by Leslie Wolfe
From the front steps, Tess hesitated for a second, then locked eyes with her.
“If that killer’s still out there, there’s a slight chance he could come after Laura, to shut her up.”
Dr. Jacobs’s jaw fell, and she stood in her doorway speechless, watching Tess get behind the wheel of her car and drive away.
Tess imagined the shocked Dr. Jacobs locking her front door and heading straight for the bourbon. She deserved it. She’d been more than cooperative, considering the circumstances.
A gnawing in Tess’s stomach made her take an early exit and leave the northbound Interstate. Twenty-something minutes later, Cat put a lettuce-wrapped burger and a plate full of fries in front of her, as she sipped from her favorite drink through thin straws, leaning on her elbows at the Media Luna bar counter.
It felt good to let the rush of the day slow to almost a stop and give her time to recharge her spent batteries. It felt good to wash away the day’s sinister encounter and replace it with the homey feeling of her favorite bar. She felt like home in Cat’s joint, more at home than she felt in her own dreary, empty apartment. She liked to come here late at night and find him always smiling, always ready for a chat.
“Did you trust someone today, kiddo?” Cat asked, displaying a wide grin that made his teeth sparkle against his tan skin.
“Uh-huh,” she acknowledged, unwilling to abandon her drink. She’d almost drained the tall glass, leaving only small ice cubes and herbs. Cat quickly obliged and brought her a new one.
“Well, who? Don’t make me bite my fingernails,” he insisted. He was funny without trying and probably without knowing. A warm, heart-melting kind of funny.
“I trusted a death-row inmate,” she replied, as she grabbed the new glass filled to the brim.
He whistled, surprised.
“That’s not what I meant, kiddo. What the hell? How about trusting someone less likely to want to harm you, huh? Why don’t you try that sometime?”
“I had the chance,” Tess replied, suddenly saddened, “but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It makes me feel… vulnerable. Exposed.”
“And the death-row inmate doesn’t?” Cat stood in front of her, firm on his feet, challenging her logic.
“He’s going to fry in a few days, Cat. Whatever exposure I risked was limited, so, yes, for me, the inmate felt safer than the pro—um, colleague.”
“Okay, let’s say I get it. You’ll keep trying?”
She lifted her eyes from her disappearing food and mumbled, “Yes,” with her mouth full.
“Were you in danger with that inmate?” Cat probed.
He had an uncanny talent when it came to her. He knew what was on her mind, almost like a parent would.
“Nah, not really,” she replied, dreading the potential speech he could have offered, about her being more careful in her work.
The cloud of a memory made its way forward from the recesses of her weary mind and made her push the plate away, unfinished.
“Then what happened, kiddo?” Cat asked in a soft voice, taking a seat across the bar counter and bringing his head closer to hers.
She let out a long breath of air.
“This inmate… he made me in minutes,” she blurted out, her voice breaking under the pressure of tears she didn’t know she held inside. “I wear my history written on my forehead. What do people see when they look at me, Cat?”
He didn’t reply, waiting for her to unload.
“Will they always see the sexual assault victim and nothing more?” Tess continued, letting the earlier sadness take over without fighting it anymore.
“You were never a victim,” Cat replied, gently but firmly. “You refused to become one. I’ve always admired that about you.”
She searched his eyes through a veil of tears. He touched her forearm with a warm, overworked hand.
“Thanks…” she whispered, resuming her stare at the tacky counter.
“No… I’m asking you, why become a victim now?” Cat insisted. “The past can be laid to rest. Why won’t you let it go?”
37
A History of Crime
Tess arrived at Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office a few minutes before seven, carrying a coffee box and a large bag of bagels and croissants to get their day started. She climbed upstairs quickly, barely noticing the sting in her side, and stopped abruptly in the conference room door.
Fradella worked on the laptop, and he smiled with tired, bloodshot eyes when he saw her. He’d pulled an all-nighter, and it showed. He’d abandoned his tie and rolled up his sleeves, and a small pile of empty cans and food wrappers told the story of his sustenance since the previous day.
Michowsky had fallen asleep, his head resting on his forearm, slumped on the table. As for Doc Rizza, he snored lightly, leaning back in his chair with his mouth gaping.
Fradella gestured her to come in and continued typing quietly. The wall-mounted screen showed screen after screen of DIVS results, structured, filtered, but still returning names in the hundreds.
She set down the box and bag and that worked like an alarm clock for Doc Rizza.
“I smell coffee,” he said, rubbing his eyes thoroughly. “Nothing like a power nap, but this will really help,” he added, offering his empty mug to be filled. She obliged.
Michowsky shifted in his chair, then lifted his head, blinking, confused.
“Oh, good morning,” he said, when he noticed Tess. “Um, I need some of that, please.”
“You guys have been busy,” Tess said, smiling appreciatively. She walked to the case board, where a new, wide table had been added since the previous day and was filled with structured information.
It showed victimology, MO, and signature for eight cases, probably the shortlisted eight they’d selected from the total unsolved murders that fit the time range. There were two additional cases at the end of the table, not identified by number but by names: Banks and Gonzales. Each table line showed a different characteristic, spanning from victim physiognomy, age, occupation, to crime scene setting, murder weapon and manner, duration of the attack, trace evidence, fingerprints, and finally, a line dedicated to the distension noticed by Doc Rizza in some wound patterns. Based on the solid line of Ys for yes, and the two Ps for possible, it seemed like they had found the killer’s signature, even if they still didn’t know what that wound distension meant. The table took half the case board, and above each case, a representative crime scene photo had been pasted.
“Walk me through this,” she said, looking at Fradella.
Surprisingly, Michowsky replied. He’d been the last to adopt her tabular methodology of structuring information.
“We’ve picked apart the eight cases that we shortlisted from the pile of fourteen unsolved murders. All victims were raped, tortured, and stabbed, but there are variations. Let’s see,” he said, shuffling through the paper pile in front of him and taking a quick bite from a bagel.
Tess pulled up a chair in front of the case board.
“In chronological order, the first case is Janice Bennett, twenty-three, a nurse’s aide. We almost didn’t include her. She was a drug addict, on an active DUI suspension when she died. There were several drugs in her system, and Doc Rizza said at least part of the sex was consensual.”
“What drugs?” Tess asked.
“Ecstasy, PCP, GHB, and some cocaine too. Nostrils showed signs of chronic snorting,” Doc Rizza clarified.
“Then how can someone who’s so high be consenting to anything, let alone sex with a killer?” Tess’s voice spiked, and Fradella lifted his eyes and looked at her, furrowing his brow.
“All I’m saying is that she didn’t fight the attacker that much,” Doc Rizza replied. “Strictly from a vaginal tearing and bruising perspective, that is.”
She clammed up, still angry, although she understood the facts. “All right, let’s go on.”
“I also said, ‘for the most part, the sex appeared consensual,’” Doc Rizza added,
“but that apparent consent ended when the assault got rough. She tried to fight him off, but with so many drugs in her system she didn’t stand a chance.” He checked his notes and continued. “There were several stab wounds, none hesitant or lethal, followed by one fatal stab to the lower abdomen delivered last, and showing signs of distension. She died within minutes of that blow, from exsanguination.”
Tess looked at the crime scene photo and felt sorry for the young girl photographed lying in a dried pool of blood. She’d been a troubled girl, struggling, but she shouldn’t have ended life like that.
“What the hell is that distension, Doc? Can you speculate?”
“I hate to do that. My job doesn’t include—”
“Please,” she insisted.
“I’ll give you what facts I could gather. Something, an object of sorts, was inserted in those wounds. An object thicker than the knife blade, hence the distension; it forced the wounds to open wider, and pulled at the collagen fibers in the skin, at both ends of the wound. That object left absolutely no trace elements inside the abdominal cavity. That’s all I have. Draw your own conclusions, although I don’t think you can. I can think of many horrible scenarios, but I can’t single out any one of them.”
“Could he have inserted his hand?” Tess asked. “Or…” her voice trailed off.
“Oh, fuck,” Fradella reacted.
“Again, there’s no way of telling what he inserted. There was no trace element left behind. I gave you all I had,” Doc Rizza replied and averted his eyes.
From his grim look and his refusal to speculate, she could follow his chain of thought and imagine several scenarios, but she decided not to voice any of them.
“One more thing,” Doc Rizza said. “Because of the way things happened in her case, there’s no way I can pinpoint with any accuracy how long the attack lasted. All I can tell you is that it took 90 to 120 minutes from the first laceration until she died.”
She shook her head slightly, feeling a wave of rage raise bile into her throat. “Next,” she signaled Michowsky.
“Rose Carrigan, twenty-two, a vacationing waitress from Colorado. He didn’t have her long; two hours at the most. Also, note the unusual, high-risk location: a motel room.”
“That’s strange,” Tess agreed. “Unreasonably high risk. How sure are we it’s the same man?”
Michowsky let out a long sigh before replying. “How sure are we of anything in this mess? We’ve selected it from the list based on victimology, MO, and location criteria. It fits, but it’s an exception too.”
“Right, I get it.”
“There are more of those in here,” Michowsky added, tapping on the file folder pile.
“What?”
“Exceptions.”
She turned and looked at the table drawn on the case board. Factors varied wildly, across the board, especially the durations of the attacks and the MOs.
“What happened to Rose?” Tess asked, keeping her eyes focused on the crime scene photo showing the body of the young woman, duct taped across the mouth and immobilized against the bedposts, also with duct tape. Some of the blood had been absorbed into the sheets, but whatever pattern was visible in the photos told the story of her painful demise.
“He brought toys and took them all with him when he left. We couldn’t find any at the scene, but Doc’s confident he used props on her.”
She looked at Doc Rizza inquisitively. “I have here, um, ‘forced vaginal and anal penetration with foreign objects,’” he quoted. “This was not my exam; I was doing my postdoctoral at the time, six years ago. But I called Dr. Gomez last night and checked every detail.”
She frowned, thinking how that information impacted the profile they thought they had. “Isn’t penetration with objects typically indicative of impotence of the attacker?” she asked.
“That’s not the case here,” replied Doc Rizza. “The objects were just the beginning.”
She repressed a shudder.
Michowsky continued. “Kristen Jenkins, twenty-four, an executive assistant at a downtown real estate firm. She was found spread-eagled and stabbed multiple times in her own home, a duplex. Next-door neighbors were away on vacation. She’s number three.”
Tess nodded, while reviewing the data written in the table.
“Then number four, Veronica Norris, twenty, a student working on her business degree, was found suspended in her own home,” Michowsky went on. “The killer brought his own tools and drove the nails into the support beam that ran between the kitchen and the living room. He, um, took his time with her; he was there for at least six hours. She was the youngest,” he added and his voice trailed off.
He rubbed his forehead, then clenched his fist, and squeezed his lips. “It drives me crazy,” he said forcefully, and Tess directed her gaze away from Veronica’s photo to look at him. “You get one of these cases you can’t close, and you just somehow make peace with it. Not enough evidence; what can you do? What can anyone do, if there aren’t any leads, any suspects? You move on, because the next day another sick fuck kills someone, and you’re just as busy as you were the day before, if not worse. Then this,” he gestured widely with his hand toward the crowded case board. “All these women… I know it’s been years, but look at it!”
Fradella had stopped typing and stared at his partner, his eyebrows raised.
“We’ll catch him,” Tess said, in a calm, reassuring voice. “I promise you.”
“Sometimes I hate my goddamned job, that’s all,” he added.
Michowsky averted his eyes and cleared his throat, seemingly embarrassed at his outburst. He forced some air into his lungs, and continued. “Number five was Karen Rogers, twenty-five. She was an arts student,” he stopped and cleared his throat again, “whose husband was away on a business trip. They had a home on some acreage, so the bastard had privacy. He was there for almost an entire day.” His chin wrinkled, as he clenched his jaws.
“He branded her with the fireplace poker, several times,” Doc Rizza added. “She fought fiercely. She cut her own skin against the cable ties she was restrained with. There were stress fractures in several of her hand and foot bones, from trying to break free. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a single trace of DNA under her fingernails. It was a perfectly clean crime scene.”
“Stab wounds?” Tess asked, cringing inside.
“Multiple, ending with the signature fatal stab to the lower abdomen we’re so familiar with,” Doc Rizza added. “The one with distended ends.”
“The next one, number six—”
“Wait,” Tess interrupted Michowsky, still staring at Karen’s striking auburn-blonde hair. “I see a pattern here, a new one.”
Fradella stopped typing and watched her intently.
“You see how the neighbors were on vacation for Kristen, how he knew to bring a hammer and heavy-duty nails for Veronica, and he knew Karen’s husband was away on business? He was stalking them.”
Michowsky leaned back against his chair with a long, pained groan.
“He’s going into their homes before; he’s a careful planner,” Tess added.
“We knew that,” Fradella replied. “It’s in the profile.”
“Not at this level, we didn’t. He must have stalked them for months.” She leaned against the table, focusing on the next crime scene photo. “All right, number six.”
“Carla Cox, twenty-three, a service rep with a chemical company. It was repeated sexual asphyxia with her. She was found strangled in her apartment, but the lethal stab was still the sharp-force trauma to the lower abdomen,” Michowsky said.
“From this point onward,” Doc Rizza intervened, “he only stabbed them once, not more. Once, in the lower abdomen, all fatal blows that severed the common iliac artery, on either side. He developed surgical precision in his stabbings.”
“Then Sue Bailey, also twenty-three, an intern at a major accounting firm; he carved into her body. Words, symbols, an unintelligible mess. You’ve seen the pictures.”
>
“Yeah, I have.”
“Number eight is Diana Webb, twenty-seven. She was a freelance computer programmer. He suspended and flogged her for hours,” Michowsky said, then took a long swig of coffee, as if to wash the horror of the deaths he talked about. “Almost flayed her alive.”
“No rape in these last two cases?” Tess asked, although she feared she knew the answer.
“Prolonged, repeated rape in all the cases,” Doc Rizza replied grimly.
She closed her eyes for a second, but the nightmare images didn’t vanish. “I see two more names added to the table,” she said.
“Yeah,” Fradella replied. “We’re not 100 percent sure these two cases fit here, but they might.”
“Okay, let’s hear it.”
“There was a police report filed thirteen years ago, when Garza was still out there, doing his thing. The Banks family said that their dog scared someone away, and they saw, from a distance, a man running. He had tried to enter their home through the back door. There’s a vague description on file. Caucasian, late twenties, early thirties, good runner, physically fit.”
“That could have been anything,” Tess replied, “a burglar or a junkie.”
“Everything fits, except Banks didn’t die. Same age, same geographical location, isolated suburban home, dusk, attack on Friday night.”
“Okay, let’s assume you’re right. Why are you thinking it’s The Chameleon and not Garza? Our unsub plans thoroughly; he wouldn’t have been scared away by a dog he didn’t know existed.”
“The dog was new to the home; used to live with Cathy Banks’s father until two days before the attack. If you want one more reason, here’s a photo of Cathy Banks,” Fradella added, then clicked a button and displayed the image of a young, beautiful, thin blonde on the wall screen.
“Ah,” Tess reacted. “All right, the Banks family probably belongs in the table. I’m sold. What about, um, Shirley Freeman?”