“Fuck.”

“Not right now, I’m already too excited.”

D.D. rolled her eyes at Neil. Sure, the lanky redhead talked a good game, but it wouldn’t help her any. Alex, on the other hand, should look out.

“So what does this tell us?” she mused, riding the same adrenaline wave as Neil. She studied her whiteboard, then got busy with the marker: “One, this takes Hermes out of the perpetrator column and moves him squarely into the victim category. After all, the man couldn’t very well taser himself to death, then shoot himself to death.”

“Ambush,” Alex said.

She looked at him, nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Stun Hermes, incapacitating him, then go after the rest of his family,” Alex continued.

“Why does Hermes have to be first?” Neil asked. “Couldn’t it be someone had attacked the family, then Hermes walked in on it?”

“If Hermes walks in, why taser him?” Alex pointed out. “Someone walks in on a shooting, the perpetrator fires off an extra round. The perpetrator doesn’t set down the gun and dig through his pockets for a new weapon.”

“True, true.”

“I think Hermes went first,” D.D. agreed. “Perpetrator incapacitates the most obvious threat—the father—by stunning him multiple times.”

“Not exactly foolproof,” Alex commented. “Especially a hard-core drug addict. I’ve seen guys stunned half a dozen times and they’re still screaming bloody murder.”

D.D. chewed her lower lip. Considered it. “Given that Tasers are illegal in Mass., maybe our perpetrator has a truly illegal, illegal Taser. Meaning, as long as he was acquiring a black market Taser, he got one with super-sized voltage. For the military, commercial grade, etc. Maybe custom cartridges, which would explain why no confetti was left behind. For a buck fifty, you can buy just about anything on the black market. Why not a super-volt Taser, guaranteed to silently incapacitate your problem, while leaving no evidence behind?”

The more D.D. thought about it, the more she liked it. “Higher voltage might also explain Hermes’s massive coronary event,” she continued. “He wasn’t just hit by a Taser, he was hit by a Taser.” She glanced at Neil. “Any way the ME can study the burn patterns on Hermes’s chest to estimate size of the hit?”

“I have no idea,” Neil said, “but I can ask.”

“All right. Back to where we were. We know a Taser is being used, and it was strong enough to kill at least one man. So we’ll assume that’s part of the perpetrator’s plan. Incapacitate the father figure with a Taser. Next up is the second adult—the mother. She’s ambushed in the kitchen with a knife. Another silent weapon, maybe an attempt on the perpetrator’s part to remain undetected for as long as possible. Once someone notices, however—”

“Ishy, in the hallway,” Alex said.