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“He’d have been wrecked over it. Sobbing. Apologizing.”
“Were the kids awake?” Freddie asked.
After contemplating that for a second, Sam said, “No, they never saw it coming. That’s how he would’ve wanted it.”
“Wouldn’t they have heard the struggle downstairs? The parents fighting over the gun? The shots fired? They would have been loud. Wouldn’t the first gunshots have awakened the other kids?”
“Maybe they were drugged, or they were heavy sleepers. We joke that a nuclear bomb wouldn’t wake Scotty when he’s truly asleep. We won’t know if they were drugged until we get the tox screen back in a few weeks.”
“Heavy sleeping is a thing with kids,” Freddie said. “I read about how they sleep through smoke alarms, so some people program them in the kids’ mother’s voices, because they hear that for some reason when they don’t hear the blare of a smoke alarm.”
“It’s very possible they slept through it. We can’t believe the chaos Scotty sleeps through. Anyway, Marcel could’ve killed them while she was out of the house, and when she came home, he confronted her. It’s possible they were already dead when she was killed.”
“Would he have told her he’d killed her babies?” Freddie asked.
“I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have wanted her to know that.”
“That scenario makes sense to me, but I’m worried that someone wanted it to make sense to us. That he’d be so humiliated by the looming lawsuit that he’d kill his family and himself to spare them all the agony.”
“That’s always possible,” Sam said, “but they’d have toknowabout the lawsuit for that to make sense. I don’t think it was widely known yet.”
Just when he thought he had a working theory… “True.”
“What’s the plan with the grandmother?” Sam asked.
“I want to find out what she knew about the lawsuit and go from there.”
“Gotcha.”
They arrived at the Bowie home of Graciela Blanchet fifteen minutes later. Freddie led the way to the front door of the woman’s well-kept white ranch-style home and rang the doorbell.
“Look at that,” Sam said. “Another doorbell we can’t hear from the outside.”
Mrs. Blanchet came to the door and seemed surprised to see them on her doorstep. She unlocked the storm door and opened it. “Have you figured out who killed my family?”
“We’re still working on that,” Freddie said. “We wondered if we might have a few more minutes of your time.”
“Come in,” she said, giving them a wary look.
She looked exhausted and ravaged by grief.
Hers was the kind of loss that made him wonder how people survived such things. “We’re sorry to intrude during such a difficult time,” he said.
“It’s all right. You’re doing your jobs.” In the kitchen, she introduced them to her sisters and cousins. The table and counters were laden with food and flowers, the lilies giving off a funereal scent. Her guests gawked at Sam.
“If we could have a few minutes alone,” Freddie said, “that would be helpful.”
Graciela glanced at one of the women, who led the others from the room.
Sam closed the kitchen door and then sat next to Freddie at the table.
“Were you aware of a lawsuit that involved Marcel?” Freddie asked.
Graciela’s brows furrowed with confusion. “What lawsuit?”
“It’s come to our attention that Marcel had been sued by four former patients who accused him of sexual misconduct.”
“That’s not possible,” she said, her expression shocked. “My son was a consummate professional. Couples waited months for appointments with him. He made their dreams come true.”
