The River Is Dark (6 page)

Liam picked up a page and sat back in his chair. “Here’s some notes that the agent in charge of the case made. ‘Crime was committed sometime between nine ten p.m. and nine thirty-two p.m. Assailant entered through the attached garage door, into kitchen. Door was struck with heavy object, possibly murder weapon.’ ” Liam glanced at Dani, and seeing her face clear and her eyes locked on his, he continued. “ ‘Victims were a male Caucasian, forty-six years old, and a female Caucasian, forty-five years old. Both victims were found in the kitchen area, dismembered and bludgeoned. Wounds indicate a semi-sharp weapon capable of both cutting and blunt trauma. Male’s arms were separated from shoulder joints, as well as knees separated below the patella. Female suffered large wound across abdomen, as well as hands and feet being removed at wrist and ankle joints. Both were decapitated.’ ” Liam paused again, rereading the last line before speaking it out loud. “ ‘All wounds prior to decapitation were inflicted while victims were still alive.’ ”

“Oh my God,” Dani said. “That’s horrible.”

Liam scanned the rest of the notes before looking up at her. “This means something,” he said, turning his head and squinting out the window at the darkening afternoon sky. “This wasn’t just a breaking and entering gone wrong, but we already knew that. This was emotional, it meant something to the killer.”

He turned and rifled through the other pile containing the information about Allen and Suzie’s murders. He read silently for a few minutes, absorbing the information. “It’s almost the same MO—entry through the garage door, same murder weapon. But there’s one difference: Allen was killed in the same way, but Suzie wasn’t.”

Dani sat forward, looking over the top of the page at the notes. “What do you mean?”

“It says that Allen was cut to pieces, just like the Shevlins, but Suzie was killed by a blow to the head, that’s all. No other wounds whatsoever.”

Dani hugged her arms close to her body as if chilled. “What do you think it means?”

Liam set the paper down. “I think the killer didn’t mean to murder Suzie at all. I think he did it by accident.”

“So you’re saying whoever did this definitely knew the Shevlins and Allen and Suzie?”

Liam nodded. “I think so. There’s complete correlation as far as how the Shevlins and Allen were killed, but not Suzie.” His eyes clouded over, his mind running faster than it had in almost a year. When he came back to himself, he noticed Dani staring at him. “What?”

“How—” She seemed to sort her words. “How do you do this when it’s people you know? How do you go over the facts like you’re reading out of a textbook?”

Liam studied her face, looking for a hint of disgust but seeing only curiosity and caution. “I don’t know.”

Dani chewed on the inside of her cheek and then dropped her gaze to the floor. “I wish I was more like that sometimes—able to shut things off when I wanted to.”

Liam fought for something to say, but each attempt came up sounding wrong or callous, so he waited. After a few moments, Dani sat back up.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

Liam wanted to say something more, but instead he reached out and grasped the top paper off the Shevlin pile. It was a transcription of Eric Shevlin’s 911 call. Liam scanned it and stopped at the first line. “ ‘A monster’s killing my parents.
’ 
”

“What?”

Liam looked up from the paper. “That’s the first thing Eric Shevlin said to the 911 operator when he called that night. ‘A monster’s killing my parents.’ ”

“He was terrified. I mean, could you imagine witnessing something like that? He must’ve thought whoever was doing it was a monster. Maybe they were wearing a mask.”

Liam tapped his forehead with an index finger, an old habit he used to do all the time when on a case.
The tics that come back,
he marveled. “I want to speak to him if he wakes up.”

“They won’t let you do that, will they? I’m guessing they have a guard stationed at his door and everything, right?”

“Most likely, and if they don’t, they should. That kid barely got away with his life. He was going to suffer the same fate his parents did. The killer got interrupted by the police, but there’s no guarantee that he won’t come back to try to finish him off. I do think that Allen being Eric’s godfather and my brother might have some pull.” Liam shrugged. “It’s all we’ve got to go on.”

Dani finished off the last of her coffee and set the empty cup down. “So what do we do now?”

Liam stood and paced to the door and back again. “I’d like to go to Allen and Suzie’s, poke around and try to see if there’s anything there. The sheriff gave me the keys back this morning, so we aren’t breaking any laws or anything.” Liam glanced at Dani. “That’s assuming you want to come with. You don’t have to, if this is all too much—”

Dani stood and gave him a halfhearted smile. “I’ve never started a drawing I didn’t finish.”

Liam grinned for what felt like the first time in years.

CHAPTER 6

The rain began to fall as they turned into Allen and Suzie’s driveway.

Fat droplets splattered against the windshield, and the sky cleared its throat loud enough to be heard over the hum of the Chevy’s engine. On the short drive over, Liam filled Dani in on Shirley Strafford and the altercation at the front of the hotel. Dani’s reaction surprised and heartened him.

“Good, I can’t stand it when she’s on.”

The mood abruptly changed as they pulled down the long drive and the house came into view. Liam parked a few paces from the closed garage door and shut the truck off. Rain washed down the windshield, obscuring the world outside like an oil painting splattered with turpentine. Lightning cut a jagged gash across the sky, which healed with the sound of repeated thunder.

Liam glanced at Dani and saw that her eyes hadn’t left the home since it came into sight. He reached out and placed his hand on hers. “You don’t have to come in.”

Finally, she tore her gaze away and looked at him. “No, it’s fine. It’s just strange, you know? I’ve been here dozens of times and it was always a happy place, fun and warm. It always gave me a good feeling to
come here and see them. But now, it’s like a place I’ve never been to before. It’s horrible.”

Liam squeezed her hand. “I’ll be right next to you the whole time, okay?” Dani nodded. “Okay, let’s get inside before the storm gets worse.”

They left the truck and hurried through the heavy rain to the front door of the house. Liam dug the keys out from his pocket and selected the correct one on the first try. The doorknob turned, and they stepped inside, out of the storm.

The smell met them in the entryway.

It was a raw scent, its edge dulled a little by the hours that had passed between what caused it and now, but Liam still recognized it. Blood. Old or new, the scent was always easy for him to detect. It was like breathing the metallic air of a loose-change jar. Dani put a hand beneath her nose and closed her eyes before sidling up next to him.

The living room stood before them, and Liam noticed that much had changed since his last visit. The entire house looked redecorated, with walls that didn’t match the colors of his memory, along with new floor coverings. The hardwood that used to stretch to the kitchen across the room was now a creamy-white carpet. Leather furniture graced the room’s edges, and a massive flat screen hung from the far wall. Liam reached out and flicked a switch on his left, which turned on two overhead lights. Dani blanched.

Crusted bloodstains marred the carpet everywhere, with chunks of matted gore thrusting from their centers, like ebony volcanoes oozing rivers of tissue. A wide fan of dried blood lay close to the middle of the room. Pieces of tape marked the outer edges of the stains, no doubt corralling the area for the forensics team to measure and document evidence.

“My God,” Dani said.

Liam didn’t move his eyes from the scene before him. “Are you going to be okay?”

She swallowed loudly. “Yes, I’ll make it.”

Liam stepped into the room and knelt before the edge of the nearest blood spatter. He began to map the area in his head, relying on the notes he had read earlier and the taped perimeter. In his mind he saw a mangled body on the floor. His imagination tried to coalesce his brother’s face onto the shape, but he shoved it away, effectively making the corpse anonymous. He looked to his left and saw the outline of a severed arm; to his right, entrails spilled like a pile of skinned snakes. Within the largest spray of blood, he saw a severed head pressed on its cheek, the print on the carpet confirming his assumption.

Liam stood and walked to the doorway that led to the hall and bedrooms beyond. A pool of blood no larger than a dinner plate lay in an equally round shape on the floor. He knelt again. This was where Suzie fell, he was sure of it. The scene began to gain motion and life in his mind as he stood and made his way into the kitchen. The dark tile on the kitchen floor looked clean and tidy. After snapping on another light, he saw no footprints, not even a hint of dirt anywhere. Suzie had been meticulous about keeping the house spotless; he remembered that from his short visit before his brother’s wedding day.

Liam moved to the door that led to the garage and studied the splintered jamb where the lock had burst through. He opened the door and looked at the jagged tear in the metal exterior near the handle. Leaning nearer to the puncture, he saw that the shining edge looked slightly red. When he placed a finger to the hole, it came back a deep burgundy. Rust.

Liam walked slowly back through the kitchen until he could see Dani again. “The killer must have followed Allen inside the garage when he got home that night, since the report didn’t say anything about forced entry through the exterior,” Liam said, stopping at the boundary of the living room, his eyes scanning the floor. “He broke the door open with the murder weapon, I’m almost sure of it. There’s a hole in the door where he hit it with something hard and heavy.” Liam stepped back and drew a line on the floor with a pointing finger. “He came in this way, fast. Allen met him here.” Liam motioned to the border between the kitchen and the living room. “He overpowered Allen right away, probably with a blow from the weapon. Then, I’m guessing, Suzie came into the room.” Liam moved to the circular bloodstain. “He hit her once, like I said, meaning more to knock her out than to kill her.”

Dani took a tentative step into the room but stopped short of the first piece of tape on the carpet. “But why? Why would he do this much damage to Allen and only try to knock out Suzie?”

“Because he had something against Allen that had nothing to do with Suzie.”

Dani frowned. “But what would that be? What enemy would Allen share with the Shevlins? And what could Eric have done to someone at eleven years old?”

Liam rubbed the side of his face. “I don’t know, but it’s obvious someone hated them. Hated them enough to do this.” He let his hand fall away, and for a moment the professional detachment he held before him like a shield cracked, and the realization of whose blood coated the floor hit him like a punch.

His throat tightened at the memory of Allen helping him tie his shoes one afternoon when he was five, before they went to see their father at his shop. How he felt a sense of wonder at seeing his brother’s fingers, the strong fingers of a man already, looping and twisting the laces without effort. He remembered Allen glancing up at him, and for a split second being caught off-guard by the look of admiration on his younger brother’s face. A tenuous string of connection there and then gone, as Allen stood and turned away, telling him to hurry and not make him late.

Liam clenched and unclenched his hands until the moisture at the corners of his eyes receded. He pivoted away from where Suzie had fallen, knowing that if he looked again he would surely cry.

“Do you think they were looking for something? I know the reports said that nothing seemed to be missing, but maybe it’s still here, hidden somewhere?” Dani said.

Liam shrugged. “I don’t think so, just because of how fast it appears to have happened. If they were looking for something, there would have been a drawn-out process, torture, that type of thing.” Even from across the room, he saw Dani shudder. “But let’s check out the other rooms just in case, okay? Look for a safe or a hidden panel in the closet, something like that,” Liam said. Dani nodded and walked well around the stains on the floor to meet him near the hallway.

They searched the bedrooms and closets for anything significant but found nothing. He kept his eyes averted from the pictures adorning the walls and bedside tables, and took comfort when he saw that Dani appeared to do the same. A file cabinet in Allen’s study looked the most promising, and they spent a half hour flipping through documents that yielded no link to the Shevlins other than a small certificate from the church where Eric had been baptized that held the four adults’ signatures at the bottom.

When it appeared that Liam’s assumptions were correct, that robbery wasn’t on the killer’s list of motives, they made their way back to the kitchen. The afternoon looked darker than it had earlier, and rain still fell in silver lines outside the window, veiling the impressive view from atop the bluffs.

“So what now?” Dani asked, leaning on the kitchen counter.

“There’s not much else to look at here,” Liam said. “I suppose we can go back to town, maybe find something to eat.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be hungry again,” Dani said, her eyes locked on the black spatters in the living room.

“We’ll have to plan a funeral too. Everyone will expect one,” Liam said.

Dani nodded. “I’m dreading that, but after this, it should be easy.”

“I’m sorry I put you through this.”

She turned toward him and shook her head. “You didn’t put me through anything. I came here because I wanted to.”

“I know, it’s just rough, that’s all.”

“Like I said, Suzie was basically a sister to me. I owe it to her if I can help figure out who did this, and you obviously have the skills to find them, so you’re stuck with me.”

Liam smiled. “Okay.” He caught himself looking into her eyes for a second too long and turned his head. “Let me just grab a pen and paper here. Maybe on the ride back we can call the funeral home and try to schedule something.”

Liam pulled open a random kitchen drawer and found stacks of silverware. The drawer next to it held measuring cups and spoons. The drawer on the end was full of odds and ends, and he pulled it out all the way, looking for a scratch pad and pen. As he shifted the contents around, he spotted a stack of Post-Its along with a pen in one corner. Liam grabbed the two items and was about to shut the drawer when something beneath a small calculator caught his eye.

Pulling the set of keys free from the drawer, he straightened and flipped the plastic key fob over so that he could read the label marked by his brother’s hand.

“What is it?” Dani asked when she noticed him staring at the keys.

Liam turned the fob toward her so she could read the letters encased in the plastic:
J & K’s house
. Dani looked at Liam, who stepped around the counter and began to walk toward the door.

“Wanna take another ride?”

They found the Shevlins’ house after passing by the narrow driveway twice on the county road a mile outside of town. The storm doubled its effort as they drove, and more than once Liam had to flip the Chevy’s wipers onto high just to make out the centerline. Dani studied the driveway as they passed it by, reading off the address number to him.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he said, and scanned the sides of the road. A hundred yards from the driveway he spotted a narrow turnaround on Dani’s side and pulled into it, dousing the headlights that attempted to light up the thick forest lining either side of the road. A stand of pine trees just tall enough to loom over the Chevy appeared on the left, and Liam swung the pickup behind them, effectively blocking the truck from being seen from the road.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he shut off the truck.

“We have to go in on foot from here. I don’t want to risk parking in the driveway and having someone see my truck there. That wouldn’t bode well for me. Could you open the glove compartment and grab the flashlight that’s inside?”

Dani opened the compartment in front of her knees and handed him the black barrel of the LED flashlight before shutting the compartment door.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked, looking out at the swaying trees and the pitchfork lightning that stabbed the sky in intermittent bursts.

“No, but it’s the next step. I think there was something binding the Shevlins to my brother that Suzie knew nothing about, and I think that something might be here.”

Dani nodded and gazed at her lap so long that Liam was about to offer to drive her back to town. Then she spoke. “Okay, let’s do it.”

The wind pounded them when they left the safety and warmth of the truck. The rain became more like stinging nettles as they ran near the ditch on the edge of the road, both of them looking forward and back for any sign of headlights coming their way. By the time they made it to the driveway and hurried beneath the overhanging canopy of trees, their clothes were second skins and water squelched from the soles of their shoes. The driveway was longer than Liam expected, and just when he began to regret not parking the truck closer, the house came into view.

It was an impressive two-story chalet-style home with long eaves and cedar siding. A manicured flower garden sat to the left of the driveway, along with an immense steel outbuilding. The paved drive dropped away and wound down to the two-stall attached garage, where a sidewalk shot off from its front, leading to a wide covered porch. Beyond the house a close-cropped lawn stretched a stone’s throw away, extending into the river. The dark water flowed by in eerie silence, as lightning danced somewhere behind them, throwing the yard into a shocking negative flash that cut through the gloom.

Liam reached out and grabbed Dani’s hand, pulling her with him as he pelted down the slope to the house. Their footsteps resounded in hollow thumps on the decking as they crossed it to the front door. Liam fumbled with the keys in the twilight and finally managed to fit the correct one into the lock. Before turning it, he glanced at Dani.