'Some psychos are good at covering their true identities. Up to that point Marty Maxwell was well respected and had seniority. It was a surprise to find that one of their most able men was crazy as a fox.'
I grunted. 'And all that happened was that he was discharged from service? Why didn't anyone keep an eye on him? Surely the signs were there, that he was capable of spiraling out of control?'
'Secret Service kept an eye on him as best they could. Only thing was—crazy or not—he was no fool. He knew that he'd be under surveillance for the foreseeable future. He wasn't prepared to let that happen.'
'He went underground?'
'More than that. He faked his death. Supposedly, in an act of shame, he killed himself. And the other members of his family. Wife and two kids.'
'Oh, God . . .'
'Shot them dead in their beds, turned the gun on himself, stuck it under his chin, and blasted off his head. He'd set up an incendiary device to burn the lot of them. Left only charred corpses in the burned-out ruin of their home.' Walter hung his head in shame, but I guessed it wasn't in memory of Maxwell's wife and children. 'Their identity wasn't in dispute. That was an end to it. They messed up.'
'You're telling me. Obviously the DNA wasn't matched or they'd have known before now that he was still on the loose.'
'I don't fully understand the science. They were happy it was Marty Maxwell. Considering he'd blown away half his head, they had no teeth for a dental comparison. His fingerprints had been burned off down to the bone. With the odds-on favorite that it was him, where would you have put your money?'
'Considering the training he'd had, what he'd have known, I'd have looked at the possibility that there was more to his death than met the eye. Who was the fourth body? If not Marty Maxwell? His father? A brother?'
'According to Marty's file he was a single child. Both parents died years before. Mother died following complications during childbirth, father from congenital heart disease. Let's not forget that until then, he hadn't committed any crimes. It was put down as a murder-suicide. They believed Maxwell was dead and that was that. Case closed.'
'But obviously he did have a brother?' I asked.
'Turns out he had a half brother called Robert Swan. Daddy Maxwell had been a naughty boy on his stag night, got an old sweetheart of his pregnant. It was Daddy Maxwell's best-kept secret. We only found this out afterward. The brother's mother noticed he was missing when her money stopped coming in. She's a lush, lives alone in a tenement up in the Bronx; seems like the son was sending her money whenever he could. A good boy. Looked after his ma, like any good boy should.'
'But Maxwell found out about his brother? I thought you said it was a secret.'
Walter grimaced. 'Daddy Maxwell must've come clean in the end. Maybe he confessed his transgression on his deathbed. His wife was already on the other side; I guess he could've been seeking absolution. From what we've been able to put together, Maxwell sought out his half brother, but still kept his identity secret from everyone else. Makes you wonder if he had the brother in mind for this very purpose all along, doesn't it?'
I thought about Walter's story; wondered what level of insanity it took to not only murder your family but plan it for God knows how long before doing it.
'If Maxwell had had the foresight to kill his brother's mother, we would probably be sitting here right now wondering how the hell a dead man had risen from the grave,' Walter said.
I asked, 'So what has the Cain reference got to do with it? Other than that the psycho likes assumed names?'
'His half brother was a musician,' Walter said as if that would explain everything to me. I looked at him blankly. 'Genesis. Like you said, everyone begetting one another.'
'I'm still not with you.'
Walter raised a stubby finger again. Sermon part two. 'Well, if you've read your Bible you'll know that there was an old blind guy named Lamech.'
'I must have missed that bit.'
'Lamech had two sons. Jubal and Tubal.'
'Yeah,' I agreed. 'I remember now. Jubal and Tubal Cain.'
'Jubal was the inventor of music,' Walter began.
'Tubal was the forger of knives and swords,' I completed. 'I see the connection now. If the brother, a musician, is synonymous with Jubal, that makes the Harvestman Tubal Cain.'
'Took a load of FBI profilers to come up with that one.'
'Hence Maxwell's love of knives?'
'Yup.'
'And the bones?'
'Some of these profilers have got it in mind that he's set himself some kind of mission, that he's taking the bones from his victims for some express purpose.'
'What?' I asked. 'Other than that he's demented?'
'Believe it or not, they believe he's feeling remorse for the killing of his brother, that somehow he's attempting to make amends.'
'Why his brother? Why not his wife and kids?'
Walter gave a body shrug. 'It's just a theory.'
