proceeded. A tall man with a Stetson hat, white shirt, dark tie, dark jeans, and boots stood next to Dupree.
Dupree caught sight of Amaia standing in the doorway. He swiftly crossed the room toward her, a dangerous and angry look in his eyes. He said nothing until they were face to face. He was furious. “Where the hell were you?”
She was taken aback. “I was—”
Dupree snorted like a bull, seized her by the arm, and perp walked her outside.
She tried to explain. “I couldn’t get in. Agent Emerson left me behind, the hallway was blocked, and I took a moment to—”
“I am not interested in excuses,” he snapped. “Emerson is an idiot. But I made a big gamble bringing you here, and I didn’t do it just to show you how we work. I wanted you to keep your eyes open. Get in there and try to understand that family’s terror! I want to know how the Composer thinks. Don’t let them intimidate you. I’ve got your back.”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel and went inside.
Amaia bit her lip, exhaled through her nose, and followed him in.
The techs had finished uncovering the bodies, and the FBI team was squatting to watch as they listened to the medical examiner’s first impressions. Amaia walked over to stand directly behind him.
“They’ve been dead for less than five hours. No hematomas evident yet, but there are traces indicating they were tied up. Surprisingly little loss of blood, considering the extent of the cranial injuries.”
Agent Tucker spoke. “So the head injuries were inflicted postmortem?”
“Can’t be sure of that yet. We’ll have to wait for the autopsies. But what I can tell you is that these are fatal injuries.” With two fingers the doctor delicately pushed aside the smaller boy’s hair so they could appreciate the violence of the blow that had deformed his skull.
Tucker persisted. “They were all fatally wounded the same way, their skulls crushed. Were they killed in this room?”
“Well, you saw how they had to be dug out from the debris. But the fact that they gathered here doesn’t prove they weren’t injured elsewhere in the house. I’ve seen similar situations in house fires. When panic hits, family members look for one another, it’s normal. And all too often they die together as a result.”
Dupree added a note. “With all heads oriented toward the north.”
The medical examiner shrugged. “Okay, well . . . that’s unusual, but . . .”
Amaia shook her head and joined in. “There’s no blood anywhere in the rest of the house. I checked.” She was speaking only to Dupree. “Not a single drop to suggest they could’ve been hurt elsewhere. With head injuries this serious, they’d have bled profusely; there’d be a trail of blood.”
Johnson followed up. “There’s nothing on the clothing. If they’d been upright when struck, staining would have been inevitable.”
Amaia stepped forward and leaned over the youngest victim. She pointed to the mass of gore covering the back of the boy’s head. “If you look closely, you’ll see there’s a bubble maybe half an inch below the point of impact.”
The medical examiner pushed aside the boy’s hair there. “Could be a blood clot.”
“It’s not,” she contradicted him. “That’s a gas bubble. Examine the very edge of the wound, on this side, and you’ll find two little black spots. That’s residue typical of the collar of abrasion formed from a gunshot at point-blank range. It’s almost invisible because of the battering. But a skull is hard bone, and it prevented the gas from dissipating within the body. That’s why this bubble formed.”
Dupree nodded in satisfaction.
“You might be right,” the medical examiner acknowledged reluctantly.
“They all died from shots to the head, shots disguised afterward by these blows,” she asserted.
Johnson intervened. “While there are many similarities with the other cases we identified, we still haven’t found the pistol. And there’s no grandmother.”
“The family took shelter in the cellar which can be accessed from the kitchen.” Amaia still spoke only to Dupree. “They were prepared. They had water, food, batteries, a transistor radio, and flashlights, all sealed in plastic bins. The gun was kept down there. I couldn’t locate the firearm, but I saw an oiled cloth, a cleaning brush, and several boxes of twenty-two-caliber ammunition. They spent the night down there, but I don’t think they got much sleep. The bedrooms up here are a mess, but it’s obvious the beds weren’t slept in. There are six sleeping bags downstairs and open drinks. The