Smith County sheriff’s lieutenant in charge of the CSI unit. There’d only been a handful of evidence markers when Max and I left to go inside, but now they spread across the grass and one was off fairly far into a grove of trees. Stef’s eyes had grown rounder, and she appeared excited. I remembered my first few murder scenes, the excitement of being involved in an investigation. It might change Stef’s attitude if she knew that one of the victims was Mullins’ daughter.
“What have you got?” I asked Mueller.
“We found the murder weapon,” he said. “At least, I’m guessing it’s the murder weapon.”
“Where is it?” Max said. “Show it to us.”
Mueller started to respond, but I cut in. “No, Lieutenant, take us through how you think this unfolded,” I said. “I want to see it the way it happened, assuming you have a theory on sequencing?”
“Yeah,” Mueller said. A tall, gangly guy with an angular face and a prominent Adam’s apple that bobbed up and down with each word, he seemed more arms and legs than body. He led us over to a point about six feet back from where Anna Johansson lay. “It started here,” he said, pointing at a few discharged cartridges on the ground.
While Max and I understood Mueller’s inference, I asked, “Explain what we’re looking at for Stef. She’s a new officer, and she’s taking forensic classes at the community college.”
Mueller shot our CSI-officer-to-be a supportive glance, and then pointed down at the cartridges. Nearby someone had perched a yellow plastic evidence tent with the number six on it. “We believe the gun’s a nine-millimeter semi-automatic with an extended magazine,” he said. “We found one dropped or thrown in the trees. We’ll work our way there. We think the shooting started here with the woman.”
“Anna Johansson,” I interjected. Mueller looked at me. “I like to use names. It reminds me that these were real people. Helps keep it human.”
“Sure, Chief, good idea,” Mueller said. “Out here, surrounded by all this death, it’s hard to think of them as…”
“Alive?” I suggested.
For a moment, Mueller didn’t talk, and then he nodded and swallowed hard. He pointed at a shirt hanging half on, half off the clothesline. “I think Anna may not have realized what was about to happen. It looks like she had her back turned to the shooter, hanging that shirt up. She still has a clothespin in one hand. There’s blood spatter on the shirt. When the first bullet hit, Anna probably turned slightly, away from the clothesline. He kept firing, and she staggered and fell face down. The kids were hanging out, maybe running around playing with each other and watching her, is my guess, because they were right behind her, not far away.”
I pictured it. A calm, sunny morning, winter right around the corner. Everyone just up from bed, getting a start on the day. Maybe Anna gave Sybille and Benjamin breakfast, but maybe not. No dishes in the kitchen waiting to be washed, and Laurel, if she was still alive, was upstairs in bed, maybe after a late night with the baby. She hadn’t made her way down yet. If there’d been a lot of kitchen noise, it might have awakened her. Someone walks up and stands behind Anna, pointing a 9mm handgun at her back. I could almost hear the bang of the first shot when I envisioned a finger pulling the trigger.
“You know the killer stood here when he killed Anna because of those cartridges,” I said, pointing at the three on the ground.
“Yeah,” Mueller said. He turned to Stef, indicated a spot on the ground and continued, “Based on the position of Anna’s body and the point where we found the cartridges, the gunman had to be standing approximately here when he shot her. With each shot, the gun ejected an empty cartridge to the right. Anna was shot three times and we have three cartridges.”
Bang. Bang. Bang. The reports went off in my head. Anna tottered and then fell. Internal organs burst open, ruptured. I wondered if on some level she questioned what was happening to her, or did she know? Did she try to turn to look for her son and daughter? Maybe not. In seconds, it was possible that she was dead.
“Then the gunman turned on the children. You can see that he moved to get behind them. Maybe they were trying to run away.” Mueller pointed at two more evidence markers. “Both of those mark