She felt the floor open beneath her feet, casting her into a dark, terrifying, and all-too-familiar hell.
Tucker’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “Assistant Inspector Salazar was right.” A moment passed. “That letter makes it crystal clear this is an evangelical murderer who sees himself on a mission from God. As soon as we got a copy of the text, Emerson identified the Bible quotes. As we suspected, most are from the New Testament, specifically from Mark, chapter 13, where he gives his vision of Judgment Day. I’ve sent you a copy of the texts. Of particular interest is the part where Lenx refers to the powers of heaven being shaken. I’m pretty sure he interpreted that to mean hurricanes, thunderstorms, and tornados. This is a causal relationship for him: those acts of God show the Composer who deserves to die. Emerson thinks this might be just a coincidence, but my feeling is that these words from twenty years ago probably still apply to the crimes we’re investigating now.”
“Emerson?” Dupree invited his comment.
“I think we’re really making progress,” came the enthusiastic reply. “But before we use what we’ve learned about Martin Lenx to alter the profile of our target, we have to establish beyond doubt that Lenx and the Composer are one and the same.”
“The bullet in Joseph Andrews’s head matches the gun Lenx used on his family eighteen years ago,” Johnson reminded him.
“This could be a copycat killer, maybe even a disciple,” Emerson argued. “But if he’s a disciple, he’d also be an evangelical killer.”
Dupree directed the discussion. “Let’s list the points that suggest the recent killings could be the work of Martin Lenx.”
“Okay,” Johnson began. “First, the ages correspond. Martin Lenx was thirty-seven when the murders were committed, and that was eighteen years ago. If he’s not dead, he’s fifty-five. A man of that age who’s active and has taken care of himself can be in excellent health. Still, he wouldn’t fit the typical age bracket of serial killers. We don’t know what he’s been doing for the last eighteen years, but maybe with age he’s gotten calmer, more careful, meticulous. That would fit the modus operandi of the Composer.”
“Don’t forget the gun,” Tucker added. “The fact that he didn’t leave it at the murder scene in Madison is a sign he intended to keep it, maybe as a souvenir, but also just in case he wanted to use it again.”
Emerson refused to get on board. “The profiles of the other families are similar to those of the Lenx murders. The ages aren’t exactly the same, but they’re very close. But there’s a contradiction: The Composer kills the fathers. If Martin Lenx is the Composer, obviously he never killed himself. In a perfect match, the fathers would be absent or be spared.”
Dupree spoke. “I assume everybody noticed the fact that Martin Lenx dragged the bodies through the house to assemble them in what the Madison police file called ‘the music room.’ I just spoke with Officer Carter, head of the homicide squad there. He was just a boy at the time, but it turns out his father was police chief. Carter said his dad often told the story of those crimes. The building was eventually torn down, but Carter remembered that the Lenx family had a small performance hall in the house, with a piano and a number of musical instruments. Maybe this leads us back to the violins we’ve now confirmed were at five of the crime scenes. The presence of a violin isn’t necessarily unusual enough to consider it a signature, but still, he could be using it as a prop to evoke his scenario. What do you think, Salazar?”
Amaia, who’d been watching Dupree closely during this exposition, stared fixedly at the telephone console. “Emerson’s right,” she said, causing Johnson to swivel toward her and hunch his shoulders. “I agree with what’s been said, but first we have to establish whether Lenx really is the Composer.”
Dupree couldn’t believe his ears. “I don’t understand. Martin Lenx is a perfect fit for the profile you’ve been building!”
“I don’t yet have sufficient evidence to confirm that,” she replied, avoiding his challenge.
“This is incredible,” Johnson muttered loud enough for Dupree to hear his dissatisfaction.
Frowning and annoyed, Dupree studied her.
“My opinion?” she responded, looking at the attachment from Tucker matching passages from the Lenx letter to Bible verses. “I grant you this could be Lenx. There’s another verse that says, ‘Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.’ One of many characteristics of an evangelical killer is an obsession with scripture, or with mysterious messages thought to be from some kind of sacred source. In his confession, Lenx mentioned how he had to strive to maintain the household and how crushed he felt. Killing a family after their home is destroyed by a catastrophe symbolizes the perdition of his own family. He selects families he thinks are as sinful as his own. He saves them from damnation, just as he redeemed his own family—by sending them straight to heaven.”
Johnson and Dupree had nodded along with her reasoning. Tucker’s voice rattled from the speaker. “So, Assistant Inspector Salazar, are you trying to tell me you have problems with your own theory? What bothers you?”
“The problem is that Martin Lenx killed his family, his own people.” She enumerated them. “His wife, his own mother, his sons, his daughter. He’s a textbook annihilator. The four categories characteristic of family annihilators are belief in one’s own moral superiority, anomie or alienation, deception, and paranoia. He fits at least two of those. Four out of five killers of this type commit suicide afterward; the exceptions are those convinced of their superiority. That would be Lenx. But even though he remained alive, what would trigger him, eighteen years later, to set out on this murder spree? Granted, the families share some characteristics with the Lenx family, but why those exact families? They’re different from one another, in different parts of the country, with no apparent links between them.
“And the big question is, what has Martin Lenx been doing for the last eighteen years? The murder of an entire family is striking enough for someone, especially the press, to notice, even if it occurred in the remotest region of the country. But no; there was no word of a murder of this type until eight months ago. Two possibilities: Martin Lenx murdered his family, fled, and has nothing to do with the Composer’s murders, or he’s the Composer. In which case, how could he have controlled such powerful impulses for so long? If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that when a lunatic is convinced that God, or the devil, or whatever, is telling him what to do, he has to be tracked down because he’ll never stop. So how did Martin Lenx go underground and suppress those urges for so long?”
Tucker went down the list. “Typical reasons for the interruption of serial killings are death, a long illness, absence abroad, or imprisonment for some other crime. If we start by assuming he’s alive, it’s hard to believe someone who suffered from an illness that kept him sidelined for eighteen years would be physically able to confront and kill whole families. Repeatedly. And let’s not forget some of the fathers were strong, as were some of the teenage sons.