knowing about bloodhounds doesn’t make you stupid, only uninformed,” she assured him with a soft smile, then the smile faded. “If they’ve found anything important, will you be able to tell me about it?”
“I’m sure I will,” he soothed her, wishing he could take her hand or put an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll be right back.”
He waited for her nod and then walked away, heading around the back of the house. The other dogs in their runs to the left were awake and alert, but weren’t making any noise.
“Glad you made it, Gerard,” one of the forensics people, Alec Ellison, said as soon as Mike appeared. “There isn’t too much here, but I can tell you one thing: whoever tried the break-in was no professional. My six-year-old son would have had better luck—without it being a matter of luck.”
“Your six-year-old son could probably get into a bank vault,” Mike pointed out, causing Ellison to grin. “Like father, like son. What specifically makes you think it wasn’t a pro?”
“All those scratches and small dents on the lock, for one thing,” Ellison answered. “The perp used either a tire iron or a crowbar, or maybe just a length of pipe, but was also obviously trying to use strength instead of leverage. Slip some cold steel through the lock loop, brace the steel and lean. If the lock doesn’t fly open from your body weight alone, the hasp will probably come free of the wood. Whoever was here seemed to be trying to pull the lock open, and when that didn’t work he tried banging on it. Even dead drunk a pro would do better than that, and would certainly have been quieter.”
“Make that ‘she’ rather than ‘he,’” a voice corrected, and Mike turned to see forensics expert Lora Clark approaching. “We found more than just tire tracks out in those woods, we also found a couple of good footprints that are definitely from women’s shoes. People should learn not to go sneaking across open ground after a rain.”
“Are you sure, Lora?” Mike couldn’t help asking. “All the profiles insist it’s a man, and if it isn’t we’re back to square one. Could you have found Ms. Grail’s prints instead?”
“Not unless Ms. Grail is able to leave two different sets of footprints telling two different stories,” Lora denied cheerfully. “You know how I hate to ruin perfectly good theories, but unless this was done by someone just happening by, your quarry isn’t a man. Ms. Grail’s prints were easy to match up, and the other woman’s were totally different. I’d say about five foot five or six, about a hundred twenty-five pounds, not very athletic. Even when she was running it wasn’t full out, as if she didn’t know how to run properly.”
“That agrees with what I found here,” Ellison put in as Mike groaningly took out his notebook. “A woman who isn’t very athletic, and never even thought about breaking in somewhere. A desperate amateur trying a desperate gamble.”
“That doesn’t fit the profile at all,” Mike said as he noted down what both of the forensics people had told him. “And there’s been no indication that the murders were committed by more than one person. What about the tire tracks?”
“They seem to be standard tires that can be found on most midsize cars,” Lora supplied with a sigh. “Steel-belted radials that almost everyone sells, but we’ll be able to give you the manufacturer as soon as we do a tread-pattern comparison. The tires weren’t new, but there should be enough of a pattern left for identification. And we’ll sift through everything again to be certain we didn’t miss something useful.”
“A picture ID supplying a name and address would do nicely,” Mike said as the two began to turn away. “If you find one, I’ll be around front with Ms. Grail.”
“If we find one, I’ll be passed out cold in a faint,” Lora countered over her shoulder as she headed back toward the woods.
As Mike turned back toward the front of the house, he decided he’d be better off without something like an accidentally dropped picture ID. He’d find it almost impossible to believe that the thing had been dropped accidentally, and would resist considering it a real clue unless or until he caught the pictured person in the act of committing murder.
Tanda no longer sat on the front steps where she’d been, but the inside door was open and through the screen door Mike could hear her moving around. A moment later she reappeared carrying a tray, and after holding the door for her dog to come through, she set the tray down with a smile.
“I thought everyone might want a cup of coffee as badly as I do,” she said, gesturing to the pot and cups on the tray. “I feel silly playing hostess at a time like this, but—Have you found out anything?”
“Nothing useful,” Mike admitted as he walked to the tray. “And I don’t know about the others, but I find a cup of coffee at a time like this something to be grateful for. My people tell me the intruder’s footprints say it was a woman, and the attempt to break in was unskilled. Either we were wrong about our murderer being a man, or he has a non-burglar female confederate we hadn’t even suspected. It’s highly unlikely that someone totally unconnected with the murders just happened to decide to break in.”
“Could it possibly have been a man wearing women’s shoes?” she asked, watching Mike fix a cup of coffee. “You know, just to throw everyone off? Most people do know they’ll leave footprints in still-wet ground, so maybe it was the murderer trying to confuse everyone.”
“That’s a definite possibility, but it still doesn’t feel right,” Mike answered, aware that he sounded fretful. “Serial killings have a very specific relationship between the killer and his victim, the killing coming about because of who each of them is. A serial killer’s identity is very important to him, I’m told, so for him to deliberately pretend to be someone else entirely—I don’t know if he’s capable of doing that in the context of the murders.”
“I don’t think I understand that,” Tanda said, taking her own cup and sitting on the steps with it. “Don’t serial killers always try to hide who they are?”
“Only during the times between murders,” Mike answered, sitting down not far from her. “During those times they’re not really themselves, since their real selves are dedicated to completing whatever ritual they’ve come to believe they must complete. When they’re in the middle of that ritual, however, they can’t be anything but their true selves or the ritual won’t have meaning. Even if they’re forced to tell people who they are—in the notes they leave, or the symbols they sometimes paint in blood on the walls—they can’t refuse to do it. That part of it is lucky for us, because it’s usually the way we catch them.”
“Then that would mean if it was the murderer, he wasn’t here in connection with the killings,” Tanda said slowly after sipping her coffee. “But if that’s true, then what was he here for?”
“That’s as easy to answer as what a woman was doing here if it wasn’t the murderer,” Mike grumbled in response. “There are too many unexplained things happening, too many events that seem completely unrelated. I know we’re missing something important, but I don’t yet know what it is.”
He lapsed into a brooding silence with that, and Tanda joined him. From what she’d said, she’d been convinced the intruder was her brother’s murderer, and now she seemed a lot less sure. He hadn’t yet spoken to her about the way she’d gone out after the prowler instead of waiting for the police to arrive, but now didn’t feel like the time to go into it. He wanted her to be safe, but once they left she would be all alone in that house. Telling her horror stories to keep her awake the rest of the night would benefit no one. Leaving one
