Here were the three bloodstains slanting up the corner, and here were the matching stains on the carpet. Here were the dimensions of the three children. Brother, sister, big brother. Match. Match. Match.
They had been in a row, seated along the wall facing the bed. An audience. A dead audience. And Leeds. Tied around the chest to the headboard. Composed to look as though he were sitting up in bed. Getting the ligature mark, staining the wall above the headboard.
What were they watching? Nothing; they were all dead. But their eyes were open. They were watching a performance starring the madman and the body of Mrs. Leeds, beside Mr. Leeds in the bed. An audience. The crazy could look around at their faces.
Graham wondered if he had lit a candle. The flickering light would simulate expression on their faces. No candle was found. Maybe he would think to do that next time . . .
This first small bond to the killer itched and stung like a leech. Graham bit the sheet, thinking.
Why did you move them again? Why didn’t you leave them that way? Graham asked. There’s something you don’t want me to know about you. Why, there’s something you’re ashamed of. Or is it something you can’t afford for me to know?
Did you open their eyes?
Mrs. Leeds was lovely, wasn’t she? You turned on the light after you cut his throat so Mrs. Leeds could watch him flop, didn’t you? It was maddening to have to wear gloves when you touched her, wasn’t it?
There was talcum on her leg.
There was no talcum in the bathroom.
Someone else seemed to speak those two facts in a flat voice.
You took off your gloves, didn’t you? The powder came out of a rubber glove as you pulled it off to touch her, DIDN’T IT, YOU SON OF A BITCH? You touched her with your bare hands and then you put the gloves back on and you wiped her down. But while the gloves were off, DID YOU OPEN THEIR EYES?
Jack Crawford answered his telephone on the fifth ring. He had answered the telephone in the night many times and he was not confused.
“Jack, this is Will.”
“Yes, Will.”
“Is Price still in Latent Prints?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t go out much anymore. He’s working on the single-print index.”
“I think he ought to come to Atlanta.”
“Why? You said yourself the guy down here is good.”
“He is good, but not as good as Price.”
“What do you want him to do? Where would he look?”
“Mrs. Leeds’s fingernails and toenails. They’re painted, it’s a slick surface. And the corneas of all their eyes. I think he took his gloves off, Jack.”
“Jesus, Price’ll have to gun it,” Crawford said. “The funeral’s this afternoon.”
3
“I think he had to touch her,” Graham said in greeting.
Crawford handed him a Coke from the machine in Atlanta police headquarters. It was seven-fifty A.M.
“Sure, he moved her around,” Crawford said. “There were grip marks on her wrists and behind her knees. But every print in the place is from nonporous gloves. Don’t worry, Price is here. Grouchy old bastard. He’s on his way to the funeral home now. The morgue released the bodies last night, but the funeral home’s not doing anything yet. You look bushed. Did you get any sleep?”
“Maybe an hour. I think he had to touch her with his hands.”
“I hope you’re right, but the Atlanta lab swears he wore like surgeon’s gloves the whole time,” Crawford said. “The mirror pieces had those smooth prints. Forefinger on the back of the piece wedged in the labia, smudged thumb on the front.”
“He polished it after he placed it, so he could see his damn face in there probably,” Graham said.