A mathematician then attempts to construct a proof that shows irrefutably that his position either is correct or cannot be correct.
Tal Simms knew how to create such proofs with numbers.
But to prove the theorem that there was something suspicious about the deaths of the Bensons and the Whitleys? He was at a loss and stared at the hieroglyphics of the crime scene reports as he grew increasingly discouraged. He had basic academy training, of course, but beyond that he had no investigation skills or experience.
But then he realized that perhaps this wasn’t quite accurate. He did have one talent that might help: the cornerstone of his profession as a mathematician — logic.
He turned his analytical mind to the materials on his desk as he examined each item carefully. He first picked the photos of the Whitleys’ bodies. All in graphic, colorful detail. They troubled him a great deal. Still, he forced himself to examine them carefully, every inch. After some time he decided that nothing suggested that the Whitleys had been forced into the car or had struggled with any assailants.
He set the photos aside and read the documents in the reports themselves. There were no signs of any break-in, though the front door wasn’t locked, so someone might have simply walked in. But with the absence of any foul play this seemed unlikely. And their jewelry, cash and other valuables were untouched.
One clue, though, suggested that all was not as it seemed. The Latents team found that both notes contained, in addition to Sam Whitley’s, Tal’s and the police officers’ prints, smudges that were probably from gloved hands or fingers protected by a cloth or tissue. The team had also found glove prints in the den where the couple had had their last drink, the room where the note had been found, and in the garage. It was, however, impossible to tell if they had been made before or after the deaths.
Gloves? Tal wondered. Curious.
The team had also found fresh tire prints on the driveway. The prints didn’t match the MG, the other cars owned by the victims or the vehicles driven by the police, the medical team or the funeral home. The report concluded that the car had been there within the three hours prior to death. The tread marks were indistinct, so that the brand of tire couldn’t be determined, but the wheelbase meant the vehicle was a small one.
A search of the trace evidence revealed several off-white cotton fibers — one on the body of Elizabeth Whitley and one on the living room couch — that didn’t appear to match what the victims were wearing or any of the clothes in their closets. An inventory of drugs in the medicine cabinets and kitchen revealed no antidepressants. This suggested, even if tenuously, that mood problems and thoughts of suicide might not have been a theme in the Whitley house recently.
Tal rose, walked to his doorway and called Shellee in.
“Hi, boss. How was your weekend?”
“Fine,” he said absently. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Are you—? I mean, you look tired.”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. It’s just about this case.”
“What case?”
“The suicide.”
“Oh. What—?”
“I need to find out if anybody’s bought a book called Making the Final Journey. Then something about suicide and euthanasia.”
“A book. Sure.”
“I don’t remember exactly. But Making the Journey or Making the Final Journey is the start of the title.”
“Okay. And I’m supposed to check on—?”
“If anybody bought it.”
“I mean, everywhere? There’re probably a lot of—”
“For now, just in Westbrook County. In the last couple of weeks. Bookstores. And all the online booksellers, too.”
“Hey, can I be a cop?”
Tal hesitated. But then he said, “Oh, hell, sure. You want, you can be a detective.”
“Yippee,” she said. “Detective Shellee Bingham.”
“And if they haven’t sold any, give them my name and tell them if they do, call us right away.”
“We need a warrant or anything?” Detective Shellee asked, thoughtful now.
Did they?
“Hmm. I don’t know. Let’s just try it without and see what they say.”
Ten minutes after she left, Tal felt a shadow over him and he looked up to see Captain Ronald Dempsey’s six-foot-three form fill the doorway in his ubiquitous striped shirt, his sleeves ubiquitously rolled up.
The man’s round face smiled pleasantly. But Tal thought immediately: Busted.
“Captain.”
“Hey, Tal.” Dempsey leaned against the doorjamb, looking over the desktop. “Got a minute?”
“Sure do.”
Tal had known that they’d find out about the 2124 and was going to Dempsey with it soon, of course; but he’d hoped to wait until his proof about the suspicious suicide was somewhat further developed.
“Heard about the twenty-one-twenty-four at the Whitleys’.”
“Sure.”
“What’s up with that?”
Tal explained about the two suicides, the common denominators.
Dempsey nodded. “Kind of a coincidence, sure. But you know, Tal, we don’t have a lot of resources for full investigations. Like, we’ve only got one dedicated homicide Crime Scene Unit.”
“Didn’t know that.”
“And there was a shooting in Rolling Hills Estates last night. Two people shot up bad, one died. The unit was late running that scene ’cause you had them in Hamilton.”
“I’m sorry about that, Captain.”
“It’s also expensive. Sending out CS.”
“Expensive? I didn’t think about that.”
“Thousands, I’m talking. Crime Scene bills everything back to us. Every time they go out. Then there’re lab tests and autopsies and everything. The ME, too. You know what an autopsy costs?”
“They bill us?” Tal asked.
“It’s just the more we save for the county the better we look, you know.”
“Right. I guess it would be expensive.”
“You bet.” No longer smiling, the captain adjusted his sleeves. “Other thing is, the way I found out: I heard from their daughter. Sandra Whitley. She was going to make funeral arrangements and then she hears about the autopsy. Phew…she’s pissed off. Threatening to sue…I’m going to have to answer questions. So. Now, what exactly made you twenty-one-twenty-four the scene, Tal?”
He scanned the papers on his desk, uneasy, wondering where to start. “Well, a couple of things. They’d just bought—”
“Hold on there a minute,” the captain said, holding up a finger.
Dempsey leaned out the door and shouted, “LaTour!..Hey, LaTour?”
“What?” came the grumbling baritone.
“Come’re for a minute. I’m with Simms.”
Tal heard the big man make his way toward the Unreal Crimes side of the detective pen. The ruddy, goatee’d face appeared in the office. Ignoring Tal, he listened as the captain explained about the Whitleys’ suicide.
“Another one, huh?”
“Tal declared a twenty-one-twenty-four.”
The homicide cop nodded noncommittally. “Uh-huh. Why?”
The question was directed toward Dempsey, who turned toward Tal.
“Well, I was looking at the Bensons’ deaths and I pulled up the standard statistical profile on suicides in Westbrook County. Now, when you look at all the attributes—”
“Attributes?” LaTour asked, frowning, as if tasting sand.
“Right. The attributes of the Bensons’ death — and the Whitleys’, too, now — they’re way out of the standard range. Their deaths are outliers.”
“Out-liars? The fuck’s that?”
Tal explained. In statistics an outlier was an event significantly different from a group of related events in the same category. He gave a concrete example. “Say you’re analyzing five murderers. Three perps killed a single victim each, one of them killed two victims, and the final man was a serial killer who’d murdered twenty people. To draw any meaningful conclusions from that, you need to treat the last one as an outlier and analyze him separately. Otherwise, your analysis’ll be mathematically correct but misleading. Running the numbers, we see that the mean — the average — number of victims killed by each suspect is five. But that exaggerates the homicidal nature of the first four men, and underplays the last one. See what I mean?”