EIGHTEEN: KATERI

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24

Shannon’s prints show up on everything inside the house and out, including the ax. There are hair samples from what looks like both kids, blond and kinked red, and Pearl’s. And a fourth that Kateri cannot identify.

She has saved those—fine, straight, and black—bagged and ready for the lab. There are another set of prints in the house that are not quite readable, like they have been left with gloves, smudged with plastic in between. They measure the size of an average man’s hand. But they don’t leave a whorl.

Hurt says, “They’re probably Shannon’s. He probably used some kind of gloves, or even just plastic wrap, thinking it would protect his identity.”

He hovers his hand over the print, the impression left by the unreadable hand, and it’s just slightly smaller than his own.

No weapon has been found near Craig O’Neil. And all of Craig’s items—his badge, his cuffs, and his gun—were taken by the killer.

“Why wouldn’t he run?” Kateri asks.

They sit at the table in the investigation room, the pictures on the board looking back at them.

“It’s a thrill,” Hurt says. “Sticking around, watching us try to figure it out. Playing the game.”

She’s never seen it go that way. Her cases have been rage killings and domestics. Nothing that ever felt like a game.

“You have enough,” Hurt says.

She looks at the image of the fingerprints on the ax.

“In the meantime,” he says, “let’s get a warrant to search Miller’s house.”

She asks Shannon in to look at evidence. It feels dishonest, leading him there to get him to talk, but both Hurt and Chief Whittaker are breathing down her neck to arrest him.

He leans to the side in the overstuffed chair, his body slack, tired. Lying is hard on the soul, even the body. She’s seen suspects fall dead asleep after confessing, so relieved to not be holding it in any longer. The way he tilts his head, she can see his neck better than last time. The bruises are fading.

He complicated everything, she thinks, ahead of herself. Hurt kept telling her not to worry beyond the arrest. The rest is not her job.

She had thought for sure he could get a self-defense plea. She needed him to admit to the abuse. She needed him to talk more about the girl.

But in truth, nothing about the case is simple. There hasn’t been enough of Pearl’s body found to satisfy Kateri. Her killing and the burning of the body point at premeditation. So does ambushing the cop to get to the girl.

She looks at the hollows of his eyes. She’s not convinced he has it in him.

“When’s the last time you saw your sister?” Kateri asks him.

“At home,” he says.

“You didn’t visit her in the hospital,” Kateri says.

“I didn’t even know she was in the hospital.”

“Her legal guardian signed her discharge papers.”

“Who the fuck is her legal guardian?” Shannon shouts. “Am I? She’s not my kid.”