Zero Day (8 page)

P
ULLER HAD SKETCHED
preliminary drawings of the main floor and the basement. He had put together his loose-leaf notebook with his name, rank, and the date, weather, and lighting conditions on each page, as well as compass north designated. Measurements had been done to all relevant landmarks and other objects in the rooms.

Cole, who was watching him finish the drawing, asked, “Army taught you that?”

“Army taught me a lot of things.”

“Why do you think they came back, Puller?”

“To get something. Or leave something. I just don’t know which one.”

Cole let out a long breath filled with frustration. “Never thought that could happen. Coming back and killing the cop guarding the crime scene.”

He put the sketchpad aside and drew from his rucksack a 35-millimeter camera, tripod, flash, and flash extension cord. He also stuck a device that looked like a flashlight into a holder on his belt.

“My guy already took pictures,” Cole said.

“I like to take my own. Procedures we have to follow, like I said.”

“Okay. But he’s good and you’re welcome to what we have.”

“I appreciate that. Where is he, by the way? Shouldn’t have taken him that long to scrub the car.”

Cole went to the window. “Speak of the devil,” she said.

“Landry Monroe,” said Puller.

“How’d you know?”

“Saw his name on the log.”

“We call him Lan.”

“Tell me about him.”

“Twenty-four years old. WVU grad. Criminal Justice. Certified in CS processing. Been with the department for two years.”

“Where’d he get his certification?”

“State runs a program.”

“Okay.”

“It’s a damn good program, Puller.”

“Didn’t say it wasn’t.”

“I could tell by the look on your face.”

“What’s your goal here?”

“What?”

“Your goal.”

“To catch whoever did this,” she said grimly.

“Mine too. And if we work together and follow each of our protocols the odds are a lot better that we’ll find the people responsible.”

They stared at each other for an uncomfortably long few moments.

Cole turned, went to the door, and called out to the man, who had his head buried in his car’s trunk. “Lan, get your stuff and get in here. Got somebody who’s
really
looking forward to working with you.”

She turned back to Puller and pointed a finger at him. “Let’s get one thing straight. He’s a kid. You can rough him up some, show him stuff that’ll make him better, but you are not to crush his confidence. You’ll be leaving West Virginia after this, but not me. I have to work with him and he’s all I’ve got. Understood?”

Puller nodded. “Understood.”

Lan Monroe came in about thirty seconds later juggling bags and knapsacks. He was black and wearing green scrubs. He stopped at the front door and dropped his gear to put on booties and latex gloves. He signed the on-site log held by one of the officers on perimeter security and stepped inside.

Monroe was not much taller than Cole, with narrow shoulders and the bulk of his weight carried in his gut, hips, and butt. His
legs were thick and short. His head was shaven and he wore wire-rimmed glasses that had slid halfway down his nose.

Cole said, “Lan, meet CID special agent John Puller.”

Monroe smiled and looked up at Puller, who was nearly a foot taller than he was. He put out his hand. They shook.

“Nice to meet you, Special Agent Puller.”

“Just make it Puller.” He glanced at the bags. “Your equipment?”

“Yep.”

Cole said, “Did you do Larry’s car?”

Monroe nodded. “The prelim didn’t turn up anything. There was no blood in the vehicle. I had it towed back to the station. I’ll do a more thorough scrub there.”

Puller said, “Sergeant Cole said you’d taken pictures. Can I see them?”

“That’s a big ten-four, good buddy.”

Monroe dug into one of his bags while Puller glanced over at Cole with hiked eyebrows. She shrugged and attempted a smile.

Monroe got his camera out, powered it up, and showed the range of pictures on the flip-out viewfinder.

“Thirty-five mil SLR?” said Puller.

“Yep. That’s what they had us use at school. Now, I did three shots of everything, one in relation to nearby objects, one with ruler, and one close-up without.”

“Good. What aperture setting did you use?”

Cole shot Puller a hard glance. He ignored it.

Monroe remained oblivious to these exchanges. He said, “F/16 with everything three feet or more away, f/28 for the close-ups.”

Puller nodded approvingly. “What were your angles of photography?”

“I did everything from eye level.”

“Did you do a three-sixty overlap?”

Monroe suddenly looked uncertain and shook his head. “Uh, no.”

Puller glanced at Cole and found her still staring intently at him, hands on hips, lips pursed. For a moment he thought she might go for her Cobra again.

Puller said, “No problem. Just Army overkill. Look, I need an experienced hand to help me with that, Lan. And you obviously know your way around a camera.”

“No prob,” said Monroe, his good spirits restored. “Glad to do it.” He pointed at the tripod and other equipment Puller had taken from his rucksack. “Is that a flash extension?” he asked.

Puller nodded. “We’ll use it to photograph fingerprints, tire marks, and any tool marks. We’ll use the synch cord to engage the flash.”

“How far away do you Army guys hold it?” asked Monroe eagerly.

“Ideally three feet. And at a forty-five-degree angle. Two shots from all four directions.”

“What’s the big deal with the extension thing?” asked Cole.

Puller replied, “Prevents hot spots of light. Causes overexposure to the top of the photos.”

“Cool,” said Monroe.

Puller pointed to the four members of the Reynolds family. “Since they haven’t been moved, we need to photograph them properly. All four sides, including the rear. Five shots of the face, all wounds, and other marks. With and without rulers, livor mortis patterns, and all gunshot powder and stippling. You got a video camera?”

Monroe nodded.

Puller said, “You video everything but you don’t rely on that for fine detail. Defense attorney will blow you out of the water with that.”

Cole said, “And did that happen to you?”

“It happens to everybody,” said Puller.

Puller was about to set up his tripod to start taking pictures of the bodies when he looked down at the carpet and stopped. He knelt and took a closer look at the medium-pile carpeting.

“What do you see there?” he asked.

Monroe and Cole came over. The tech dropped to his knees and studied the spot. “Not sure,” he said. “An impression of something.”

“
Impressions
, actually. Three of them, circular, but in a triangular pattern.” Puller hefted the tripod and set it down a few feet from the others. Then he picked it back up. “What do you see?”

Monroe looked at the spot. So did Cole. They both started and looked back over at the original spot. The impressions were nearly identical.

Cole said, “Somebody already set up a tripod here. Why?”

Puller looked at the spot and then over at the bodies all lined up. “Bodies in a row, on a couch. Tripod in front, camera mounted on it.”

“They were filming the Reynoldses?” said Cole.

Puller took several shots of the impressions. “No, they were
interrogating
them.”

H
OURS LATER
they had finished photographing the four bodies and processing other parts of the crime scene. Puller and Monroe had laid the bodies next to each other on white plastic sheeting spread on the floor. Larry Wellman’s body had been brought up and was lying in a zippered body bag in the dining room. There were no defensive wounds on Wellman or the Reynoldses. They had all apparently been taken by surprise.

Puller had recorded his observations and used the device he’d previously stuck in his belt to help him organize the investigation. Monroe had excitedly asked him what the tool was.

“Army calls it a CSED, or Crime Scene Exploitation Device. It’s a camera with a bar coder, digital screen, labeler, and printer all rolled into one. It’s got a flip-out USB so I can down- and upload from my laptop. My digital recorder has the same capability. And it has an electronic transcriber so it’ll automatically type out what I’ve recorded by voice. I’m not great on the keyboard.”

“That is beyond cool,” said Monroe.

“Don’t get too excited, Lan,” said Cole. “Doubt there’s money in the budget for us to get one of those.”

Puller glanced at Cole. “Tell me about the dog that was here.”

“Collie. Got a colleague taking care of it. Friendly thing.”

“Okay, but any of the neighbors report hearing any barking?”

“Dog can’t bark,” replied Cole. “Probably the only reason they let it live.”

“A dog that can’t bark?”

“Well, it hasn’t once barked for us. Might’ve had an operation
done. That can sometimes screw up the bark. At least according to a vet friend of mine that I asked.”

Looking down at the lined-up bodies, Cole said, “You said they were interrogated but didn’t really explain what you meant. They obviously weren’t being interrogated after they were killed. So why line them up on the couch after they were dead?”

“I think the person wanted to see them being interrogated. And they also wanted to see on the video that they were dead.”

“So they were broadcasting the video out to someone else?”

“That’s how I read it.”

Cole slowly nodded. “So if we can get our hands on the video, there might be some clues. One of the killers might have stepped in front of the camera, for example. Or maybe it might have caught a reflection of one or more of them.”

“That’s true. But odds are if we find the video, we’ll find the killers too. That’s not something they’ll leave lying around.”

“Well, let’s hope that happens.”

“We need to get the bodies to a refrigerated environment soon and then have the posts done,” said Puller as he stared down at the decomposing bodies. “At some point courtroom evidence starts falling apart. How’s it coming with your doctor friend?”

“Should know something definitive later today.”

Puller knelt down next to Matt Reynolds. “Shotgun to the face. Less than three feet away, minimal pellet dispersal, wadding in the wounds. If the muzzle was choke-bored it could muddy that analysis.” He indicated the wadding. “Lan, have you taken a sample yet to verify gauge?”

“Yeah. Haven’t done the test yet, but I hope once I compare the diameter with sample wads it’ll give us an answer.”

Puller turned to the wife’s body. “I measured the distance between pellets, and that together with no central wound or wadding means she was probably shot from farther away than ten feet.”

“But down in the basement,” said Cole, who knelt next to him.

“Presumably. But serology results will confirm it,” said Puller.

“Why the basement?” asked Cole.

“Quieter,” said Puller. “But you still have problems.”

“Like what?”

“Shotgun blast even in a basement in the middle of the night might attract attention. And you have to control the other captives. They hear the shot, they panic, start screaming, trying to get away, knowing they’ll probably be next.”

Monroe snapped his fingers, unlocked a metal evidence box he’d previously brought into the house, and pulled out some sealed, labeled evidence bags.

“I was wondering why I found these things in those places. But what you just said may explain it.”

Puller took up the bags one by one. “Tell me what you’ve got here.”

“That bit of gray fuzz came from the girl’s left ear. The white thread I found inside the boy’s mouth. Found a similar one hung up on the mom’s left molar.”

Cole looked at them over Puller’s shoulder.

Puller said, “The white thread in the mouth? Gag?”

“And the thing in the ear?” asked Cole.

Monroe said, “I’m thinking it’s a piece of an ear bud. Like from headphones to an iPod or MP3 player.”

Puller said, “They were blasting music into their ears when they were shooting people. So they couldn’t hear it.”

“That’s pretty hardcore,” added Monroe.

Puller said, “But that doesn’t explain the shotgun use. Maybe they couldn’t hear it, but some of the neighbors might have.”

Cole rose and went over to the window and looked out. She whirled back around.

“You said blasted.”

Puller handed the bags back to Monroe and turned to her. “Yeah. So?”

“Trent Exploration. They might’ve
blasted
on Sunday night. And this neighborhood is only a couple miles away from where they’re doing it.”