“Anything else you care to extort from me?” he asked. Shannon ignored him and instead told him that Gibson was being investigated by the Wichita police for sexually abusing his daughters. That warmed Daniels up a bit. At least it chipped away some of the frost.
“I had those same vibes when I met them,” he said. “Both of them smelled wrong. Especially the mother. I was wondering if you’d pick up on that also. How’d you convince the Wichita police to take this on?”
“I got lucky,” Shannon said, then he gave Daniels a full rundown of his trip to Wichita, including the conversations he had with Eric Wilson and Detective Don Chase, and the later one he had with their chief.
“So they’re also looking into Gibson being involved with the murders,” Daniels said, his voice barely guttural.
“Not just him. The mother also.”
“I’ll call their captain later and put more pressure on him, make sure he doesn’t let this slide. I’ll have the DA call also.” He looked hesitantly at Shannon. “What do you think? Could they’ve done that to their daughter themselves, or paid someone to?”
“They had to’ve been worried about the sexual abuse being exposed,” Shannon said. “And the mother’s not playing with a full deck.”
“Yeah, but to kill their own daughter?”
“It’s possible. I’ve seen worse.”
“Yeah, I know, but still… what’s your gut saying?”
Shannon shook his head. “I don’t think they had anything to do with the murders. But at least if the police dig hard enough they’ll find something to send Gibson away for sexually abusing his daughters. It’s not enough, but it’s something.”
“Yeah, I agree about it not being enough,” Daniels said. “When I think about what that girl went through it makes me sick. Raped by her dad for years, then when she finally has a chance to make a life for herself, she’s butchered like a side of beef.” He sighed heavily, pushed a hand through his hair. “Alright, let me show you the crime scene photos. I just hope this doesn’t fuck up the case.”
Shannon knew there was no chance of that. As a licensed private investigator he could be shown all of their confidential police reports involving the murders without it effecting a future trial. But he also knew the reason for Daniels’ reluctance. The beating the Boulder police had been taking in public opinion was brutal and he knew the last thing they wanted was for it to be reported that they enlisted the aid of a private investigator to bail them out. As he followed Daniels through the station, the police lieutenant walked stiffly, making sure Shannon could tell how much of an imposition this was for him.
“I’m not looking to get my name in the papers,” Shannon told him.
Daniels turned back and raised an eyebrow at him.
“If I find out who’s responsible for these murders I’m deferring to you and the Boulder Police Department. I don’t care about getting my name out there, and I don’t want the publicity.”
“That’s up to you,” Daniels said gruffly, but a weight seemed to roll off his shoulders. He showed a bemused smile as he asked why Shannon didn’t want the free advertising the publicity would bring.
“I’m thinking this might be the last investigation I take on,” Shannon said.
That caught Daniels by surprise. “Because of the beating you took? It doesn’t look too bad right now.”
“Yeah, it could’ve been worse. No teeth knocked out or broken bones at least. But I have my better half to think about. Five years ago the two of us went through a lot back in Boston, and I don’t want to put her through anything more.”
Daniels considered Shannon through narrow red-rimmed eyes. After a while he shook his head. “You ain’t quitting,” he said. “This work’s in your blood.”
Shannon laughed at that. “You’re the second cop the past week who’s told me that. Fuck, I’ll get a transfusion if I have to.”
“Yeah, I doubt that would do any good.” Daniels opened the door to an interrogation room and waited for Shannon to lead the way in. After Shannon took a seat at the table, Daniels removed a stack of photos from the folder he was carrying and tossed them onto the table.
The photos showed the full savagery of the murders. Several taken from different angles showed Linda Gibson lying naked face down in the living room with the back of her head bashed in and red dots of blood spotting her body like freckles. A trail of blood smudges could be seen leading from her body to the bedroom. From the frontal pictures taken at the morgue, the left side of her face had been caved in and her eye knocked out of its socket. The photos of Taylor Carver were worse, his head nothing more than a bloody pulp. His body lay in a fetal position inside the bedroom about five feet from the door. He was also naked, his skin a pale bluish white in contrast to the red blood streaks across his body. Splatters of blood speckled the bedroom walls and small bone fragments littered the floor. A sheet lay crumpled on the floor next to Carver’s body. It looked as if it had been dipped in red paint.
Shannon looked away from the photos, asked, “Was only Carver’s blood found in the bedroom?”
“Nope. We found both of theirs on the walls and carpet. Mostly only her blood in the hallway and living room, but we did find some drops of his.”
“Any blood from a third party?”
Daniels shook his head.
“What about her eye?”
“What about it?”
Holding his annoyance in check, he asked whether it had been found.
Daniels showed a grim smile. “The perps didn’t take it as a trophy, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was found under the bed.”
Shannon looked again at the photos taken from inside the bedroom. Other than Carver’s dead body and the gore splattered across the carpeting and walls, the room looked untouched. A large flat panel TV could be seen hanging opposite the bed, along with what looked like expensive stereo equipment next to it. “Anything stolen from the apartment?” he asked.
“Not that we can tell.”
“Do you mind showing me the medical examiner’s report?”
Daniels hesitated for a moment, but fished the report out of the folder and handed it to Shannon. He read through it quickly. Carver had been struck over thirty times with a blunt instrument, at least ten times in the head, the rest along his torso. Linda was hit once on the left side of her face with enough force to kill her, and four times on the back of her skull.
“So what’s your theory?” Daniels asked, his face once again a hard granite mask.
“A baseball bat was used?”
Reluctantly, Daniels nodded.
“Did you find it?”
“Nope. Probably in a landfill somewhere. Assuming only one bat was used.”
Shannon’s expression was impassive as he again studied the photos of Taylor Carver lying in a fetal position and Linda Gibson face down with her arms stretched out by her side.
“One person did this,” he said. “The killer attacked Carver first. Linda probably tried to stop him and he struck her near fatally on the side of the face. Must’ve thought he either knocked her out or killed her and went back to beating Carver. At some point she crawled away, and when he realized she was missing he found her halfway across the living room floor and finished her off with those four blows to the back of her head. He then went back to the bedroom and used the sheet to wipe the blood off his bat.”
“It could’ve been that way,” Daniels admitted. “Also could’ve been more than one killer.”
“Any indication that Linda was sexually assaulted? Or Carver, for that matter?”
Daniels made a face. “No indication with Carver. That’s a hard question to answer about Gibson. It appears they were interrupted in the middle of intercourse. There was a lot of bruising around her vaginal area, but it could’ve been caused by Carver. The only semen found on her came from him. There were no bruises on her wrists or ankles to suggest she was forcefully restrained.”
“While it’s possible more than one person was involved, I’d bet money against it. This looks like pure blind rage. Someone broke in there to get Carver, and Linda had the bad luck of being there with him. If there were two or more people involved, whoever followed Linda when she crawled out of the bedroom would have to be one sadistic cold-hearted sonofabitch to let her go on as long as she did, and I don’t see any evidence that there was an intention to torture either of them. This was brutal, but it was more to kill than to inflict pain.”