by Pamela Clare
She’d wanted this case. Wanted it bad. Nailing a serial killer had always been much more than a way to advance her career—more like a way to get closure on her twin sister’s murder. But now it seemed like all the old demons, barely put to rest, were being resurrected with nightmare force.
*
Jonathan Dickinson State Park sprawled across more than ten thousand acres of sand pine scrub and river swamp at the southern end of Martin County, just north of the Palm Beach County line. The park entrance off Federal Highway had been closed by patrol deputies. The actual crime scene was barely inside the park. The killer had dumped the body on the side of the road leading to the ranger station. As with yesterday’s murder, he hadn’t attempted to hide the corpse, instead leaving it in plain view in a wide-open park area.
Luke stood off to the side, watching the crime scene techs do their thing. The investigator from Martin County M.E.’s Office appeared to be wrapping up, sitting behind the wheel of her car making notes. The black bag containing the victim’s body had been closed to await transport to the morgue.
Martin Detective Christie Dale and her partner Kevin O’Byrne had already filled them all in on the essentials. The victim was female, between twenty and twenty-five years of age, with shoulder-length red hair and green eyes. Her face had been battered, probably by fists, and the left side had been slashed from temple to chin in a clean, curving line that looked almost medical. The word OUT had been carved post-mortem into her abdomen, just below the breasts. She’d been restrained, but there was no obvious evidence of sexual assault. Cause of death was indeterminate. The M.E. investigator estimated time of death as within six hours of her examination.
Luke had taken in the explanation with both rage and disgust.
“You’re welcome to view the body,” Dale said as she concluded her brief report on the scene.
“Thanks, we will,” Robitaille said, looking grim. “Sounds like the posing is just like our case.”
“I can have the photo tech show you the pictures,” Dale said.
Robitaille shook her head. “If he could email me a couple, I’d appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
“I assume you’ll contact all the Florida State League teams right away?”
Dale nodded. “Another squad is already on it.”
“Let us know if you want any help.”
Robitaille and Pushy headed for the body bag. Luke didn’t move, but Robitaille turned around and waved at him to follow. He went reluctantly, telling himself it was because he didn’t really belong at the crime scene. It was only because he’d been with the detectives on the way to Bartow that he ended up here, anyway. He had nothing to add, and there was no reason for him to examine the body. Anything he needed to know would be reported by the detectives.
He stayed back about ten feet as Pushy opened the bag’s curved zipper, starting from the victim’s ankles. Luke felt like a voyeur as he watched the progress of the zipper as it gradually revealed the body. When the young woman’s face appeared through the gap, horribly bruised and cut, he turned away.
He’d seen bodies in far worse shape. Most had been trained, seasoned fighters, although he’d seen civilian deaths that remained forever burned into his memory. But nothing he’d witnessed in battle zones hit him quite as hard as the ravaged body of this poor Jane Doe. The young woman had been butchered almost as barbarically as his sister.
He clenched his fists, a visceral hatred for the murderous bastard flooding his body.
Robitaille glanced at him. “Beckett, are you okay?”
He took one step closer. “Right now, all I can think about is how much I want to find the son of a bitch and kill him myself.”
She gave him a curt nod. “We’ll find him, all right. He’s a dead man walking.”
Fucking right. And he hoped she didn’t mean death row and its years of appeals. He’d happily pull the trigger himself if he got the chance. Save the taxpayers a lot of money.
“This victim’s more like Krista Shannon than Carrie Noble,” Robitaille said. “It’s like he flew into a rage with both Shannon and this one, cutting and beating the crap out of them before he killed them.”
“Like you said yesterday, maybe they did or said something to push his buttons, and Carrie Noble didn’t,” Pushy said.
Robitaille nodded. “But it looks like he killed them all the same way in the end. We’ll have to wait for the autopsies, but you can bet he used the same drugs that he used on Shannon. And, no doubt, on Carrie, too.”
“Safe bet,” Pushy said, his voice tight with frustration. “Seen enough?”
“More than enough.”
He zipped the bag closed.
Luke didn’t want to interfere, but the timeline bothered him. “The killer has struck three times that we know about,” he said. “It was almost a month between the first two murders, but then only one day until the third. What does that tell you?”
Robitaille turned to him, her face bleached of color. Luke thought she looked five years older than when he’d first seen her forty-eight hours ago. Still beautiful, but much of the vivacity had vanished.
“It’s common for serial killers to ramp up the velocity of their attacks,” she said, starting to walk back toward Pushy’s car. “But this is wild.”
Luke fell into step beside her while Pushy headed over to check them out of the scene. “No theory yet?”
She shook her head. “It’s probably a matter of opportunity. But I don’t know what that means. Three murders sometimes aren’t enough for a true pattern to emerge.”
Luke almost choked. “I sure as hell hope we don’t have to wait for more before we can figure it out.”
She shook her head impatiently. “That’s not what I meant. We have three murders, almost certainly committed by the same killer. At least two of the victims are wives of professional baseball players. But nothing yet speaks to motive. Nothing I can see, anyway.”
“Got it,” Luke said.
“I’d hoped we could come up with some other connection between the Shannon and Noble murders. A reason somebody would want those particular women dead. Something that would have made it all end with the two of them.” She glanced over her shoulder at the body bag. “But now we’ve got a third, and it’s a hell of a stretch to think it’ll stop here.”
Luke impulsively rested a hand on her shoulder. She looked startled, but didn’t shrug it off. “We’ll make it stop, Robitaille.”
*
Halfway to Bartow, Poushinsky exited the turnpike onto Route 60. Beckett shifted in his seat and cranked his neck around to look back at Amy, gesturing at her to unplug.
“Miming isn’t necessary, Beckett,” she sighed. “I can hear you all too well even with these things in my ears.”
As soon as they left the state park, Amy had plugged her ear buds back in. She needed to think, not rehash what they’d just witnessed in all its raw, taunting brutality. It was beyond wishful thinking to even hope that this killer would end his spree at three. He’d kidnapped and killed another woman practically under their noses. Why? To demonstrate his power? To thumb his nose at their incompetence? Or was the sick bastard simply escalating to another level of violence?
She was the fool who’d wanted a case like this—even prayed for it But when Amy gazed at the broken form of the victim—her life snatched away with unspeakable cruelty—she’d recoiled, her mind wanting to shut down in the face of such evil. It had taken all her strength of will to maintain her composure and do her job.
Calice. Maybe Cramer had been right to press her on whether she was ready for this.
Beckett’s deep drawl interrupted her downward spiral. “You could have boosted the volume to drown us out,” he said as he turned back to face the windshield.
“How many deaf cops have you met, Beckett?”
He ignored the jibe. “Can we talk about the case now? I have a question.”
“I’m breathless to hear it.”
“Don’t mind Her Gru
mpiness back there,” Poushinsky said, glancing over at his hero. “She’s in the zone.”
Amy tossed her empty paper coffee cup, ricocheting it off the back of Poushinsky’s dark head with no visible effect. “What’s your question, Beckett?”
He swiveled around again. “Assuming the killer’s motive is related to baseball, he could either be a player, a fan, or maybe even an anti-fan.”
She frowned. “Anti-fan?”
“Somebody who hates baseball, or baseball players.”
“Why would a fan want to murder a bunch of ballplayers’ wives?” Poushinsky asked. “And if the killer is someone who hates ballplayers, why wouldn’t he go after the players themselves?”
“Maybe because the wives are easier targets,” Beckett replied. “And the killer would figure their deaths would devastate the players. But, like I said, it could be an obsessed fan. A guy who follows the wives, sits near them at games, and tries to get them into conversations. Believe me, lots of wives and girlfriends have been bugged and even harassed by creepy guys.”
“I get that,” Poushinsky said. “But a player could become obsessed, too. And players have more access. If our perp is a fan, he’d have to be travelling around to different cities, following the teams. It’s possible, but not very likely, right?”
Beckett shook his head. “So far there hasn’t been much travel involved, Pushy. Lakeland and Jupiter are only a couple of hours apart. If the guy strikes farther afield next time, then yeah, I’d say that would make it less likely he’s a fan. But right now, my gut tells me it’s not a player.”
Amy finally jumped in. “All that’s very interesting, but I don’t see much point in speculating yet. We’ve just started to check up on the Palm Beach players. Let’s wait until we’ve gone down that road before we start thinking it might be a fan. There are only so many players to check out, but tens of thousands of fans.”
“True,” Beckett acknowledged as he faced forward. “I defer to your superior cop wisdom, Detective.”
Amy allowed herself a small smile, since he didn’t sound sarcastic. At least someone thought she had superior wisdom, even if she didn’t.
Poushinsky’s lead foot had them pulling up in front of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office in Bartow not long after eleven o’clock. Amy had called Detective Webb Smith from the car, so he stood waiting for them in the reception area as they came in. She’d explained in advance why Beckett had accompanied them, sparing Smith a possible coronary from the excitement.
The brawny, bull-necked detective ushered them to a meeting room inside the small Homicide Unit and introduced them to his partner, Detective Zeb Kingman. The other man had to be at least a decade younger than Smith, who looked to be in his early forties.
“Webb and Zeb, huh?” Poushinsky smirked. “I like it.”
Smith shot him a glare as he opened his mouth, probably to fire back a retort.
“Thanks for meeting with us,” Amy said.
Smith gave Poushinsky another dirty look but then turned his attention to her. “Thanks for coming up to our neck of the woods. I assume you got the word from Martin County?”
“We got the call on our way up here,” Poushinsky answered. “Turned around and headed back to the scene.”
“Same killer,” Amy said, hating to put it into words. “We haven’t got the autopsy report in our case yet, but we’re assuming that our victim, like yours, wasn’t raped, either. The only visible signs of trauma on Carrie Noble were the ligature marks on her neck, wrists and ankles. He didn’t bash and cut her the way he did your victim. We’re pretty sure the autopsy will confirm the same cause of death.”
She glanced down at her leg as Beckett’s thigh brushed against her. He’d taken the seat on her right, Poushinsky the one on her left. The Polk County detectives sat directly across the small wooden table. Jammed in between the two big men, Amy felt increasingly uncomfortable, especially at the feel of Beckett’s muscular leg alongside hers. She frowned at him, pointedly drawing away. She so did not need this distraction.
“From the little bit we’ve been told so far, it sounds like Martin’s case might be more like ours,” Kingman said. “More trauma.”
Poushinsky nodded. “Yeah. This guy’s a sick fuck.”
“About the trauma in our victim’s case,” Smith said. “We decided not to release some information, for reasons you all understand.”
“Copycat killings,” Poushinsky said unnecessarily.
“The exact nature of her injuries was one of the things we didn’t release,” Kingman said. “But here are CSU’s photos.” He shoved a file folder across the table.
Amy steeled herself and opened the folder. She’d seen hundreds of murder and assault victims’ photographs, but it never got any easier to take.
“The cuts to her face were made with an extremely sharp instrument,” Kingman explained. “The killer carved three diamonds into her skin—one on her forehead, and one on each cheek. All approximately one square inch in area. The cutting was precisely done, with a cold, steady hand.”
“Post- or ante-mortem?” Poushinsky asked.
“Definitely ante-mortem. She was found covered in dried blood.”
“Tabarnak,” Amy muttered. The pain would have been excruciating. “The Martin County victim had a single, curving slash from temple to chin. Nothing like these diamonds. What the hell were they about?”
Kingman shrugged. “Who knows?”
“So, the killer didn’t rape her,” Amy said, “but he tortured the hell out of her, beating and cutting her, and then shot her up with a lethal injection cocktail.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Kingman said, looking as grim as all the rest.
“Then he carved the word OUT into her torso after she was dead.”
Smith nodded. “That’s what the M.E. determined.”
“Ours said the same thing,” Poushinsky said.
Amy resisted the urge to rub her aching temples as she tried to think through the anomalies. “What did you conclude from the autopsy finding on the drugs that killed her? All I saw in the material you released was that it was a combination of the three drugs that are commonly used in lethal injections.”
Smith gave her a puzzled look. “We didn’t conclude anything. We thought the report spoke for itself.”
Not to me. “May I see it? Just the blood analysis.”
“Sure.” Smith flipped through the papers in his folder until he found what he was looking for. He shoved a single sheet across to her.
Amy studied it as the room went silent. “I’d like a copy of this, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” Smith replied. “Are you seeing something?”
She wasn’t ready to share, but the partial theory starting to coalesce in her brain made her stomach clench with revulsion. “I’m not sure yet. I want this for our records, and to compare with our own autopsy report.”
“No problem. You’ll share yours, too, I presume.” When Amy nodded, Smith got up and went out to get the copy made.
Beckett shifted, his leg brushing against hers. His restless energy seemed to seep into her. “What can you tell us about Kevin Kasinski?” he asked. “Our victim’s husband said he doesn’t know Kasinski personally.”
“We eliminated Kasinski as a suspect right off the bat,” Kingman said. “He was still in hospital in Tampa when his wife was abducted—he’d just had surgery on his knee ligaments. His wife visited him there earlier in the day, then drove home to Lakeland. As far as we could determine, Kasinski had no enemies. Same goes for the victim. Obviously we didn’t question him about any possible connection to your victim or her husband. We’ll follow up on that.”
Amy tapped her finger on the table. “What did Kasinski—and Krista Shannon’s friends—say about the state of their marriage?”
Kingman snorted. “Kasinski kept dodging around the issue. He said there’d been some problems, but nothing they couldn’t work out. But Krista’s best friend told us there’d actua
lly been a lot of friction lately. Kasinski was apparently great last season, but he got off to a rotten start this year because he was pissed off about not getting promoted. He also apparently liked to party a little too much. The wife started ragging on the guy about what a slacker he was becoming.”
“Huh, sounds kind of like the Nobles, doesn’t it?” Poushinsky said.
Smith returned with copies of the report.
Beckett frowned. “But your man has a rock-solid alibi, and we don’t think Noble killed his wife, either. What difference does it make?”
“Unless they hired a killer. Or killers,” Kingman ventured. “It happens. But we’ve got nada so far on that angle. Now, with a third victim, that makes it even more far-fetched, as far as I can see.”
Amy shook her head. “These cases don’t look like murders for hire, but we need to dig deeper into whether Kasinski and Noble do know each other, despite Noble’s denial.”
“We’ll get on that,” Smith promised. “And there’s another piece of evidence we didn’t release.”
Poushinsky and Amy glanced at each other. “What?” she asked.
“A couple of days after the murder, Kasinski got an envelope in the mail with a photo inside. A wedding shot. He told us the picture had always been in a frame on top of the dresser in their bedroom, but wasn’t there when he got home from the hospital. He’d looked around for it, thinking his wife might have stuck it away somewhere.” Smith paused, probably for effect. “When he opened the envelope, he saw the head and shoulders of his wife had been cropped from the photo.”
Amy froze.
OUT. The killer had cut Krista out—out of the picture. And he’d left his message not just on the photo, but on Krista herself.
Chapter Seventeen
Friday, July 30
3:40 p.m.
Poushinsky had insisted they stop at an IHOP for lunch so he could load up on a grease bomb of eggs, sausage and bacon with a mound of home fries and a stack of pancakes topped by a scoop of butter. Amy nearly gagged just looking at the mountain of artery-clogging food. Beckett had ordered a “Garden Omelet,” and that raised him a step in her estimation. She chose the least worrying item on the menu—a chicken Caesar salad that she picked away at until the others finished.