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Chapter 31
31
Lisa watches with dismay as the detectives arrive with a search warrant and a forensics team only a couple of hours after Dan returned from the police station. Some of them head inside the house, while Reyes and Barr and the rest of them open the doors of Dan’s car, which is sitting in the driveway. They take their time studying it, in full view of the entire street, while a police truck waits to take it away to someplace where they will pull it apart for a clue that her husband is a murderer.
She feels queasy, even though she knows Dan didn’t do it. Dan didn’t come home that night covered in blood. He couldn’t have done it. She remembers what he was wearing when he went out for a drive—the same jeans and shirt, loosened around his neck, that he wore at dinner. And he probably put on his casual windbreaker when he left, the one he always wears in the spring. It’s hanging in the hallway closet. She’s seen it since and there’s not a spot on it. She doesn’t remember him coming home, but the next morning, she found those same jeans and shirt, and his socks and underwear, on the floor by the bed and put them in the laundry basket. That was Monday. She did the laundry that day and put everything away. She never saw bloodstains on any of it. She knows she has nothing to worry about. So why is she so tense?
Dan comes up beside her. His lawyer was just here, checking the validity of the search warrant. Then he left, telling Dan privately to keep his chin up, his mouth shut, and to call him if there are any “developments.”
“This is an outrage,” Dan complains.
“Just keep your cool,” Lisa says. She doesn’t want him to become emotional now, with everyone watching. He’s been so volatile lately—it worries her. “They’re not going to find anything.”
• • •jenna’s cell phone buzzes and she looks at it. It’s Jake again.
“Hey,” she says. She’s standing outside Dan and Lisa’s house; Dan had called her in a panic when the police arrived. She’s standing on the street, a distance from where Dan and Lisa are watching Dan’s car being examined.
“How are things going up there?” Jake asks.
She likes the sound of his voice, low and husky. He lied for her yesterday. She wonders if it’s just a matter of time before he asks for something in return. He’ll probably want money, once she gets some. Now that she thinks of it, Jake is actually quite difficult to read.
“It doesn’t look good for Dan. They’re searching his house now.”
• • •audrey had followed the detectives when they left the station—had recognized them, watched them get into a plain, dark sedan—and followed them straight to Dan’s house. There, on Dan’s quiet, affluent street, they were joined by a forensics van. A team in white suits got out with all their equipment. Two of them started examining the car in the driveway, and the others went inside the house. The detectives stopped to look at the car.
Audrey is delighted. This is getting better and better. Dan is obviously the prime suspect, she thinks. She wants to get out and help them tear Dan’s place apart. Instead, she sits in her car on the side of the street and wishes she had a pair of binoculars.
There are neighbors watching from their lawns and driveways, and there are media in the street. She recognizes that reporter, Robin Fontaine, among them. Audrey has her card in her wallet.
She turns her attention back to Dan, who’s standing at the end of his driveway with his wife, Lisa, watching them search his car. As if he feels her eyes on his back, he looks over and spots her. He starts walking rapidly toward her, his face set. Audrey braces herself for a confrontation. To hell with him, Audrey thinks, the street is public property, and she’s not the only one here watching what’s going on. Dan approaches her window, his face twisted in anger, and Audrey powers it down halfway.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Dan spits. His face is strikingly pale against his dark hair.
Audrey sees the wildness in his eyes and falters. For a split second he reminds her of Fred when he was younger. Then the illusion is gone, and all she can think is that she might be looking into the eyes of a murderer. She hastily powers the window up again. He glares at her then turns and smashes his fist on the front hood of her car as he strides away, making her jump.
• • •the day wears on and Dan watches coldly while the detectives and the forensic team search his house thoroughly. His heart is racing, but he tries not to show his distress. They have questions that he doesn’t know if he should answer. His lawyer has gone, and told him to say nothing. But when they ask him what he was wearing that night, he feels he has to tell them. He and Lisa supply the jeans and shirt he wore on Easter, the blazer, and the jacket he wore when he went out later. He doesn’t know which underwear and socks he was wearing—they all look the same in the drawer. They take everything.
Outside, they find freshly turned earth in the garden. Detective Reyes is alerted, and they all go out to the backyard, quite secluded, where a technician is indicating the newly disturbed soil, an area of about four feet square, underneath some hydrangea bushes. Reyes looks at him.
“I buried my dog there a few days ago,” he tells them. “She died of old age.”
To Dan’s dismay, they begin to dig. Lisa stands beside him, clutching his hand. Soon they uncover a black plastic garbage bag. They lift it out of the garden carefully while Dan looks on in distress. They open the bag and a foul odor assails them. Inside they discover the decomposing body of a dog. Nothing else.
“Satisfied?” Dan says, barely concealing his fury.
“Keep digging,” Reyes tells them, “deeper.”
• • •detective reyes had been disappointed when he studied the inside of Dan’s car. It looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in years. There was dust all over the dash, food wrappers on the floor. Dog hair on the seats. The fact that the car obviously hadn’t been cleaned suggested that Dan might not have done the killings after all. There would be blood everywhere after a murder as violent as Fred Merton’s. Even if he’d scrubbed himself clean and changed his clothes, he would probably still scrub down the car. But maybe they’ll get lucky. Maybe he changed his clothes after the murders and didn’t think he had to clean the inside of the car.
As the hours go by and nothing incriminating is found, Reyes’s frustration mounts. They’ve obtained the clothes that Dan claims to have worn the night of the murder—confirmed by his wife, who they know has already lied to them once. They bag the clothes despite their having been laundered, and the windbreaker, which appears to be spotless. Reyes doesn’t trust either one of them to tell the truth. If Dan committed the murders, whatever he was wearing at the time is at the bottom of the Hudson River or in a dumpster somewhere. It’s not hidden below the dog’s grave—Reyes has made sure of that. They take all of his electronics, over his protests. They use luminol in the bathrooms, the laundry room, and the kitchen, but find no traces of blood anywhere.
But then, in the two-car garage, they find something interesting. Inside a large plastic bin, they find an opened package of N95 masks; a package of white, hooded, disposable coveralls; and an opened package of booties. The package of disposable coveralls is open, and there’s only one left in the package of three.
Of course, Reyes thinks. A murderer who’s canny enough to wear gloves, socks, and no shoes, who leaves no trace evidence—he might have been wearing a protective suit, just like the one he and Barr are staring at. It’s very similar in appearance to the ones used by the forensics team. It would explain the complete lack of physical evidence at the scene. The lack of evidence in the car and house. And it would show premeditation. He lifts his eyes to meet Barr’s. “Over here,” he calls to the closest technician.
He turns to Dan, who is hovering at the entrance to the garage with his silent wife, and beckons him over. “What are these for?”
“I bought them when I was insulating the attic with spray foam, a couple of years ago,” Dan says, flushing. “You’re supposed to wear them. And the mask. The chemicals are dangerous.”
A member of the forensic team photographs the package of disposable coveralls and the package of booties beneath it, then gathers them up carefully. Reyes stares at Dan, who shrinks from his gaze.
Reyes knows they need some physical evidence connecting the killer to the crime scene. The fact that they’ve found an opened package of disposable coveralls in Dan Merton’s garage won’t be enough. They need more. They need to find the discarded clothes, or possibly the disposable coveralls.
But so far, they’ve found no trace of them.
