Death Match

Reaching the front door, Lash tucked several large envelopes under one arm and sounded his pocket for the key. He fished it out, white evidence tag dangling from its chain. The chief of the Phoenix field office had been a classmate in the drab gray dorms of Quantico and fellow-sufferer on the obstacle courses of the Yellow Brick Road, and owed him several favors. Lash had turned one of them in for the key to the Thorpes’ house.

He glanced up, noticing the security camera bolted beneath the eaves. It had been installed by the previous owner of the house and was deactivated for the police investigation. Since the house would go on the market once the investigation was officially closed, the system remained off.

Lash looked down again, fitted the key to the door, and unlocked it with a twist of his hand.

Inside, the house had that peculiar watchful, listening quality he found in homes that had seen u

Beyond the living room, a hallway ran the width of the house. To his right was a dining room and kitchen; to his left, what looked like a couple of bedrooms. Lash dropped his envelopes on the sofa and walked down as far as the kitchen. It was as well appointed as the living room. There was another door here, with a view of the narrow side yard and the neighboring house.

Lash moved back up the hallway in the direction of the bedrooms. There was a nursery, all blue taffeta and lace; a master bedroom, its night tables littered with a typical assortment of paperback novels, medicine bottles, and television remotes; and a third room, which was apparently a guest room doubling as a study. He paused at this last room, looking around curiously. Japanese woodblock prints of thi

He moved to the far wall, which was completely taken up by bookshelves. The Thorpes had been eclectic, voracious readers. Two upper shelves were completely taken up with textbooks in varying degrees of decrepitude; another with trade journals. Below these were several shelves of fiction.

One shelf in particular caught Lash’s eye. The books here seemed to be given preferential treatment, bookended by statues of carven jade. He glanced over the titles: Zen and the Art of Archery, Advanced Japanese, Two Hundred Poems of the Early T’Ang. The shelf above it was empty except for an unframed picture of Lindsay Thorpe riding a merry-go-round, surrounded by children, laughing as she stretched her arm toward the camera. He picked it up. On the back had been scrawled, in a masculine hand:

He carefully replaced the photo, exited the study, and returned to the living room.

Outside, the morning mist was quickly burning off, and slanted bars of sunlight now lay across the silk rugs. Lash moved to the leather sofa, pushed the envelopes aside, and sat down. He’d done this many times before, as an agent with the Investigative Support Unit: gone through a house, trying to get a feel for the pathology of its occupants. But that had been very different. He’d been doing criminal personality profiles for NCACP, studying the personal hells of mass murderers, serial rapists, “blitz” attackers, sociopaths. People, and houses, who had absolutely nothing in common with the Thorpes.

He’d come here in search of clues to what had gone wrong. Over the last three days, he had performed what clinicians referred to as a psychological autopsy, conducting discreet interviews with family members, friends, doctors, even a minister. And what had at first seemed like an easy case formulation quickly turned otherwise. There were none of the stressors, the risk factors, normally associated with suicide. No history of prior attempts. No history of psychiatric disorders. Nothing that should have triggered one, let alone two, suicides. On the contrary, the Thorpes had everything to live for. And yet, in this very room, they had written a note, tied dry cleaning bags around their heads, embraced on the carpet, and asphyxiated themselves in front of their infant girl.

Lash pulled one of the two envelopes toward him, ripped it open with the edge of a finger, and dumped the contents onto the couch: documentary evidence compiled by the Flagstaff police. There was a thin packet of glossy photographs held together with a clip, and he leafed through them — scene-of-crime photos of the husband and wife, together in death, rigid on the beautiful carpet. He put down the eight-by-tens and picked up a photocopy of the suicide note. It read simply, “Please look after our daughter.”

A thicker document lay nearby: the official police incident report. Lash turned its pages slowly. Neither husband nor wife had left the house since the night before their bodies were discovered. The tapes of the external security cameras revealed nobody else had come to the house in the interim. The silent alarm was triggered only by a curious neighbor the next morning. At the back of the report was a transcript of an interview with this neighbor.

OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT

PROPERTY OF FLAGSTAFF POLICE DEPARTMENT

Docket: AR-27

Case No.: 04B-2190

OIC: Det. Michael Guierrez

Int. Officer: Sgt. Theodore White

Subj: Bowman, Maureen A.

Date / Time: 9/17/04 14:22

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EZ-Scrip Transcription Follows

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IO Please make yourself comfortable. My name is Sergeant White, and I’ll be conducting the interview. If you would please state your name for the record.

S Maureen Bowman.

IO Your address, Ms. Bowman?

S I live at 409 Cooper Drive.

IO How long have you known Lewis and Lindsay Thorpe?

S Since they moved into the neighborhood. Not all that long, a year and a half, maybe.

IO Did you see much of them?

S Not really. They were very busy, what with the new baby and all.

IO Did they have many regular visitors?

S None that I noticed. There were some people from the lab that Lewis was friendly with. I think they came over for a couple of di

IO And how did the Thorpes seem?

S How do you mean?

IO As neighbors, as a couple. How did they seem?

S They were always very pleasant.

IO Did you ever observe any problems? Arguments, raised voices, anything of the sort?

S No, never.

IO Were they ever in any kind of difficulty that you were aware of? Money, for example?

S No, not that I know. We never really spent that much time together, as I said. They were always very pleasant, very happy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a couple happier.

IO What, precisely, made you go over to the Thorpe residence this morning?

S The baby.

IO I’m sorry?

S The baby. She was crying, wouldn’t stop. The baby had never cried before. I thought maybe something was wrong.

IO Describe, for the tape, what you found, please.

S I–I went in the kitchen door. The baby was there.

IO In the kitchen?

S No, in the hallway. The hallway leading from the dining room.

IO Ms. Bowman, please describe everything you saw and heard. In detail, please.

S Okay. I could see the baby, ahead, past the kitchen. She was screaming, her face was red. There weren’t any lights on, but it was a bright morning, I could see everything clearly. There was some kind of opera playing.

IO Playing where?

S On the stereo. But the baby was crying so loudly. I could barely think. I moved ahead to comfort her. That’s when the living room came into view. That’s when I saw… oh, God…

[TRANSCRIPT PAUSES]

IO Take as long as you need, Ms. Bowman. You’ll find tissue to your right, on the table, there.