ago, and I live a normal life. And in spite of all his problems, Eric was brilliant. He could have pulled it off.'
'I think Eric knew what was going on between you and your father.'
'Unfortunately, we can only wonder what Eric knew,' Linda said with a charming smile. 'Now that he's dead, it's impossible to sort it Out.'
'I'm sure he was on your list.'
A giggle fluttered on her lips. 'How you do go on. I have no list.'
'Perhaps he was a low priority because he never really victimized you, except to take your money in payment for his silence.'
'Silence about what?'
'Things he saw, and what he knew.'
Linda's eyebrows arched. 'That's quite a stretch.'
'I'm impressed with how you carried it out. You used a different MO and a different signature for every murder. You really did your homework. And making those anonymous phone calls to yourself was a brilliant strategy.'
Linda tried to repress a smile but didn't quite succeed. 'What are you talking about?'
'Killing off your family, one by one.'
'You have an overactive imagination.'
'You killed your father because he raped you, your mother because she stood by silently and let it happen, and Arthur because…' Kerney shrugged.
'Because?'
'Now it's only a theory, mind you.'
Linda smiled like a child about to play a favorite game. 'Let's speculate,' she said, clapping her hands together.
'Daddy passed you on to Arthur.'
Linda blinked and the playfulness disappeared. She forced it back on her face. 'Oh, that's very good.'
'And then there's Eric, who saw and knew things.'
'Like what?'
'Your ex-husband helped me figure it out when he told me how you'd lock the bathroom door to brush your teeth, and wouldn't allow him to see you naked.'
'Poor Bill. Such a conventional, narrow-minded man. I totally misjudged him.'
'Voyeurism probably started for Eric at home when he saw you being raped and molested by Vernon or Arthur, or both.'
'Or maybe he just kept bursting in on me while I was taking a bath, like kid brothers sometimes do. That would be enough to make a girl modest. Or maybe he was just sexually screwed up.'
'Did you start seeing Dr. Joyce to keep her silent about Eric? That was very clever.'
Linda smiled openly at the compliment. 'She's teaching me ways to cope with my pain. It's been a very trying time.'
'And is the pain gone?'
'Oh no,' she answered mechanically. 'Dr. Joyce says I have a lot of work to do in that regard.'
'Talk to me about it, Linda.'
'I can tell you one thing.' She lowered her voice when Mary Margaret stepped into the room. 'Daddy always used to say that giving a young girl an early start in life was a father's obligation. Don't you think he did a good job of getting me started?' She flipped her long hair and it covered her face.
'The lawyer is here,' Mary Margaret said.
'Just a minute,' Kerney said, keeping his attention fixed on Linda Langsford.
Mary Margaret slipped out the door and closed it.
Kerney had caught something in Linda's voice that made him think she wanted to keep talking. 'What kind of start did he give you, Linda?' he asked lightly. 'Was it a good one? One that you liked?'
Linda rose from the chair and pushed the hair back over her shoulders. 'That's a very mean question. I really should talk to my attorney.'
'I know you weren't bad, Linda. You were trying to be good and do what you were told. You haven't been arrested or read your rights so whatever you tell me can't be used against you. You know that; you're a lawyer.'
'Are you truly that interested?'
'Very. I'd like to understand what happened.'
Linda paused. 'I'll tell you one story that will explain everything. When Daddy stopped playing with me and started playing with Kay, I had to play with Arthur. That's what Daddy called it, playing. I had my first abortion when I was twelve. Mother told people I had the stomach flu.' Kerney said nothing, hoping for more.
'I had the stomach flu again the next year, and the year after that. Daddy got really mad at Arthur about making me pregnant so many times.'
'What about Eric? What did he do?'
'Do you think I'll be allowed to bury my brother?'
'I'm sure it can be arranged.'
'Eric was so sad. He used to hide in my closet at home and play with himself while he watched me undress. He was too scared to do more, but he wanted to. I could tell. Funny, isn't it? All he had to do was ask. Daddy and Arthur had trained me well.'
'But wouldn't you have hated Eric more if he had molested you?' Her expression turned quizzical, as though the question was point less. 'Of course. As much as Daddy and Arthur. I've planned a very nice service for him. Nothing nearly as grand as Daddy's. I don't expect very many people will come. But Penelope and Kay might like to.'
'Now if only Penelope and Kay were dead, that would tidy things up nicely,' Kerney said, thinking all the tidbits had finally come together.
'What a lovely thought,' Linda said, her sweet smile turning slightly crazy.
Among the items seized during the search, one of the most incriminating turned out to be a photo album with a series of neatly labeled and dated snapshots of Linda, Arthur, and Vernon Langsford taken during a camping trip made when the children were young. Their excursion had started at the Valley of Fires Park outside of Carrizozo and ended at Dog Canyon, now known as the Oliver Lee State Park.
Overnight stops had included the Three Rivers Petroglyphs site and the nearby Three Rivers campground at the base of Sierra Blanca. From the dates printed in a child's handwriting below each snapshot, Linda had been eleven years old at the time, and her brother fifteen.
There were pictures showing Linda cuddled in Vernon's arms, sitting in her brother's lap, her coltish legs spread wide, and striking a cheesecake pose with hands on her hips.
Kerney studied her face. Linda had been a naturally pretty girl with wide, innocent-looking, hopeful eyes. But a forced smile hid clenched teeth and a furrow creased her forehead like a tightly strung wire.
In one picture, Arthur stood behind her, his hands grasping Linda's hips as she bent forward toward the camera. In another staged shot, Linda sat facing her father, with her legs wrapped around his waist, her mouth open in a provocative pout.
In all the snapshots, Vernon and Arthur's eyes had been scratched out.
Kerney closed the album, convinced that the camping trip had been used to pass on the family tradition of incest from father to son. He now understood why Linda chose to kill her father at Oliver Lee State Park, and why spilling innocent blood along the way made a kind of cleansing, crazy sense to her.
He looked at the hardback books Lee had entered into evidence. Linda had amassed a small but sophisticated library on crime classification, homicide investigation, scientific evidence in criminal cases, and case studies of violent criminals. Lee had flagged a section in one of the books that outlined the typology and style of the spree killer, which had been heavily underlined.
From a dresser in Linda's bedroom, Lee had removed six individually framed photographs of Linda's parents, siblings, Kay Murray, and Penelope Gibben. On the back of each, with the exception of the Gibben and Murray
