The Darkness of Evil (Karen Vail #7)(73)

The call went to voice mail and Vail left a message. Maybe she turned the ringer down while she was in a movie and forgot to fix the volume.

As she sat down to clear her mind and think, Walters and Tarkoff joined her with reports of what they had seen in the bedrooms, most of which seemed to pertain to the homeowners. However, it did appear that two beds had been slept in recently. They would need a more thorough evaluation with forensics to know for sure.

Hurdle followed moments later with his assessment of the caliber and type of weapon Gaines had used. Based on the spray pattern and shell casings, it looked to him to be .40-caliber rounds from a semiautomatic weapon. “Not very helpful—we pretty much knew that when we were under attack. But I think there’s evidence of two shooters, one of whom only had a handgun. We really need to wait for crime scene and their analysis. And no sign of that teen the neighbor told you about.”

“Could be we were right before,” Vail said. “About finding Scott MacFarlane. Just a guess, but it’s an educated one. That group seems to have been together since middle school, if not before. No reason to think MacFarlane was an aberration. And it would explain why we haven’t been able to find him.”

By the time they finished their discussion, Curtis texted her that the warrant was approved.

They all returned to their floors and Vail began by rummaging through the basement closet, picking up where Curtis left off. It doubled as a second pantry and storage room. She saw winter clothes, ski equipment, and other assorted items a family stuffs into available spaces.

Vail saved the entertainment center for last, partly out of avoidance. She already knew what she was going to find.

When Curtis returned with the warrant, she briefed him on what he missed, including the potential second occupant in the house. She then moved on to the cabinet beneath the television. They were full of old DVDs and tapes of family videos from the last twenty years or so.

Well that was a pleasant surprise.

Until she opened another drawer. “Here we go. More DVDs. And not the G or PG rated kind. Except …”

Curtis crossed the room and knelt beside her. “Gay porn?”

They looked at each other.

“Wonder if Gaines—is he, was he, Marcks’s lover?”

“Interesting question. Or MacFarlane, if it was him who was shacked out here with him. Let’s keep looking.”

Vail returned to her area and found sex videos with handwritten labels. She put one into the DVD player and fired up the TV.

“Oh shit,” Curtis said. “More child porn.”

Vail wanted to turn away but could not—she needed to see who was in the video; specifically, which adults, if they revealed themselves to the camera. “There’s Gaines. Right?”

Curtis, his eyes narrowed as if to lessen the impact of what he was viewing, tilted his head.

Vail hit rewind on the remote, got the spot she wanted, and hit pause. “Only got a portion of his face in the frame.”

“The lab can do a better job with this, but I’d say, maybe. Maybe not. Don’t know, could be him.”

Based on what she was seeing, she thought again about that teen the neighbor mentioned. But the age was not right. These were not young men, they were boys. “When’s crime scene due here?”

“They’re here. Started on the main floor.” He held up one of the DVDs with a gloved hand. “If it is him in these videos, or some of them, we’ve got him dead to rights.”

“Either way,” Vail said, doing her best to keep the bile from rising in her throat, “really wish we had this bastard in custody.”

“We’ll get him,” Curtis said, averting his eyes from the screen. “Turn that shit off. We’ll let the guys at the lab analyze it, see if we can get some other faces and IDs. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get MacFarlane in it, too.”

“Hopefully they can pull some metadata off the DVDs that can tell us where they were made, shut them down. Vail returned the disc to its holder and pulled out her radio, told Hurdle what they had found.

“I’d like to get some agents in the Cleveland FBI field office over to the house where these homeowners are staying. Break the news to them about their property and unwelcome guest. Leave out the part about him shooting up their place. But we need to cover all the bases and ask if the husband had a secret collection of child porn. And if he’s gay.”

Hurdle snickered. “That’s gonna be a fun conversation.”

“Got a better idea. Have them arrange for a Skype session when they get there. I want to see their reaction. No—I want to interview the husband, away from the wife. If this is his shit, he won’t admit it in front of her.”

“Will he admit it even in private? It’s a federal offense.”

“I’m not expecting a verbal admission. That’s why I want to Skype. I need to see his reaction.”

“I’ll have someone arrange it. Over.”

Vail continued looking through the collection. “Assuming this stuff belonged to Gaines, I can see why the * ran. Might have nothing to do with Marcks. You got anything over there?”

“Male porn. Bondage stuff. Nothing like what you found.” Curtis tossed a stack of magazines to the ground. “Like you said, maybe this is just noise.”

“If we catch Gaines, this isn’t noise, Curtis. It’s leverage.”