Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  She went to the light boxes and pointed at two x-rays—one of a leg, one of a foot.

  “You see this?” She pointed to the x-ray of the leg. “The victim, Jennifer Bishop, fractured her tibia, but there was already some mending taking place. If you look here, you’ll see a metatarsal stress fracture in the left foot, suggesting that she had been running barefoot for an extended period of time before she was killed.”

  I thought of Brian Bishop. He was already broken, but he’d never survive if he found out this was how his daughter spent the last days of her life.

  “Can you tell if there was any sexual assault?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Not this long after the fact, no. The cloth the victims were wrapped in was too degraded to learn anything, and of course there was no genetic material to test from the victims themselves.”

  “What about the other victims?” Juarez asked.

  “Those particular details are the same for all six women: damage consistent with running for an extended period of time, no sign of rape from the admittedly limited testing we’re able to do at this stage of decomposition. The differences are what I found particularly intriguing.”

  Juarez and I both remained silent, waiting for her to elaborate.

  She walked to the table farthest from us and stopped at the remains. “This is Jennifer Bishop,” she said. I thought of the girl in the photos: the pudgy four-year-old with glasses and pigtails who grew to become the lean, smiling blonde teen on horseback. Dr. Laurent went to the next table. “And this is Stacy Long.” The nineteen-year-old high school dropout.

  “According to the missing persons reports,” Juarez said, “they disappeared in 1982, within two months of each other. Jennifer Bishop at the end of May, Stacy toward the end of July.”

  “Oui,” Laurent said. She flipped a few pages in her file and handed it to Juarez. I leaned in closer to see what she’d given him. “As I mentioned, there is no genetic material on which to do a chemical or nutritional analysis, but we can look at bone density and some other orthopedic abnormalities to find out about these young women in their early lives. Stacy Long, for example, was already showing some signs of osteoporosis consistent with poor nutrition as a child. Ms. Bishop, alternatively, had strong bones, the best dental care, and a fairly expensive procedure to mend a broken clavicle when she was between eight and ten years old.”

  So far, these were all things I’d known from reading the files. I kept quiet, waiting for her to get to the point.

  “In the last months of her life, however, it appears based on a bone density scan my assistant just completed, that Ms. Bishop suffered from severe malnutrition. She also had stress fractures in both wrists and ankles that indicate she was bound for an extended period of time.”

  “He kept her,” I said.

  Dr. Laurent nodded. “Very good. Yes, he kept her. I believe she was imprisoned in a small space for some time—a matter of weeks, at least, and possibly months— before the next phase of her torture began.”

  “Do you think he let her go when he kidnapped Stacy Long?” Juarez asked.

  “ ‘Let go’ may be a bit generous,” Laurent said. “That was when the next phase began. What was of particular interest to us was the fact that there are no indications that Stacy Long suffered through the same type of imprisonment that Jennifer did.”

  “So, he kidnaps Jenny Bishop,” I said. My voice faltered. “Makes her his prisoner for two months, and then kidnaps Stacy Long. Brings them back to the same stretch of woods and… What? Hunts them both?”

  “That would be conjecture on my part,” Dr. Laurent said. “But the theory is supported by the evidence we’ve collected thus far. The same pattern was repeated on the other four victims.”

  “One victim kidnapped first, held captive, then a second kidnapped. Both released and hunted together,” Juarez summed up. I was starting to feel sick. I took a deep breath and backed away from the remains, working hard to keep my cool. I didn’t miss the look that passed between Juarez and Laurent.

  At the moment, I couldn’t seem to do much about it, though.

  Juarez guided me toward the door, his hand at the small of my back.

  “I should probably speak with Dr. Laurent alone for a few minutes. Would you mind waiting for me outside?”

  I was so much better than this kind of reaction, Diggs would have hidden his head in shame. I couldn’t help it, though—my breath was coming harder and the room was getting smaller and I knew if I didn’t get air soon, things would get ugly. I nodded.

  “Yeah. Okay. I’ll meet you out there.”

  Juarez may have meant for me to just wait in the hall, but I chose to believe he’d be all right if I left the whole damned building behind. The air was still stifling when I burst through the side entrance, but at least there was no chemical smell. No tiny mortician telling me in graphic detail about the horrific ways six young girls were tortured before they finally met an equally horrific end.

  It was just past eleven-thirty. I paced the sidewalk until sweat dripped from my forehead and clung to the small of my back. The only solace I took from any of this was my renewed certainty about one thing:

  My father could never have done this.

  Juarez met me outside twenty minutes later. I’d managed to avoid a full-on anxiety attack, but just barely. We walked back to the car in relative silence. It wasn’t until we were back on the road headed for lunch that he spoke.

  “You’re very quiet. No jokes? No theories?”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t even asked what else Dr. Laurent had told him after I left. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I couldn’t stop imagining Jenny Bishop—the girl who loved horses and didn’t like college because it was too far from home—caged like an animal. Tortured and hunted and tortured again. And what about Stacy Long? What role had she played? Ally? Foe?

  “No jokes,” I said finally, when I could find my voice. “I’m just trying to imagine how anyone could do that to another human being.”

  Juarez nodded grimly. “Welcome to my world.”

  ◊◊◊◊◊

  After a very good lunch and a fairly dull meeting back at the Laboratoire with the crime-scene guys who had analyzed the body dump site, Juarez and I headed for Quebec City. We’d taken longer in Montreal than anticipated, which meant Diggs had already done whatever research and interviews he’d needed to do in the city by the time we got there. We met him in Quebec’s Old Port at a little after five that evening, at Mistral Gagnant—a little restaurant with a distinctly Provencal flair and a menu to die for, enough off the beaten path that it took Juarez and me half an hour wandering the narrow streets before we finally found the place. Diggs was already busy writing at a corner table, a tall glass of water and a nearly-empty bowl of potato-leek soup off to the side while his fingers flew over his keyboard.

  Unlike me, it looked like he’d actually gotten a full night’s rest. All the time he’d spent with the top down riding around the countryside these last few days meant his hair was starting to bleach out again in the sun, and his face had taken on a beach-bum glow I hadn’t seen in a while. I wondered what it said about me that I was only attracted to men who seemed to thrive on murder and mayhem.

  He took one look at my expression as I approached the table, however, and much of the sunshine vanished from his.

  “That bad, huh?” he asked when Juarez and I sat down.

  I shrugged, affecting my most hardened who-gives-a-shit air. “It wasn’t a picnic. I’ve seen worse, though.”

  Diggs’ mouth twitched. “Oh yeah, ace? I forgot about all those years you were embedded on Beantown’s traffic beat. That’s rough stuff.”

  I flipped him the bird, a gesture that was not entirely appreciated by our waiter or fellow patrons. We ordered and then, once the waiter was gone, Diggs moved in closer and lowered his voice—as only seems appropriate when discussing serial killers over dinner.

  “Let’s hear it: what’s the latest?”


  Juarez gave him a very abbreviated version of what we’d learned back in Montreal. Then, he looked at me.

  “There was actually something else—Sophie gave me some more information after you left.”

  Diggs caught the look that passed between us, but made no comment.

  “You couldn’t have mentioned that in the six hours we’ve been together since then?”

  Juarez looked profoundly uncomfortable. Right. He hadn’t wanted to upset me. I’d become that girl in his eyes—the delicate flower men had to protect from harsh reality.

  “Okay, so spill. What else did you find?” I asked.

  He lowered his voice. “The cause of death—strangulation. For all six, the injury to the hyoid and some of the other indicators on the bones were consistent with strangulation, with the killer most likely using a thick belt or strap.”

  “Isn’t that what we expected?” Diggs asked. “I mean, if this is the same guy who killed Erin Lincoln and maybe even Ashley Gendreau, wouldn’t the COD remain basically the same? Especially if that’s the thing he gets off on the most?”

  Juarez nodded. “True. What came as a surprise was the fact that the same amount of pressure wasn’t exerted with every victim.”

  “I’m not following,” I said.

  “Four of the six girls were strangled with the kind of force consistent with a man between two hundred and two hundred and fifty pounds.”

  “And the other two?” Diggs asked.

  “The hyoid bones weren’t broken,” Juarez said. “Less damage, indicating less pressure, because the killers were smaller.”

  “How much smaller?” I asked.

  “Sophie believes it was probably a female—one hundred to one hundred and ten pounds.”

  “What about Jenny Bishop? Does Sophie know whether it was the man who killed her, or a woman?”

  “It was the man—definitely. Or at least a man. Same with Stacy Long. The only two who weren’t killed by him were Grace Starke and Kelsey Whitehart.”

  “Who were they taken with?” I asked.

  Juarez checked his notes. “Grace Starke was taken three months after Becca Martineau, in ’84. Kelsey Whitehart was never actually reported missing, so it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when she was taken or when she died, but Riley Thibodeau went missing in ’85.”

  “Is it possible that he took Becca Martineau and she killed Grace Starke three months after she’d been taken?” I asked. “And then in 1985, he presumably did the same thing with Whitehart and Thibodeau?”

  “That’s my theory at this point,” Juarez confirmed.

  “And you honestly think the guy who raped, hunted, and killed Erin Lincoln in 1970 is the same nut job who started taking girls ten years later to run them through his own private death matches somewhere deep in the woods?” Diggs asked. “How does Hank Gendreau’s daughter fit into all this?”

  I looked at Juarez as he weighed those questions. “Ashley Gendreau doesn’t fit—at least, not in my mind. She was killed on site, no J carved into her chest, no body dump, no hunt. And it was all too rushed. Whoever he was, J. liked to take his time. More than anything else, he thrived on the fear, and the feeling of power derived from controlling every aspect of these girls’ lives. Ashley Gendreau was hunted for a few hours, no more, before she was killed.”

  “What about Erin Lincoln?” I asked.

  He hesitated. “If J. killed her as well, I believe she was his first kill. The hunt was disorganized, the method of torture and killing very…frenzied. Based on the evidence gleaned from the bodies in Quebec, we’re looking for someone fully in control of his impulses. A deeply methodical, highly organized individual with a history of sexual abuse—”

  “Why sexual?” Diggs asked. “So far the only evidence you’ve seen of rape was in Erin Lincoln’s case, right? Ashley wasn’t touched, and though it’s hard to tell so far, there’s no indication that any of these other girls were, either.”

  “The obsessive need for control,” I answered for Juarez, glancing at him to see if I was on the right track. He nodded. “Victims of severe sexual abuse who act out later in life typically have a need to either control or be controlled. They have a hard time relating in any other context.”

  Diggs raised an eyebrow in question.

  “That piece I wrote for the Globe a couple years back,” I explained.

  “Right.” Diggs nodded, then looked from me to Juarez and back again. “So, what else are we looking for?”

  Juarez looked at Diggs’ laptop, now safely stowed in a bag at his feet. “You do know this is all off the record, right? You’re here because Erin is here, and Erin is here because of the potential link to her father.”

  “And because there’s no way in hell you could have convinced her not to pursue it on her own,” Diggs added.

  “She’s sitting right here, actually,” I said. “And she hates it when you talk about her like she’s not in the room.”

  “Does that mean you do or don’t understand that this is all off the record?” Juarez asked.

  “Scout’s honor,” Diggs said, three fingers raised. I thought it best not to mention that Diggs never made it past Cub status in the Scouts, kicked out after only a week for consorting with a couple of cute Brownies in the classroom next door.

  Juarez started to dig out the files in his ever-present FBI tote when his phone rang. The whole restaurant turned to shoot appalled glares at him for the very American intrusion on their Sunday. He apologized to us and the world at large, then stepped outside to take the call.

  “So, what happened at the Laboratoire?” Diggs asked the second Juarez was out the door.

  “Nothing. It was interesting.” I kept my eye on Juarez in the vain hope that Diggs might let it go. Because there’s a first time for everything.

  “So interesting you had to walk out before the good doctor was finished?”

  Based on the pacing and the furrow in his well-formed brow, both of which I could see through the wall of windows looking out on the street, Juarez wasn’t happy with whomever was on the other end of the line. I turned my attention back to Diggs, who was looking right through me in that irritating way of his.

  “I got a little queasy, that’s all,” I said. “And you don’t have to tell me—I know they were just bones, so I shouldn’t have been bothered. I think it was the heat.”

  “This case is insane. I’m a little queasy myself, trust me. It happens to the best of us, Sol.”

  “I’m over it now. No big deal.”

  “Sure.”

  He took another bite of his salad and I took another bite of mine. I could feel him watching me. Before the silence got awkward—or, worse, he did something completely insensitive like try to make me feel better, Juarez returned.

  “What’s going on?” Diggs and I asked at the same time.

  “There’s been a new development in Black Falls,” Juarez said. “I’m sorry—I have to leave.”

  “Wait a second: what do you mean, you have to leave?” I demanded.

  He sat back down. “I’ll go straight to the airport from here; I have a plane waiting.”

  “What about me?” I asked. “What am I supposed to do in all this, exactly?”

  “I’d like you and Diggs to go to Montreal,” Juarez said hesitantly. “Get a hotel. Lay low, just for the night.”

  Clearly, he’d lost his mind. “We’re not going back to Montreal; my dog is in Black Falls. Why can’t we just stay with you? What the hell happened?”

  “I can’t say anything about it right now,” he insisted. He lowered his voice. “I’ll just tell you that as of this afternoon, the case is no longer cold.”

  “You have a new victim?” Diggs asked.

  Juarez bit his lip, giving the very slightest of nods before he went all business again. “Which means I can’t be seen with either of you right now.”

  I’m a pain in the ass, I know, but even I understood the position Juarez had put himself in by including me in the investigation up
to that point.

  “Are you in trouble?” I asked. Diggs looked at me in surprise. “What? I can be sensitive.”

  Juarez shook his head. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “What happened to the whole objective of keeping Solomon with you so she’d be safe from the psycho out there?” Diggs asked. “Particularly if he’s gotten a taste for killing again. And who did you say that victim was again?”

  “I didn’t,” Juarez said flatly. “And as for keeping her safe, that’s where the hotel in Montreal comes in. I’ll arrange for a guard to be stationed there to be doubly sure. I don’t think it should be an issue, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be an issue? Because you’ve already caught the guy?” I asked.

  Juarez stood, hands raised. “Sorry, that’s the end of that interview, or you really will get me fired.” He turned his attention to Diggs. “Is this all right? I’m sorry—it’s not the way we planned it, but I don’t have a lot of options at this point.”

  “A night in Montreal living the high life sounds just fine to me,” Diggs said. He looked at me, his meaning clear. “I’m not the one you have to worry about, though.”

  I suspected Juarez knew that quite well. He nodded toward the exit. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  I followed him out to the sidewalk. We’d gone from the dead heat of an August morning in Montreal to the cool breeze and casual crowds of evening in Quebec City. Juarez found a secluded corner and led me that way, his hand at the small of my back.

  “Can you just tell me if this means my father’s cleared?” I asked.

  “I don’t know yet—I’m sorry.”

  “But you’d tell me if you did know, right?”

  He hesitated.

  “Jack, come on. You can’t seriously think I’m gonna leave my dog, turn my back on a story, and go spend the night in a friggin’ hotel in Montreal while you solve the case. You have to give me something here.”