‘Started twenty years ago this year. I was just a greenhorn trooper back in ′75. We lost a family between Yosemite and Tahoe. The Campbells. Five of ’em. Mom and Pop, two teenage boys and a ten-year-old girl. Left Yosemite on a bright breezy morning one Easter and were never seen again. They got reported missing two weeks later…’
‘Two weeks?’
‘They was on holiday, Agent Drexler. No one to report them overdue. Except the manager at the condo, but why would he phone it in? Happens all the time. He gets to keep the deposit and re-let the apartment.’
‘Right.’
‘Far as we know, other families disappeared on this road too. Last one was just a couple of months ago. Family name of Bailey set out from San Diego in a VW camper. They…’
‘What do you mean, far as we know?’ Drexler was unable to keep a trace of censure out of his voice.
Dupree took a pause and shot Drexler a lingering look, then allowed himself a thin mocking smile. ‘Well, when we can be bothered to take a break from hunkering down on the Krispy Kremes, and there’s not a Klan meetin’ or a rodeo on the tube, we sometimes squeeze in some police work.’
‘Excuse my partner, Sheriff,’ said McQuarry. ‘He flunked the diplomacy training.’
‘He’s excused, Ma’am.’
‘What the Sheriff means, Mike, is there could be other families who’ve disappeared.’
Dupree nodded. ‘S’right. My kinda vacation. Load the wife and kids into a Winnebago and set off for the horizon. Who knows how many others do the same? We don’t get notified in Markleeville if a car full of people from Alabama goes missing unless there’s a paper trail that puts ’em here. Don’t mean they didn’t drive up 89 with a pocketful of cash. Know if it was me, I’d be paying cash for my gas. Out in the backwoods that can still be the only currency.’
Drexler nodded. ‘I see.’
‘And is that why you’ve called us in, Sheriff?’
‘Not exactly, Ma’am. But I think we can rustle up a connection.’ Dupree turned and led them towards the gas station.
Drexler noted he had a slight limp. ‘So what have you got for us, Sheriff?’
‘Two bodies so far. Caleb Ashwell, owner of the gas station. The other one’s in here. Customer found him round six a.m. We figure this one was killed second, as he’s got blood spray from the first on him.’
They walked into the low building where two CSIs were going through their various procedures. A harsh striplight illuminated the dark office, but nothing else. McQuarry decided not to ask where the specialist crime scene lighting was. They probably didn’t have any and there was no sense drawing attention to it and causing further offence. She pulled her latex gloves from her pocket and put them on. Drexler did the same.
A well-built young man, seventeen, eighteen at most, hung from a steel rafter in the low ceiling.
‘Ashwell’s son Billy,’ said Dupree. McQuarry gazed up at him. His face was pale and his lips slightly parted and discoloured. Nearby a chair had been knocked over on its side and discarded plastic packaging lay on the floor. Otherwise there was order.
McQuarry clicked on a small Dictaphone. ‘White male, Caucasian, mid-to-late teens. Lips and tongue cyanosed. Probable cause – asphyxia.’
Drexler stood near the plastic packaging. ‘This is for a tow rope, Ed.’ He looked behind the counter. Several more ropes in their untouched packaging sat on the shelf. ‘Taken from the store here. The hanging was improvised. Suicide?’ he asked Dupree.
‘Homicide,’ said Dupree. Both agents were slightly taken aback by his confidence. Hangings were rarely clear cut, the majority being suicides as it was not the easiest way to kill and would usually require multiple assailants, particularly to subdue a strong young man.
‘Who found him?’
‘Old Ben Gardner called in for gas round six this morning. Says he saw the boy hanging when he got to the door. He’d had to pump his own gas, which was unusual – the boy usually ran out to serve you before your engine was off. Ben said he was clearly dead. Well, he was in ’Nam so I guess he’d know. He rang it in straightaway – didn’t touch anything, didn’t even walk through the door.’
McQuarry nodded and clicked off the Dictaphone. Until the body was cut down they wouldn’t be able to say more. She looked over at Dupree who nodded in response and led them out of the back door of the station onto a dirt track which took them to a small, functional wooden cabin.
Both agents were beginning to sweat now as the midday sun began to parch the bare track and they were relieved to dip under the cooler canopy of the trees.
It took them a few minutes to adjust their eyes to the murk of the cabin. They could see the shadowy form of Caleb Ashwell, tensed and twisted from his death throes. They could see the sinewy debris of his throat and the dark pool of drying blood on his grubby vest. They could see the handcuffs behind his back and an opened wine bottle on the table. It took a while to make out the words daubed in blood on the wall, though, as the darkening stain was nearly lost in the gloom.
‘“CLEARING UP THE GROUND”,’ read McQuarry. ‘Interesting.’
‘That’s what we figured until…’ began Dupree.
‘What we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stood.’ Dupree and McQuarry turned to Drexler who smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry. Philosophy major. It’s Wittgenstein.’
‘Cute,’ said McQuarry. ‘Doesn’t change what looks like a classic murder-suicide to me. Boy kills father. Boy feels guilty and kills himself.’ She turned to Dupree. ‘But this message makes you think it was a double murder?’
‘No, Mba’am. Something else.’
Brook rubbed his eyes and took another scant mouthful of his baked potato. He washed it down with a slurp of cold tea and returned his gaze to the computer screen. He reread the FBI report and then clicked on a link to take him to the Los Angeles PD Homicide Report on the death of the Marquez family.
He read carefully: although the father and eldest son’s petty criminal background fitted the profile, several factors marked this down as something other than a Reaper killing. The timeline was fine. The Marquez family had died in 1995, at the same time the original Reaper Victor Sorenson had lived in LA, but the use of both a shotgun and several different knives on the two parents and four children pointed away from The Reaper. In addition, the two girls, one fifteen the other twelve, had both been raped at the scene, a violation to which The Reaper had never stooped. Sorenson killed his prey quickly. He didn’t want them to suffer; he just wanted them to experience beauty before they died – a piece of art, a beautiful aria, a glass of expensive wine. Then they could cease to exist, happy in the knowledge that they were leaving behind lives that weren’t worth the living, knowing the world was a better place without them.
Brook