Mortal Danger

they walked around their home. Anyone could have seen that this had been a happy couple who shared almost everything. There were two of all their sports equipment. Two cozy brown chairs in the great room. Benson and his crew would have to talk to many more people to verify their impression of this marriage, but it seemed to have been a good one, over far too soon.
     
    On the day after the double murder, Mary Lou Hanson-O’Brien took digital images of more possible evidence: hairs and fibers, and other items that hadn’t been visible in the darkness of the night before. She covered the door frame that had a bloody print on it with plastic while Lieutenant Brent Bomkamp sawed away that portion of the jamb. It might be an extremely valuable exhibit in a trial.
    She collected the Buck knife, a digital camera that held photographs of Brian Mauck in the process of being tattooed, a bloodied paper towel, and a roll of paper towels.
    Beverly had been very popular in high school at Mt. Rainier High in Des Moines, Washington. Some of her adventures were legendary among her peers. Bev was most memorable for falling out of the back of a truck in full clown makeup and costume. She loved to laugh and her sense of humor was infectious. She and Brian enjoyed popular comedians’ CDs and Bev insisted that her friendsand siblings listen to them when they were riding in her car. “Listen, listen! ” she’d command her friend Jenny—who was as close as a sister—hitting her on the arm.
    “I knew she’d heard it so many times before,” Jenny recalled, “and she was funnier than any of the comedians she made us listen to.”
    Brian was mischievous and his voice could drown out anyone else in the room. His friends called him a “wild stallion,” and he would try just about anything. He’d been fearless almost since he was born. When he was three, he slipped out of his house and headed for the 7-Eleven to buy candy. He got there, but it was almost a miracle because he had to cross two four-lane highways to reach the convenience store. Beverly was just as fearless, a tomboy who refused to wear dresses when she was a child and played on the boys’ teams in high school. She’d grown up with two brothers, and she’d learned how to keep up with them.
    If they had to die young, those who knew them would have expected it to be in a diving accident or a motorcycle crash.
    Beverly Slater and Brian Mauck had known each other for years, and had dated steadily for four years before their wedding on May 5, 2006. And what a wedding it was. Held on Cinco de Mayo—the riotous Mexican holiday—it was fitting that they had chosen an island off Mexico for the ceremony. Their guests flew down to join them as they were married on a white sand beach. One of their neighbors said they had honeymooned on Turks and Caicos, their favorite spot for scuba diving.
    Bev and Brian lived their lives full out; they worked hard and played harder. The young couple went bowlingwith old friends, and dancing, and usually went out on Friday nights, often to Ma’s and Pa’s Roundup, a restaurant/ lounge/tavern near their home. When the University of Washington Huskies football team had a home game, they were there. Between the Huskies and the Seahawks, they had a lot of tailgate barbecues. Brian had season tickets to the Seattle Seahawks’ games. All things being equal, he should have been sitting in his brown recliner watching the Huskies on the date of his incomprehensible death.
    Brian was as strong as a young bull. On Friday he had carried a tall Christmas tree into the company where he worked so the staff could decorate it.
    To someone looking on who didn’t live the kind of life the Maucks did, jealousy was a possibility. It would have been easy for someone like that to dismiss how hard they worked and view them as privileged by fate and luck.
    Word of the double murder quickly spread around Graham, and to friends in Tacoma. Everyone seemed to have a theory on the motivation for their deaths and some called the sheriff’s office.
    One of Beverly’s coworkers at Baydo’s Chevrolet contacted deputies to tell them that Beverly had been frightened by the nephew of a neighbor. He was in his early twenties, a huge man standing six foot three and weighing close to 300 pounds. Bev believed he was the one responsible for the theft a month ago when a number of things were stolen from her house, including her cell phone, some documents, and a .357 Magnum.