The Gift of the Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

petichiae.”
    “What about the others?”
    Madison was aware of the Crime Scene Unit men setting up on the landing; the pathologist had just arrived and was snapping his gloves on, a double layer. She focused on the dark-haired woman and her children.
    “All blindfolded. All with a cross on the forehead drawn in blood. Only the hands are tied on these three. At the front. No ligature marks.”
    “What does that tell you?”
    “Postmortem. They were held at gunpoint or tied up once they were already dead. Contact wounds to the heads. You can see thetattooing. The shooter was less than two feet away. All of them, except the father. Just one shot. No bruises, no signs of struggle.”
    She stood up. The room was chilly, the front door open to people coming and going. The Sinclairs and their children were wearing only pajamas.
    Brown gave her a brief nod. It was the most she had gotten from him in four weeks.
    “How are you doing, old man?” The forensic pathologist gave Brown his usual salute.
    “I was doing a hell of a lot better before I got here,” Brown said.
    “I can see why.” Dr. Fellman took in the scene and knelt next to the father.
    “James and Anne Sinclair.” Brown pointed. “John and David Sinclair.”
    The photographer joined them. Someone was already sketching out on a pad the position of the furniture.
    Spencer came back. “The maid’s in shock. She’s been with the family for seven years. Nice folks, never a problem. Man’s a tax lawyer; wife does something part-time at a local primary school. No enemies that she knows of; never a cross word in the house.”
    Madison looked away from the harshness of the camera flashes.
    Brown filed the information somewhere in his mind. “How are you doing with the photos? I want to take his blindfold off.”
    “Give me another minute.”
    Madison wanted to hear the pathologist’s preliminary examination; she stood by and jotted down her notes. From this moment on, this family’s former life would be systematically stripped of all privacy. The camera flashed, snapped, and was reloaded, and somewhere above the house the helicopter waited patiently for a shot of the body bags being taken away.
    Andrew Riley heard the report on his police-radio scanner. He had to think fast—an opportunity like this might not happen more than once in a lifetime. He surveyed his shabby studio apartment: four dead bodies on Blue Ridge might just be his way out of there.
    He went to the closet and took out the Federal Express uniform he had paid top dollar for three months earlier. It was a beaut. It came with clipboard, pad, baseball cap, boots, and, best of all, a pristine FedEx bag that he slung over his shoulder. The day he got it, he took it to a friend of his to get it customized. The lens of a micro-camera was hidden in a buckle on the side, a tiny remote that fit easily in his pocket controlled the shutter, and it was sensitive enough to shoot indoors with no flash. Because that’s where the bodies were.
    He shaved quickly—appearances mattered—and cut himself slightly on the cheek. A reverse directory told him who lived at 1135 Blue Ridge: Sinclair, James R. Riley wrote the name on the FedEx envelope, together with the details of an imaginary sender, filled it with a copy of yesterday’s Seattle Times, and pressed the envelope shut. If he managed just one good shot of the bodies— four dead bodies —inside the house, where nobody else was allowed, it could be worth thousands.
    From the second he had heard it on the scanner, Andrew Riley was out and driving in thirteen minutes.
    The crime-scene photographer had covered every inch of the victims and the bedroom they were in.
    “All right,” Dr. Fellman said. “Let’s see.”
    He took out of his pocket a tape recorder, put it on the night table closest to the body of the man, and pressed the Record button.
    “Sam, can you check the heating system? I need to know the exact times it comes on and goes