Not One of Us(10)

To our right was a dining room with a table and four chairs. Straight ahead lay a comfy den with shabby furniture, a worn area rug, and an old, bulky TV that sat atop a plain but functional wooden stand with shelves beneath.

No sign of a disturbance. Not even an errant scrap of paper lay on the cheap linoleum floor.

Oliver started down the hall, glancing over his shoulder at me, a question in his eyes.

I gave him an I’m-just-fine nod, and we proceeded down the hall, passing a cramped bathroom. The victim would be in the next room to the left. Across the hall was another bedroom, the bed neatly made with a threadbare chenille bedspread and a painting of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns, the blood trickling from his forehead and into his piercing brown eyes before trailing down his cheeks and disappearing into his beard.

“Morbid spirituality,” I grumbled under my breath. My gaze remained transfixed on the painting’s droplets of blood as though preparing for the grisly scene awaiting me only fifteen feet away.

“You ready for this?” Joe paused at the open bedroom door, and I nodded, squaring my shoulders and then following him into the room.

My mouth tingled with the metallic odor of blood and decay. I registered the details up close—the pattern of blood and brain splayed on the white bedsheets and the beige wall behind the bed. Bullet holes grazed the torn flesh of his scalp. A half glass of water undisturbed on the nightstand, a worn Bible open beside it. Scuffed leather motorcycle boots neatly tucked under the bed’s edge. A pair of jeans and a T-shirt folded onto a rocking chair in the corner.

“Jesus,” Oliver muttered, scurrying to the body.

No one could have survived this devastation, and the cops had already checked, but Oliver’s large hand touched the side of the man’s neck, feeling for a pulse. In the heartbeat of silence that followed, I continued scanning the room, searching for a discarded gun or anything the killer might have dropped. On the dresser was an empty whiskey bottle and a crumpled pack of cigarettes. A pair of dirty socks lay on the linoleum floor. A cardboard table in the far corner sported a baggie of what appeared to be marijuana and several prescription pill bottles. I picked my way over and bent close, reading the labels for opiates prescribed to Letitia Strickland. I glanced again at the baggie, distaste shuddering through me as I remembered that night and the one time I’d indulged in smoking weed, at Jackson’s urging. Look where that had got me.

Joe straightened and removed his hand. “Don’t touch anything,” he said, turning to address me.

I barely restrained myself from rolling my eyes. “Gee, thanks, I wouldn’t have known that. I don’t see any wound other than the obvious gunshot to the head,” I noted, proud of my level tone. “No sign of a struggle. Wonder if he was shot in his sleep?” That would be the most merciful way to go. To never see it coming. I’d rather go that way, to not have to face the horror of a killer pointing a gun at my face. I wouldn’t want to be sentient in my last moments, impotent and frightened as I stared into the hate-filled eyes that would be my last sight on earth.

Oliver’s take was different, immediately homing in on the killer and his mindset. “Cowardly, cold, and calculating.”

“Just the way he shot his victim in the back of the head all those years ago,” I mused aloud.

“Poetic justice.”

“A revenge killing, maybe?”

“Maybe,” he agreed grimly.

More voices rose from outside, drifting in from the open window. I strolled over and looked into the yard. “Forensics has arrived.”

Two men and a woman cut through the gathering spectators. They carried evidence kits and cameras, their hands already gloved, their hair covered in nets to prevent shedding and adding to the proliferation of DNA the old house was bound to contain.

“Take a good, long, last-second look around. It’s about to get chaotic,” Oliver advised.

Involuntarily, my attention drifted to the nightstand and the open Bible. I walked to it and leaned over, curious as to what might have been the last thing the victim ever read. A dirty crocheted cross lay across the thin, yellowed pages. A few verses were underlined. My eyes drifted over the markings, settling on the verse underlined twice in a bold black pen:

Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly. Deuteronomy 32:35.

Vengeance. Calamity. Doom. The printed words rumbled through my mind, and the fine hairs at the nape of my neck bristled.

The kitchen’s storm door opened and banged shut. Footsteps approached down the hallway. An older man dressed head to toe in a white suit stood in the doorway and cast a quick, impassive glance at the scene, then gave a low whistle. “Bad one, eh?”

“Worst I’ve seen in years,” Oliver agreed, then gestured at me. “This is Deputy Blackwell. She’ll be assisting me in the investigation.”

Despite the horror of the body only a few feet away from us, I couldn’t help the burst of pride and excitement Oliver’s words sent through me. I wouldn’t let him down.

The rest of the forensics team entered the room and immediately set to work. Camera flashes strobed the room, highlighting the gore in vivid detail.

Dempsey nudged my elbow as I swept past him to go speak with Reba Tankersley. He leaned into me, keeping his voice low and confidential. “Hey there . . . Big Easy.”