Hmm. Let me count the times.
Hurdle did not wait for a reply—or he read Vail’s face and got his answer. “I guess one man’s smart is another man’s foolish.”
“Not sure I agree with that.”
“I take Rambo for what he is. A good cop, solid task force member. He just needs some policing at times.” He headed toward the stairs. “I’m gonna get up there and finish looking around.”
Vail checked her watch, then called Jasmine to see if she remembered anything about Gaines, whether or not she might have an idea as to where he would go, places he used to hang out. She doubted Jasmine could offer anything of value, but it was a logical question to ask.
The call went to voice mail and Vail left a message. Maybe she turned the ringer down while she was in a movie and forgot to fix the volume.
As she sat down to clear her mind and think, Walters and Tarkoff joined her with reports of what they had seen in the bedrooms, most of which seemed to pertain to the homeowners. However, it did appear that two beds had been slept in recently. They would need a more thorough evaluation with forensics to know for sure.
Hurdle followed moments later with his assessment of the caliber and type of weapon Gaines had used. Based on the spray pattern and shell casings, it looked to him to be .40-caliber rounds from a semiautomatic weapon. “Not very helpful—we pretty much knew that when we were under attack. But I think there’s evidence of two shooters, one of whom only had a handgun. We really need to wait for crime scene and their analysis. And no sign of that teen the neighbor told you about.”
“Could be we were right before,” Vail said. “About finding Scott MacFarlane. Just a guess, but it’s an educated one. That group seems to have been together since middle school, if not before. No reason to think MacFarlane was an aberration. And it would explain why we haven’t been able to find him.”
By the time they finished their discussion, Curtis texted her that the warrant was approved.
They all returned to their floors and Vail began by rummaging through the basement closet, picking up where Curtis left off. It doubled as a second pantry and storage room. She saw winter clothes, ski equipment, and other assorted items a family stuffs into available spaces.
Vail saved the entertainment center for last, partly out of avoidance. She already knew what she was going to find.
When Curtis returned with the warrant, she briefed him on what he missed, including the potential second occupant in the house. She then moved on to the cabinet beneath the television. They were full of old DVDs and tapes of family videos from the last twenty years or so.
Well that was a pleasant surprise.
Until she opened another drawer. “Here we go. More DVDs. And not the G or PG rated kind. Except …”
Curtis crossed the room and knelt beside her. “Gay porn?”
They looked at each other.
“Wonder if Gaines—is he, was he, Marcks’s lover?”
“Interesting question. Or MacFarlane, if it was him who was shacked out here with him. Let’s keep looking.”
Vail returned to her area and found sex videos with handwritten labels. She put one into the DVD player and fired up the TV.
“Oh shit,” Curtis said. “More child porn.”
Vail wanted to turn away but could not—she needed to see who was in the video; specifically, which adults, if they revealed themselves to the camera. “There’s Gaines. Right?”
Curtis, his eyes narrowed as if to lessen the impact of what he was viewing, tilted his head.
Vail hit rewind on the remote, got the spot she wanted, and hit pause. “Only got a portion of his face in the frame.”
“The lab can do a better job with this, but I’d say, maybe. Maybe not. Don’t know, could be him.”
Based on what she was seeing, she thought again about that teen the neighbor mentioned. But the age was not right. These were not young men, they were boys. “When’s crime scene due here?”
“They’re here. Started on the main floor.” He held up one of the DVDs with a gloved hand. “If it is him in these videos, or some of them, we’ve got him dead to rights.”
“Either way,” Vail said, doing her best to keep the bile from rising in her throat, “really wish we had this bastard in custody.”
“We’ll get him,” Curtis said, averting his eyes from the screen. “Turn that shit off. We’ll let the guys at the lab analyze it, see if we can get some other faces and IDs. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get MacFarlane in it, too.”