ways for you to make a living.”
“Yes, but nothing that would give me the same sense of satisfaction I get when a sketch I’ve made results in a good arrest. I remember very clearly how I felt when my brother’s murderer was brought to trial and was convicted. Sentencing Webster to life in prison would not bring back Ian and Zach. But at least their killer would pay a price for what he’d done to them. To what he’d done to the people who loved them. Every victim deserves justice,” she said quietly. “Everyone who has lost someone they loved deserves to have all the doors closed behind them, so that they can get on with the rest of their lives. Everyone deserves closure. This is the only way I know to help others to find it.”
Closure of a kind, Adam knew, that had eluded Kendra for years.
“My mother went to her grave not having found my brother’s body. We never knew what really happened to him. How he died, or where. A man had been tried and convicted of his murder, but he never admitted a thing, never gave us a thing.” She looked up at Adam from across the table. “One of the reasons why I’ve never believed she committed suicide. She wouldn’t have chosen to leave this life while his body was still out there.”
“What were the others?”
“The others?”
“The other reasons.”
“She wouldn’t have left me. My mother and I were very close. She was my best friend. We had gone through so much together. My father’s illness . . . his death . . . my brother’s murder, the trial . . .” Kendra swallowed hard. “She used to say that we were survivors, that our grief bound us as much as our love and our blood. There is no way in hell she would have chosen to leave me behind to deal with the pain of losing her. She and I had been to that well too many times together. She would never have made me go alone. She never would have taken her life and left me to wonder why.”
“What do you think happened, then?”
Kendra shrugged.
“I have no idea. I was hoping the police could tell me. That was their job, to study the evidence, then tell me what happened.”
“I’m sure they believed they did that, Kendra.”
“They were wrong,” she snapped. “She wouldn’t