Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)(40)

“Turns out that Hermes Laraquette was from Barbados,” Neil continued now. He glanced at his notes. “Hermes was a Redleg—some small white underclass that descended from indentured servants, criminals, etc. INS has been looking for him, which is one case file they can now close.”

“School, employment, church, social clubs, prior address?” D.D. prompted.

This list was thin. The Laraquette-Solis clan lived across Boston, in Jamaica Plains. They were not known for their community involvement or their social consciousness. The family had moved into the neighborhood six months ago, and while Hermes liked to saunter around in his rainbow knit hat, the woman and kids were rarely seen outside.

D.D. couldn’t imagine it. How could anyone stay inside with that smell?

She studied the list under the Harrington name, then the list under the Laraquette name. Nothing leapt out at her.

“Enemies?” she prodded.

No one could think of any enemies for the Harringtons. The Laraquettes, on the other hand … They’d need days to research that list, given Hermes’s drug dealings. D.D. filled in TBD, for “to be determined.”

“So,” she declared briskly, “according to our lists, there’s no obvious overlap between the Harringtons’ world and the Laraquettes’. From a logical perspective, how could these two families know each other?”

“Mission work, maybe,” Alex spoke up, “if the Harringtons’ church does anything with low-income families. Or their own volunteer efforts.”

“Worth checking,” D.D. agreed. “The Harringtons are do-gooders and the Laraquettes could use some good done. Other connections?”

“The kids,” Neil suggested. “Teenage boys are close in age. Maybe knew each other from sporting activities, summer camps, that kind of thing.”

D.D. wrote it down.

“Foster families, troubled kids,” Phil continued, brainstorming. “Harringtons adopted Ozzie, who we know passed through a variety of households before reaching them.”

“You’re thinking the Laraquettes once fostered Ozzie?” D.D. was dubious. “I’d think it would be the other way around—child services looking to place the Laraquette children to get them the hell out of that house.”

“That, too,” Phil agreed. “Again, we know the Harringtons had an interest in at-risk kids, and we know the Laraquette kids were at risk.”

“All right, from that perspective, I can buy it. We’ll call social services. They always love to hear from us. Other possibilities?”

The group was quiet, so D.D. made a few notes, then cleared the whiteboard and set them up for discussion number two: crime scenes.

Neil, the autopsy guru, led the way. “ME confirmed that the mother, Denise Harrington; the older son, Jacob; and the younger son, Oswald, all died of a single knife wound. Of note, there are no hesitation marks on any of the wounds.”

“Christ,” Phil muttered, the lone family man in the room.

“The girl, Molly, suffered a knife wound to the upper left arm. Cause of death, however, was manual asphyxiation. Fractured hyoid bone, which indicates a perpetrator of considerable manual strength.”

“Like a nine-year-old boy?” D.D. spoke up.

Neil gave her a look. “Not likely.” He glanced back down at his notes. “As for the father, Patrick Harrington, ME hasn’t gotten to him yet. According to the doctor’s report, however, he died due to complications from a gunshot wound—swelling of the brain.”

“Okay. So three stabbed, one strangled, one shot. Kind of original right there. Most family annihilators have a singular approach, don’t they?” D.D. looked to Alex for an answer.

He nodded. “Traditional approaches include shooting, drugging, and/or carbon monoxide poisoning. Sometimes, you see a case where the father figure drugs the family first, presumably to limit their suffering, then shoots them. If we look at teenage family annihilators—the abused son seeking retribution—methodology expands to bludgeoning and/or arson. I haven’t heard of a case where a single attacker switches weapons as he/she goes along.”

“Single attacker,” D.D. picked up. “Let’s talk about the number of perpetrators for a second. What about cases where the adolescent child has a partner in crime, like the daughter and her boyfriend who kill her family so they can be together. Or wasn’t there a case where a daughter and her lesbian lover murdered her grandparents so they could be together? Stuff like that.”

“When a teenager is the instigator of family annihilation,” Alex said, “there are instances of partner involvement. In those cases, however, both partners murder the offending family members, then escape together. Not kill the family, plus the adolescent instigator, and then the partner gets away.”

“Coconspirator turned on the instigator?”

“Why?” Alex asked.

“Hell if I know.”

“Not probable,” Alex said. “Furthermore, the Harrington scene is methodical. Two teenagers on a killing spree are never gonna get through a house that clean. We’re looking for a perpetrator of above-average strength and intelligence. Patient, calculating, and skilled. Find me that teenager, and we’ll talk.”

“Fair enough,” D.D. said. “What do we know about the knife?”