River’s End

used to. You told me some about this one. I made notes on it even back then. Tanner made the nine-one-one call himself. I’ve got a transcript of it.”
    Wanting accuracy rather than memory, Noah dug out the right file. “He called it in at twelve forty-eight. She’s dead. My God, Julie. She’s dead. The blood, it’s everywhere. I can’t stop the blood. Somebody help me.” Noah set the paper aside.
    “There’s more, but that’s the core of it. The nine-one-one operator asked him questions, kept getting the same response, but managed to get the address out of him.”
    “The uniforms went in first,” Frank said. “Standard procedure. They responded to the nine-eleven. The gate was open; so was the front door. They entered the premises and found the body and Tanner in the front parlor area. They secured the scene, reported a homicide and requested detectives. Tracy Harmon and I took the call.”
    For Noah, it was as if he’d walked into the house that night with his father. He felt the warm rustle of air that stirred the palm fronds and danced through gardens silvered in moonlight. The house stood, white as a wish with windows blazing gold with lights.
    Police cruisers were guard-dogging the front, one with its blue and red lights still spinning to shoot alarming color over the marble steps, the faces of cops, the crime scene van.
    More light poured out of the open doorway.
    A rookie, his uniform still academy fresh, vomited pitifully in the oleanders. Inside, the grand chandelier dripped its waterfall of light on virgin white floors and highlighted the dark stain of the blood trail.
    It smeared in all directions, across the foyer, down the wide hall, up the polished-oak stairway that swept regally to the left.
    The smell of it was still ripe, the look of it still wet.
    He was used to death, the violence of it. The waste of it. But his first glimpse of what had been done to Julie MacBride broke his heart. He remembered the sensations exactly, the sudden, almost audible snapping, the resulting churn of pity and horror in his gut. And the fast, overpowering flood of fury that burst into his head before he shut them away, locked them away, and did his job. At first glance it appeared to have been a vicious struggle. The broken glass, the overturned furniture, the great spewing patterns of blood.
    But there were patterns within patterns. The dead always left them. Her nails were unbroken and clean, the defensive wounds on her hands and arms shallow. He’d come at her from behind. Later Frank would have this verified by the ME’s findings, but as he crouched beside the body, he played the scene in his head. The first blow had gone deep into her back, just below the shoulder blades. She’d probably screamed, stumbled, tried to turn. There would have been shock along with the pain. Had she seen his face? Seen what was in it?
    He’d come at her again. Had she lifted an arm to block the blow? Please, don’t, God, don’t.
    She’d tried to get away, knocking over the lamp, shattering glass, slicing her bare feet on it even as he sliced at her. She’d fallen, crawled, weeping. He’d driven the blades into her again and again, plunging with them, slashing with them even after she was still. Even after she was dead.
    Two uniforms watched Sam in the adjoining room. As with his first glimpse of Julie, this image would implant itself on Frank’s mind. He was pale and handsome. He smoked in quick jerks, his arm pistoning up and down, up and down as he brought the cigarette to his lips, drew in smoke, blew it out, drew it in again. His eyes were off—glassy and wheeling in his head. Shock and drugs. His wife’s blood was all over him.
    “Somebody killed her. Somebody killed Julie.” He said it again and again.
    “Tell me what happened, Mr. Tanner.”
    “She’s dead. Julie’s dead. I couldn’t stop it.”
    “Couldn’t stop what?”
    “The blood.” Sam stared down at his hands, then began to weep. Sometime during that initial, disjointed interview, Frank remembered there was a child. And went to look for her.
    In his office, Noah typed up his notes from the interview with his father. It helped to write it down, to see the words.
    When his phone rang, he jolted, and realized that he had been lost, working for hours. The first streaks of sunset were now staining the sky through his window. Noah pressed his fingers to his aching eyes and answered.
    “It’s Sam Tanner.”
    Instinctively, Noah snatched up a