Free Ties That Bind by Phillip Margolin Page A

his eyes and let out a breath.
    “I’ll do it.”
    Portland turns from city to country in the blink of an eye. Fifteen minutes from Kerrigan’s house, the streetlights began to disappear; the only light was from a quarter moon. The prosecutor was afraid that he would miss the crime scene, but a police car had been stationed near the turnoff to keep out everyone without official business. He flashed his ID and turned onto a narrow, unpaved driveway.
    Tim’s car bumped along for an eighth of a mile. He had played blaring rock music as he drove out of town so he wouldn’t have to think about where he was going and what he was going to see, but he turned off the radio when he spotted flashes of electric light through the trees. Then the dirt track turned and the prosecutor saw an assortment of official vehicles parked in front of a tiny A-frame house. It looked like every light in the cabin was on, and the light leaked across the lawn, bleeding out just beyond Kerrigan’s car.
    The A-frame was so small that only an unmarried person or a childless couple would tolerate it. Tim stood in the dark for a few minutes, fully aware that he was putting off the inevitable, before walking across the lawn. As he approached the house, he felt a little sick and disoriented, like a family member entering a funeral parlor.
    The front door opened onto a stone entryway. In front of Kerrigan was an island with two high stools that separated the entryway from a narrow kitchen. To the left was a living room crowded with police officers and forensic experts, one of whom was talking to Sean McCarthy. The homicide detective had the alabaster skin of someone who never saw the sun; his red hair was streaked with gray. Tim had worked with McCarthy on several homicides and could not remember a time when the rail-thin detective did not look tired. McCarthy spotted Kerrigan and motioned him to wait while he finished up.
    Tim stood beside a half-wall that separated the living room from the kitchen and stopped where the stone entryway met the living-room carpet. A flash from a camera attracted his attention to a loft that overhung the living room. Kerrigan had noticed the underside of the polished wood stairs that led up to the loft when he looked through the kitchen. He guessed that the bedroom must be up there where the roof narrowed. When he looked down, he saw a trail of smeared blood leading from the stairs through the kitchen and across the living-room carpet. Someone had run tape on either side so no one would step on the tracks. The end of the blood trail was hidden behind a cluster of people at the far side of the living room.
    “I know you’re not big on gore, so be prepared,” McCarthy told Kerrigan when he ambled over. “This one is not pleasant.”
    Tim’s stomach rolled.
    “You up for this?” McCarthy asked, worried by the prosecutor’s ashen pallor.
    “Yeah. I’ll be okay.”
    A photographer stood between Kerrigan and the body. He finished snapping stills of Travis and the surrounding area and stepped aside. Kerrigan squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them slowly to control the view. The senator was sprawled across the floor like a rag doll. His legs and arms were flung about at weird angles, and his head lolled on the carpet in an unnatural position. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but no shoes or socks. His feet were a bloody mess. Someone had smashed every toe as well as the feet themselves. Travis’s shins and kneecaps had also been smashed. Kerrigan guessed that Travis’s killer had worked his way up the senator’s body, ending at his head, where the senator’s forehead, nose, mouth, and chin had been battered to pulp.
    Kerrigan really wanted to be out of this room. McCarthy saw him sway and led him outside. The prosecutor walked behind the house to a bluff that dropped off into darkness. A chill wind blew up the ravine. Kerrigan concentrated on a solitary object lit by a string of lights moving slowly along a black