Picture Perfect Murder Read online

  “It’s almost like a postcard setup. The killer must have parked the car here and jumped the fence over there,” Leesa attempted to put the pieces together. “All four appeared to be dead before they were placed here.”

  “Unless there were some bigger vendetta involved, I would guess a solitary player,” Ransom glanced from Lee Jones over to his wife, Tisha Poulson-Jones, doing his best to distance himself from the familiarity of their faces.

  Adding emotion and character to the deceased only clouded the scene. There was time for that later. For now, four dead bodies and a killer on the loose.

  Was it a single incident? What was the connection? Was the connection through Gabe? Was it a beef with Officer Jones? Was it a random choice of victims, a coincidence? Ransom’s mind was flipping through the textbook connections, stretching to encompass the traits and possibilities. Coincidence is rarely coincidence. There has to be a connection with either Gabe or Lee.

  5

  Leaving the scene, Ransom thought better about going over to Gabe’s house. By now, it would be crawling with family and friends, along with a number of other officers close to him and his son-in-law. He would follow-up tomorrow when things thinned out a little.

  Ransom’s house was empty, his daughter’s work schedule was written on a piece of paper hanging behind a magnet on the fridge. Maddie was working mostly swing shifts lately as a paramedic. He preferred her swing shift schedule over her working graveyards. Something about the overnight schedule seemed to bring out the crazier, more dangerous calls. The swing shift provided enough excitement and experience for her, minus the extra drama early-morning hours presented to first responders.

  Ransom was used to the empty house. He preferred some solitary time, especially since growing older. He needed some time during the day to sort out the world’s noise, especially with so much time on his hands, thanks to his retirement.

  Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, he dropped down into the sofa and propped his leg up onto the coffee table. The end table next to the sofa had two industrial sized bottles of ibuprofen and acetaminophen. The pain radiating down his right shin was thumping along with his heartbeat. His daily ritual was to keep in front of the pain with a couple ibuprofen several times a day. When it throbbed like this, he mixed in a couple acetaminophen with the brown tablets. He knew that in 20 minutes it would kick in and relieve the deep-bone ache.

  Looking down at the scar running vertical to his shin, he reached down and ran a thumb across it. Ironically, he was lucky the day he earned it.

  Right out of high school he dreamed of going into the Marine Corp. Six years into his enlistment, he found himself in Kuwait during the Gulf War. On that day, a couple of Iraqis pretended to surrender to his team, then opened fire on them. His team had made the mistake of being lulled into a sense of complacency over the initial scene. The jarring sound of automatic rifles took them by surprise. Raising his weapon in the direction of the noise, he felt a searing pain in his right shin and dropped to the ground. Assuming he had tripped, he tried to stand, but his leg was limp. During the confusion of being unable to comprehend his inability to stand, the firefight continued to rage around him. Three Iraqi’s were killed, while his team suffered several injuries and, tragically, two dead riflemen.

  He later learned that a bullet had struck his shin and shattered his tibia. After surgery and six months of healing, he was able to finally work back to feeling normal over the next year. His attitude and drive, with a shot of youth, pushed him to move forward in life and chase the dream of becoming a police officer.

  The pain never completely subsided. He was able to mostly push the initial years of pain to the back of his mind. Time on the street as a beat cop, along with assignments in the gang unit, organized crime, and a stint with a homeland security task force definitely took its toll on his leg. By the time he made detective, he was happy for the break from the daily grind of “actively chasing” bad guys.

  Unfortunately, it took one last incident involving his leg to pull the plug and retire.

  Ransom and Leesa were headed to interview a witness when the radio in their undercover vehicle announced, “Officers in pursuit!” Being two blocks away, Ransom decided they should give a hand. Leesa keyed the mic and told dispatch they were responding. Just around the corner from the initial scene, Leesa saw a man running in the opposite direction and looking back several times over his shoulder.

  “Right there!” she pointed and got Ransom’s attention. “Pull up ahead of him and let me out!”

  Ransom was able to get barely ahead of the man when Leesa launched herself out of the car yelling, “Police, stop!”

  She tumbled into the man and the two began to wrestle on the ground. Ransom slammed on the breaks and attempted to jump from the car to help his partner. She initially held her own, but was now on the ground under the man, with him straddling her waist. Ransom planted his right foot on the ground and the bottom of his shoe stuck to the hot, black asphalt. His body twisted but his foot stayed planted on the ground. The pain dropped him to his knees. Struggling to get up, he looked over the hood of the car and could see Leesa with both hands pushing down on her pistol in the holster. She was battling with the man for the gun. With his left hand, the man tried to pull out her gun, with his right hand he pommeled her in the face to get her to loosen her grip.

  Ransom mustered the strength to ignore the pain and bull-rushed the man off of Leesa. The tackle knocked the wind out of the man and he gasped for air. Ransom put his full weight on the man and flipped him to his stomach. Grabbing a fistful of the man’s collar, Ransom looked over to Leesa who was still lying on her back, blood coursing down her cheeks and neck from her nose and mouth.

  Leesa ended up with a broken nose, a chipped eyetooth, and a slight concussion.

  An inner conflict emerged and Ransom was forced to face a decision about his career. More important to him, he had to think about the safety of his partner. As much as Leesa pressed him to stay, Ransom couldn’t live with the fact that when she was in need, he couldn’t deliver. Her safety was more important than his pride and love of the job. He’d worn out his much-relied on youth and vigorous exercise routine that had carried him over the years. His body was simply past the point of being a reliable partner.

  After discussing his concerns with his daughter, he decided to retire. A decision as painful as his leg had become for him.

  Reaching for a pillow next to him on the sofa, he lifted his leg and propped it under his calf. The relief from the over the counter medicine started to kick in and his thoughts were able to return to the night’s events.

  Motive. What’s the motive? “How does it feel?” Why would someone kill an entire family and prep the scene? Did the killer know Lee was an officer? Was the note directly connected to him being an officer? Was that part of the reason or a coincidence? Coincidences. Coincidences don’t exist.

  Ransom drifted off to sleep, his last thought of the children sitting in the back seat with their Mickey Mouse ears on their heads, ready to go to the Happiest Place on Earth.

  6

  The sun slipped through the blinds and woke Ransom. He’d slept all night on the sofa. Looking down he could see that Maddie had put a blanket over him when she came in from work.

  She got home from work okay.

  Ransom couldn’t turn off being a detective, no matter how insignificant the event. Maddie coming home and leaving her proof draped over him was a perfect example.

  Moving set an aching pain coursing through his lower leg. Though the sofa was comfortable, the position of his leg on the coffee table all night wasn’t as forgiving as his bed. Instinctively he reached for the bottles on the end table and pressed down on the child-proof caps. Four pills later and a swig from a warm water bottle, he was ready to attempt to get up. He would have to wait the 20 minutes for the pills to kick in and ease the pain, but he needed to get moving. He needed to get ahold of Leesa and see what else she came up with from th
e night before and wanted to get over to Gabe and Kathryn’s to check on them. And he needed to shave and shower to at least look like a human before walking out the door. The last need was more of a commandment by Maddie and her ongoing prodding and concerns about not ‘torturing the public’ with his unattended grooming.

  Grabbing his cane, he pressed down on the floor to relieve the pressure he was going to put on his leg. He let out a little grunting noise as he stood and was instantly glad that Maddie was asleep and hadn’t heard him. Limping into the kitchen, he filled a glass with ice water from the fridge door and leaned against the sink. Emptying the glass, he reached for the phone on the counter and dialed Leesa’s cellphone. She answered on the first ring.

  “Morning Ransom,” she groggily offered.

  “Sounds like you stayed out a little late last night.”

  “I went to Gabe’s to check on him and Kathryn last night.”

  “How did that go?” he was afraid to ask.

  “Pretty good, I guess. They were overwhelmed by the turnout. Not sure if it helped or not. The Sergeant was still there,” she continued, “and he already had someone from the Crisis Intervention Team there to help.”

  “How was Kathryn?”

  “Shell-shocked. That’s the only way I can describe it. It was so overwhelming that she wasn’t able to comprehend it.” Leesa added, “I’m not sure I can comprehend it. If it were some kind of traffic accident, it would be easier to take. But the way they were propped up in the car…” Her voice trailed off and Ransom could tell she was reliving the painful scene. “And we received some info from CSI last night about the family. They were killed in their own home.”

  Ransom mulled over the information in his mind, temporarily forgetting Leesa was on the other end of the phone.

  “Can we meet,” Ransom changed the subject to bring her back from where she was emotionally going.

  “Sure, where and when?”

  “Meet me at the Starbucks on Summerlin Parkway and Town Center, the one on the roundabout. How about an hour?”

  “Sounds good, see you then.”

  Ransom hung up the phone and walked down the hallway of his single-story home. He was glad to have downsized from his two-story home when he retired. At this point, stairs were just too much of a strain on his leg. He passed Maddie’s door and decided to peek in at her. Pushing the door open a crack he could see her lying on her side with her comforter pulled up tightly to her chin, her trail of work clothes scattered in front of her bed. He was proud of her and the work she was doing. She wasn’t content with working on an ambulance for the rest of her life but she wanted to continue to use those skills somehow. She decided to work toward getting hired on with one of the fire departments. She didn’t have a city or county preference, she just wanted to find a way in and then become a paramedic.

  She wanted to have enough work history, and an Associate’s Degree before applying, to help her stand out from the crowd of hopefuls whenever hiring announcements appeared. She completed her Fire Science Management degree last December at the College of Southern Nevada. She had hopes of transferring to UNLV and working on her Bachelor’s Degree, but intended to fit this in after getting hired.

  Staring at her tucked away in her bed, Ransom couldn’t help but be amazed and admire how well she’d turned out. He’d done the best he could when Maddie’s mother up and called it quits. At 16 years old, this devastated her and Ransom. The irony was he, being a detective, didn’t even notice the signs in his own home and relationship.

  True, things were not going well, but they were going okay, weren’t they?

  Maddie made a little groaning noise and rolled on to her other side and snuggled deeper into her comforter. For Maddie’s sake Ransom was just glad he and Brenda came to an agreement to split custody 50/50. At first it was painful. But he and Brenda finally started contributing to the “what’s best for Maddie” solution and now they were getting along better than when they were married. Brenda even took it well when Maddie graduated from high school and moved in full-time with Ransom. Ransom had a talk with Maddie to make sure she knew the importance of keeping in contact with her mother, especially since he was spoiled with seeing her every day and knowing what was going on in her life.

  Pulling her door shut, he continued down the hall to his bedroom. Shutting the door, he hung his cane on the footboard of the bed and began to get ready to meet with Leesa.

  7

  Ransom pulled into the parking lot of the Starbucks. Leesa wasn’t there yet so he went ahead and ordered her regular cup of house coffee and a protein power berry drink for himself. No matter how often Leesa teased him for ordering a “floofy” drink at a coffee place, he still smugly argued, “If it wasn’t cool, it wouldn’t be on the menu.”

  Ransom picked a place on the patio and waited for Leesa to arrive. She found him five minutes later and thanked him for the drink.

  “What did CSI find?” Ransom started the conversation.

  “When they got to the house, it smelled like eggs as soon as they opened the door.”

  “Propane?” Ransom muttered out loud.

  Leesa nodded and continued, “Mike was running the CSI unit and called me. They ended up in biohazard suits when they entered the house. They couldn’t find anything at first, until they did a more thorough once-over on the outside of the house.”

  “The outside of the house?”

  “They found a small hole had been drilled through the outside wall of the master bedroom, just bigger than a marble. One of the techs found the hole and then walked around to the back of the house and noticed the propane stub on the back patio wall. The gas line from the stub to the barbecue grill was disconnected. He put two-and-two together and determined that the killer ran a hose from the stub to the drilled hole on the side of the house and simply turned the valve on and waited.”

  “So they died in their sleep at least. All four of them.”

  Ransom couldn’t help but think about the kids. It was always harder dealing with the kids. The adults he could handle and reason away certain tragedies, push them to the back of his mind with only very cameo resurfacing. But kids were always tough. Their faces imprinted on his mind. Innocent.

  Leesa took the plastic lid off the top of her cup and blew into the coffee steam.

  “So the killer must have cased their home. It wasn’t random at all. The person had to have picked them for a specific reason. And he wasn’t in a hurry in their home. He had to take the time to dress all four of them before propping them in their car,” a couple pieces of the puzzle emerged as Ransom flushed it out. “What about the note?” he pulled in another piece of the puzzle.

  “On face value, you would think it had to do with Lee being an officer. That’s the first assumption. Maybe someone he arrested? Maybe something he did in the past?” Leesa was lobbing options up as quick as they sparked in her mind.

  This helped Ransom’s train of thought. He’d learned thinking out loud with his partner was the quickest way to work the problem out. Holding in things, even the obvious, was not helpful, and sometimes the obvious may only be obvious to one of them.

  “It’s hard to make any connections,” she contemplated. “I would lean toward a connection with Lee but we can’t discount Tisha either. I can’t imagine the kids played any role in this, other than just being innocent variables to the crime.”

  The two sat quiet for a minute or two considering over Leesa’s comments. There seemed to be too many variables just now.

  “We need to pare down their associations and recent activities that would’ve put them on the killer’s radar. Even look into Lee’s arrest logs and any big cases that may pop up. There has to be a connection somewhere,” Ransom stated the obvious out loud as he lightly tapped the corner of his cup on the round mesh table.

  “We need to see if they had any type of calendar and look at the events over the past few weeks. We also need to contact the neighbors to see what type of routines they fell
into,” Leesa added.

  “When can we get into their house?”

  “We just need to call Mike and see when it’s safe to walk through. He was there all night, I’m sure. We can ring him this afternoon just to be safe. You know how he is without his beauty sleep,” Leesa added to lighten their conversation a tad.

  Ransom forced a small laugh, “Give me a ring after you reach him and I’ll meet you at their house.”

  Leesa half-heartedly laughed again at her Mike comment. It was obvious she was struggling with the personal nature of this investigation.

  “I forgot to tell you that they put Gonzalez and Hatch on the case,” Leesa shared.

  With that last comment, she stared into her coffee cup.

  Ransom pressed his cane on the ground and pushed himself up, “Hey. We’re going to find this guy.”

  He reached down and gave her forearm a light squeeze of reassurance.

  We’re going to find you, Ransom promised.

  There was no alternative. This was one of their own. It was personal. The killer chose to attack his extended family. For this, he would pay.

  8

  Ransom decided he couldn’t wait any longer before going to Gabe’s house and checking in. If waiting around wasn’t difficult enough, going to Gabe and Kathryn’s was going to be exponentially more painful.

  A patrol unit was parked outside the residence. A single officer was sitting in the car with the air conditioning on high. Ransom parked his truck on the opposite side of the street and grabbed his cane. Climbing out of his truck, he started in the direction of the house on the other side of the patrol car. Seeing Ransom walking toward the house, the officer exited her vehicle.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, trying to determine Ransom’s connection to Gabe and Kathryn Poulson.