“We got it wrong,” Johnson said unhappily. “It wasn’t New Orleans. He went to Florida.”
“We got nothing wrong,” Dupree replied. “We have half our team there.”
Only half, Johnson thought, resigned to half a failure.
Dupree made the executive decisions. “Agents Emerson and Tucker will stay with the investigation, take charge of the bodies and the crime scene. They’ll attend the autopsies. We stay here. His pace is accelerating. He killed the Allens only four days ago. No one knows what’s motivating him, but he’s going full speed ahead. I’m sure he’s coming here. He doesn’t want to waste an opportunity.”
Amaia spoke. “Agent Tucker, this is Salazar. Are you at the murder scene right now?”
Tucker’s answer rattled on the line like the voice of a robot. “Yeah. We’re with the medical examiner.”
“Check to see if there’s a violin anywhere near the bodies. It’s bound to be located somewhere close to their heads.”
Two seconds later, Tucker confirmed it. “There’s a violin here all right, on the floor, kind of between the mother’s head and the older son’s. How the hell did you know?”
Dupree spoke. “Salazar, explain.”
Amaia closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window. She motioned to Johnson to reply.
And because Johnson was a good man, he forgot his resentment for Salazar and ran interference. “Agent Dupree, we’ve just arrived. Detective Bull’s parking the vehicle in the hotel courtyard. We’ll see you in a moment. Agent Tucker, it’s important to look for the bow. If this is the Composer’s work, there won’t be one.”
Dupree listened as they briefed him on their conversation with Joseph, all the while studying photos of the crime scenes. He concurred with Amaia that the photo from the Masons’ living room showed part of the chin rest of an instrument that was almost certainly a violin.
Johnson glanced at Amaia. “Assistant Inspector Salazar says a state trooper told her they inventory the contents of a house and hold them in a state warehouse pending disposition.”
“All right,” Dupree said and checked his watch. “We’ll get on that as soon as we finish with Detective Nelson. He’s calling us in two minutes. Agents Emerson and Tucker will join us on the line from Miami.”
Brad Nelson came on the line as scheduled. Dupree summarized the situation. “The Andrews family murders in Galveston appear to fit the profile of a series of murders we’re investigating. The FBI is treating this as kidnapping and murder. Your former chief, Captain Reed, sent us the case files and offered Galveston’s cooperation; we hope you’ll give us a hand. It goes without saying that this conversation must remain absolutely confidential.”
“Fine, y’all go ahead and do whatever you want!” Nelson’s response dripped with scorn. “It’s none of my business anymore. Hasn’t been for months, in fact.”
“Detective, this is Assistant Inspector Salazar.”
Nelson answered her questions in a bored tone: Yes, that goddamned violin. He saw it right away, part of the interior decoration. Trivial. CSI teams don’t go around impounding violins as evidence. No traces of an intruder were found, no hairs, no prints, nothing at all to suggest somebody else had been in the house.
“Detective Nelson, this is Agent Johnson. Were you aware Mrs. Andrews was an interior decorator and had done the work on their new house herself?”
“Pleased to speak with you, Johnson. Yeah, Joseph explained all that, and he claimed his mother wouldn’t have used a violin. Said it would clash with the ‘aesthetic sensibility’ of the room. Said violin lessons were the last thing in the world that’d interest his little brother . . . But the thing could have gotten there any number of ways. Remember, Junior wasn’t living in Galveston at the time. Any other family member could have brought it home. His mother was volunteering with the repertory theatre.”
“The fact that a family member insisted it didn’t belong in the house should have rung a bell,” Johnson commented, applying a little pressure. “Okay, he wasn’t living there, but he knew them better than anyone else.”
“It did raise doubts. I sent a crime tech to dust the thing down for prints a second time. It was clean. I even considered examining it a third time, but it was stolen.”
Dupree’s voice was steely. “This was after you authorized the professional cleanup of the crime scene.”
Amaia glanced at him, impressed. He comes across as a gentleman, but don’t let that fool you.
Nelson sighed into the phone. It rattled like thunder. “Look, I know what y’all are up to. I’m sorry for the boy, I understand what he’s going through, and it’s a shame. That’s why I kept taking his calls. But I’ve seen plenty of cases like this. He’s got survivor’s guilt. On one hand, he wasn’t with them; on the other, he wants to deny it happened at all. He’s grasping at straws. That’s why I sent my tech over there. Not because I thought our work was shoddy, but so I could give Junior a definite answer once and for all. But there was nothing—nothing at all—to suggest that any person outside the family had been in that house. The gun was inches from the father’s hand, and he had powder residue on that same hand. Ballistics confirmed his pistol had fired the shots. It was an open-and-shut case.”
“What kind of violin was it?” Amaia asked.
Nelson’s reply was less aggrieved now that he’d made his case. “That I can tell you. Because of the boy’s complaints about the violin, I didn’t just order it dusted for prints; I had a full report drawn up. It was an ordinary violin, the kind used for teaching, the type anybody might buy for a teenager who is taking lessons. Made in the USA, available in any music store for about seventy bucks.”
Amaia probed further. “Detective, did you find the bow?”
The question obviously took Nelson aback. “The bow?”
“It’s a long, thin piece of wood, slightly curved, with strings along the length, used to stroke the violin and produce the sounds.”
“I’m perfectly aware what a bow is,” he growled.
“Well, then? Did the team find one?”
Another of those thunderous sighs into the phone. “No. No, we didn’t find one. But I hardly think that means anything . . .”
She kept at it. “Tell me how the violin disappeared.”
“It didn’t disappear, it was stolen!” he exclaimed. “And that was after the lab examined it a second time, so if you’re trying to make that out to be important, you’re completely off track. They nailed the windows shut after the storm, and I guess they did a shit job of it. A few days later, some guys in a squad car noticed the plywood across one window was hanging loose. Nothing of value was missing, not even the expensive computers. Someone left a package of cookies open on the kitchen counter. The only inventoried items missing were a crystal decanter, the crystal bowl where they left their keys, and the violin. We think it was some neighborhood kid who walked off with a few souvenirs, nothing more than—”
“Detective Nelson?” Johnson interrupted him. “Mr. Andrews insisted on viewing his family’s bodies. We know the authorities tried to dissuade him. Joseph told us that his dad worked out every day and claimed he would have tried to take on an intruder. He also told us there were cuts and abrasions on his father’s face, signs of a fight. He remembers a broken fingernail. I have the autopsy reports here in front of me. The other victims showed no defensive injuries. What’s your explanation for Mr. Andrews’s facial injuries?”