The Innocent: The New Ryan Lock Novel (12 page)

The height from the floor to the spatters were also different. The smaller spatter was lower, maybe three feet up the wall. The other two were four and a half to five from the floor. Three neat little circles marked where each round had passed through and into the wall. The blood patterns on the cream carpet were messier, less easy to read. Ty prodded at the first major area of blood with the toe of his boot.

The patterns didn’t take a forensic expert to analyze. All three had been kneeling down, facing the wall. Going by the lack of handprints they had probably had their hands tied, likely in front of them, from the lack of the smear that would have been left if they had fallen forward, which they almost certainly had.

Ty stepped back into the doorway, and mimed the likely actions of the shooter.

The killer, or killers, must have lined them up one by one. He had already had them trussed by the time he’d got them here. He had made them kneel against the wall, then gone along the line, working fast so they were still absorbing the shock before it was their turn.

There hadn’t been any shotgun involved. This had been up close and personal, with a handgun. And it wasn’t a murder scene, domestic or otherwise. The bedroom had been a place of execution.

Ty spent some time circling the Shaw neighborhood, searching for Malik. But Malik had gone to ground. After a couple of hours he headed back into town and checked into his room at a small family-run motel a couple of short blocks from Joanna’s Diner. The manager fussed over his late check-in, and how he could have sold his room three times over for double the price.

Upstairs, the place was bare bones, a little frayed at the edges. Ty guessed that most of the guests were parents dropping off or collecting kids from the college. It was another reminder of how central it was to the town. Apart from some agriculture, and a large e-commerce packing facility, it was a case of no college, no town. There were thousands of places like it around the country. Places dominated by one large institution or business.

He was given an actual key to his room rather than a plastic card, and headed up to the third floor in the tiny elevator. When he got inside his room, he followed standard operating procedures. He dumped his bag, checked for surveillance devices and placed small markers that would tell him if someone had visited while he was out.

A few minutes later, Ty rolled back out in the Audi. He drove with a map next to him on the passenger seat. Lock had drilled into him an instinctual distrust of satellite navigation systems, and now he avoided them when at all possible. As far as he was concerned, a well-used satellite navigation system was as good as having a tracking device attached to your car. Plus it was faster to pick up the layout of a new place if you weren’t on auto-pilot. You saw more too. You had to look out for street signs, and generally be more alert.

Ty pulled up outside the Barnes family home and got out of the car. He walked across the street and knocked at the door.

There was no answer. He knocked again, this time more forcefully. Still no one came to the door. There wasn’t a car in the driveway or parked directly outside. He walked back down the path and checked the mailbox. The mail hadn’t been collected in at least a few days.

Ty walked to the back of the property. There were three windows. One had been boarded over. He pulled away the board, punched out the rest of the glass from the window with his elbow, and clambered inside.

He moved quickly through the house. In the mom’s room, clothing tumbled from open drawers. The bed was unmade. He checked the bathroom. Toothbrushes were gone from the holder. The boy’s room was also untidy, but that didn’t signify much.

In the kitchen a heap of dishes had been left to molder in the sink. Ty opened the refrigerator. The milk was beginning to sour. In the crisper drawer there were two wrinkled peppers and a wilted lettuce.

Everywhere else in the house was clean and as tidy as life got with a young boy living there. Eve Barnes clearly took pride in her home. She had also left in one hell of a hurry. His day had just gotten a little better. If they had skipped town, there was a chance that Eve and her son were still alive.

Gretchen Becker’s friends called her Pollyanna. The nickname fitted her so well that she didn’t even mind when they used it when she was in their company. She just laughed.

Gretchen was always optimistic, always cheerful. Nothing ever seemed to get her down. The past week had tested her sunny disposition, but she had done her best to maintain it. For a start she didn’t believe a word of what was being said about Aubrey. It was simply preposterous. He was a good husband, kind, loving and considerate. And he most certainly wasn’t a goddamn faggot, never mind a man with an interest in young boys. Oh, how Gretchen loathed fags — and to think she would have married one! The very idea made her want to vomit.

Having sent their housekeeper home for the evening, she had busied herself making dinner for the two of them. She called Aubrey into the dining room and asked him to select a bottle of wine to go with the lamb.

As he did that, she ferried the food from the kitchen, and began to serve. Aubrey looked exhausted. The poor man.

She started when the doorbell rang. They weren’t expecting company.

‘I’ll get that,’ offered Aubrey.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, taking off her apron, and walking into the hallway. She skirted the sweeping staircase and made for the front door. She was slightly annoyed that the guard hadn’t alerted them to their visitor. That was his job after all.

No matter, she told herself. She’d speak to him in the morning about it. Without a guard on duty, she would have asked who it was before opening the door. But with him out there, she assumed the person had already been spoken to. Most likely it was one of her friends. Aubrey’s friends had disappeared from sight since word of the allegations had begun to circulate. Gretchen, however, had never been more popular. Or that was how she explained the continual offers to talk from friends she suspected were more interested in getting some salacious details from her.

With her best smile fixed to her face, she opened the door. ‘Good evening, and how may I help you?’

She froze as the gun came up and smashed into her face. She felt her front teeth splinter, and tasted blood in her mouth. Black shapes swam in front of her eyes. She felt lightheaded. The pain of her hair being grabbed and pulled snapped her back to the present.

She was punched in the stomach. She doubled over. The pain was overwhelming. She had never been hit in her entire life, never mind hard.

She began to cry as fear overwhelmed her. Where was Weston? Where was her husband?

‘What do you want?’ she said, through blood and tooth enamel. The pain from her mouth was excruciating, worse than being hit in the stomach. She thought she was going to throw up or pass out. She prayed she would pass out.

Her attacker didn’t say anything. She found herself being spun around, her arms forced behind her back. She heard the rip of duct tape, then felt it against her skin as her wrists were bound. A hand reached around and spread across her face.

‘What the hell is going …’

Aubrey Becker stood in the hallway, a glass of red wine frozen in his hand. He seemed to take in the damage that had already been done to Gretchen. He stepped forward.

‘She has nothing to do with this. Leave her alone.’

Gretchen was pushed to the ground hard. The attacker stepped over her, and walked slowly toward Aubrey, who began to back away slowly.

Gretchen kept waiting to hear the crack of a gunshot, but the attacker put away the gun they were holding, reached into their jacket and pulled out a knife. It must have been about eight inches long and was shaped like a hunting knife. At the sight of it, Aubrey Becker’s glass slipped from his hand, the red wine splattering over the tiled floor.

The phone. There was a phone on a small side table. If she could only reach it. Slowly, her body racked with pain, she got to her feet. She started toward the phone. The attacker was still bearing down on Aubrey.

She snatched the phone from its base, punched in 911, and put it to her ear, only to hear dead air. A second later, she heard her husband start to scream. It was a wild, high-pitched sound. It went on for a long time. When the screaming stopped, it was her turn.

Most of the dinner crowd had cleared out of the diner. Ty picked out a booth, away from the window. He sat with his back to the wall, and a clear view of the entrance. He scanned the menu. He wasn’t that hungry, but he knew he had to eat.

The waitress came over. She looked to be in her late teens. He guessed she was probably a college kid. He ordered the cheeseburger with fries, and a cup of coffee.

‘That everything?’ she asked him.

‘That’s it. Thanks.’

He handed over his menu. Two campus cops walked in. They stood at the counter, bullshitting with the older waitress and one of the cooks. One was older, with a shaved head and a gut. The other was younger. Both were white. The younger one had checked Ty out as soon as they had walked in. Ty didn’t think much of it. When you were a six-foot-four African American who looked like he did, old ladies avoided meeting your eye and cops checked you out. The younger cop glanced back at him.

This time Ty met his gaze, hoping he would say something or come over. These were the cops who had ignored Malik. For all Ty knew, one of them, or both, might already be aware of what had happened to Malik’s family. Hell, they could have pulled the trigger.

Cops were a sore subject between Ty and Lock. Lock knew there were bad ones, but he saw the police as fundamentally decent. Growing up where he had, Ty was a little more jaded. He had long ago given up arguing about it. People’s experiences were different, and the biggest determinant in the country was skin color, even with a black president in the White House — hell, especially with a black president. You didn’t get over hundreds of years of history and shared distrust with a couple of elections.

The younger cop kept staring. Ty started to get up. The waitress brought his coffee and he eased back into his seat. He thanked her. The younger officer had gone back to his conversation. The moment had passed. He called after her, ‘Excuse me?’

She walked back to his table with a smile. ‘Yes, sir?’

He took in the diner with a wave of his hand. ‘Seems kinda quiet.’

‘Yeah, I think most of the reporters are down the street.’ He must have looked puzzled, because she added, ‘There’s a bar. McGill’s. Your cheeseburger shouldn’t be too much longer.’

‘Thanks.’

The cops were hitting the door, both carrying doggie bags. The waitress came back with his cheeseburger. As he started to eat, his cell rang. He was hoping it was Malik but the screen flashed Lock’s name.

‘What’s up?’ said Ty.

‘I’m on the road. Should be with you in about four hours. Can you stay alive and out of jail for that long?’

‘In this town? It’s fifty—fifty, brother.’

‘So what’s going on?’ Lock asked.

Ty brought him up to speed with what he’d found at the house, what the neighbor had said and how it contradicted the story the cops were putting out. He also told him that he was certain Malik was alive, but didn’t go into detail in case the line wasn’t completely secure.

Lock listened in silence.

Finally, he said, ‘Hey, Ty?’

‘What is it?’

‘Small towns run by cops are never good news. Be careful, you hear me?’

‘I hear you.’ Ty killed the call. He turned his attention back to his plate of food, but pushed it away and signaled for the check.

As Ty took the short walk down the street to McGill’s, he saw the two cops from the diner sitting in their patrol car, watching him while making a big show of eating. Ty acted like they weren’t there and pushed through the doors of the bar. The waitress had been right. The place was packed solid, the college crowd pushed out by a bunch of reporters and TV producers.

Ty moved toward the bar. People shuffled out of his way, and he had no trouble finding a spot. He waved a twenty-dollar bill in the direction of the two harried staff. ‘Bourbon. Double.’

‘Real drink, huh?’

Ty turned to see the cute blonde woman he’d spoken to in the diner that morning standing behind him. ‘Can I get you something?’ he asked her.

‘Well, I’ve been standing here trying to order for the past ten minutes.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut in,’ said Ty.

‘Don’t sweat it. But I’ll take a beer. Heineken. Although technically I shouldn’t be drinking. Might have to go back in front of the camera if something happens.’

When the bartender came back with his bourbon, Ty added the beer to his order. ‘You think it will?’

She looked up at him. She had big brown eyes. Man, she was even cuter up close, he thought. ‘Honestly? No. I think this guy is lying dead in his car somewhere and that’s all she wrote.’

Ty felt a twinge of anger at the way she’d said it. He had to remind himself that misery and human suffering were her job. They were often his job too. The only thing that differed was that this time people close to his heart were involved. To find Malik he had to park whatever feelings he had.

‘And you think that because?’

‘Isn’t that usually how these things go down?’ she said.

The barman came back with their drinks. Ty told him to keep the change, and handed the reporter her beer. ‘So, you’re guessing?’ he said.

‘Thanks.’ She took a sip of beer, closing her eyes while she savored it. ‘Educated guess. I must have covered half a dozen of these deals by now. Guy goes crazy, kills his wife and kids. They usually put a gun in their own mouth. Too scared to face the music, I guess. And come on! Retired ball player? Those types are usually the worst.’

Ty looked at her. If she’d been a guy, then right about now she’d have been flying halfway across the bar from a punch. Instead he took a sip of bourbon. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘He loved his family.’

She shrugged. ‘Hey, you asked my opinion. Who are you with anyway?’