From the end of the block Jake saw the police cruiser parked at the curb, lights blinking, yellow lines of tape strung out in the web of a giant 1950s science fiction film spider. A police officer stood on the lawn, just back from the perimeter, his back to a bunch of kids that were milling about. Jake recognized the posturing gestures of a man trying to look like he is in charge. It was a few hundred feet before he recognized the officer as Spencer.
Hauser rolled to the curb and both men rose from the interior, Hauser in his crisp khakis, Jake in a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. As they moved toward the police line, the children’s attention focused briefly on Hauser but quickly shifted to Jake, eyes going wide at the ink covering his arms and creeping out of the collar of his T-shirt. Many of them backed up from their positions near the tape. Spencer held up the yellow line of defense as Hauser and Jake crossed under.
The cloud cover had lost a little of its translucency and the lawn had grown dark. The house shifted in hue with the overlay of clouds, and Hauser and Jake led Spencer away from the line of children waiting at the yellow tape like a contingent of the world’s tiniest paparazzi.
Hauser faced the house, locked his jaw, and spoke through clenched teeth. “Please tell me what’s going on.”
Spencer had the same eerie complexion he had had last night at the house up the beach, his pale skin pulsing blue and red in the lights of the cruiser parked at the curb. This afternoon it was mixed with shock and a good dose of revulsion. He took a few deep breaths and began, his eyes locked on the toe of a boot that he used to pick at the grass. “Neighbor called in, said she knocked and there wasn’t any answer which she found weird because the car was in the driveway.” Spencer jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the Prius. “The victim was supposed to be home. Neighbor thought maybe she was in the shower and came back an hour later. Still no answer. She peeked in the window and saw some blood on the kitchen floor. Called us. I did a walk around. Peeked in a few windows. Went in the back door.”
“And?”
Spencer swallowed hard. “And she was right.”
“You found some blood on the floor?”
Spencer looked up, his eyes two pinholes in the fabric of his face. “Some? No, Mike, there ain’t some. There’s a lot.”
“You call the ME?” Hauser asked in a thousand-yard voice.
“Right after you.” Spencer was running his tongue over his teeth and Jake knew it was the coppery taste of blood he was trying to make sense of.
Jake took a step toward Spencer. “What’s inside, Billy?”
“Another one,” he said, his eyes dancing nervously away.
“Another one what?”
Spencer’s blue-and-white skin seemed to tighten on his body and he pursed his mouth. “Skinned like a hunting trophy, Jake. Fucking bucketloads of blood everywhere.” He turned away, spit into the grass.
“Don’t do that. If you have to spit or puke or contaminate the crime scene in any way, do it across the street. Don’t embarrass yourself and don’t fuck up the crime scene.”
Spencer’s complexion pulsed red. “Embarrass myself? It’s a horror movie in there, Jake, and you tell me not to embarrass myself? What the fuck is wrong with you? You have any emotions?”
Jake pointed over his shoulder. “You want to look like some hick cop on national news?”
A news van came down the street. It picked up speed when it saw the yellow bull’s-eye of police tape.
Jake pursed his lips and grumbled, “Try to look professional,” just above a whisper.
Hauser turned to him. “I thought the media was our friend. Let them help us and all that.” Hauser’s voice carried a thin veil of sarcasm. The distant wail of a police siren was getting closer.
The van rolled to a stop at the curb and the crew rushed out. “Every single news team in the country is going to be here if they think we have a serial killer.” He turned to Spencer. “Don’t let them past the tape.”
“And if they try?” Spencer asked, tapping his sidearm like he had last night at the gate to the Farmers’.
“Warn them twice real loud. Then fire a round into the air. Then warn them one final time. Warn that you will fire if they do not cease and desist. Then shoot someone in the leg.” Hauser eyed the news crew heading over. “Those are specific orders.”
Spencer smiled and a little of the color returned to his face with the prospect of being able to deal with a situation that was familiar.
As the news team marched over, lugging lighting, cameras, and microphones, Jake leaned over and whispered in Hauser’s ear. “Tell them it’s an unrelated crime that as of yet is uncategorized. If they ask if it’s a murder say you cannot make comments that might jeopardize the investigation.”
He turned back to Spencer, wishing he was working with a proper bureau team right now. “Spencer, you make sure they don’t talk to the neighbor who found the victim. Tell her that if she talks to the media she could face prosecution for tampering with a murder investigation. Tell her it might make her look like a suspect. Scare her but shut her up. Assign a cop to her to make sure she doesn’t get bullied.”
He turned back to Hauser who was already breathing like a cornered animal and trying to smile for the cameras. “Tell them you’ll make a statement as soon as you can and you’d appreciate it if they’d stay across the street to leave the scene clear for emergency vehicles.”
A Southampton cruiser drifted around the corner and Jake recognized the big form of Scopes behind the wheel. Hauser seemed to be a little more in control with the sight of Scopes pulling up. He walked up to the line of tape and into the bright glare of the camera crew.
“I have no comment at this time. If you’ll wait across the street I promise to give you a statement just as soon as information becomes both available and pertinent.”
Across the street Danny Scopes climbed out of the cruiser.
“Officer Scopes will escort you across the street where you will wait for me.” Hauser turned away from the now disgruntled news team and nodded at Jake. “Geronimo,” he said.
They left Spencer standing by the line of tape.
Around back and out of sight of the news team, they both slipped their hands into nonpowdered latex gloves.
The screen door creaked open on a hydraulic closer and Hauser held it with the tip of his boot. The inner door was slightly ajar and the sheriff reached up and pushed it open from the top. It swung silently in and the warm smell of blood, feces, and burned food boiled out.
33
The kitchen looked like hell had crawled out of the walls and emptied onto the floor. Blood was splattered in great gusts that had pooled in the low troughs of the linoleum, etching a pattern of symmetrical death in the space. The floor wasn’t level, and a bucket of blood had gathered in one corner under the cabinets in a dark cracked triangle, the top skinned over like wrinkled pudding. It had run in from the hallway, a thick sloppy soup the color of the Ganges in spring, mud and silt and garbage and iron oxide. From somewhere beyond the kitchen door came the hum of an electric appliance left on, its motor whining noisily.
Hauser eased along the counters, carefully minefielding his way over the caked black topography of the linoleum. Jake stood at the door, taking in the space, committing details to the memory banks of his reconstructive CPU. He focused on the long isosceles triangle of blood, followed its inflow over the once-yellow fake tile, out to the hallway. Hauser poked his head through the door, into the hallway, stiffened, and lurched back to the sink and was sick.