by T. R. Ragan
“Guess what color her eyes were?”
“Brown.”
“That’s right. Brown. Laney was found on the edge of the American River, right before it flows into the Sacramento River. I talked to Laney’s teacher and a couple of male friends who said that Laney was happy-go-lucky and fun to be around. Even her neighbors, fourteen years later, still remember her. They, too, had nothing but positive things to say about Laney. She was well-liked and popular. But for some reason the killer did unspeakable things to her genitalia. And yet he didn’t rape her.”
So far, Lizzy was impressed with Jessica’s findings. “So, what do you think that means?”
“I’m not certain, but a few guy friends hinted that she was SO well-liked she might have 'gotten around' a little. I think Spiderman knew she could be a little 'too friendly' and he didn’t like it.”
“Okay, interesting take. Go on.”
“Third victim was Mandy Rocha. Sixteen. Brown eyes. President of her class. Leader in student government. She was a student leader in twenty-five percent of the clubs at her school, which is unheard of. Mandy’s body was found near Folsom Lake. All of the victims had burn marks, but unlike the others, Mandy’s arms and legs were covered with cigarette burns. Guess what her vice was?”
“She was a smoker?”
“That’s right. Cigarettes. Lots of them. Every person I talked to who knew Mandy well said she’d been smoking for as long as they could remember. She was up to a pack a day when she was abducted. She also snuck out of the house on weekends and met up with friends, mostly boys.”
Lizzy watched Jessica with a newfound fascination. The girl was smart, and she seemed to have a knack for investigative work. Who knew?
Jessica skimmed over her notes. “The last victim, that we know of, was Rachel Foster. Rachel was also found near the American River, a few miles from where Laney Monroe was discovered. Rachel had syringes protruding from her eyes. Her family has since moved, but I located Ryan Arnold, an attorney. He was Rachel’s boyfriend at the time she disappeared. He said Rachel was a drug user at the time of her abduction. She was fond of heroin. Ryan has done his own research on the case, and he faxed me an article written by retired FBI agent Gregory O’Guinn.”
Lizzy nodded thoughtfully and waited for Jessica to finish.
Jessica held up a piece of paper. “I have a copy of the article right here. Mr. O’Guinn spent twenty years profiling serial killers. He calls Spiderman an outcast, someone who felt inadequate. To make himself feel better, Spiderman needed to be in control and that’s why he kidnapped young girls who would have less of a chance of defending themselves. But I wonder,” Jessica said, pausing. “If you look at these four girls, you see a pattern. It does seem that Spiderman thought he was doing the community a favor by getting rid of them: teenagers who were disrespectful to their parents, kids who smoked, did drugs, or had sex at a young age.”
“That would mean most teenagers.”
“Exactly, but that’s why I couldn’t sleep last night. If I put myself in the killer’s head, I wouldn’t know which girls were truly 'bad' unless I knew them on some level. Unless I saw them on a semi-regular basis, which means—”
“He knew these girls,” Lizzy cut in. “He saw them enough to decide that they were trouble. And who would see the girls on a regular basis?”
“Tutors, teachers, coaches, dentists—”
“And doctors,” Lizzy finished.
Jessica’s eyes widened. “But Spiderman also chose girls with brown eyes.”
“Which makes it personal,” Lizzy said.
“Yeah, teenagers with brown eyes must have reminded him of someone.”
“Maybe he dated a girl with brown eyes and she broke up with him, or maybe it’s the ol’ mother-hate thing going on and the killer’s mother had brown eyes.”
Lizzy recalled what Jared had said. “Zeroing in on brown-eyed girls is not going to help us find Sophie.”
“No, it’s not,” Jessica agreed, “but it did make me wonder if the killer could be an eye doctor.”
Lizzy pointed a finger at Jessica. “You might have something there. It’s worth a shot. We’ll check out every eye doctor these victims visited, whether at school or out of school.” Lizzy made a note of it on a pad of paper next to her computer. “And what do you make of his fascination with bodies of water? Why would every victim be left near or in the water?”
“I’m not sure. His obvious interest with water stumps me. And yet...I do think leaving the bodies near the water makes sense if he wants the victims to be found quickly, before nature takes its course and ruins his display.”
“Good point. If he wanted to destroy the evidence, he would have buried their bodies somewhere in the woods or mountains.”
“One more thing,” Jessica said. “Every victim Spiderman chose was popular. I don’t mean just ‘well-liked.’ I mean popular with a capital P. Cheerleaders, overachievers, etcetera.”
“So he goes for popular girls with brown eyes,” Lizzy said. “And girls with a vice, whether it be sex, drugs, or cigarettes.”
Jessica nodded. “I wonder if something happened to Spiderman to set him off. It’s a known fact that some serial killers are set off by a specific type of victim. Ed Gein was provoked by middle-aged women who resembled his mother, while Ted Bundy went after women with very specific characteristics: young college students with long brown hair parted in the middle. There must be a triggering factor. Something happened to Spiderman to set him off. If this is the case, where has Spiderman been all this time and what happened to set him off again?”
“You’ve done a lot of research on serial killers?”
Jessica nodded. “I’ve thought about becoming a profiler someday. Although the more I learn, the easier it is to see why Sigmund Freud admitted defeat when it came to understanding why some people do the things they do.”
“I think you’d make a great profiler.” Lizzy reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the notebook Jared had given her yesterday. “I think it’s time we focus on the girls who went missing during that same time period and see if we get more of the same: brown eyes, popular, etcetera. We need to start from the beginning, go about it as if these crimes happened yesterday. Let’s start with every doctor these girls ever visited.”
Thursday, February 18, 2010 10:33 AM
Twenty minutes after receiving a call from Jimmy, Jared pulled his car in front of Jimmy’s sedan on Hazel Road and shut off the engine. Myriad police cars with roving lights and three unmarked cars made a neat line on the side of the road about a half-mile from the freeway entrance.
Jared stepped out and followed the crime-scene tape, starting at the curb and continuing down a muddied slope to the river’s edge. At the bottom of the hill Jimmy was barking orders, trying to secure the scene as quickly as possible. He and Jimmy had been working together for three years now. Although Jimmy had the personality of a rock, he had an undeniable passion for his job that never failed to put a spark in his eye and a swagger in his step.
Jimmy already had a videographer on the scene. An intern, carrying a camera and a clipboard, followed Jimmy around like a puppy dog. The video camera was strapped to the kid’s shoulder as he took copious notes, writing down everything from climate to the names and titles of people on the scene.
Jared recognized Joey Ritton, the same criminologist they’d used at the Madison house to record shoeprints. Ritton’s assistant placed a ruler next to a muddied shoeprint and then photographed the print. Next, Ritton positioned a metal frame around the print before carefully pouring dental stone into the shoe impression.
Jared continued on, following the crime-scene tape down a man-made trail that led to the American River Parkway. During the winter months, fishermen could be seen in the water, elbow-to-elbow in their cuffs and vests as they waited for salmon to catch their line.
“The rain last night didn’t help matters,” Jimmy told Jared when he saw him approaching. “A little luck would be h
elpful about now.”
“What about weapons?” Jared asked.
“None so far. The shoeprints might be our best shot at finding any evidence here, although the killer did leave us another note.”
A few feet behind Jimmy, Jared saw two technicians using alternative light sources to look at the victim’s body, searching for fibers and hairs before they would transport the body to a crime lab where another thorough search would be conducted.
A wave of biting wind nipped at Jared’s ears as he followed Jimmy toward the body. “Where’s the note?”
“You’ll see.”
Catching sight of the girl, Jared sucked in a breath as he drew closer. It was Sophie. He recognized her from the pictures. Her bangs covered her forehead, but the rest of her hair had been chopped at weird angles just as Lizzy had talked about. From where he stood he noticed burn marks and puncture wounds on both arms and legs. “Are those cigarette burns?”
“We believe the marks were made with some sort of iron,” one of the technician’s answered, “but we’ll let the ME examine the body before anything is put in pen.”
“Lots of bruises and cuts,” the other technician said, as she checked for loose fibers before readying the body bag.
“Strangulation?” Jimmy asked.
The male technician shook his head. “No contusions around the throat that we can see. Off the record, I don’t think the victim has been dead for more than twenty-four hours. Eyes are clear and there’s not much swelling of the body, but again, the ME will need to search the contents of the stomach to help determine the time of death.”
“The body looks as if it has been placed, not dumped,” Jimmy told Jared.
“So that means you don’t think the body washed ashore here. You think the killer walked down that trail,” Jared said, gesturing toward the muddied slope he’d just come down, “and positioned her body exactly where he wanted us to find her?”
Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s what it looks like. Her lower torso was under water while her upper half was wedged within the rocks. Yeah, I think our man knew exactly what he was doing. Definitely Spiderman’s MO to leave the body just so.”
“How many of Spiderman’s victims were strangled?”
“Not this one,” the female technician said, “although I wouldn’t rule anything out just yet. Based on what we’ve seen so far, my initial guess would be death from shock.”
“How about clothing?” Jared asked. A victim’s clothes were usually their best shot at finding evidence.
Both technicians shook their heads.
“Not a stitch of clothing on the girl,” Jimmy answered before he was called away by the videographer. “Show him the note,” Jimmy told the technician as he walked off.
Jared looked at Sophie.
The female technician pushed Sophie’s bangs away from her forehead.
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” she said, “that’s what I thought when I first saw it.”
Burned across Sophie’s forehead in bold letters:
LIZZY’S FAULT
The technician pulled her hand away and the bangs fell back in place. Her partner finished enclosing the body in the transport bag, then zipped the bag, starting at Sophie’s feet. The bite marks on Sophie’s ankles resembled the marks found on Spiderman’s other victims.
Jared bent down for a closer look. Sophie’s upper lip was swollen. She had two tiny cuts on her middle upper lip. “What about the mouth?”
Once the technician got the zipper as far as Sophie’s neck, he stopped, reached into his kit and pulled a tongue depressor from a plastic bag. He used the depressor to lift the upper lip slightly, just enough to reveal a nice even row of teeth. “No cracked teeth,” the technician said. “No signs of bruising. Hard to say.”
“Okay,” Jared said. “Thanks.” He walked back up the trail, his insides churning. He’d worked on cases more gruesome than this, but never one dealing with a victim as young as Sophie.
Chapter 19
Thursday, February 18, 2010 12:10 PM
Yesterday, Valerie Hunt had worn a tweed pencil skirt and matching jacket. Her jet black hair had been twisted into a tight roll at the back of her head. Today Valerie wore a pair of tailored black-knit pants and a checkerboard double-breasted jacket.
Lizzy rolled down the window, adjusted the lens of her camera, and took a couple of quick pictures. Valerie’s long, wavy hair, free and flowing, cascaded down the middle of her back, blowing in the wind as she dashed across the street to her car.
Lizzy placed the camera on the passenger seat and started the engine. Then she waited. A minute later, she was following Valerie’s black Toyota Camry onto Sunrise.
For the next ten minutes Lizzy stayed a few car lengths behind the Camry. Who was this woman? More importantly, who was Victor? If Valerie was his wife, had he confronted her before resorting to hiring a detective? Had he tried to work things out first? Her thoughts quickly segued to Jared and why she’d felt compelled to push him away last night. The kiss they shared had made her feel alive, jolted her to awareness. Sadly, the kiss also brought back memories of that first blissful night turned to terror.
Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
Get a grip, Lizzy.
Even before Spiderman came back into her life, she had been living her life as if Spiderman was right there peeking in her window. She had allowed him to ruin her life by thinking about him every hour of every day.
She was done hiding.
She needed to move on and let her past stay in the past. She wondered about Jared; wondered if they had a chance together. If she could get through this as a better, stronger person, if she could get through the night without waking up in a cold sweat, then maybe, just maybe, they had a chance? Jared Shayne was an amazing man. The kindest man she’d ever known. Although she still wasn’t sure this was the right time for the two of them to get reacquainted, who was she to question being given a second chance at something tender and real?
A new determination coursed through her veins. She would not allow Spiderman to continue to ruin her life. It was his turn to run cold, his turn to feel dread running through his veins, never knowing when he was being watched.
A silver Honda cut in front of her. Damn. She lost sight of the Camry. She merged into the left lane and stepped on the gas. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Camry make a right. Cutting in front of the Honda, Lizzy cut a sharp right onto Folsom Boulevard, in time to catch sight of the Camry turning left onto East Point Drive. Lizzy caught up to Valerie and followed her into a hotel parking lot.
She watched Valerie pull her car in front of the hotel, step out of her vehicle, and hand the keys to a valet.
Lizzy drove past the front of the hotel and toward the public parking area. She didn’t plan on entering the hotel lobby. Following her subject by foot would mean risking the possibility of running into Valerie. Private Eye 101: never allow your subject to become aware of your presence.
She tapped a finger on the steering wheel.
Screw it.
She took the first empty spot. A voice in her head said, “Curiosity killed the cat.” She didn’t care. After shutting off the engine, she climbed out and hurried to the back of her car. She opened the trunk and grabbed a knee-length jacket that she kept in the trunk for just this purpose. After wrapping a scarf around her head, she headed for the hotel’s entrance. It was twelve twenty. If she was lucky, Valerie would be in the hotel bar or restaurant. If not, Lizzy would sit in the lobby until her hour was up and call it a day.
As promised, a courier had delivered the entire sum of three thousand dollars in cash yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, the man Jared had sent to watch her office had arrived too late to be of any help. According to Jessica, the courier had not been wearing a uniform. He wore blue jeans and a long-sleeved sweatshirt. He’d arrived on a road bike that he’d left leaning against a building a block down the road from her office. After handing Jes
sica an envelope, the young man rushed off before Jessica could tip him or ask him about the person who hired him to deliver the package. Being a clever girl, Jessica had used her cell phone to take more than one picture of the courier as he ran off. Upon downloading the pictures to Lizzy’s computer, they were able to enlarge the photos and see a Cosumnes River College Hawks sticker on the back of his helmet.
A gust of wind nearly blew the scarf from Lizzy’s head as she walked across the parking lot. A silver BMW pulled up in front of the hotel, blocking her view of the lobby. Get out of my way, buddy.
A man dressed in a dark suit climbed out of the BMW and handed his keys to the valet. It took a few seconds for recognition to settle in. Stunned, Lizzy made an abrupt about-face. Pulling the scarf closer around her face, she focused on keeping a steady pace as she made her way back to her car.
Don’t run. Walk. Don’t call attention to yourself. Breathe.
Afraid he might recognize her car if he looked this way, Lizzy walked toward a grey Prius instead. Pretending to look for her keys, she dared to take a peek over her shoulder. He was gone. The valet climbed into the BMW and disappeared around the other side of the building. She ran back to her own car, tossed the coat and scarf into the backseat, and slid behind the wheel.
Her forehead fell against the steering wheel. What the hell was Richard doing here?
Sadly, she knew exactly what her brother-in-law was doing here. Yesterday, she and Jared had followed Valerie to Seacrest and Associates, her brother-in-law’s place of work. Although the coincidence had not been lost on her, Lizzy never for a moment questioned that Richard might be involved with Valerie Hunt. What the hell was going on?
When Lizzy told Jared that Valerie had entered her brother-in-law’s place of business, Jared had asked point blank if there could be a connection between Valerie and Richard. Lizzy had scoffed at the notion. Richard Warner, her brother-in-law, was about as romantic as a two-by-four and about as friendly as a troll.