The North Face of the Heart - Dolores Redondo Page 0,9
in decent shape, and the trauma that had destroyed their skulls could easily have been attributed to falling rafters or beams.”
The French officer next to Amaia spoke up. “These death scenes resemble each other. We see that the first one did not provoke suspicion among local and state authorities. The photographs suggest the first investigation was not the responsibility of the FBI. What was the reason to see the second case in a different manner?”
Agent Tucker let the silence settle in to make sure she had everyone’s attention.
“A witness,” she said in a whisper perfectly audible from her place in the back of the room.
Amaia smiled. This Agent Tucker clearly knew exactly how to capture their attention.
“A twelve-year-old boy, a friend of one of the farmer’s children,” the agent added in her normal voice. “Despite the weather alerts, he sneaked off to see his friend. The storm hit before he could get to a shelter, so he hid in the chicken house. The tornado that struck the farmhouse didn’t touch the nearby barn, but it did blow down the coop. The boy wasn’t seriously injured, but he was trapped for hours by a heavy wood panel. He was able to breathe, but he was immobilized, and the weight on his chest kept him from calling for help. He said he heard the family come out of the storm shelter by the barn after the storm had passed. He couldn’t see them from where he was, but he knew their voices. Then he saw a man cross the field toward the house.
“Soon after that, he heard shots, screams, and more shots, followed by a terrible silence. Terrified, he heard someone shifting the debris, then nothing. He described the man as tall and thin, with the gait of a young man, and carrying a briefcase. He had some sort of badge. The boy said the man came out into the yard, put his little case on the ground, stood before the wreckage of the farmhouse, and raised his arms. In silence he waved his arms slowly and rhythmically as if conducting an orchestra. The witness said he looked like a composer, so that’s the name the investigators have adopted.”
Everyone in the room was quiet, but they tensed like bloodhounds suddenly catching a scent.
Amaia turned and looked for Agent Tucker. Her face was scarcely visible in the dark, but Amaia saw her satisfaction at their reaction.
“Contrary to what you might expect, the killer didn’t remove the weapon. We found it next to the bodies. A Smith & Wesson 617, twenty-two caliber, registered to the father. The autopsy established that they’d been shot in the head and then the bodies were struck with a blunt object or objects in an attempt to make it look as if they’d been killed by falling debris. We found evidence to support the boy’s version of events: the family took refuge in the storm shelter by the barn and they’d all been executed at close range. The rubble-strewn scene in the house was staged to suggest the fatal wounds occurred when the house collapsed.
“One of the Oklahoma investigators recalled a front-page newspaper photo published a month earlier of the Mason family. Remember: the Masons were buried without autopsies. The sheriff who’d handled that case said a pistol was found by the bodies, a twenty-two caliber owned by the father, but they thought it was irrelevant. We obtained an exhumation order. Postmortems confirmed that gunshot wounds, concealed by blows to the head, were the causes of death.”
Autopsy close-ups showed the injuries and abrasions.
Tucker left her place in the back of the room, stepped to the door, and turned on the lights. The grisly images faded and almost disappeared. Amaia and her classmates blinked, trying to adjust to the sudden brilliance.
Tucker paused theatrically and looked around the group. Amaia sensed the agent was trying to provoke a strong reaction. “The sheer violence of gales of more than 250 miles an hour makes any flying object a potentially lethal projectile. The killer was certainly aware of this, for all the wounds were inflicted postmortem. In two victims he plugged the bullet holes with stone fragments. In others he used wood splinters.”
Amaia, seated closest to the door, was near Tucker. She saw the hint of a smile on Tucker’s face as class members murmured among themselves. Tucker saw Amaia looking at her and the smile vanished instantly.
Tucker pointed to the thick folder in front of Amaia. “The Oklahoma investigators suspected this was