Dupree crossed the room and stood next to Johnson and Amaia. “In sum, this crime scene was professionally analyzed right down to the last detail. There’s nothing we can take exception to, as far as technique is concerned.”
“I can’t fault the work,” Amaia said.
“Okay, then,” Dupree said, “but why?”
Johnson and Amaia looked at one another. Johnson responded, “Why what?”
“The Galveston police already emailed us a copy of this stuff. We had the reports and digitized photos. We asked for photos of the violin. Why did the chief send two officers in a squad car to bring us the originals . . . with the hurricane bearing down?”
“I don’t know,” Johnson said. “Do you?”
“I have no idea,” Dupree admitted. “But something must have made Brad Nelson’s boss think it was urgent for us to have them.”
“Might be he knows what young Andrews has been going through,” Johnson suggested. “He could be having some regrets now that he’s heard we might reopen the case.”
Amaia took another slant. “Maybe he doesn’t entirely trust Detective Nelson’s claim that the job was done correctly.”
Johnson shrugged and gestured toward the material spread over every work surface. “As far as I can see, their methodology was above reproach.”
“And the violin?” Dupree went to the table where Jason Bull was standing. They followed.
“Same detail, same technically correct work,” Johnson reported. “Granted, a cleaning team had mopped things up by the time they examined the violin the second time, but the instrument’s clearly visible in the general views and the overheads. The photos show no marks, stains, or any dried liquids on its surface. We can make enlargements from the negatives, but honestly, given the quality of the work, I doubt the technicians overlooked anything.”
Jason Bull cleared his throat.
“Yes?” Amaia invited him to comment.
“Well, maybe it’s nothing at all. I’m no expert or anything, but . . .”
“Bull, did you see something?” Dupree pressed him.
“Maybe it’s nothing,” he said, pointing to one of the photos. “But this right here looks like writing.”
They leaned close and examined the photo, a shot of the violin lying on its side. They saw a curved line where the varnish appeared to have peeled away from the wood under the chin rest.
“Looks like a scratch,” Johnson said. “Like it was scraped against a harder surface.”
Dupree took the photo into his gloved hands and peered at it. “Could be it continues beyond the curve of the sound box. Is there a better view?”
They went through the images of the violin one by one, but none showed whether the mark extended beyond the curved surface.
Dupree sighed, annoyed.
“Let’s check the images of the full room, where the violin is leaning against the chiminea,” suggested Amaia. She led them back to the larger table. She went through those photos and chose two of them. “These capture the side of the instrument, but I can’t see how far the mark extends. We have the film negatives; we can make enlargements to see if we can get a clearer image.”
“Go ahead,” Dupree authorized her. “Do it.”
28
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
New Orleans, Louisiana
The rain had gotten heavier. Billowing sheets of falling water, ever more forceful, battered the windows so hard it sounded like an enraged madman was pelting them with fistfuls of rock. The wind howled. The National Hurricane Center reported that the storm covered the entire Gulf of Mexico and the eye of the hurricane was thirty miles across. Katrina was advancing inexorably toward New Orleans.
Surprised by the fury of the rain lashing against the windows, Amaia looked up and wondered if the brown paper and duct tape the firefighters had used to cover the glass would protect them if the windows imploded.
Loading the negative had taken just a few minutes, and she’d spent only a little longer with a program that isolated and identified the marks. It yielded a cryptic image.
The program evaluated parameters of continuity, morphology, constancy, and dimension. All suggested that the marks might correspond to writing or some kind of inscription. The mark could still be only a random scrape, as Johnson had guessed, but it could be more. Amaia thought it looked like a truncated inscription, or perhaps there was a space between this scribble and something that followed. She shook her head, regretting the lack of clarity, and felt defeated. “Maybe it’s a scratch after all.”
They telephoned Emerson and Tucker. Dupree indicated that Amaia should take the lead.
“I found very little on record concerning Martin Lenx’s activities before he murdered his family. He didn’t serve in the military, and few students took personality tests back in the sixties and seventies when he was in high school and college. No record that he was ever treated by a psychologist or psychiatrist. Employer records aren’t particularly revealing. Regular medical checkups, nothing really of note. The psychological profile we have was drawn up after the murders, largely from witness statements, since by that point he’d disappeared. Experts’ opinions differ. Some think he probably killed himself after the murders. But I find nothing to substantiate a contention he was suffering from guilt, despite the confession he wrote to his pastor. His character, as far as we can understand it, seems consistent with the assumption that he made a new life for himself after the murders. He was a perfectionist. Starting over and building a new, unblemished life would be the approach of an obsessive-compulsive personality. I suspect Martin Lenx and the Composer may be the same person.”
Tucker strongly agreed. “We definitely have to keep that in mind.”
Dupree encouraged Amaia to continue.
“Okay then,” she said. “If Lenx is indeed our man, I have a different idea of what he might have been doing for those eighteen years. Agent Tucker, you said he could have radically changed his life, his image, his appearance. But if the Composer is the same man who had himself photographed with his family just days before murdering every one of them, his fundamental character won’t have changed. The way he set up that group portrait gives us a clue to his thinking. He moved them and rearranged them over and over, and he even tried to remove the youngest son altogether. Only when he saw that his wife was surprised by his erratic behavior did he agree to accept the initial pose. Two days later, he came back for a solo portrait—one for which he didn’t change his clothing, his appearance, the way he combed his hair, or his glasses. He even struck an identical pose. The solo portrait looks as if he’d just eliminated everyone else from the group portrait. The only difference is that in the solo portrait, he’s smiling.”
“I don’t see where you’re going with this,” Tucker objected.
“Martin Lenx did away with his family because they didn’t conform to his ideal. He had no awareness of his own faults or shortcomings and no concept of evil. He saw nothing in himself that needed correcting or changing. Martin Lenx considered himself perfect in every way. If Martin Lenx has made a new life for himself, he’ll have done his best to control his surroundings. He won’t tolerate imperfections.”