He’s the right build, Avery thought. A little small, but if he was wearing a disguise, he could have also been he wearing heights.
“Hello,” Villasco said in the sweetest, most gentle voice imaginable. “Would you like to come in?”
Surprised, Avery said, “Do you know why we’re here?”
“Yes,’ he nodded with a sad frown, “I think I do.”
He turned and headed back inside
“Mr. Villasco, where are you going?” Avery called. “Mr. Villasco, can you please just – excuse me, sir? I need to see.”
She and Thompson shared a look.
‘Call it in,” she said and pulled her gun.
Thompson drew his own gun.
“I’m with you.”
“Not a chance,” she snorted and pointed to the lawn. “You call it in. Wait for the others. I work better on my own.”
The house was extremely cold, possibly through central heating as Avery hadn’t noticed any air conditioners. She closed the door behind her and stepped inside.
Beyond the gray-blue foyer was a staircase to a second level. A gray cat with green eyes watched her from one of the steps. She turned right and into a small living room. Lots of plants lined the windowsills and hung from the ceiling.
Her heart was racing fast.
The gun was held low.
“Mr. Villasco?” she called. “Where are you?”
“In my office,” he replied.
Slowly, she headed toward a small doorway at the back of the living room. After every step, she turned to make sure she wasn’t followed. Only once in her life had she been shot. She took two bullets: one in the leg and one in the shoulder.
Gentry Villasco sat behind a large mahogany desk on the right. A green lamp was on one side of the desk, and paperwork was stacked on the other. His hands were hidden in his lap. A small green couch was on Avery’s left, under a window.
“Mr. Villasco,” she said, “please show me your hands.”
“You work so hard,” he sighed, “all your life.”
“Mr. Villasco. I really need to see those hands.”
“It’s all for family. You know that, right? I did it for family.”
“Please – your hands.”
“It just seems right.” He nodded. “I’ve already lived. What do I need to be here for anyway? My wife died of cancer two years ago. Did you know that? Terrible disease.”
Avery inched closer toward the desk.
“Your hands!”
“Those girls,” he said. “I knew, I knew. A horrible tragedy. It truly is. But who are we to judge? Everyone deserves to exist.”
He quickly lifted a gun from his lap and placed it under his chin. The weapon had to be at least fifty years old, a six-shooter: silver with a white handle, like something that could be bought at a garage sale, or from an antique shop.
Avery raised a hand.
“Don’t do it,” she cried.
Villasco fired.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
“No!”
The shot echoed through the room. His head jerked from the blast and blood shot out from the back and sprayed the wall behind him.
“Shit,” Avery whispered.
Thompson ran in with his gun aimed at everything.
“What the fuck?!” he cried. “Oh shit.”
Avery turned to him.
“Did you call it in?”
“Everyone’s on the way.”
Avery stood there staring at the dead man, just a few feet before her, who had been alive but moments before, and her heart broke in a million pieces.
Gloves and bags were retrieved from her car. Thompson was given a set and told to check the perimeter. Avery took the first floor.
In the living room, carpets were gray and walls were painted a muddy white. Apart from the living room and Villasco’s office, there was a kitchen on the opposite side of the stairs. Kitchen cabinets were dark wood. The counters were dark blue and the floors white tile.
A small door led to a grassy backyard enclosed by a wooden fence. All different kinds of flowers were in bloom along the fence, and there as a dark gray patio setting for guests.
Back in the house, Avery found a door to the basement behind the steps. Creaky wooden stairs led to a wholly ordinary space: cement floor, nice wooden shelving along the walls, and other storage areas. She opened a plastic container and found clothing for the winter.
On the first level, she bumped into Thompson.
“Nothing outside,” he said. “Garage is filled with cans and gardening tools.”
Together, they headed to the second floor.
Avery took the lead, gun held low. The cat she’d seen earlier scurried across the top steps and disappeared. She put two fingers to her eyes and pointed them left. Thompson nodded, turned left at the stairs, and moved down the hallway. Avery went into the cat room. The small guest bedroom was painted a grayish green. Three cat litter boxes rested on wooden floors. Two cats were on the bed, the fat, gray one she’d seen before, and a white kitten. The only closet held moth-ridden, female clothing.
She moved around the banister in the direction where Thompson had headed. The master bedroom to her right held a large bed. Multiple mirrors lined the walls. The carpet was white. She opened a few of the mirrored doors to find clothing and shoes.
“Hey, Black,” she heard, “up here.”
The last room was more like a closet with a short staircase up to an attic. The space was too small for Thompson to fit inside. Instead, he sat on the steps and pulled down an item from above for Avery to investigate.
“Two others up here as well,” he said.
Avery grabbed a furry statue.
It was a cat, a black cat that had been stuffed and mounted on a wooden base. No inscription lined the wood.
“Is there a tabby up there, too?” she asked.
“How did you know?”
Thompson handed down another taxidermy statue. It was a smaller, orange-colored cat with black lines and dark eyes. She handed it back.
“Bag some of those hairs,” she said.
“Just this one?”
“Yeah. Forensics found tabby hairs on the first two bodies.”
Police sirens could be heard in the distance. As they moved closer, Avery headed downstairs and walked out the front door.
She should have been ecstatic, or relieved.
Instead, Avery felt empty, unsettled. Puzzle pieces swirled in her mind, unconnected: the killer’s car routes had all headed north and west outside of Boston. He lives northwest of Boston, she thought. It’s a match. That didn’t explain the blue minivan heading even further west outside of Cambridge. A second house, she thought. He must have a second house. That’s where he keeps the minivan. Everything else fit. He grew flowers. Cats lived in the house.
If the tabby cat hairs matched what Randy had found on the bodies, and if some of those plants were psychedelic, Avery knew the case would be closed.
Thompson appeared behind her.
She glanced over her shoulder.
“See what you can find in the office,” she said. “Try not to disturb the body. We need a second house. And we need to find that dark blue minivan. You’re looking for rent bills, a mortgage address, auto insurance forms, anything like that.”
“On it.”
The last words of Villasco were seared into her mind.
I did it for family.
Who are we to judge?
Everyone deserves to exist.
Avery watched as Somerville and Boston PD cruisers raced down the street with sirens blaring, parked wherever they wanted, and exited their vehicles with guns drawn.
Connelly was among them.
None of the anger he routinely harbored against Avery was visible in his gaze, none of the uncertainty or distrust. Wonder appeared on his face, a sense of disbelief that what he witnessed could possibly be true: that a woman – a disgraced public figure turned cop – had done it again, solved another case and made the rest of the force look like slugs.