Kill The Mother Kill The Child

Chapter Six: Back To The Scene Of The Slaughter

The parking lot was empty when the Toyota pickup pulled into view. Xavier and Liam had prepared themselves for a fact-finding expedition in the church parking area and the woods nearby. They always had everything they could possibly need in the specially designed pickup topper behind the cab.

The Toyota stopped well away from the bloodstain that marked the spot where the woman and her baby had died. Before getting out of the pickup, Xavier pulled a laptop from behind the front seat and plugged the dash cam into a USB port.

"I think we might have some usable footage from our first pass through here" he said. "Hopefully that cop wasn't directly in front of the camera the entire time."

"I don't know" said Liam. "I couldn't really see anything with or without the cop standing there."

They fell silent as they watched the video. Suddenly Liam spoke: "Hold it! Back it up!" He hovered over the screen with his index finger. "There!" he jabbed at the screen. "Blow that up a bit."

Xavier tapped the keys and suddenly the screen was filled with the gruesome image of the dead woman with her baby by her side.

"God have mercy!" Xavier breathed, sounding as if he was in prayer. "That woman's abdomen was ripped open and the baby was torn out."

The two of them gazed at the picture in silence for a few moments before Liam spoke. "The wound in her head; it looks like a bullet wound - maybe even a shotgun considering the condition of her head, but if you look up here at the car" he gestured toward the upper left of the screen, "you can see a single hole in the roof. And I don't see splatter from a gunshot wound."

Xavier nodded. After a moment he said, "We're dealing with something other than a gun here. It's not just the visible evidence; I can feel it." He shut off the laptop and closed the lid. After he had placed the computer behind the front seat he turned to look at his son. "Well, I guess it's time to do our thing. You ready?"

"As always" said Lee him patting the eighteen inch blade tucked under his black denim jacket. "Let's take a look around and see what's up."

They stepped out of the pickup, two tall, broad shouldered men, walking slowly toward the blood stain that marked the place where the woman and her child had died. As they moved forward they separated and approached the scene from different directions. Xavier stopped and crouched down near the place where the woman's body had been while Liam continued to slowly circle the area. He was facing the wooded lot next to the parking area when his father spoke from behind him.

"Take a look at this Lee."

Liam spun on his heel and stepped quickly toward his father. "What have you got dad?"

His father pointed to a spot at the edge of the bloodstained. "What do you make of that?"

Liam knelt down on the pavement and gently ran his hand across the surface. His fingertips came to rest in some kind of indentations and he pulled a small flashlight from his pocket to illuminate the area.

"Looks like marking from cleats. Or claws." He stood up while he continued to train the flashlight on the marks in the asphalt. "What I can't figure out is how you always see these things without any light."

"Practice. Lots and lots of practice. That's all."

Xavier moved around the bloody area and stood next to his son. "If you look in the center of the blood pool you can see the same sort of thing, I think.." He made a quick gesture with his hand. "Whoever did this was probably covered with blood, but I don't see any bloody tracks."