table, and at the dining table, and you'l find thick layers of dust on them both. Then go into Leo's den and look at his desk, and his filing cabinet. There's hardly any to be seen. Someone's given it an expert going over. But God knows what he was looking for; as far as I can see, nothing's been taken.'
'Shit,' Dekker hissed. 'In that case we better get the hell out of here and cal in a scene-of-crime team.'
'Yes,' said Skinner, 'your people, certainly, but also, of necessity, the same team who went over the cabin inthe Adirondacks. They need to look for forensic matches. You might waend for the State detectives too, Schultz and Smal; this thing has to be coordinated.'
'Shit again. A territorial war with the State cops is just what I do not need.'
'That may be over-ridden,' said Skinner.
'What do you mean?'
As if in reply, the big DCC handed him back the cellphone. 'First you give those orders, then we'l take it back to your office and I'l explain.'
The Sheriff nodded and made two calls; one short, to his own specialist unit, the other longer, to the head of the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Returning the phone to Skinner, he retrieved the key to his car from one of the patrolmen on the door then headed towards it, beckoning the three to fol ow him.
The journey into the centre of Buffalo took no more than twenty minutes. The Graces' house was in an eastern suburb of the smal lakeside city, and as they drove westward the surroundings became first more industrial, then, as they passed the footbal ground, more commercial.
The day was clear and cool; sitting in the back of the car that the FBI men had hired. Skinner wound down the window to enjoy the fresh air, 80 and to listen to the universally familiar sound of the Lake Erie gulls.
Dekker's office was on the top floor of the low-rise headquarters building on Delaware Avenue, in the business heart of Buffalo; the city had always reminded him of Edinburgh, inasmuch as it appeared to be a tight- knit community, where everyone probably knew everyone else.
'No cal s,' the Sheriff barked, brusquely, to his secretary as he ushered his three companions into his spacious room. He pointed them at a smal conference table, and took a seat at its head. 'Okay, Bob, I ought to call the chief of my criminal investigation unit, but something tells me I should hold on that. Let's hear what you've got to say first,' he said.
Skinner laid his big silver document case on the table, opened it and took out a pile of computer print-outs, which Brand had given him when they had met at JFK, and which he had begun to study on the flight upstate. He separated them into two bundles, then looked Dekker straight in the eye. 'Do you know how many burglary homicides we have in Scotland in a year, Brad?'
'I have no idea.'
'None. Don't get me wrong, we have an endemic burglary problem, and we have our share of murders. Sometimes, in fact, it seems to me that in Edinburgh, we have more than our share…' he flashed an ironic grin '… at least when I'm around. But our thieves just do not break into people's homes, not even rich people's homes, with the intention of kil ing then robbing. Is it al that much different here?'
The Erie County Sheriff shook his head. 'No, I can't say as it is. Our homicides tend to be gang things, or family things.' He paused. 'But we're not talking about Buffalo here; we're talking about the Adirondacks.
That's a whole different country.'
'Maybe so; but rural New York State actually has a lower homicide rate than you do. In fact it hardly has any. It also has a very low incidence of burglary. The place where Leo and Susannah were killed is remote, in terms of this part of the eastern United States at any rate; and that's true of most of the communities like it. From what I've been told by the BCI chief many of them barely are communities, just a collection of cabins gathered around lakesides, many of them empty for much of the year, furnished sparsely, with no valuables left there. Who's going to travel upstate to rip off a TV set and a few cheap knives and forks?
'Answer, no one. So let's get real, the guy who killed my in-laws went there to do just that.' He tapped the larger of the bundles before him.
'This stuff's from the FBI computer,' he said. 'Country-wide, in the last three years there have been fewer than ten genuine burglary homicides which match this one even remotely. So let's forget that theory. This was murder; first and foremost.
'If you want me to convince you, let's look at the way Leo and Susannah were kil ed. They weren't completely in the back of beyond, out there. The nearest cabin is half a mile away, and that lake is fished from dawn till midnight; there's always some bugger out in a boat.
Sound travels, especially over water; the guy couldn't exactly have walked in with a sawn-off and blown them al over the rucking place. So he didn't: instead he strangled them with a wire garrotte. Why? Because he was a pro, and because that was his method of choice. I'd guess he watched them for a couple of days, saw Leo sit on the por. ch around suppertime, and chose that as his moment. The old man was taken completely by surprise, and so, I guess, was Susannah, since she was still in the kitchen when she was killed.
'Let's go on. How many murders have there been in the entire United States in the same three-year period in which the victims have been garrotted in the same way; that is, in which the kil er has used a wire ligature?'
Dekker shook his head.
Skinner ruffled the smal er bundle on the desk. 'The answer, according to the great big computer, is twenty-five. Of these, twelve took place in Miami, Florida, and were the traMBLrk of a gang called the Toledos, who chose to use lengths of razor-wire and to strangle their victims slowly. They were distinguished by the amount of blood at the scene; most of the poor bastards bled to death, in fact.
'Of the remaining thirteen, nine were domestic crimes, in which the victims… as it happens, they included five wives, one grandfather and three mothers-in-law… were related to the murderer. Al of the perpetrators are now in jail, other than one who refused to appeal his death sentence and was executed three months ago.
'That leaves four, not counting Leo and Susannah. In every one of those cases the victim was murdered at home; two of them were Italians, known to have been involved in organised crime, and two of them were Colombians, a husband and wife, drug dealers who had been ripping off their suppliers.'
'Okay, I agree,' said the Sheriff. 'But how does that tie in with what you said back at the house, about jurisdiction over the investigation?'
Finally, Skinner smiled, the big broad smile of a card-player laying down a winning hand. 'On the journey upstate, and in my waking hours in the hotel, I've been through al of these burglary homicide reports.
They're very detailed; it says a lot for the FBI computer, ask it a specific question and you'l get an answer. It took a while, but eventual y, I found two files which, set together, make interesting reading.
'One homicide took place in a suburb of Las Vegas two weeks ago.
The victim's name was Sander Garrett; he lived alone in a big new luxury development on the outskirts of the city. He was found dead in his kitchen, cause of death a single gunshot wound to the head. His house had a security system, which Garrett normal y set at night, but when the cops arrived they realised that it wasn't activated. There were no signs of forced entry.
' 'The other murder was committed five days later, in Helena, the state capital of Montana. Again the victim was a lone male, Bartholomew Wilkins. He was found dead in the den of his home by his wife, RoseAnne, when she got back from the shopping mall. The autopsy showed that he'd been kil ed by a single blow from a slim, stiletto-type blade, driven into his brain with great force..
'In each case, cash and other items were taken from the scene of the crime, and it was written up as a burglary in which the victim had disturbed his killer.
'Until now, that is.'
The big Scot leaned forward across the desk, his shoulders hunching in the jacket of his dark suit.
'You see, Sheriff, there are three very remarkable coincidences in these two cases, which tie them right to the murders of Leo and Susannah.
Both victims were retired lawyers. Both of them were or had been active and prominent Democrats. Both of them, early in their careers, had spent time in Washington, at the same time as Leo Grace.'
Dekker looked at him across the table, and let out a long slow whistle.
'Fucking-A,' he murmured, with a deep frown creasing his forehead.
Brand and Kosinski sat silent, their slightly stunned expressions offering proof, if any had been needed, that they had not sneaked a look at the documents before handing them over.
