Backfire

Savich nodded. “If Milo hid any money in his own name, he was pretty sophisticated about it. It could take some time, but MAX will find it eventually.”

Sherlock said, “I’m hoping we don’t find any accounts. That would mean Milo wasn’t so stupid as to imagine he’d come out of this whole-hide if he was dealing with Xu.”

And Pixie McCray, who probably hadn’t known anything, hadn’t done anything to anyone at all, was dead, too.

Cheney kept the lights flashing until they turned east off 101 on the Bel Marin Keys exit. They drove through an industrial area, then wetlands, and finally past some palm trees lining the road on both sides. The closer they moved toward San Pablo Bay and its myriad waterways, the heavier the fog became. The roadways crisscrossed around the lagoons, the fog blending with the water like a surrealist painting. The rain picked up and the gloom deepened. It was nearly dark now.

Cheney said, “On a sunny day, this is a beautiful area, fairly affluent, with hundreds of homes sitting either on a lagoon or on Novato Creek. All the lagoons have access to San Pablo and San Francisco bays, as you can see from all the boats. I have a friend who lives not far from Pixie’s house, on her same street. I wonder if he knew Pixie McCray. Maybe he’s even seen Milo Siles at her house.”

Cheney turned left off Bel Marin Keys Boulevard onto Calypso Shores. The houses were set close together, the landscaping mature and well maintained, a great place for both families with kids and retirees. Cheney pulled Eve’s Suburban up to the curb about a half-block from Pixie’s house, the closest available spot. The houses blocked the view of the lagoons and the boat docks, but they could see the water at the end of the street, and the lock where boats came through. They huddled under umbrellas and walked quickly to the house. There were half a dozen Crown Vics, a couple of them haphazardly parked in the driveway, others against the curb, one up on the lawn. The county coroner’s van and the county’s Crime Analysis Unit van were parked in the middle of the street, blocking traffic.

Neighbors were standing around, staring and talking, looking generally horrified, huddled beneath umbrellas and awnings as the rain beat down.

The white wooden house was a single story with a big solar panel on the roof, built some thirty years ago. It still managed to look stylish, its three palm trees in the front yard adding a bit of tropical charm.

Sheriff Bud Hibbert met them at the front door. “I’d just as soon not have seen you guys until the Christmas party. What this guy did, how fast he moved—it’s frightening. They’re in the bedroom.”

They left their umbrellas on the front porch and walked around two forensic techs and a sheriff’s deputy through the country feminine living room and a small country kitchen with a connected eating area, and down the carpeted hall to the end of the corridor.

Sheriff Hibbert asked for the photographer to stand back for a moment and motioned them around the big king-size bed. It was a god-awful scene, Sherlock thought, so much blood. There was always so much blood. She sometimes wondered how a human body could hold that much blood.

The sheriff said, “I haven’t let them touch the bodies. The crime scene’s just as it was when a deputy arrived after we got a call from a neighbor who heard Pixie’s dog carrying on and came to see what was happening.”

None of them really wanted to, but they looked closely at what had once been two living, breathing people until Xu had slit their throats.

The sheriff said, “All their clothes are in place, so no sexual activity had begun even though they were lying on the bed. Look at the blood splatter, the way their bodies ended up when they died. Siles’s head has nearly fallen off the near side of the bed, and she’s fallen nearly off the other side of the bed. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what happened.”

Savich pointed at Sherlock. She was standing quietly at the foot of the bed, and he knew she was putting it all together in her mind, using her special gift to picture what few people could see at a crime scene.

“Sherlock?”

She said, “He came in quietly, saw them. He was fast, silent, and smart—even managed to lock Pixie’s terrier outside without alerting them. Milo was first. He grabbed him by his hair, jerked his head back, sliced his throat—again, right to left. Not even a second, that’s all the time it took. He let Milo fall, reached over him, grabbed Pixie by her hair, jerked her head toward him, then back so violently it snapped her neck. When he sliced her throat he must have been staring down at her, watching her eyes as she realized she was dying. The coroner might be able to determine which of those things killed her, not that it makes any difference.