Читать книгу Wicked Intentions - Kevin Flynn - Страница 15

7

Inside the House

Sergeant Robert Estabrook of the New Hampshire State Police had been to the LaBarre Farm the day before, along with Lieutenant Conte, and had spent a great deal of time just looking at the charred mattress box spring. Conte had asked him to take over the case and become the lead investigator in the field. It was understood that this was going to be particularly challenging. Now, on Monday morning the twenty-seventh, he found himself again staring into the rotten embers of that fire pit.

Just as the morning sun shone a warm yellow glow on the scene, Estabrook noticed a television camera on a tripod at the main gate. One had been here the night before, as he and Conte and some others had been walking the property. They decided to use the protective cover of the horse barn as a workplace and had set up some lights inside when it had become night. He had seen the piercing light of the camera cut through the darkness, though at first he thought it had been coming from the spotlight on the cruiser standing post at the entrance. Estabrook had seen the pictures on the news and was relieved that all that were usable were shots of the main house and the crime van in the yard.

But now, from that same vantage point, the burn pile was clearly visible. The cover of night had bought them time. There were details to this crime scene (though publicly they would not classify it as such) that Estabrook felt needed to remain confidential. He approached the camera crew.

The officer was in plainclothes, a tan overcoat on. Estabrook looked more bookish than the other state police, with his glasses and blond hair neatly combed. His demeanor was always very serious, very official.

The TV reporter and cameraman exchanged causal “hellos” with Estabrook. They were calm, comfortable, indicating some previous acquaintance with him.

“I need you to leave. You’re too close to the scene.”

The journalists looked at each other, then to the yellow tape across the gate that separated them. “The chief said the public road ends here.”

“My scene extends back a half mile. You have to go.”

The cameraman huffed. “This is bullshit,” he said to himself. The fact that Estabrook didn’t even appear to be nice about the ejection rubbed him the wrong way.

Estabrook turned away from the pair, cutting off further debate, knowing they would now follow his command. It wasn’t bullshit, he thought. We’re going to have to search every inch of these woods before this is all over.

By the time NHSP Lieutenant Mark Mudgett returned to the LaBarre farm, he noticed a fresh line of yellow tape strung between two trees at some seemingly random point on the dirt road. He shook his head in amusement, inching his police cruiser underneath the sagging Mylar barrier. Estabrook must have kicked out some reporters, he thought.

Mudgett parked along the end of the dirt road and walked in the yard. He found Estabrook overseeing the examination of the burn pit.

“You ready to go in?” the lead investigator asked him.

“Okay, Bob, let’s do it.”

They found the front door unlocked and walked in slowly. The interior of the beautiful cape-style house was rustic. A lot of exposed wood, uncarpeted floors. There were boxes thrown haphazardly around the place. Mudgett led a small cadre of technicians, decked out in white disposable jumpsuits and paper booties, deeper into the residence. They needed to search, photograph and catalogue an infinite number of items, all or none of which might be helpful to the investigation. They were prepared to invest several days to this crime scene. The group was stone quiet, except for the regular pop of a flashbulb and click of a camera shutter.

There’s something both somber and horrifying about walking through a home where a murder has occurred. Even police with court orders can’t help but feel like they’re intruding in someone else’s living room, thumbing through photographs and bank statements. Each step is taken as delicately as a boot camp recruit in a minefield. Every scratch on a floor, every smudge on a window, every bit of lint beneath a sofa holds the potential secret to a crime.

Beyond the puzzle of atoms lies the puzzle of the soul. What happened here to cause the ultimate in violence? Such things don’t stick to counter surfaces or appear under bi-chromatic latent powder. But they don’t escape through open windows or vanish down drains. Dust may be witness to crime, but energy is witness to rage. And that energy haunts a room or a building that remains quiet and undisturbed while judges ponder their intrusion. That energy is sometimes called “evil,” and it screams in the quiet of that room until someone can exorcise it.

Mudgett could always feel the energy at a crime scene, and things like blood splatter, bullet holes and dead bodies only amplified the passive energy coursing through walls.

There was something extra creepy about the home. The deep, dark woods setting, the smell of putridity and death in the air. Peter Odom would later say that walking through the home, especially at night, reminded him of a scene from The Blair Witch Project, the unsettled feeling that something dangerous and undreamt was still lurking in the darkness.

Other than a mess of boxes and furniture, there didn’t seem to be any obvious signs of trauma in the house. Dismemberment of a body would cause a great amount of blood loss, even if it was done postmortem. The mattress’s previous location was the first place they checked.

Mudgett already knew there was a first floor bedroom but that Countie had slept in the living room and that the mattress was kept on the floor. They inched their way toward the living room via the kitchen. Mudgett noticed something on the cabinets. Brownish spots, tiny like spray.

He turned to a technician. “Blood?”

State Police Forensics Crime Lab Technician Tim Jackson squinted and scanned the cabinet door, which was close to the kitchen sink. He found what he thought was the largest droplet. Jackson then swabbed it with a piece of filter paper and added a drop of phenolphthalein.

“Presumptive positive for human blood,” he said.

In the living room, they found more brown droplets. There was an empty space where the mattress had been. Mudgett noted brownish drops along the wall. They were about three feet off the floor and ran in an area about six feet long.

Lab Technician Kim Rumrill pointed a blue latex finger toward the wall. “Cast-off,” she said. The size, shape and color were all consistent with blood. Then she followed the droplets along the floor in the walkway area of the dining room and back into the kitchen. This time, Rumrill noticed additional cast-off blood on the ceiling by the cabinet. There was a wood stove in the kitchen and more tiny spots of coffee-colored blood were on the floor.

“Here’s a little something,” she said. A heel print, in blood, on the floor by the stove. So far, it was the largest bit of blood they’d seen.

With his feet firmly planted in one spot, Mudgett looked around the home. He could smell something odd. Could it be a decomposing body part? It smelled putrid.

The lieutenant kneeled down at a heating vent on the floor. The vent was right next to where the mattress had lain. It was forced hot air, and the smell was definitely coming from the register. He could see more small drops of blood on the metal plate and in the ductwork, but there was something more pungent than that. It smelled like vomit.

Jackson looked through the first floor bedroom and found it in shambles. There were cardboard boxes containing letters, greeting cards and other mementoes. He could see what looked like two brown stains on the boxes. More blood? he asked himself.

Among the papers was a single-spaced typed document labeled “Power of Attorney.” Jackson scanned it quickly. It began:

I, Kenneth Michael Countie, DOB-JULY 18, 1981 SS# 029-XX-XXXX do hereby grant and give complete and total FULL POWER OF ATTORNEY to SHEILA LaBARRE, ESQUIRE of P.O. BOX XX, RAYMOND NH 03077 to talk to Social Services, any and all police departments, or to anyone regarding any and all business pertaining to me.

It gave Sheila the power to receive Countie’s mail, sign his checks, speak for him in court and deal with virtually any business or personal matter on his behalf. Then it went on to say:

Additionally, I only TRUST Sheila LaBarre and do completely feel safe and secure in her presence. She had helped me to relocate to New Hampshire. She had helped me by giving me employment and a nice place in which to reside. She had added my name to her address…

It finished with something Jackson considered odd, certainly not something one would normally put in a power of attorney:

Sheila LaBarre has a legally taped recording of me, having informed me throughout the tape that New Hampshire is a two party consent to tape statement and I did grant permission under free will to be tape recorded. This tape is my second sworn statement regarding additional information which Social Services in the State of MA should hear. Please listen to the tape when it is typed and faxed, please take it seriously…

Although the paper was written in the first person as if Kenneth Countie had composed it, it was obvious Sheila had put the whole thing together. Clearly, the “please take it seriously…” line indicated this was something important to her. At the bottom, both signed (Countie, in tiny letters like a grade-schooler; LaBarre, in sweeping arcs) and dated (“3/10/06,” about two weeks earlier) the document.

Jackson was ready to make his way up to the second floor when he noticed a chair at the foot of the stairwell. He saw red-brown flecks on the arm, but the seat cushion was missing.

Rumrill asked Mudgett to come into the kitchen. He took a gaze at the heel print. “First impressions?” he asked her.

“Not what I thought we’d find,” she confessed. “We still have to hit it with the LCV, but I’m surprised at the lack of concentration of blood. No pools yet. No puddles or big stains. So far, it’s all tiny amounts.”

“But there’s cast-off everywhere,” Mudgett said. “What did she do? Chase him through the fucking house with an ax, like in Misery?”

“Let’s go in here.” Rumrill pointed to a room off the kitchen. It was a laundry room. We’re not going to be that lucky, Mudgett thought as he put his hand on the washing machine.

He opened the top. To his surprise, there still was something inside. He peeked in, but leaned back after a smell got into his nostrils again. There was a musty, putrefied odor again. Holding his breath, Mudgett reached in and poked around. There were some wet clothes inside, but taking up most of the well was a comforter. The detective pulled it out and it smelled even worse. It reeked of puke and decomposition.

On the second floor of the house, Jackson and Rumrill sprayed Leuco Crystal Violet throughout the bathroom. Unlike the one downstairs, it was a full bath, with a ceramic tub and tiled wall. Cast-off was found on the tiles as well as on the ceiling. What went on in this room?

Jackson put the LCV on the sink and in the tub using a wash bottle. The pre-mixed concentration was mostly hydrogen peroxide and 5-sulfasalicylic acid. The sink and tub looked clean, until the chemical hit them. The LCV began to react with the hemoglobin in the invisible red blood cells still clinging to the fixtures. It came alive in a vivid purple. There were dilute stains over the entirety of both surfaces.

Back downstairs, just off the laundry room, was a half-bath. Mudgett looked around and found a half gallon jug of laundry bleach. He picked it up and shook it. Mostly empty. Smart cookie, he thought. First she burned the DNA on the body. Then she destroyed what was left inside the house with bleach.

He gave a heavy sigh. They were going to be here a while.

Estabrook and Conte were outside the farmhouse waiting patiently for Mudgett and the others to emerge with details. The sun was bright and the view was beautiful. Every now and then, a stray rabbit moved in the underbrush, startling one of them. The two cops decided to take stock of some other things found near the burn pit.

In the back of Sheila’s green pickup truck were a couple of yellow fuel containers. Estabrook noted the license plate number started with “AG,” the code that indicated agricultural equipment. The containers were all empty and they smelled of diesel fuel. He already knew the containers were new and knew where and when Sheila got them.

“What on this farm runs on diesel fuel?” Estabrook asked Conte.

“Not this pickup.” He made note of the other vehicles on the land. There was a black luxury car, a silver luxury car and another pickup truck. None of them used diesel.

The silver car had a vanity plate. It read, “CAYCE.”

There was one tractor, an old rusted jalopy of a thing. It ran on diesel, but its engine had given up the ghost a long time ago.

Conte’s cell phone rang. It was the deputy state medical examiner.

“Doctor Duval just got a second opinion on the bone photos we sent her,” Conte explained to Estabrook. “She consulted with a forensic anthropologist in Maine. They both agree the bones look human.”

“They’re going to want to see the actual bones though, right?”

“Yes,” Conte said. They started making arrangements to bring some of the tagged samples from the van up to the medical examiner in Concord. It occurred to them both that they could be collecting all that remained, and all that might ever be found, of Kenneth Countie.

The lieutenant pointed across the yard to the blue Wal-Mart bag blowing in the breeze. “Make sure,” Conte said, “you bring that, too.”