“No,” McCaleb said quickly, hoping to limit Lockridge’s interest and involvement. “I just need to look at some stuff and give her a call back.”
“Very cool, dude.”
“Not really. It’s just a favor. What are you watching?”
“Oh, nothing. Just a show about this task force that goes after computer hackers. Why, you seen it?”
“No, but I was wondering if I could borrow the TV for a little while.”
McCaleb held up the videotape. Lockridge’s eyes lit up.
“Be my guest. Pop that baby in there.”
“Um, not up here, Buddy. This is – Detective Winston asked me to do this in confidence. I’ll bring the TV back up as soon as I’m done.”
Lockridge’s face registered his disappointment but McCaleb wasn’t worried about it. He went over to the counter that separated the galley from the salon and put down the binder and tape. He unplugged the television and removed it from the locking frame that held it in place so it wouldn’t fall when the boat encountered high seas. The television had a built-in videocassette player and was heavy. McCaleb lugged it down the narrow stairway and took it to the forward stateroom, which had been partially converted into an office. Two sides of the room had been lined with twin bunk beds. The bottom berth on the left had been changed into a desk and the two top bunks were used by McCaleb to store his old bureau case files – Graciela didn’t want them in the house where Raymond might stumble upon them. The only problem was that McCaleb was sure that on occasion Buddy had gone through the boxes and looked at the files. And it bothered him. It was an invasion of some kind. McCaleb had thought about keeping the forward stateroom locked but knew that could be a deadly mistake. The only ceiling hatch on the lower deck was in the forward room and access to it ought not be blocked in case there was ever a need for an emergency evacuation through the bow.
He put the television down on the desk and plugged it in. He turned to go back up to the salon to retrieve the binder and tape when he saw Buddy coming down the stairs, holding the tape and leafing through the binder.
“Hey, Buddy -”
“Looks like a weird one, man.”
McCaleb reached out and closed the binder, then took it and the tape from his fishing partner’s hands.
“Just taking a peek.”
“I told you, it’s confidential.”
“Yeah, but we work good together. Just like before.”
It was true that by happenstance Lockridge had been a great help when McCaleb had investigated the death of Graciela’s sister. But that had been an active street investigation. This was just going to be a review. He didn’t need anybody looking over his shoulder.
“This is different, Buddy. This is a one-night stand. I’m just going to take a look at this stuff and then that will be it. Now let me get to work so I’m not here all night.”
Lockridge didn’t say anything and McCaleb didn’t wait. He closed the door to the forward bunk and then turned to the desk. As he looked down at the murder book in his hands he felt a sharp thrill as well as the familiar rising of dread and guilt.
McCaleb knew it was time to go back to the darkness. To explore it and know it. To find his way through it. He nodded, though he was alone now. It was in acknowledgment that he had waited a long time for this moment.
Chapter 3
The video was clear and steady, the lighting was good. The technical aspects of crime scene videotaping had vastly improved since McCaleb’s days with the bureau. The content had not changed. The tape McCaleb watched showed the starkly lit tableau of murder. McCaleb finally froze the image and studied it. The cabin was silent, the gentle lapping sound of the sea against the boat’s hull the only intrusion from outside.
At center focus was the nude body of what appeared to be a man who had been trussed with baling wire, his arms and legs held tightly behind his torso to such extreme that the body appeared to be in a reverse fetal position. The body was face down on an old and dirty rug. The focus was too tight on the body to determine in what sort of location it had been found. McCaleb judged that the victim was a man solely on the basis of body mass and musculature. For the head of the victim was not visible. A gray plastic mop bucket had been placed entirely over the victim’s head. McCaleb could see that a length of the baling wire was stretched taut from the victim’s ankles, up his back and between his arms, and beneath the lip of the bucket where it wrapped around his neck. It appeared on first measure to be a ligature strangulation in which the leverage of the legs and feet pulled the wire tight around the victim’s neck, causing asphyxia. In effect, the victim had been bound in such a way that he ultimately killed himself when he could no longer hold his legs folded backward in such an extreme position.
McCaleb continued studying the scene. A small amount of blood had poured onto the carpet from the bucket, indicating that some kind of head wound would be found when the vessel was removed.
McCaleb leaned back in his old desk chair and thought about his initial impressions. He had not yet opened the binder, choosing instead to watch the crime scene videotape first and to study the scene as close as possible to the way the investigators had originally seen it. Already he was fascinated by what he was looking at. He felt the implication of ritual in the scene on the television screen. He also felt the trilling of adrenaline in his blood again. He pressed the button on the remote and the video continued.
The focus pulled back as Jaye Winston entered the frame of the video. McCaleb could see more of the room now and noted that it appeared to be in a small, sparely furnished house or apartment.
Coincidentally, Winston was wearing the same outfit she had worn when she had come to the house with the murder book and videotape. She had on rubber gloves that she had pulled up over the cuffs of her blazer. Her detective’s shield hung on a black shoelace which had been tied around her neck. She took a position on the left side of the dead man while her partner, a detective McCaleb did not recognize, moved to the right side. For the first time there was talking on the video.
“The victim has already been examined by a deputy coroner and released for crime scene investigation,” Winston said. “The victim has been photographed in situ. We’re now going to remove the bucket to make further examination.”
McCaleb knew that she was carefully choosing her words and demeanor with the future in mind, a future that would include a trial for an accused killer in which the crime scene tape would be viewed by a jury. She had to appear professional and objective, completely emotionally removed from what she was encountering. Anything deviating from this could be cause for a defense attorney to seek removal of the tape from evidence.
Winston reached up and hooked her hair behind her ears and then placed both hands on the victim’s shoulders. With her partner’s help she turned the body on its side, the dead man’s back to the camera.
The camera then came in over the victim’s shoulder and closed in as Winston gently pulled the bucket handle from under the man’s chin and proceeded to carefully lift it off the head.
“Okay,” she said.
She showed the interior of the bucket to the camera – blood had coagulated inside it – and then placed it in an open cardboard box used for evidence storage. She then turned back and gazed down at the victim.
Gray duct tape had been wrapped around the dead man’s head to form a tight gag across the mouth. The eyes were open and distended – bugged. The cornea of each eye was rouged with hemorrhage. So was the skin around the eyes.
“CP,” the partner said, pointing to the eyes.
“Kurt,” Winston said. “We’re on sound.”
“Sorry.”
She was telling her partner to keep all observations to himself. Again, she was safeguarding the future. McCaleb knew that what her partner was pointing out was the hemorrhaging, or conjunctive petechiae, which always came with ligature strangulation. However, the observation was one that should be made to a jury by a medical examiner, not a homicide detective.
