himself, and this is far from unheard of in a self-hanging.
I handed Max my phone, and he read it, too. “What did you find on Carl’s computer?” he asked.
“The suicide note,” I said. “Nader is logging everything in to take it to the lab to get a better look, but it appears that Carl wrote the note. We have more photos of Laurel and Myles, too. Many taken that Saturday before the murders, of the two of them together at the river.”
“Everything fits then?” Max asked.
I showed him the timeline in my notebook, starting at midnight and ending around 8:05 a.m. when Naomi arrived at the ranch and found the bodies. “Well,” Max said. “It does all appear to match the evidence. So, Carl murdered Laurel, then killed Myles and staged it to look like a suicide. He then returned to the ranch, and when the family got up at seven, he slit his best friend’s throat and shot Anna and the children.”
I frowned and shook my head, then semi-agreed. “I guess.”
“Clara, it looks like this is over. Carl’s our guy, and he’s dead. No chance he’ll hurt anyone ever again,” Max asked. “What bothers you?”
“Some of this doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t understand why he murdered Anna and the children, or attacked Jacob,” I said. “If Laurel’s upstairs, her throat slashed, and the rest of the family’s asleep. Why didn’t Carl just make Myles look like the killer and go on with his life? What did he gain by killing the others?”
We stood silent as Max thought that through. “Maybe Carl blamed them all? Maybe he was jealous of Jacob, too, and he couldn’t kill him without killing Anna and the children?” he speculated. “But the sticking point here is that Carl’s dead. We can’t ask him. Maybe we’ll never know for sure why he did any of it other than that he was obsessed with Laurel.”
“I don’t like not knowing,” I said.
“Me either,” he agreed. “But sometimes cases don’t end up with every question answered.”
Max was right, of course. Sometimes we never did uncover all the circumstances, the blow-by-blow details that laid out the intricacies of human behavior. We liked to think that we could analyze others, figure out what drove them, know for certain why things happened. But people were often mysteries, especially those like Carl whose brains weren’t wired the way the rest of ours were. To do what he did, he had no empathy.
“We need to get to the hospital,” I said. “We have to explain all of this to the Johanssons before the town rumor mill delivers the news.”
When we got off the elevator, none of the family was in the hallway. I’d grown so accustomed to seeing Michael and Reba there that I wondered what was wrong. Instead, as we walked toward Jacob’s room the curtains were pulled back and we saw him with his parents. The machines were gone. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and they were packing a bag. Mother Naomi stood just inside the doorway, grinning so wide I wondered if it would make her cheeks sore.
“Clara, you’re here just on time for the good news,” Michael said when I walked in. “You too, Max. Jacob is released. Going home.”
“So soon?” I asked.
“No solid food for a while,” Reba said. “Lots of liquids, ice cream and malted milks, but he swallows like a champ. The doctors said he’ll do as well at home as here.”
“And the house is ready for him,” Naomi said. “Ready for him to move back home with his son.”
“That is good news,” Max said.
I smiled at Jacob, and he tried to reciprocate, but it came off as more of a grimace, so the healing wasn’t quite miraculous. The bandages covering the wound on the front of his throat moved up and down as he swallowed.
“Jacob, do you remember any more about what happened at the ranch last Sunday and Monday?” I asked.
Jacob dropped his head and shook it ever so slightly as he gave me a half-hearted thumbs down.
Michael, who moments earlier had been smiling at his son, teared up. He walked over and wrapped his arms around Jacob, who stood at least half a foot taller. At the same time, Reba rubbed Jacob’s arm. “We’ve explained to Jacob everything we know,” she said. “He doesn’t remember what happened, but he knows about Anna and the children, about Laurel’s death.”
“We’re sorry, Jacob,” I said. “Very sorry about your family.”