“The Strangler,” Baldwin said, dread mixing with adrenaline in his stomach.
“Now, how’d you go and do that, Baldwin?”
“Good guess.”
“Damn right, good guess. Her name’s Jessica Ann Porter. I’m sure you’ve seen the reports on the news?”
“Haven’t been watching too much. She’s dead, I presume, or else you wouldn’t be calling me.”
Grimes had gone silent for a moment, and then answered with a cracked voice. “No, she’s just missing. We’ve got some blood on the bedsheets but no real signs of a struggle. It’s like she disappeared into thin air. No one saw her after she left work for the day.”
Baldwin fast-forwarded through the conversation to Grimes’s description of the girl.
“She’s a beautiful kid. She’s got all this brown hair, got these big brown eyes, the kind that just shoot right through you. That’s just from pictures. She was the damn homecoming queen, man. Getting ready to go back to college in the fall, wanted to be a nurse or doctor, something she could do that would help people. She volunteered at the homeless shelter in town and delivers meals to shut-ins. The kid’s a saint, and no one we’ve talked to has had anything bad to say about her.”
Baldwin remembered thinking, uh-oh, Jerry’s taking this kind of personal.
Grimes continued. “I knew something was hinky and I should probably give you a heads-up, just in case.”
There wasn’t anything else Baldwin could do but hear the man out. Cases with kids got to every good investigator, and sometimes just talking it out was the best thing. They’d hung up with Baldwin promising to do a little research on the missing hands and what it could mean. Then Jessica Porter turned up in a field in Nashville, with what was presumably Jeanette Lernier’s hand with her.
The phone had rung again early this morning. Baldwin saw the caller ID number and knew it was Jerry Grimes, calling about Shauna Davidson. He was right.
“We got another body, Baldwin. Pretty sure it’s the girl missing from Nashville.”
That call had put him on a plane. He ran it through his head, the cadence becoming a bit like a child’s song.
Susan Palmer, Alabama. Found in Louisiana. Jeanette Lernier from Baton Rouge. Found dead in a field in Mississippi. Jessica Porter, Mississippi girl, found mutilated in a field in Nashville. Shauna Davidson, Georgia bound…
Though he’d gotten a row to himself, the woman in the aisle seat across from his gave him a strange look, half pity, half disgust. He must have been talking aloud. He gave her as reassuring a smile as he could, then fumbled all his folders back into his briefcase. As the pilot came over the radio to tell them they were cleared to land in Atlanta, he realized he was excited by the challenge.
CHAPTER TEN
Whitney Connolly dragged her eyes away from the television and returned her attention to her computer. Sure enough, the address was there, the message that she was hoping for had arrived. She wet her lips and ran the mouse over the message header. It was innocuous, like all the others. A Poem for S.W. was all it said. The return address was a garbled mass of letters and numbers—[email protected]. A generic address from a huge server. She’d asked a friend who was sometimes more than a friend to try to find out who the sender was, but he’d told her that the address bounced off several other servers, so in effect, it didn’t exist. Whoever was sending her the messages was virtually untraceable, and obviously smart enough to cover his tracks. Whitney didn’t worry about that though. When the time was right, her anonymous friend would reveal himself to her. They always did.
She opened the mail and found the following lines:
How can those terrified vague fingers push,
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
How can anybody, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
P.S. From your backyard.
Mmmmmm, she thought. This one was a bit sexual. But of course, if he was murdering girls, why wouldn’t he be writing sexual poetry? He seemed quite talented, at least in her mind.
She felt the goose bumps parade up and down her arms. Man, she was getting messages from the killer her FBI contact called the Southern Strangler. Why he had picked her, she didn’t know. But she didn’t want to go to the police just yet. After all, what would she say? “By the way, Officer, I’ve been communicating with the man who is responsible for murdering those poor girls.” She didn’t even know for sure that this guy was for real. She had nothing to go on, but all of that was going to change today.
She printed out the e-mail, then carefully archived it in three places to make sure she didn’t lose it if her computer was to suddenly crash. She copied and pasted the verses into her notes and looked back at the three previous entries, starting with the first.
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of an angelic light.
P.S. This was found at the crime scene.
She had made copious notes underneath the entry, trying to make sense of the poem. And what crime scene? She’d gone through nearly every crime in Nashville that she could find, badgered detectives, worked her sources. No one knew anything about a poem found at a crime scene. She chalked it up to a nutcase and filed it away. It was silly, a little love poem sent to her private e-mail address. She even imagined for a moment that it was from an anonymous lover, someone that she knew but didn’t want to reveal himself to her.
But when she received the second e-mail, she realized that this wasn’t a message meant for her.
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food
For transient sorrows, simple wiles
Praise, blame, love, kisses,
tears and smiles.
P.S. This one was from LA.
That had sent her scrambling. LA could be one of three things, Los Angeles, Louisiana or Lower Alabama, as Nashvillians jokingly referred to the Gulf Shores area. A quick search showed a young girl had been kidnapped from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She did some checking, followed the case, and when the body of Jeanette Lernier was found, she attached the name to the poem in her files. But there had been nothing on the media coverage that said anything about messages or notes. She knew that all investigations left things out of the statements allowed to the media, if only to rule out the copious nut jobs who called and confessed to the crimes. Despite repeated probing, none of her sources had any inkling about the notes.
Then the third note had come, right on the heels of the word that a body was found in Nashville. This one was alarming.
A sudden blow:
the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
P.S. Do you get it yet?
Chilling, yet she was oddly exhilarated by the words.
Now that the word was out, that the Southern Strangler was on the loose and had killed three girls, she understood that the messages left with the bodies must correspond to these notes. After realizing the pattern, she’d gone back and marked the first entry Susan Palmer, then corresponded the notes to the names of the dead. She wondered for a moment about why she would be getting these messages. But she threw that thought aside as quickly as she had it; what did it matter? She was going to get the scoop.
This new message made her blood race. She was going to be a star.
This fourth note could reference the missing Nashville girl, Shauna Davidson. She’d cover the story tonight—on the heels of the murder, the missing person’s case would generate a lead story on the ten o’clock news.
Whitney realized she didn’t have any information that would lead her, or the rest of the media, to believe that Shauna Davidson was anything but missing. With the last three girls, she only received the messages after the girls’ bodies had been found. Maybe this one had been found dead and they weren’t reporting it. But no, they wouldn’t be holding that kind of information back.
P.S. From your backyard. That struck a chord in her immediately. My backyard. It wasn’t meant in the literal sense. He was too elegant for that. The other postscripts referred to locations. Her backyard must mean her hometown. Nashville.
That meant that she, Whitney Connolly, and she alone, knew that Shauna Davidson was dead.
She headed for the shower. She’d take a little extra time putting herself together for tonight’s broadcast. She felt certain the whole town would tune in for her and the biggest story in Nashville tonight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jerry Grimes met Baldwin as he came out of security in Hartsfield International. Baldwin took in the gray hair, the white face, the slight pinching around the mouth and knew that Grimes was taking this latest disappearance hard. He stuck out his hand and gave him a smile, trying for cordiality.
“Grimes, you are getting grayer by the day.”
Grimes looked vaguely alarmed for a moment, as if he hadn’t realized that age was leaching the black out of his hair. Then he recovered and ran his hands through the silvery strands. “Well, at least I still have some. That’s saying a lot in this job.”
They walked out the doors to Grimes’s waiting car. He had left the car on the curb in the departures area. FBI got special privileges at airports these days. A uniformed officer stared with frank curiosity as they climbed into the sedan. Grimes removed the FBI placard from the windshield of the car. Pulling away from the curb, he got down to business.
“Okay, here’s the deal. Media has the story, the locals couldn’t keep it quiet. They’ve found the hand, it’s been sent to the medical examiner, as well. We’ll head straight to the morgue in this little town, Adairsville. I want to hurry up and get there, so buckle your seat belt.”
All that bravado, Baldwin thought. Oh well. The ride went quickly, their conversation desultory. Grimes had theories about the cases, and Baldwin heard him out, though each one was as implausible as the next. Satan worship seemed to be Grimes’s favorite. He finally stopped talking and the car went silent, each man lost in his own thoughts.
They arrived within an hour. Miraculously, the traffic had been relatively light through downtown Atlanta, and they branched off onto I-75, finding the exit for Adairsville easily. Grimes shot the car off the exit, and as they drove west toward the center of town, he pointed out the crime scene. Not that Baldwin could have missed it. Media vans lined the right side of the divided highway, a makeshift tent lean-to the focus of all their cameras.
Baldwin shook his head at the media trucks. They may have been able to contain the stories in Alabama and Louisiana, but it didn’t look like they were going to be able to do that anymore. He started mapping out a strategy to use the media for their own purposes.
* * *
Grimes dropped Baldwin in front of a small, anonymous office building, promising to return as soon as he’d arranged a place for them to stay. Baldwin understood, not many people wanted to attend an autopsy. A young man who looked to be barely out of his teens met him in the lobby of the building. Introducing himself as Arie, he showed Baldwin to the autopsy suite. Arie handed him a gown and gloves, then took a seat on a stool next to the table, a notebook in hand. Baldwin took the last few steps into the room and saw the dead girl.
Shauna Lyn Davidson had not gone gently into that good night.
Her body was stretched out on a stainless-steel slab, her head cradled in a hard plastic U. She had bruises on her face, on her body. A large chunk of hair was missing from the right side of her head. Her nose was misshapen, a lip split. All the signs pointed to a struggle. Shauna had been badly beaten, a departure from the previous murders. He had a brief second of wonder—a different MO could mean a different killer. Normally, Baldwin would look to the hands to see what kind of shape they were in. In this case, all he saw were bloodied stumps. Definitely the same suspect.
The coroner was a jovial man, at least ten years past retirement age. His face was red from exertion, his hair white and straggly, his pants two sizes too small for his waist. He didn’t look like he missed too many meals. He stripped off a glove and stuck out his hand. Baldwin took it, surprised at the strength of his handshake.
“I’m Doc Allen. Sorry you had to come all this way. We’re ready to do the examination if you are. Already started, actually, just waiting on you to cut. All set? Good. Arie, you’ll transcribe?”
The spotty boy nodded in response. It was time to do homage to the dead.
Autopsies were Baldwin’s least favorite activity. But he stuck it out, listening with half an ear to Doc Allen prattle on. Only every third or fourth sentence had something to do with the body he was working on.
“So, I hear you’re from up Tennessee way. Like it up there? I had a visit once, saw the Grand Ole Opry, oh, lookie there, hyoid’s fractured. Strong hands to do that. Anyway, went to the Opry, saw that Marty Stuart guy. Didn’t have any idea how little bitty he was, doesn’t surprise me though. Lots of these folks are shorter in person. Definite saw marks on the ulna and radius, I’m thinking a straight-edged blade, maybe even a scalpel. Disarticulated right above the radiocarpal joint. So we went to this place called the Loveless Café…”
Baldwin tuned him out. He needed the background information on Shauna. Try to piece together a reason that she’d become the Strangler’s fourth victim.
Doc Allen was finishing up now. Shauna’s brain had been removed, ready to be fixed in formalin. The cause of death was apparent. The beating she’d taken was pretty bad, but she had been strangled so severely that her hyoid bone had snapped in two. That took a great deal of pressure to do. Baldwin imagined the killer, angry, excited, pressing harder and harder while Shauna struggled beneath him. Watching the life slowly drain from her eyes, enjoying the show. Baldwin was getting pissed off at this guy. Good.
Doc Allen seemed to want to keep talking, but Baldwin pointed to the other table, where a small item was covered by what he could swear was a simple store-bought handkerchief. Lord save me from small-time operations, he thought. The doctor bustled to the table and whipped the fabric back with a flourish, like a waiter removing the cover from a dinner dish.
“Here’s your hand. Well, it’s not yours, of course. Word on the street is you’ve got a wackjob moving body parts. I assume it belongs to your vic up in Nashville? Or was it Mississippi? I can’t keep up with all your killers these days, much less the poor victims. Did I tell you about the time—”
“Dr. Allen, I hate to interrupt, but I’d appreciate it if you could get this hand printed and DNA samples drawn. We won’t know if this hand belongs to the previous victim or not until we have the comparisons run. I don’t mean to rush you, but I need to get out to the scene where Shauna’s body was found, and I’d like to do it before it gets dark. Thanks so much.”
He turned away, ignoring the good doctor’s grumbling, and ran a hand through his hair. He’d give anything to be out of here as quickly as possible. There was nothing more to be learned.
* * *
Grimes and Baldwin made their way back to the site where Shauna’s body had been found. The sun was setting, the media had moved off and they had the field to themselves. Baldwin stalked around, looking for anything that might give him a sense of the man who’d been here before, carelessly dropping Shauna’s lifeless body in this anonymous grave. There was nothing.
That wasn’t the right way to think of it. This killer wasn’t careless, he was exceptionally deliberate. So far, every move was so precise it felt almost scripted to Baldwin, choreographed.
But it was done to seem careless, like the bodies were just thrown away like so much trash.
He made his way back under the crime scene tape. Two handless dead girls in quick succession was enough to upset his normal equilibrium. It had been a while since he’d worked a gruesome case. He was getting soft. Scratch that. He’d allowed himself to get soft.
They made their way to a roadside motel, ready to pack it in for the night. Grimes had suggested dinner, but Baldwin was exhausted. He demurred, agreed to breakfast in the morning, and they went their separate ways. Baldwin just wanted a shower, some sleep and a fresh perspective on the day’s events. This killer was moving fast, and he had no idea how to get ahead of him.
He made several pages of notes, detailing some of his initial thoughts on the killer. There was forethought, though he was moving quickly, he wasn’t in spree mode just yet. Baldwin wished there was a definitive way he could decide what would happen next, and contented himself with a second, thorough read of all the files. A picture was forming in his head—a view into the killings, into the psyche of the man responsible. He finally packed it in, hoping for a few solid hours of sleep.
Baldwin dreamed of wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing, and woke intrigued. What an odd dream to have. He showered, shaved, placed a quick call to Taylor and made his way from the room. As he shut the door behind himself, he saw Grimes hustling toward him, beckoning with one hand. Baldwin went to him, eyebrows raised. “What’s up?”
“Missing persons report. From a neighboring town. Noble.”
Wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing, indeed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Grimes was talking a mile a minute. “We’re headed to where Marni Fischer was last seen. Let me give you her particulars. She doesn’t match in with the earlier girls, but there are some commonalities.
“Marni’s twenty-eight years old, five-ten, a hundred thirty pounds, with medium-length dark blond hair and brown eyes. She’s originally from Orlando. This kid has a real story, one of those success things they profile all the time on TV. Her parents died in a car accident when she was only three years old. Her aunt raised her, but the aunt died when Marni was sixteen. She entered the University of Central Florida when she was seventeen on a full scholarship. Graduated at twenty-one with dual degrees in microbiology and chemistry. Immediately started at the Medical College of Georgia, she graduated there when she was twenty-five and started her residency. She’s a third-year resident in the OB/GYN program.”
Dark and Twisted Reads: All the Pretty GirlsA Perfect EvilBone Cold (A Taylor Jackson Novel) Page 6