The crime scene was populated with sweating men and women. Their movements were sluggish, practiced, not at all urgent. Several wore masks to shelter their fragile sinuses from the smell. A decomposing body in ninety-degree heat could fell even the strongest professional.
They were assembled in a grassy field at the Highway 70 and Highway 70 South split, near the westernmost edge of Davidson County. The area was known as Bellevue, only fifteen minutes from downtown. Another couple of miles and Cheatham County would have the job. It was Metro Homicide who had gotten the call instead. Taylor had felt the same sense of boredom her detectives were experiencing, and was happy for the diversion.
She stood over the body, drinking in the scene. Her blond hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, her long body casting grotesque muted shadows in the high grass. She wore no mask, her nostrils pinched and white, her mouth open so she could breathe without inhaling death. A Jane Doe, young, brown hair massed beneath her swollen body. Brown eyes glinted dully from cracked eyelids. The bugs had done their duty, ingesting, laying eggs, repopulating their masses. A struggling white larva spilled from the girl’s mouth.
Taylor nearly came undone, imagining that worm in her own mouth, and mistakenly took in a deep breath through her nose. She winced and turned away for a moment, watching the activity around her. Usually the death greeters would swarm like their own type of insect, but no one was in much of a hurry today. Fitz was ambling back toward the crime scene control area, he’d taken a cursory look at the body, covered his mouth and politely excused himself. She could see Marcus and Lincoln conferring in the distance, waves of heat shimmering around their bodies. Crime scene techs carried brown paper bags to their vehicles, patrol officers kept their backs to the body. The scene stirred, listless, the entire group indolent in the heat.
Except the man striding effortlessly toward her. He was a big man, dark haired, graceful. He wasn’t one of hers.
He stopped in front of one of the patrol officers, flipped open a small leather identification case, speaking loud enough for Taylor to hear. “Special Agent John Baldwin. FBI.”
The officer stepped aside to let Baldwin continue his trek toward Taylor. He slipped the case into his breast pocket, then came to her with his right hand outstretched. He winked as he took her hand. She felt the warm pad of flesh press her own for a brief instant. A concussive touch, she felt it all the way to her toes. She stood straighter. At nearly six feet, she generally towered over men. This one was taller by nearly five inches, and she had to look up to meet his eyes. They were the oddest shade of green, deeper than jade, lighter than emeralds. Cat eyes, she thought.
Her heart beat a little faster. Taylor’s right hand went to her neck, an unconscious gesture. The four-inch scar was barely healed; she still looked as if she’d been garroted. A knife slash, compliments of a crazed suspect. A permanent souvenir from her last case. Gathering herself, she flipped her ponytail off her shoulder and gave Baldwin a brief but warm smile.
“What are you doing here? I didn’t ask for FBI backup. It’s just a murder.” She paused for a moment, concerned by the expression on his angular face. She knew the look. “Please tell me it’s just a murder?”
“I wish I could.”
“Why the posturing?” Taylor looked over Baldwin’s shoulder. There were few people on the scene who weren’t familiar with John Baldwin. Her team—Fitz, Marcus and Lincoln—had worked with him before.
“I needed this to be an official consultation. I think I know who she is.” He gestured almost carelessly at the body prostrate at their feet.
“Ah. Out of state, I’d guess. We haven’t had any missing persons reported in the right time frame for this.”
“Out of state. Right. Mississippi.” The statement was absent, an afterthought. Baldwin was circling the body, taking in all the details. The bruises around the girl’s neck were visible despite the decomposition. He made another circle, smiling to himself with a bizarre look of triumph. The body had no hands.
“I think this may be the work of our boy.”
“Your boy?” Taylor’s eyebrow went up an inch. “You know who did this?”
He ignored the question for a moment. “Is it okay to touch her?”
“Yes. The crime scene techs have finished with her for now, and we’re waiting for the medical examiner to haul her out of here. I was just giving her one last look.”
Baldwin reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of thin white latex gloves. He squatted next to the body and reached for the girl’s right stump, knocking a few maggots off in the process.
Taylor prompted him again. “Your boy, you say?”
“Mmm, hmm. I don’t know his name, of course, but I recognize his work.”
Taylor went down on one knee beside him. “He’s done this before?” She spoke quietly. No personnel were within earshot, but just in case, she didn’t want the leaks to start before she had a grip on what was happening. Habit.
“Twice, that I know of. Though he hasn’t hit for a month. We’ve dubbed him the Southern Strangler, for lack of a better name. You know us feds, not an original thought between us.” He tried for a smile, but it came out as a leer.
“Why haven’t I heard of this…strangler?”
“You have. Remember the Alabama case a few months ago, in April? Pretty little college nursing student, disappeared from the U of A campus. We found her in—”
“Louisiana. I remember.”
“Right. The second was last month, from Baton Rouge. Found her in Mississippi.”
Taylor searched her memory for the details of the case. It had been all over the national news networks, with correspondents broadcasting live from Baton Rouge, lamenting and glorifying the kidnapping. But no one had put the two together, as far as she knew. She told Baldwin that.
“The time frame was lengthy enough that the media didn’t jump on the connection. And we kept a few things back. The hands, for one.”
“Why, for God’s sake? Aren’t you guys supposed to get the word out so we small-town law enforcement types know we’ve got someone on the loose?” Her sarcasm missed its mark. Baldwin only nodded.
“The lubricant, too. We think there is consensual sex, he uses a lubricated condom. Whichever M.E. catches it should look for that.”
Taylor shook her head, putting aside the strange reality that had marred her beautiful southern town. A serial killer, passing through her turf. Great. It wasn’t something she was prepared to keep quiet.
“I already called Sam, she’ll take good care of her.” Dr. Samantha Owens Loughley was the chief medical examiner for the mid-state of Tennessee, and a friend. “You said you know who she is.” She indicated the body with a jerk of her chin, eyes accusing.
“Her name is Jessica. Jessica Ann Porter. Jackson, Mississippi. She’s only been gone three days.”
Taylor looked down again. Three days? The decomp was more advanced than that. Baldwin read her thoughts.
“You know how this works. Heat’s speeding up the process. Two weeks in this mess would be all it took to get her down to the bones. We’re lucky we found her so quickly. Another week and it would have been hell to ID her in the field.”
“Tell me more.”
“There isn’t a lot more to go on. He likes brunettes. Young brunettes. All three girls have brown eyes, are late teens to early twenties, and we don’t have really good victimologies on them. None of them had risk behaviors, none of them had been seen with strangers, nothing. They just went poof. One day they were living their lives, the next, they were just gone. I’ve been working the periphery of the cases. I was kept informed but I didn’t do the investigation myself. Now that we may have three victims, I’m probably getting involved full-time.”
Taylor heard tires crunching on the gravel on the side of the road. The body, Jessica’s body, she corre
cted herself, was only about ten yards from the roadside. The news van would be able to get a clear shot. Too clear. She waved to Marcus standing by his car, motioned to the van. She didn’t need to say a word. He started signaling to them immediately, forcing them away from the scene. Taylor watched as he maneuvered them to a very discreet vantage point, one from which they wouldn’t be able to view the body. She smiled to herself. Screw the newsies.
Baldwin had taken a notebook out of his back pocket and was writing furiously, scribbling notes as quickly as his mind could feed them through his fingers to his pen.
“Have you found…?” Baldwin’s voice trailed off. A uniformed officer was waving frantically at Taylor. She eyed Baldwin for a moment, realizing he knew exactly what the fuss was about. He just shrugged and put out a hand in a “you first” gesture. She stared him down for a moment, then made her way to the gesticulating officer. The look of horror on his face was evident from twenty paces.
“You have something there, Officer?” Taylor didn’t recognize him, he must have been fresh out of the academy.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” he answered, Adam’s apple bobbing. Taylor reached him and followed his pointing finger. In the grass, lying quietly, was a hand.
Taylor reared back, but Baldwin leaned over the hand with interest. She tried for glib.
“Well, Special Agent, since she’s missing both hands, I’d say we should find another right around this area, shouldn’t we?” The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach belied the bravado in her statement. She had the distinct feeling there was more to the case than he had told her. He confirmed it in the next moment, the way he gazed at the wayward hand was a dead giveaway that there was more to this than met the eye. She dismissed the patrol officer with a flick of her hand. He scrambled away, visibly relieved.
“No, we won’t.” He gazed up at her, his green eyes troubled. “You can search for it if you want, but it won’t be here.”
“What the hell? He’s taking the girl’s hands off, leaving one in the field and taking one with him? Some sort of trophy?”
Baldwin nodded. “Definitely a trophy. There’s just one problem.”
For the briefest moment, the reality of what a psycho could do with a severed hand crowded her mind. She shoved the thought away. “What’s the problem?”
“This isn’t Jessica’s hand.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Baldwin excused himself to call in to Quantico, and Taylor signaled for Fitz to join her. He tromped through the field like a general commanding troops, his oversize belly leading his feet.
“What’s the fed doin’ here?” he asked, tone neutral. Taylor glanced at him, trying to gauge if there was anything more to the inquiry, but Fitz’s face was closed, guarded. She decided it was just that, a question.
“Guess.” Taylor shaded her eyes, watching Baldwin slink through the crime scene, an overgrown cougar smelling fresh blood.
“He’s here to profile the killer because there’s a pattern,” Fitz answered, following Taylor’s gaze. There would only be one reason for a profiler to be playing in their sandbox.
“Two before her. We have a possible ID at least. Jessica Ann Porter. From Mississippi. Where’s Lincoln?”
“Back at the car with Marcus.”
“He needs to work his magic on the computer. Tell him I want to have all the information the feds have on these murders. The first was the girl from Alabama, the coed that went missing and was found in Louisiana in April. The second one was taken from Baton Rouge in June and dumped in Mississippi. Have him pull all the particulars, and let’s see what we have to work with. The feds held back information on the cases, including the fact that the killer is transporting a hand from the previous victim to the new dump site. I’m sure Baldwin will share all that he knows, but I want to have our own file going on this guy.”
“You sure he’ll give you everything?”
Taylor winked and gave Fitz a full-watt smile, her gray eyes flashing in the white air. “I’m sure.”
* * *
Taylor was putting the finishing touches on a Bolognese sauce. She tasted, stirred in another spoonful of oregano, tasted again. Hmm. Garlic. Another clove went into the pot and she shut the lid, savoring the rich spiciness that wafted through the steam.
The light was failing outside, darkness rapidly approaching. She busied herself cutting up a fresh five-grain baguette, wrapping it in foil and setting it in the warming oven to toast. She took a sip of wine, a lovely Chianti from the Montepulciano region of Tuscany that she’d discovered with the help of the owner of her local wine store. She called the man Geppetto because of his resemblance to the cartoon version of Pinocchio’s father. He was a kindly man with a droopy gray mustache and excellent taste in Super Tuscans. He loved the nickname, but allowed no one but Taylor to bestow it upon him. She smiled and took a deeper drink.
With nothing to do but wait for the sauce to finish cooking, she sat at the kitchen table, sipping wine and watching the lightning bugs hover over her deck. Her home was simple, a log cabin she’d bought for herself years earlier, cozy, tucked in the rolling hills of the Tennessee central basin. She had deer and rabbits, and had seen a fox with her kits trailing behind earlier in the year. Privacy, quiet, all the things an overworked homicide detective needed.
Her thoughts drifted, inevitably, to the earlier crime scene.
Sam had directed the scene, gotten Jessica’s body ready for transport. The body, dehydrated and warm, had proved difficult to handle, and the transporter had lost his grip when they brought her up to the gurney. He dropped the head of the bag, and the flies had buzzed angrily. Taylor cursed the muggy weather—death wasn’t easier in the cold, but it was more bearable.
What kind of killer were they dealing with? Consensual sex, then strangulation and mutilation, like a bad date gone horribly wrong. Taylor knew Baldwin’s profile would fill in some of the answers.
Jessica Porter was being autopsied in the morning. Taylor would be there, a show of respect as well as an attempt to get ahead of Jessica’s killer. Clues were always available—even the most fastidious killer left something of himself behind. The fact that this could be his third murder was upsetting, to say the least.
The missing hands bothered her. Death as a rule was never pretty. Taking the girl’s hands was an obvious attempt to conceal her identity. Dropping her in a lonely field in ninety-degree heat would do the rest. But why in the world would he deliver the hand of the previous victim to the new crime scene?
Taylor was caught off guard when Baldwin explained the killer’s signature. She’d asked the obvious question. Where is the other hand?
He’d given her a mirthless laugh. “That’s the question we all want to figure out.”
They could have easily missed it. Hell, they’d gotten lucky. The Realtor who was listing the land for sale had dropped by to put a new number on his sign. He was overwhelmed by the smell of rotting flesh, and had called the police when he found the body. Fate had been on their side this day. If it weren’t for that they might have missed Jessica Porter for a few weeks, maybe more. Enough time for the heat and the bugs and the vermin to do their job, making it very difficult to identify the remains. The killer was no dummy.
But they’d found Jessica, and now they had a line on the killer. Taylor was wondering about the connection between Jackson, Mississippi and Nashville when she heard the front door open.
“How’s my favorite debutante?”
She shot a nasty look toward the owner of the boisterously deep voice, which made him grin. Covering the few yards to her in three quick strides, he grabbed her and pulled her into a rough embrace. She nestled her nose in the hollow above his collarbone and sighed. He smelled good, fresh. There was no scent of lingering death, just soap and cedar. She nuzzled him once more, then pushed him away, hard. He stumbled back, putting up a han
d like he could stop the torrent that was about to come.
“Dammit, Baldwin, why didn’t you tell me?”
“We’re having pasta, I presume? It smells great.”
Her look was murderous and he gave her a sheepish shrug. “What did you want me to do, Taylor? How was I supposed to know he was going to come to Nashville? The Porter girl went missing three days ago, and I didn’t get the call right away. Next time I’ll be sure to roll over and casually mention that a girl has been kidnapped in Mississippi, you might want to be on the lookout for her body here in town. Hell, Taylor, give me a break. I didn’t have a clue where he’d be heading. I didn’t even know it was the Strangler until I looked at her body.”
He reached out as if to stroke her cheek, but she turned away and went to the stove. She busied herself stirring the sauce.
“C’mon, sweetie. If I thought I had a handle on this guy, I would have told you sooner. He hasn’t been active for a month. In the wind, totally. We have so little to go on, things are being held together with a wing and a prayer. He doesn’t give us a lot to work with. Missing hands and dead bodies.”
Taylor turned back to face him. His green eyes were clouded with worry, the salt-and-pepper hair standing on end. She knew that he’d been running his hands through it, trying to make his mind work harder.
“Missing hands and dead bodies seem like an awful lot to me.” She sounded peevish and felt idiotic. There was no reason to be mad at Baldwin, he was just doing his job. A job he wanted her to do with him. It looked as if they were going to have the chance to work together, just like he wanted.
“Are you setting up a task force?”
“It’s me at the moment. I knew I could work with you on it, so I’m freelancing. There’re two other guys working the old cases—Jerry Grimes and Thomas Petty, I’ll share information with them, they’ll share with me. You know how it is.”
Baldwin had been acting in a consultant capacity, on loan from the FBI to Metro Nashville Homicide, for three months now. His help had proved invaluable to her cases. Of course, sharing a bed with him wasn’t such a bad perk.
Dark and Twisted Reads: All the Pretty GirlsA Perfect EvilBone Cold (A Taylor Jackson Novel) Page 2