“And that story about the fire?”
“I believe Lenx was capable of setting one,” Amaia replied. “You have to admit that an apartment building fire that disfigures someone would be a good cover for a new beginning. A new face maybe helped him wrangle a new identity. I think Lenx was so sure of himself spiritually he’d have had no problem sacrificing himself physically.”
“There aren’t going to be many apartment fires in Boston that are close to the date of Lenx’s disappearance. Especially considering the deaths.” Johnson’s fingers flew across his keyboard. “Here it is. Fire in an apartment building. Death toll of ten, two slightly injured, one seriously hurt—a man who escaped by himself but passed out as he exited the front door. Firemen had just enough time to pull him clear before the building collapsed. Bodies inside were all badly burned, some impossible to identify, speculation that several were undocumented immigrants. Assuming the identity of someone who died in a fire wouldn’t be terribly difficult. He could have approached the building when the fire was out of control, gone inside, gotten burned, and staggered out just in time to be rescued. Sounds horrific, but, as Salazar says, a man like Lenx would have been capable of it. And a lot more, besides.”
Detective Bull looked through the doorway, silently entreating Dupree. Neither said a word to the other. The boss held up that finger again, ordering Bull to wait. Bull leaned against the doorframe.
“Go ahead, Johnson. What else?”
“All this reminds me of something Joseph Andrews said. The boy had the feeling Nelson thought he’d have been better off if he’d died with the rest of his family. Joseph gave us no specifics; it was just an impression he had. I do remember Nelson saying something like that when we talked with him.”
“I disagree,” Amaia said. “Nelson was stating the obvious. The boy was depressed, and he was going to wind up dead if things didn’t change.”
“And then there’s the fact that he decided to volunteer for these rescue teams, starting eight months ago,” Johnson went on. “Just when the massacres began and his family was coming apart. That could have plunged him back into the same cycle as before. Reed mentioned a trip with the team in February; maybe that was New Jersey. He confirmed Nelson was in Killeen, where the Masons were murdered. We don’t have the dates. Tucker should have sent them to us. But you have to admit, it at least looks like it matches up. Rescue team members wear badges. Any kind of badged official, say a policeman, a fireman, a rescue team member, would be welcomed with open arms.” Johnson looked at Amaia. “Even someone with a face as scarred as Nelson’s.”
“He could even be canny enough to use it as a way to build a connection with the family,” she commented. “Think about it—a family’s hurt, their house is destroyed, they’re in a truly vulnerable position, and then someone arrives with a face that shows he’s suffered too. If he’s a clever enough actor, that face could project compassion. It could be a means of creating a bond and establishing trust long enough to disarm them, first psychologically and then physically. Still, we shouldn’t be too hasty. We don’t know if he was in New Jersey. And even that would be no more than circumstantial evidence. We have to locate his rescue team, but discreetly, so Nelson doesn’t realize we’re watching him. We need to know how and when they arrived and where they’re waiting out the hurricane. I’m guessing it’s someplace like this.”
“Agent Dupree!” Bull called insistently from the doorway.
“The rest of you keep at it,” Dupree said. He got up and went out with Bull.
Amaia remained seated, her eyes on the two men in the hall. They stood very close to one another. Bull was explaining something intently as Dupree nodded, his expression grave. Dupree looked up at her, and their eyes locked. Dupree abruptly gestured to Bull, and they moved out of her sight.
Charbou came in with a plate of sandwiches. He’d walked past the conversation in the hall and hadn’t seemed to find it unusual.
Johnson rubbed his eyes, bookmarked his place in the pile of loose pages in the case folder, and closed it. He took one of the sandwiches and settled, like Charbou, on the edge of a camp cot. He saw Amaia watching the door to the corridor. “You should try to get some rest. It’s late, and tomorrow’s going to be a tough day.”
“I think I’ll try to locate Nelson’s rescue team,” she replied despite her deep fatigue.
“Agents Tucker and Emerson are taking care of that,” Johnson commented sourly. “They’ll give us a call once they have something.”
“How about you?” She waved at the pile of thick folders on the table in front of him. “Find anything?”
Johnson shook his head, his expression grim. “Nothing that stands out. These were ordinary families with ordinary problems. The Millers had filed for divorce a year before the murders but were going to counseling and had put the divorce on hold. The Masons were in financial difficulties and had just taken out a second mortgage on the farm. The Allens had their share of challenges too. The wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and had surgery to remove the tumor. Went through chemotherapy and seemed to be on the mend, but her illness affected the children’s schoolwork and behavior. The boys went joyriding with a neighbor’s tractor and turned it over. One of them was trapped underneath. Broke his leg and had to have an operation, but he recovered.
“I just got the info they collected on the Samuels family in Miami, and it’s more of the same. Another ordinary family, with completely normal problems. The girl was caught shoplifting lipstick from Walgreens, that’s all.
“What else? Let’s see: as Joseph Jr. told us, the Andrews family’s grandmother wasn’t in Galveston, but that doesn’t exclude the possibility of the Composer, since the killer might have assumed she’d be there; she was due in just a couple of days.
“It’s worth noting that there’s no grandmother in the Nelson family. His parents died when he was twenty, and he was an only child. We’ll have hit the jackpot if he really is Martin Lenx masquerading as Nelson. The mother of Sarah Nelson, née Rosenblatt, died when Sarah was just a child; her father raised her and her brothers in Florida. And get this: her father is Stephen Rosenblatt, a Republican senator from Florida.”
Bill Charbou whistled and grinned.
Johnson smiled behind his mustache but went on as if he hadn’t heard. He gestured with his sandwich. “I’m trying to find some pattern of offenses the Composer maybe thought deserved capital punishment, but I’m still baffled.” He took a big bite of his sandwich to signal the end of his presentation.
Charbou piped up. “Do you think things like a divorce, financial troubles, a tractor accident, or stealing a lipstick could be why the Composer killed them? Look, I’m a street cop; I’m no stranger to how dealers, whores, and pimps behave. But I’m a zero when it comes to psychopaths and the weird games they play. By those standards, nine out of ten families in this country would be facing the death penalty.”
Amaia stared intently at Charbou as she thought that over. “I think you’re right. None of those offenses seems particularly serious or deserving of punishment. According to the textbooks, psychopaths like Lenx murder to prove to themselves they’re not failures. They take out the frustrations of their failures on others.”