The Gift of the Darkness (5 page)

Chapter 7

Madison stood by the printer in the Communication Center and hoped that the quality of the picture the Photo Unit was sending would be good enough for the age alterations to be successful, if it came to that.

From the moment John Cameron's name had been mentioned in the car, it had been in her head like a low-level buzzing she could not get rid of. Her mind flashed back to the blindfolded bodies on Blue Ridge.

Like hunters of old, Madison felt her own need to see the eyes of the enemy, to get a sense of him. She tried to remember the details of the
Nostromo
killings.

Little was known for sure about how the day went down. Every crook in every bar had a favorite version. Apparently the two cops, detectives from the LAPD, had had something nasty going on with the other three. Nobody knew how Cameron fit into that, but somehow he did, because the five men had decided that he would not be coming back from the trip.

It was a glorious day in August, the sun reflecting off the gleaming deck and a fresh breeze blowing in from the sea.

Whether he knew or not, when they started off, that they had decided to kill him, John Cameron did not run when he found out. The police recovered two 9mm Glocks and three revolvers near the bodies, all with a number of rounds spent, shell casings rolling with the swells. Yet no blood except for the dead men's, no physical evidence that anybody else had ever been on the boat and no explanation of how he had left it.

A fisherman on the dock had seen six men get onto the
Nostromo,
but he could give no description. Some said Cameron drugged them, then killed them one by one; some said that he got them to shoot one another. The one known fact was that, in spite of all the ammunition spent, the men had each been killed by a single incised wound to the neck.

After that, John Cameron had disappeared. Very few even remembered what he looked like. For all you knew, the story went, he might be the guy at the end of the bar, the guy you'd just bitched with about the game.

The machine started to hum.

A couple of patrol officers she knew were walking toward her in the corridor; Madison tore out the sheet of paper with the name, stats, and picture emerging from the printer and, without looking at it, left the building and found her car in the parking lot.

Sitting in her car, she turned the sheet over and looked at John Cameron, alleged murderer of six. It was the picture of a boy, a teenager with a soft face and longish hair that would have been in style twenty years ago. The charge had been drunk driving, but he did not look under the influence. He looked somber, and Madison held his gaze. Five eleven, dark and dark, the only distinctive marks noted, the scars on his forearms and the back of his right hand. She put the photograph in an envelope with the set of fingerprints and drove off in the light rain to see James Sinclair and his family one last time.

In the four hours following the first item on television, the police switchboard received twenty-seven calls confessing to the murders: twenty-two men, five women, the closest in Spokane, the farthest in
Miami. All had to be dealt with, and all had to be exonerated. It was a pointless task and a waste of man-hours, and everybody knew it would get a lot worse.

The
Seattle Times
had given the murders the front page: a pretty photograph of the house and what little had been made public; it kept speculation to a minimum.

The
Washington Star
ran the headline “Christmastime Slaughter” with a shot of Madison holding Andrew Riley by the elbow. It speculated on the nature of the murders and gratuitously mentioned a homicide that had taken place on Blue Ridge some years before, when a little girl had accidentally shot her neighbor.

Under the spitting weather, people walked to the newsstands and went online: gradually, as if a storm was about to hit the city, windows were checked, back doors were locked, and children were told they could not play outside.

Chapter 8

Madison walked in just as Dr. Fellman completed the Y-shaped incision on the body of James Sinclair.

Fellman had already completed an extensive external examination and removed the man's pajamas. Livor mortis, the discoloration of parts of the body caused by the settling of blood, had shown that it had not been moved after death. Blood, urine, and hair samples had been collected, and oral and anal swabs taken. Nothing indicated that a sex crime had taken place, but in this kind of homicide Dr. Fellman was too experienced not to cover all the bases.

Brown was leaning against the opposite wall with a view of the autopsy table. The doctor was dictating his notes into a hanging microphone; they would take final shape in his report. His voice was a steady monotone of details and instructions to Sam, his assistant, also in green scrubs and wearing a clear plastic eye-mask.

“. . . Organs congested and slightly cyanosed. Presence of an old appendectomy. We found that the brain was swollen and engorged. The lungs appear similarly congested. Appearance consistent with prolonged inhalation of chloroform. Toxicology will confirm. See blindfold.”

Madison tapped her envelope for Brown to see. “I've got it,” she said.

“Any problems?”

“No. I have the picture, a comparison signature, and prints. Have you seen the check?”

“Yeah, Documents has it upstairs. It's pretty creased up but workable. They'll have to compare the signature before it gets dipped for prints. They're waiting for you.”

“What have they found?”

“Chloroform.” Brown looked over at the notes he had taken as Dr. Fellman was talking. “There was bruising on the zygomatic bone under his left eye, probably from the butt of a gun. Enough strength to knock him out for a few minutes but no broken bones. I guess our killer then went on to do his business with the mother and the kids. When the father came to, he was tied up, blindfolded, and inhaling the poison.”

“He struggled.” Madison could see the deep red marks around his wrists and feet from where she was standing.

“Constraints almost cut through to the bone. He struggled till his heart gave out.”

“Doctor,” Madison asked, “how long was he conscious?”

It was something that had bothered her from the start, the difference in the manner in which the death sentences had been dealt out.

“It's difficult to say. It has been known to take up to fifteen minutes for chloroform to take effect. In this quantity and proximity, I'd say a few minutes definitely. With convulsions and severe pain.”

Madison turned to Brown. “Several minutes of Sinclair thrashing around on the bed . . .” she said.

“Yet the covers were neatly turned under the bodies when they were found.” Brown nodded.

“The killer made the bed before he left.” She finished her thought.

Thus Madison saw him for the first time—the intruder, waiting for his victim to grow still, watching over him as his life ebbed away, then gently smoothing the sheets under the bodies, slightly moving this or that, until the tableau was complete. She did not recoil from
the image. In her mind, she stood silently by the door and watched him work and tried to see his face. Dr. Fellman was starting on gastric contents as she left.

Fingerprint Identification and Disputed Documents were on the second floor of the drab concrete building. Madison had visited often during a stint in Robbery and was on good terms with the technicians.

Bob Payne was in shirtsleeves and drinking rosehip tea. Madison had taken an extra course in Forensics, and that gold star went a long way with him.

“How are you doing, Detective?”

“Very well. I have the signature.”

“Documents has a copy. I couldn't wait.”

Madison took out the set of fingerprints from the envelope and gave it to Payne. He looked at the name on the top of the page.

“I see. I'll run a parallel check for exclusion, as with the family members. Points of entry, the usual.”

Madison remembered something. “Did you work the
Nostromo
?”

“For what it was worth. It was clean as a whistle. It had been completely wiped down.”

Madison could smell the strong, unpleasant, metallic odor of ninhydrin mixed with the overripe-bananas scent of amyl acetate. It was the best solution for dipping paper and would not cause the ink to run. She wasn't sorry to leave the room.

“When you see Brown, remind him this is my day off,” Payne called after her.

Wade Goodwin in Documents pushed his glasses back on his nose. “Frankly, I'd be a lot happier if we had a number of genuine originals to compare this with. You're not giving us very much to work with here, and this is a long way from standing up in court. Do you know about top-of-the-letter and bottom-of-the-letter comparisons?”

“I do,” Madison replied.

They were looking at two zigzag lines he had just drawn over the partial name.

“Well, having said all that, I think the check signature was forged.”

“Thank you,” Madison said. It was a beginning: five minutes ago they'd had nothing, and now they had a possible motive. Someone had forged a check; people had died.

On Blue Ridge the neighbors were cooperative and concerned, but nobody remembered anything unusual about Saturday night or the days before it. Even though Brown knew that the King County Prosecutor's Office wouldn't hang a mad dog on eyewitness testimony, it paid to have it on your side.

Bob Payne and his people were dusting and comparing prints from dozens of items. The process took the time it took—snapping at their heels would not make them go any faster.

Dr. Fellman compared the angles of the entry wounds on the victims who had been shot and the bruising on the father's face.

“What do you think?” Brown asked as the doctor stepped away from the operating table.

“I know what I think, and it's too damn little to help.”

“Go on.”

“The victims were lying down when they were attacked; there was hair and blood on a door frame when he moved one of the children. I'd say he's about five eleven to six one, or near enough. Right-handed and physically strong.”

“Mr. Average. It fits. From the angle of the letters incised in the wood, they were probably carved with the right hand.”

“There was no sexual activity of any kind, so no body fluids.”

The internal telephone rang, and Dr. Fellman picked up. After a few words he replaced the receiver.

“I found a few hairs in the ligature knot on Sinclair's wrists.” He snapped off his gloves. “I had them checked.”

“Whose are they?”

Fellman smiled. “Unidentified adult male's.”

“We've got
his
DNA?”

“The hairs are beautiful. Roots and everything. Couldn't ask for more.”

Dr. Fellman looked pale and drained, almost ghostly in his green scrubs. Brown shook his hand and left.

For hours he had tried to reach Nathan Quinn on his cell phone. He wanted to ask whether James Sinclair had ever mentioned John Cameron. As he sat in his car, he tried again. No answer; the phone was still off.

Brown was tired and hungry. The rain had turned to thin snow, and the air in the car was sharp.

On the way to the precinct, he stopped for a chicken sandwich and a cup of coffee and had both as he drove.

Chapter 9

Madison told Brown about the forged signature on the torn check and then drove back to Stern Tower to interview some of Sinclair's colleagues. Nathan Quinn had left the office hours before. Carl Doyle set her up in a conference room with thick pale blue carpets and a table that could seat twenty. In the window, the gray slab of Puget Sound. There was a carafe of water and glasses on a tray on the table.

“Anything I can do to help,” Doyle said as he ushered in a young associate. The woman tried her best not to cry. She was using a tissue to dab her eyes, and the mascara left black marks on it.

“I wish there was something I could tell you, but I just can't imagine anybody doing such a thing,” she said. “This is so awful.”

After a few unproductive minutes Madison let her go. “Thank you for your help. That's all I need for the moment,” she said.

She interviewed two more associates; they were all pretty much still in shock and had little more to contribute.

Carl Doyle sat down across from Madison; his eyes were red-rimmed, but he looked under control. Madison liked how he had tried to comfort some of the others; under the slightly campy manner she sensed some real strength. He ran his hands through his hair and rubbed his eyes.

“What can I tell you, Detective?”

“First, how long have you been at Quinn, Locke?”

“About ten years.”

“About the same as James Sinclair.”

“That's right. I started two months before he did.”

“Did you know him well?”

Doyle poured himself some water; he was giving the question some thought. “I don't know if I can say I did. We didn't go out for dinner or a beer, if that's what you mean, but I saw him every day. I knew when things were going badly with a case, when something good happened.”

Doyle's eyes were a sharp blue and fixed on Madison's.

“I remember when his first boy was born.”

Madison leaned forward. “What do you remember of these last few weeks? How was he?”

“There's a complex lawsuit they wanted to sort out before the holidays; all was going well with that. James was tired but okay. He was talking about going away for a few days for New Year's.”

“Was he in any way different from usual? Was there any change to his routine?”

“No.”

“Anybody come to see him who didn't look right to you?”

“No.”

Madison felt disappointment like a slow, bitter drink she had to sip over and over again.

“One last question: are you aware of a client or a friend of James Sinclair called John Cameron?”

Doyle looked at her for a long moment, the pale eyelashes blinking.

“Of course,” he said. “James has known him for years.”

“Excuse me?”

“They've known each other since they were kids.”

“How do you know that?”

“The Hoh River. They were the Hoh River boys.”

Madison hadn't heard the name for a long time but remembered it instantly. How, years after the event, her grandmother had walked
her to Rachel's house so that she wouldn't be on the street alone, not even for five minutes.

“Have you met John Cameron?” she asked.

“No, I haven't.”

“Thank you very much. That's it for now.”

Doyle left and closed the door. Madison punched in Brown's cell number and hoped to God he had it on.

“Sinclair has known Cameron for years. They're
friends
. The Hoh River kidnapping case,” Madison said.

Brown went quiet for a while; then his voice came back.

“We have DNA. There were hairs in a ligature knot. Preliminary tests indicate they don't belong to the victims.”

“Any possible characteristics for the perp yet?”

“Not much. Judging from wound trajectories, about six foot, right-handed, and strong. Dark hairs recovered from the ligature. It covers at least a quarter of the population.”

“We should talk to Quinn. He was that close to Sinclair, he must know he was friends with Cameron.”

“I've tried him all afternoon. His phone is off.”

“He's going to have to go home sometime.”

“You're three hours past the end of your shift.”

“I know. I'll come in to write up the interviews. Will Records have the file for the Hoh River case?”

“Not where you can find it this late. It's too old.”

“How late are you going to stay?”

“I still have to talk to VICAP.”

VICAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, was a database of offenders and crimes created by the FBI: if a murder in Arkansas had the same characteristics as a homicide in Maryland, the investigating authorities could compare reports and find out if they had been committed by the same individual. It was an invaluable tool, and Brown was the contact man in Seattle.

Madison got up to leave and switched off the overhead light. The view, which had been made invisible by the reflection in the window, revealed itself. From the pitch-black where the sea was,
the wind was carrying snowflakes out of the darkness and into the flickering lights of the city. Without thinking, Madison put her palm flat on the glass as if she could touch them. Beyond it, a Thing lived and breathed that had drawn crosses in blood.
I see you
, she thought.