on her left side, her dark hair half fallen out of a loose ponytail. Like her brother, she had so much ahead of her that she would miss: reading her first book, learning how to add and subtract, picnics and playdays. She’d never marry or have children, and never grow old and hold her grandchildren on her lap. The girl’s jacket was bunched up around her, and I wondered if she’d been sitting when someone fired a bullet into her head. She looked as if she might have been and tipped over.
Benjamin, age three, lay on his side, his face turned toward the ground. It appeared that someone had repositioned him, because the gunshot was barely visible, not more than an inch above ground level. It seemed an awkward position to fall into.
The medical examiner was on his way, and the bodies wouldn’t be moved until he arrived, but the CSI folks were taking lots of photos and putting out numbered plastic tents to tag pieces of evidence. This would happen throughout the yard, the house, anywhere they found anything they thought should be collected. There were four bright yellow markers scattered in the yard when Max and I went inside to find out about the condition of the lone adult survivor.
On the kitchen floor, EMTs worked on Jacob. The pool of blood on the floor next to him looked substantial.
A small patch of it was smeared and I wondered if the medics had done that—they usually tried to avoid blood on a scene—or if Naomi might have. Earlier I’d noticed blood on her dress. She must have knelt close to Jacob, perhaps to try to help him. A short distance off, in the blood, I noticed what looked like a faint print from the toe or heel of a shoe. The print, just a few inches long, had enough detail to make out the sole’s pattern. It looked like it had deep grooves, perhaps from some kind of tennis shoe or a work boot. Someone had put a kitchen chair over it to keep anyone from stepping on it. I stared at it for a moment. The blood had an odd arrangement of small crosses inside a semicircle of what looked like bowling pins. I took out my cell phone and snapped a photo.
“Does your office have access to a good shoe man?” I asked Max, pointing at it. In Dallas, we had experts in the lab on nearly every aspect of criminology, from blood pattern analysts to those who catalogued fiber sources and diagnosed insect evidence. When it came to shoe print tracing, we had a guy with access to a database like those used to compare fingerprints. The system matched sole designs to manufacturers and styles. Working in the sticks, specialists didn’t always fit into my slim budget.
“That’s not someone we’ve used in my time here, so I don’t think so,” he said. “We can try to find someone. Unless you know anyone?”
“I do,” I said.
With that, I tapped on the photo I’d taken and attached it to a text and sent it to a friend in the lab in Dallas. Can you match this for me? A minute later, I got a response: No problem. Have it for you late today. I would have liked it sooner, but beggars can’t be choosers. The guy was doing me a favor. “Taken care of,” I told Max. “I’ll let you know when I have any info.”
Although the EMTs had spent a substantial amount of time attempting to stabilize him, in truth there wasn’t much they could do for Jacob on the scene. As long as he kept breathing through the opening in his throat, and so far he’d been able to do that, they wouldn’t try to bind it and bag him. His right hand had a gash that looked like a defensive wound, as if he’d attempted to grab the assailant’s knife away from him. A heart monitor beeped while a paramedic cleaned the blood off Jacob’s neck, assessing the wound. When a gauze pad filled with blood, he threw it to the side. Jacob’s eyes were closed, his body eerily still except for his struggle to breathe.
“This is so weird,” the medic muttered.
“What is?” Max asked.
“This guy got really lucky,” he said. “Whoever did this was in a hurry. He didn’t stay around to make sure the guy died—he cut this guy’s trachea but he missed the carotids. If the attacker had sliced through one or