Securing their ballistic vests, they followed Bill and Bull, who were driven by a new energy—no more dismayed contemplation. The cops swiftly mounted the stairs, silently signaling caution where lengths of balcony rail were missing. They passed two doors marked with orange paint from spray cans like those in their own kits. The large X on each door was the verification code established by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for urban search and rescue.
Bill and Bull took positions on either side of the apartment door and glanced back at Dupree. An orange X had been sprayed across this door as well, showing someone had checked the apartment. The FEMA code required all four interstices of the X to be filled: above, the date and time of the visit; to the right, the status of the structure; below, the number of victims inside; and to the left, the rescue team’s own ID number.
Bill read the codes in a whisper: “Nobody inside, structure damaged, stay out.”
Charbou tapped the date and time with his pistol barrel. The record at the top of the X indicated August 29 at twelve thirty p.m. He held up his own wristwatch.
Dupree checked the time and understood instantly. Given the indicated time, the rescue team should have still been on site or at least nearby, checking other residences along the street. He moved a couple of steps back along the balcony to check the X’s they’d passed. The notations hadn’t been completely filled out.
Johnson was the one who settled the matter in a whisper. “The 3-505 PIR is the Eighty-Second Airborne Division. I’m sure they’re coming, but they haven’t had time to get here yet.”
Dupree silently sent Charbou to check the next apartment. Charbou was quick. He returned immediately, shaking his head.
Dupree nodded. The Composer had covered his escape route, making sure that no one would challenge him if they should arrive while he was still there, but he hadn’t bothered to extend the masquerade. Dupree signaled for them to go in but gestured a warning that the murderer might still be inside.
Charbou rattled the door handle. “New Orleans police! Open up!” he shouted from his stance tight against the wall. They listened closely.
No response.
Bull was the next to yell. “New Orleans police! Stand back! We’re coming in!”
But they didn’t. Charbou fired point blank at the lock and jerked back as the metal housing, blown loose, swung wildly around one of the remaining screws, sending splinters flying. The air was full of the smell of gunpowder and burned wood. The gunshot echoed dully in the flooded street. The door swung slowly open about six inches or so and then jammed against the floor.
Bull called, “This is the police. Get away from the door! We’re armed and we’re going to shoot.”
They didn’t do that either. Bull threw his shoulder against the flimsy door, which yielded some but stuck before opening completely; he went low and covered his partner as Bill leaped over him and landed in a kneeling position, pistol ready, surveying the interior.
The reek of death overwhelmed the stink of gunpowder. The hot iron-and-ammonia tang of spilled blood and urine evoked the last gasps of the dying. Beneath it all was the penetrating smell of feces that follows violent death. Salty drops of sweat and tears had dried in white tracks on the faces of the dead.
The cops took only a few seconds to confirm that they themselves were the only ones alive in the small apartment. The team went in.
The rear wall of the living room was mostly gone. All the furniture was piled in a corner. Perhaps they’d been trying to barricade the opening in the back wall, but Dupree’s bet was that the Composer had moved it. The apartment was cramped and must have been crowded with furniture. He’d simply needed more floor space to lay out his victims. The family members were stretched side by side just inside the front door, heads toward Lake Pontchartrain to the north and feet toward the Mississippi.
Amaia stood there, unable to move. For a brief moment, she had an eerie vision of herself as a little girl with bare feet on the chilly floor of a dance studio. She looked down to make sure she wasn’t standing in a puddle of sticky black blood. The ominous tolling of the bells resounded in her mind.
The apartment was so small that the closest corpse, that of a boy, was only two steps from the door. She was sure he was eleven or twelve years old, the Composer’s target, but he was small and could have passed for nine or ten. He wore a black-and-gold New Orleans Saints T-shirt. He’d wept copiously. The traces of snot and tears on his face were obvious, and his half-open eyes were inflamed and rimmed with red.
This boy isn’t much older than I was. Amaia closed her eyes and squeezed them tight as she tried to wipe that absurd thought from her mind. When she looked down at the little body, she saw that the gunshot wound in the crown of his head had released a gush of blood that had pooled almost to where she was standing.
The smell of suffering was so intense that even Johnson was moved. He stepped back, stood with his eyes fixed on the victims, and shook his head angrily. “We just missed the bastard. They’re still warm.”
Bill and Bull checked the other apartments. Dupree had Johnson take the first set of photos, and then they began to remove the objects lying over the victims, mostly the contents of a wooden sideboard, including a shattered set of antique dishware. The team took blood samples, labeled them, and stored them carefully, knowing they couldn’t be sent for analysis until much later. Johnson found the violin positioned close to the victims’ heads. The Composer had tried to make it blend in with the general disorder, but it shone with the polished brilliance of a coffin lid. The sight of it angered Dupree. He was careful to contain this emotion, clenching his jaws and tightening his lips in an expression Amaia now recognized as characteristic of him.
This had to have been the humblest home the Composer had ever visited. The front door opened directly from the balcony into the cramped living room which ran from the front of the building to the back. Doors to the kitchen and a master bedroom were on one side. A single door on the opposite wall opened on a narrow hallway leading to a tiny bathroom and two minuscule bedrooms, one obviously for the boys and the other shared by the girl and the grandmother. One of the walls in that room was plastered with posters of rock bands; the other side had a simple shelf with a prayer book and a cross on a wooden base. Amaia searched the bedrooms, which were made even more claustrophobic by all the furniture taking up available space.
In the kitchen, they had a large table against one wall, with a couple of chairs behind it and others stored beneath or on either side. Amaia assumed that they moved the table to the center of the room at mealtimes. The sink was empty and stained by muddy tap water. She checked the refrigerator and found the interior relatively cool. There was enough to eat, and the food was well packaged and organized.
The bathroom door was off its hinges because the blast of the winds had dislodged the top of the doorframe. The bathtub was almost completely full of reasonably clean water, probably a provision against an expected outage, and next to it was a full plastic bucket of the sort children take to the beach. A single pump container of liquid soap and another of shampoo stood at one corner. The battered window above the tub hadn’t stood up to the storm. Forced inward, it had shed wood splinters and flecks of mold across the water. Lifting the toilet lid, she caught the sharp smell of urine. Her flashlight beam lit up an object behind the toilet that glimmered like glass. She bent, picked it up, and found that it was only a plastic wrapper for a large gauze pad.