CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Ella had a rough mental image of what a lawyer’s house might look like, and Reuben Hoy’s house did not align with it.
Takoma Park was known for being a quirky place, and the green, single-family bungalow in front of her conformed to that reputation.
The outside looked like a jungle, complete with a giant ceramic tiger hiding amongst the grass, and somewhere from behind the house wafted the smell of dung.
There was a stack of parcels left on the porch, which Ella thought was brave.
If this was D.C., someone would have swiped them within the hour.
But amongst this quirkiness was a lack of homeowner.
Ella knocked on the door twice and received no response either time. A red Ford was parked on the curb, although Ella didn’t know who it belonged to, but it’s positioning suggested it belonged to the owner of this house.
‘Mia,’ answered Ella.
‘Dark, where are you?’
‘Takoma Park. Gone to visit a lawyer.’
‘You’ll need it after what you pulled today.’
‘Very funny,’ Ella said.
‘Actually, maybe not, because digging up Greaves’s coffin did come in useful after all. Before they put the coffin back in the ground, the forensic examiner swabbed it and passed the sample to Massri. Guess what?’
‘What?’
‘Thomas Greaves’s DNA was on our victims. Don’t ask me how.’
Ella thought of Sherlock Holmes, and how he said that once you removed the impossible, whatever remained, however improbable, must be the truth.
And it was impossible for Thomas Greaves’s to have killed three people from beyond the grave.
‘So, our killer is in possession of Thomas Greaves’s corpse. And he’s… staining them with it. Somehow.’ Ella thought of how that process might play out, and even the most mild image of such an act made her wince.
‘But we saw one of his murders on video. I didn’t see any transference of a dead man’s DNA, did you?’
‘I did not.’ Ella thought back to the video, and the river of blood that permeated Curtis Brennan’s bedroom following the swift removal of his head.
Ella glanced off to the side, at the stack of parcels on Hoy’s porch.
One of them was a cube box, big enough to hold around twelve books.
The ones beside it were flat and emblazoned with the supplier’s logo over and over again.
Blood.
Ella’s body was suddenly telling her how little sleep she’d had, because just thinking about Brennan’s blood-soaked office was enough to induce the phantom smell of it. The hallucination became so intense that she even saw blood leaking from the cube-box beside her.
She rubbed her eyes with her free hand.
What the hell?
Even after massaging herself back to something approaching alertness, Ella could still see the blood dripping from the parcel.
‘Dark. Are you still there?’ Ripley said down the line.
‘Yeah. It’s just…’
‘Just what?’
She stepped closer, then gently pressed her foot to the box to test its weight. It pivoted easily, and upon lifting the underside of the box off the floor, it became clear that the blood was not imaginary.
‘Oh Christ, Mia,’ she said.
‘Some details might help.’
Ella’s pulse rate began to skyrocket. She knelt and removed the loose piece of tape holding the box lid shut. Slowly, she propped open the flaps, and then the swamping odor of decay slapped her and made her wretch.
‘Mia. Get here,’ she breathed. ‘Sidewinder Avenue, Takoma Park. Now.’
‘Why? What’s there?’
‘Curtis Brennan’s severed head.’
Ella fell back two steps, and suddenly sensed that she was sharing the airspace with another body. She brought the phone away from her ear just in time to hear someone behind her.
‘Whoa, excuse me. Who are you?’
She spun around and pulled her gun. Standing in front of her was a fifty-something man with round spectacles and frizzy hair. He was wearing a long grey coat and had a briefcase dangling from one hand.
‘Don’t shoot!’ he screamed. ‘I didn’t do anything!’
‘Hands where I can see them.’
The man obliged, still holding his briefcase. ‘What’s going on?’ he stammered.
Ella zoned in on him. ‘Are you Reuben Hoy?’
‘Yes, I am. And you are?’
‘Agent Dark. FBI.’ She gestured to the bleeding parcel. ‘Do you have any idea what this is?’
Hoy squinted at the mess on his porch, frowned and shook his head. ‘No I don’t. I was expecting some parcels today, but nothing that size. What is it?’
He might not be her killer, but given that the killer had been here today, there was every chance that Reuben Hoy knew who he was. Ella lowered her gun a fraction. ‘Mr. Hoy, please come inside the house. I need to know how a severed head ended up on your doorstep.’
Hoy balked, and he went pale white.