“Lucky for you my presence here isn’t required,” Sydney said, thumbing through the autopsy report. “At least not to do my job.” She stood, handed him the binder. “I’ll need a complete copy of your report and the autopsy. As soon as I get that, I’ll head on over to the morgue and you can play with the case all you want.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then maybe your superior officer will explain the finer details of federal jurisdiction to you.”
He picked up the phone, punched in a number, and after a moment said, “Lisa, it’s Rodale. I’m sending someone up to get a copy of our marsh homicide. Give it to her.” He dropped the phone in the cradle, stood so that his tall frame towered over Sydney and his rodeo belt buckle was about her eye level. She shoved her chair back and stood, still having to look up at him as he narrowed his gaze at her and said, “Don’t think that just because you’re with the FBI that you’re better than us. I’ve got more Code Seven time under my belt than you have time out on the streets.”
Code Seven was the cop term for lunch hour, and she gave a pointed look to his large belly. “I see you do,” she said, nodding. “But don’t worry. A little diet and exercise, no one will ever know how you spend your day.” And with that, she walked out the door.
The morgue was typical county fare, pale green tiles lining the walls, the floors slick concrete, the usual stainless steel wall of refrigerated compartments for body storage. Unlike Detective Rodale, the on-duty clerk assistant to the pathologist did not have an attitude. He was in his late fifties, balding, but his blue eyes twinkled with humor when he saw the name on the report. “That guy’s a piece of work, isn’t he?” the assistant commented.
“To say the least.”
“Got our Jane Doe here,” he said, opening one of the small square doors, and sliding the body out. “I’ve never had someone come in for a drawing before, but then, I haven’t been here that long. You going to work in here?”
“Actually if she’s not in terrible shape, I might be able to work from photos.” Something she preferred to do, primarily because looking at photos was easier on the mind and the nose, and far easier than standing in the morgue, staring at the actual corpse for hours on end.
“I’ll put her out on a table for you.”
She opened her briefcase containing her camera gear, while he readied the body for viewing. She figured she’d snap some digital, and some film. But before Sydney did that, she’d need to check the body to determine if she could work from photos. If decomposition was too far along, the next step would be boiling the skull to remove all flesh, then working with a forensic anthropologist to determine what the measurements and thickness of facial flesh would be for the particular race and sex of the victim-the standard process used, for instance, when the subject is a found skull that can’t be identified through dental records.
She put on some latex gloves, then turned to the gurney that held the Jane Doe. A post-autopsied body is not a pleasant thing to look at. Long tracks of sutures attempt to hold the victim together, though never enough to keep from exposing the inner pinkish-yellow flesh that always seems to escape the stitches. In this case, the chilly weather had slowed the decomposition of the victim, and as a result, the smell was tolerable, mostly masked by the heavy antiseptic scent that permeated the morgue.
If Sydney had to guess her age just from sight, she’d put her in her late teens to late twenties, but that was a job best left for the medical examiner. Even so, her victim’s face was devoid of any wrinkles, but it was also devoid of most of her hair, including eyelashes, eyebrows and scalp. This would be the greatest challenge, trying to reconstruct the proper hairstyle, which could drastically change someone’s appearance and hinder an identification if she guessed wrong. There were just a few strands in various places on her scalp. All appeared to be straight, light brown, and as Sydney carefully held them out, measured them, jotted the information down, she was pleased.
The assistant, curious, walked up. “You can tell something by the hair?”
“Possibly the hairstyle,” she said. “Here, these three strands remaining in the front are short. Tells me she probably wore bangs.” Sydney measured the few strands left on the side of her head at the top and back, then said, “See here how it’s longer in back? Two separate lengths?” He nodded. “Indicative of a layered style.”
That done, Sydney gently probed her face, determining that the flesh was still fairly firm against the skull, that the gases from decomposition had not overly disfigured it, giving it a swollen appearance. It was a lesson she’d learned from her first drawing, thinking the floater’s face was swollen. As a result she’d narrowed the jawline. Turned out the victim had a round face. Sydney no longer guessed.
The assistant watched, clearly fascinated. “What happens if the body’s in bad shape?” he asked. “You do one of those clay things?”
“I only work sketches,” Sydney said. “The clay models have their place, but I think the sketch is easier to ID from.”
“That right?”
“You ever see a clay model?”
“On TV.”
“Remind you of anything?”
He laughed. “Yeah. A clay head. A Neanderthal clay head with a wig.”
She smiled. “Though I’ve seen some excellent examples, very few artists are skilled enough to pull off a sculpture. Sketches, in my humble opinion, tend to be more forgiving,” she said, stripping off the gloves, then taking the Polaroid camera and snapping a few shots of the woman’s face. “The eye tends to see right past the softer lines from a pencil, filling in the blanks and forgiving tiny errors.” Sydney replaced the Polaroid, took out the digital camera, took photos from all angles, having to stand on a stepladder to get her overhead shots. Next she stepped down and lowered the sheet that had covered the length of her, wanting to get a shot of the tattoo.
That’s when Sydney saw the bite mark on her left breast.
And when she realized that this had just elevated from a cold case into a priority.
13
Sydney had no idea if the bite wound appeared in the medical examiner’s report, since she hadn’t had a chance to read it completely. One thing she did know, however, was that it did not appear in the police report that she had viewed, and she pointed to the victim’s left breast, asking the assistant, “Do you know if this is documented in the autopsy?”
He looked over, nodded. “I’m the one who typed it up after the pathologist dictated it. Bite wound, left breast. His words exactly.”
She took out a measurement card with a color chart on one edge, laid it against the wound, and snapped several photos with the digital and then the film camera. The fact this was not mentioned in the police report was significant. Sydney wondered if it might be a simple oversight, or if Mr. Big Belt Buckle didn’t think it was important. Unfortunately, not noting it meant that it wouldn’t appear in the information normally entered into the national database, a database used to link crimes that might be connected.
Crimes like the rape and attempted murder of Tara Brown, who also happened to have reported a bite mark on her breast.
And two things occurred to Sydney in that moment. One, it seemed highly probable that they might have a serial rapist and murderer in their area. The true test would be when they had both bite marks examined by a forensic dental expert, especially if no DNA was found. Two, if the suspect was one and the same, she now had a sketch of him in her office, thanks to Tara Brown.
Sydney called Dixon to let him know what she’d found, called Rainie to check up on Topper, finished up at the morgue, then drove back to the city to get started on the forensic drawing of her Jane Doe. Staring at a corpse, or even photos of a corpse, often riddled with stab wounds, bullet holes, or any number of untold injuries, was not easily forgotten. Each time she found herself in this position, she wondered why she’d chosen a profession that forced her to look at death and destruction, especially when she found herself working with victims-
like the one she was sketching now, victims of crimes so horrific that death must have seemed a relief. Doubt always crept in at times like these. What made her think she was good enough or even qualified? What if she failed in her attempt at an accurate drawing? What if no one was able to identify the woman? Who would speak for her if no one knew her?
She knew the answer. Quite simply because her father’s death had defined her. Just not in the way her stepfather had thought. True, she’d been unable to help her father, couldn’t stop fate from taking his life, but there were others out there she could help. An advocate for the dead. That was why she had chosen this path all along, honed her artistic skills, willed herself to look at victims so mutilated that the public was not allowed to view them. In a perfect world she’d be painting landscapes. In her world she drew dead people, and so she sketched away, losing track of time until Scotty called.
“I thought you might be home by now.”
“I’m working a priority case. Picked up a sketch that might be related to the rape the other night.”
“About your father…”
She leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes. “Scotty…”
“If you can’t talk to me, who can you talk to?” 98 Robin Burcell
“Can you get me a copy of McKnight’s suicide note?” “I already told you.”
“Do that. Then we’ll talk.”
“I thought I could stop by-”
“Get me that note, Scotty.”
She hung up, glanced down at her sketch, thinking that sometimes dealing with the dead was much easier. She put Scotty and her father from her mind for a few short minutes, finished up the hair, figured she had a good likeness of her Jane Doe, then put away her things. Copies of the sketch in hand, she dropped everything off with Dixon, who was working late, and wanted it for release to the press.
That done, she drove home, desperate to clear her mind as she took Topper for a walk. She started at the sound of every car that drove past, though Topper seemed unfazed. When they were safely home, she tried dabbing a bit of paint on her unfinished canvas, but soon found that her favorite pastime did little to ease her thoughts, and her gaze kept straying to the envelope McKnight had mailed to her. She doubted she’d find anything different; there wasn’t that much in there to see. What was it Scotty used to tell her? Have a beer. Loosen up. Maybe she needed to finally take a piece of advice from her ex, especially when it came to delving into one’s father’s alleged illegal doings. “Hey, Top,” she said to the dog. “Doesn’t your daddy keep a shitload of high-end beer in his fridge?”
Topper wagged his tail.
“That’s what I thought. Desperate times call for desperate measures.” She raided Arturo’s refrigerator, walking out with a six-pack of Sierra Nevada, while Topper raided a basket of dog toys, walking out with something that squeaked. Back at her place, she popped the first beer open, didn’t even look at the envelope until she’d finished her second. Finally she dumped out the contents of the envelope, stared at the writing, knowing in her heart it belonged to her father. For Cisco’s Kid. Send the money to this address. But what that meant was anyone’s guess. The note might hint at blackmail, was cryptic at best, and the two men who could explain it were both dead.
Of course, that left the matter of McKnight’s suicide, and why-if her father was blackmailing him-would McKnight be apologizing for something he did to her father? She needed to know what the hell was in that suicide note, and it bothered her that Scotty, the king of the greased wheels, couldn’t get it for her. A lot of other things bothered her, like the fact she was sitting here, drinking alone. And if that wasn’t reason to open another beer, she didn’t know what was. About two sips in, Topper ran to the door and started growling. “Were you that fuzzy-looking a half hour ago?” she said, getting up. She lost her balance, fell back onto the couch. “Damn, I’m a lightweight.” She got up, peeked out the window, saw the empty stairs, the still driveway below. “There’s no one there, Toppie.”
Topper growled again, and this time she heard a car door slamming shut. The dog seemed to have an innate sense about what cars didn’t belong in this neighborhood, and she’d had too many beers to override his good sense.
Her Glock sat on the counter next to her purse, and she walked over, slid it from its holster, then shut off the light. “Topper,” she whispered. “Quiet.” She returned to the door, tried to listen past her quickening pulse. The sound of someone talking, an accent she couldn’t decipher, saying, “Be careful. Don’t kill-” Another car door closing. Topper pressed his nose to the threshold, his growl low, vibrating. She told herself it was nothing, just a couple of guys. She tightened her grip on her Glock, looked out the peephole.
And saw the silhouette of a man walking toward the steps.
14
Topper’s sharp bark scared the crap out of her. Her heart raced. It was a good second or two before she realized that Topper started whining to get out. And a second or two after that before the mysterious figure walking up her steps materialized into her neighbor Arturo.
She flicked on the porch light, opened the door, and Topper bounded out.
“Hey, baby!” Arturo lowered his suitcase onto the porch to greet his dog.
Sydney slid her pistol behind her, shoved it between her waistband and the small of her back, then stepped from behind the door, smiling as best she could under the circumstances. “Have a good trip?”
He looked up at her. “Yeah… Oh my God. You’ve been drinking.”
“Why is it no one thinks I drink?”
“Because you don’t. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just didn’t expect you back this late.”
“Change of plans. Hope the great white ghost wasn’t too much trouble?”
“Never,” she said, as a taxicab took off. Score one for Topper. It was a strange car, it didn’t belong, and the accent she heard was probably the driver’s. “Guess I didn’t expect you in a cab.”
“Suitcases are hell on a motorcycle. They’re hell in a taxi when you nearly whack your hand off trying to get it out of the trunk.”
“Well, dump it, come over and join me for a beer. It’s yours, and I can use the company.”
He dropped his suitcase inside his door, then walked in.
Sydney brought him a beer from the fridge, saw he’d picked up the old photo of her father. “Your dad, right?” “Yeah,” she said, grateful he didn’t seem interested in the other two papers left on the tabletop. Not that they’d mean anything to him. Hell, they didn’t mean anything to her, yet. She handed him his beer; he took it, nodded at the photo.
“You never mentioned he was a D-boy.”
“A what boy?”
“Delta Force. The dark soldiers,” he added at her look of incomprehension. “Come on, Syd. You had to have known.
Long hair, hockey helmets, the guy in front flashing the letter D
…”
“Those are hockey helmets?”
“You never saw Black Hawk Down? God, my little brother dragged me to see that at least fifteen times. His big dream.
These guys are the best of the best. They went in to do things no one else could.”
Sydney laughed at the thought. “Not my dad. He enlisted for a couple years, but after, he was like a contract employee or something. He took photos. That’s it.”
He opened his beer, tapped the picture with his finger.
“Your dad and these other guys are special ops. Well, except maybe the guy in uniform,” he said, pointing to Gnoble’s picture. “The D-boys, they didn’t wear uniforms. You should find out what he did. Might be interesting. God knows my little brother would be all over it.” He dropped the photo on the table, drank his beer, talked a bit about his trip to
L.A., while Sydney pretended interest. Even so, her gaze kept straying to the photo, trying to determine if what Arturo said could be true. After several minutes, he glanced at his watch, took one final swig of beer, then said, “Hope you don’t
mind, I gotta get up for work in the morning.”
“Yeah, me too,” she said. “And thanks for the lasagna and cheesecake.”
“Anytime.” Arturo and Topper left, and Sydney sat there, staring at the photo, wondering what else about her father she didn’t know.
Prescott hated black coffee, but he’d been up all night reading poll reports, trying to see where the senator needed to beef up his campaign, and the only thing that was bound to keep him awake at six in the morning was the thickest, darkest coffee that Starbucks sold. Of course, that’s what they made cream for, and he dumped a ton in, replaced the top on his cup, then stepped from the store into the chilly October morning, still dark. He turned the corner, walked about a half block, when someone pushed him into a darkened doorway. His coffee went flying. He landed against an iron grid covering the windows of a closed business. Before he could move, right himself, a hand came up, shoved his head against the cold metal of the grid. He could feel it cutting into his cheek, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.
“You goddamned son of a bitch,” came the harsh whisper in his ear. Richard Blackwell. Prescott recognized the voice.
“Let go of me.”
“The fuck I will. I should kill you right here, you bastard.” Blackwell pulled up on Prescott’s arm. Pain shot through him, lifted him to his toes.
“If you don’t let go of me, I’ll have you arrested. Here. Now.”
“For what?” Blackwell whipped him around, slammed him into the grating, his hand at Prescott’s throat. “I’ll break your windpipe so fast, you won’t get the first word out.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know what the fuck you were thinking the other night. Or did you think I wouldn’t find out you tried to run over the senator’s favorite FBI agent with your car?” “It just happened.”
Face of a Killer Page 10