Upstairs, another body lay on a bed.
“Mr. Arnold Santander, Mrs. Garcia’s father, as far as we know. Shot.”
“Gun? Calibre?”
“Something that blew a hole in him the size of China. And there are two more.”
Another bedroom revealed a fourth body—this one bludgeoned to death. Quinn couldn’t even guess the sex, age or anything else about the remains on the bed.
“Maggie Santander, the wife’s mother,” Larue said.
The fifth body was downstairs by the back door. Compared to the others, it was in relatively good condition.
“This one is a family aunt—Mr. Garcia’s sister, Maria Orr. What I’ve been able to gather from the neighbors is that Maria Orr picked up the Garcia children to take them to school. She was the drop-off mom and Mrs. Garcia was the pickup mom. Maria often stopped by for a coffee after she took the kids to school and before heading to her job at a local market. Mrs. Garcia was a stay-at-home mom and looked after all the children in the afternoon.”
Quinn hunkered down by the body and gingerly moved the woman’s hair. He frowned up at Larue. “Strangled?”
“That’s Hubert’s preliminary finding, yes,” Larue replied.
Quinn stood. “No weapons anywhere in the house? The yard?”
“No. Obviously, the techs are still combing the house. I have officers out there questioning neighbors and going through every trash pile and dump in the vicinity and beyond. The city’s on high alert. I’m about to give a press conference—any words of wisdom for me before I cast everyone into a state of panic?”
One of Larue’s men, carefully picking his way around the corpse, heard the question and muttered, “Buy several big dogs and arm yourself with an Uzi?”
He was rewarded with one of Larue’s chilling stares. “All I need is a city full of armed and frightened wackos running around,” he said. “Quinn, what sort of vibe are you getting here? Anything?”
Quinn shrugged. “Was there any suggestion that they could have been into drugs or any other smuggling?”
“The poor bastard was a courier, a baseball coach, a deacon at his church. The mom baked apple pies. No, no drugs. And it sure as hell doesn’t look like one of them killed the others and then committed suicide.”
Quinn spoke to Larue, describing the situation as he understood it. “The grandparents were in bed—separate beds and rooms, but I’m assuming they were old and in poor health. The wife was cleaning up after breakfast, while the husband appeared to be about to leave the house. I think the aunt had just arrived and saw something—but didn’t make it out of the house. She was running for the rear door, I believe. You’d figure she’d be the one shot in the back, but she wasn’t. She was caught—and strangled. The different methods used to kill suggest there was more than one killer in here. What’s odd is that the blood pools seem to be where the victims died. No one tracked around any blood, and there are no bloody fingerprints on the walls, not that I can see. Yes, we have blood spatter—all over the walls.” He shook his head. “It should be the easiest thing in the world to catch this killer—or killers. He or she, they, should be drenched in blood. Except...your victim trying to escape via the back hallway was strangled. There’s no blood on her whatsoever, and you’d think that if the same person perpetrated all the murders, there’d be blood on her, as well. Unless she was killed first, but that’s unlikely. It looks like she was running away.”
“So, the bottom line is...”
“Based on everything I’m seeing, I’m going to suggest more than one killer,” Quinn said. “Still, they should be almost covered in blood—unless they wore some kind of protective clothing. Even then, you’d expect to find drops along the way. It seems that whoever did this killed each of these people where we found them—and then disappeared into thin air.”
Larue stared at him, listening, following his train of thought. “You didn’t tell me anything I don’t already know,” he argued.
“I’m not omniscient or a mind reader,” Quinn said.
“Yes, but—”
“Your men should be searching the city for people with any traces of blood on them. It should be impossible to create a bloodbath like this and not have it somewhere. And the techs need to keep combing the house for anything out of the ordinary.”
“This much hate—and nothing taken. Implies family, a disillusioned friend...or a psychopath who wandered in off the street. They say this kind of violence is personal, but there are plenty of examples to the contrary. To take a famous one, Jack the Ripper did a hell of a number on his last victim, Mary Kelly, and they believe that his victims were a matter of chance.”
“They were a ‘type,’” Quinn reminded him. “Jack went after prostitutes. What ‘type’ could this family have been? My suggestion is that you learn every single thing you can about these people. Maybe something was taken.”
“Nothing seems to have been disturbed. No drawers were open, no jewelry boxes touched.”
Quinn nodded, glancing at his former partner. Larue was in his late thirties, tall and lean with a steely frame, dark, close-cropped hair and fine, probing eyes. There were things he didn’t talk about; he was skilled at going on faith, and luckily, he had faith in Quinn.
“That’s why I called you,” Larue said. “I’m good at finding clues and in what I see.” He lowered his voice. “And you, old friend, are good at finding clues in what we don’t see. I’ll have all the information, every file, I can get on these bodies in your email in the next few hours. Hubert said he’ll start the autopsies as soon as he’s back in the morgue.”
“Mind if I walk the house again?” Quinn asked him. “There’s something I want to check out.”
“What’s that?”
“Like I said, I’m surprised more blood wasn’t tracked through the house. But what I do see leads back to James Garcia.”
“One would think—but you’re trying to tell me that James Garcia butchered his family—and came back to the hall to slash himself to ribbons?”
“No, I’m not saying that. I agree with you that it’s virtually out of the question. I’m just saying that the only blood trails there are lead back to him. There’s no weapon he could have done this with, so...that tells me someone else had to be in the house. They got to the second floor first and murdered the grandparents, headed down to the kitchen and killed the wife, then caught either the aunt or James Garcia. But you’ll note, too, that there’s no blood trail leading out through the doors. Like I said, whoever did this should have been drenched. It seems obvious, but surely someone would’ve noticed another person covered in blood. Yes, this is New Orleans—but we’re not in the midst of a crazy holiday with people wearing costumes and zombie makeup. And even if the killers were wrapped in a sheet or something protective, it’s hard to believe they could escape without leaving a trace.”
“What if they had a van or a vehicle waiting outside?” Larue asked.
“That’s possible. But still...I’d expect some drops or smudges as the killer headed out. I’m going to look around, okay?”
“Go for it—just keep your booties on and don’t interrupt any of my techs. Oh, and, Quinn?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank God you’re back.”
Quinn offered him a somber smile. “Glad you feel that way.”
He left Larue in the hallway, giving instructions to others, and supervising the scene and the removal of the bodies.
At first, Quinn found nothing other than what they’d already discovered.