by P. D. Martin
“Sounds like a perfect match,” Darren jokes.
“Perfect for them, not their victims.”
“Ain’t that the truth. It would also mean the male could have carried Malcolm’s body.” He crosses his arms. “There have been a few serial-killing couples. It’s not like this would be the first.”
I think about some of the famous ones. The Moor murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, Fred and Rose West, and Gerald and Charlene Gallego. The woman’s involvement tends to vary, from passive conspirator to active murderer. Our case would certainly be an example of the latter. After all, she was killing before she met her new beau.
“It also ties in with the sexual nature of both murders,” I say.
“We’ve had confirmation from the ME’s office that Cindy was raped, but a condom was used.”
“Not surprising. Sex may even be part of the killers’ ritual together.”
Stone makes her way to her desk. “What are you two so excited about?”
Darren fills her in on the latest developments and our hypothesis.
“It certainly fits.” She sits down. “So where to next?”
I twist the ring on my little finger. “The killers are moving unusually fast, two victims in the past week—plus we’re crossing jurisdictions. I think maybe it’s time my involvement, and the Bureau’s, became official.”
“I’d be happy with that,” Darren says. “Will the Bureau go for it?”
“Evans in VICAP was almost gagging when I told him about the tattoo of the rose. The Bureau’s been tracking this woman for years, they’ve got a vested interest in this case. I’ll call Rivers.” I look back at Cindy’s photo. “And we might have to go to Vegas.”
“Is the Bureau paying?” Darren gives me a wink.
“Don’t know about that.”
He smiles. “We’ll phone first. We might not need to make the trip.”
I nod. “I also want to see Cindy’s body again. Maybe it will trigger something.” I’m talking about a psychic something and Darren immediately picks up on my hint. I must learn how to induce my premonitions more reliably. I had success of a sort at Malcolm’s apartment and I’d like to repeat that process.
“Good idea.”
“Rivers,” I say, getting myself back on track. First things first. I move into the project room for some privacy and dial his number, only to find out I was beaten to it. The head of VICAP has already filled him in, and Rivers was deciding whether to suggest I stay on in Tucson or assign someone else from the team. My offer makes the decision for him.
Back in Homicide I deliver the good news to Darren.
“Welcome to the case,” he says with a smile. “So, what shall we do first? Cindy’s body or her family and friends?”
“Someone notified Cindy’s next of kin?”
“Stone rang it through this morning.” Darren looks over to Stone. “Hey, Stone, heard back from the Vegas cops?”
She looks up. “No, I’ll call them now.” She picks up her phone and punches in some numbers. “Detective Cross?… Detective Stone here from Tucson Homicide. How’d you do with Cindy Star this morning?… Really? Hang on, I’m going to put you on speakerphone.” She puts the call on hold first and looks up at us. “You’re not going to believe this.”
We gather around Stone’s desk.
“Detective Cross, I’ve got my partner Detective Carter here and Special Agent Anderson from the Bureau. Can you please repeat what you just said?”
“Sure. After I spoke to Detective Stone I mentioned Cindy Star’s death to someone here. He thought the name sounded familiar and it turns out he was at Star’s apartment just last week. Her roommate, Janice Dust, ODed. Heroin.”
Darren and I exchange looks. Surely this can’t be a coincidence. Both girls dead?
I lean on the desk. “Did her death look suspicious?”
“No. I pulled the file and had a look at it myself first thing this morning. Looked like a standard OD. She had a heroin habit. Friends say she kicked it a couple years back, but junkies often relapse.”
“What were her veins like?”
He pauses and I can hear papers shuffling in the background. “Actually, the ME could only find the one injection site.” Cross knows it sounds bad. “There were no defensive wounds, no bruises. Nothing whatsoever to indicate it wasn’t self-inflicted.”
That’s fair. In isolation it looks innocent enough, but in conjunction with Cindy’s death…
“If it’s murder, they did a good job,” Cross adds.
“Was Cindy reported missing by Janice or anyone else?” Stone asks.
“No. Dust worked with Star, as a dancer in Hugo’s Femme show. Cindy told her boss at Hugo’s that she was having a medical procedure and would be out for several weeks.”
I look at Darren. “So both Malcolm and Cindy were covering their tracks. If they were abducted by a serial-killing couple, they wouldn’t prepare for it.”
“Malcolm?” Detective Cross is in the dark.
Darren explains. “Cindy’s murder is related to another murder victim here. Malcolm Jackson.”
“Related how?”
“The crime scenes indicate the same killer.” Darren doesn’t go into detail. “And they both had remnants of sand on their bodies that has been positively matched to the Mojave Desert. They were both there before their deaths, possibly together.”
I stand up straight, the events becoming clearer. “Maybe Janice knew what Cindy was doing. And that got her killed.”
“So that would make it three murders. All related.” Detective Cross sighs noisily on the other end of the line.
“Uh huh.” Darren starts pacing. “Cross, I think we better come pay you a visit. We’ll bring what we’ve got on Malcolm and Cindy, see if we can’t figure out what they had in common.”
“Sure. Let me know when you’re arriving.” He pauses. “What about time of death?”
“Malcolm was killed last Thursday and Cindy yesterday.”
“Exactly a week apart,” Cross says.
Darren, Stone and I all look at each other. We knew Malcolm was killed last Thursday, but we hadn’t verbalized or fully realized that the deaths are separated by exactly a week.
“And when was this Malcolm last seen?”
Darren doesn’t need to check the file for this fact. “Two weeks ago, March 20. What about Cindy?”
“Bingo. Hugo’s said her leave started on March 20,” Cross answers.
Darren puts the file down. “Thanks for your help, Cross. We’ll be in touch. Can you fax or e-mail us everything you’ve got on the roommate? We’ll add her into the mix and see what we come up with.”
After booking our flights to Vegas for tomorrow morning, we arrive at the ME’s office with his official report in hand. One of the on-duty techs takes us into the holding bay, where they keep all the bodies that have been autopsied but haven’t been released yet. For now, both Malcolm and Cindy are in this room, but soon, Malcolm will be released to his parents and flown home to Chicago.
The tech looks up Cindy’s name. “Cindy Star, bin number 24.” He moves over to one of the stainless-steel holding areas, or bins as they unkindly call them. He pulls hard on the handle and the slab rolls out. A dark plastic sheet is placed across her body and the lab tech’s hand reaches toward the top of it. But before he pulls it away, I see a flash of Cindy, alive. All four limbs are tied to a bed, spreadeagled. It reminds me of something else…parts of my dream from last night. I chew on my bottom lip and my muscles tense. I don’t remember much of my dream about Cindy and, given my reaction to the dream about the brunette, I’m thinking my subconscious is doing some major repression.
The lab tech pulls the plastic off. “Mind if I leave you to it?”
“Sure,” Darren says.
“Just roll her back in when you’re done.”
Darren nods and the tech goes back about his business.
I pull the plastic sheet all the way off, uncovering the whole body. “I jus
t got an image of Cindy, tied to a bed.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I can’t remember everything I dreamt about Cindy last night, but this looked familiar. I definitely dreamt about her cuffed to a bed.”
“Restraint is in the autopsy report.”
“Let’s go through it.” I look down at the report.
Darren nods, reading from the first, summary page. “Cause of death is strangulation, but she also had a blood alcohol reading of 1.8. That’s a helluva lot.”
“I’ll say. Enough to make her very sluggish, maybe even unconscious.”
“Yes, if it wasn’t for the restraint marks…”
I nod. You can’t struggle if you’re unconscious.
Darren flips the first two pages over. “Page three. She was restrained.”
I flick to the same spot. “Handcuffs.” I finger Cindy’s wrists and ankles, looking at the definite indentations. “She pulled hard against the cuffs. She may have been drunk, but she still fought.”
“Think back to the dream, Sophie. You’re trained to take in every little detail. Do it with your visions.” Darren says it gently, but I take it like a slap in the face. He’s right of course. I should be noticing everything, picking up all sorts of information, just like I do when I examine a crime scene or crime-scene photos. This is no different.
I nod. “I think I’ve got a major case of repression.”
“I understand that. I do. But you’ve got to try. Try to get past it.”
I sigh and force a small upturn of my lips. “Okay.” I close my eyes and try to picture the scene, but my body tenses, scared Cindy’s fear will overwhelm me. I take a deep breath and force myself through the fear. “The bed’s a big four-poster number. Like an antique bed. Made of a dark wood. Maybe mahogany? It looks kind of familiar.” Then I realize. “It’s the same bed I saw the other woman on. The brunette.”
“But Malcolm and Cindy were both strangled and you saw the brunette stabbed. How can they be related?”
I stand firm. “It’s the same room.” I let my frustration out in a groan. “But that doesn’t make sense either. If we’re talking about a serial killer, the male in our team, he either strangles his victims or he stabs them. Not both.”
“Okay, let’s go back to Cindy. Tell me about the room.”
I sigh, still frustrated but I close my eyes again and play back the image, simply visualizing elements from my dream. “Four-poster, mahogany bed,” I repeat. I pause, concentrating. “Plain, dark gray bedclothes. Floorboards and a dark red rug on the floor near the bed. An antique-looking bedside table. It matches the bed. And the walls are painted white. I’m only seeing one corner of the room.”
“Anything on the bedside table?”
“Just a lamp. Again, it’s antique-looking. It’s got a brass stand, a balloon-shaped shade, frosted glass.”
“Okay. So our killer, or killers if this guy’s teamed up with our femme fatale, is into antiques and either owns or rents this place.”
“Yep.” I groan again. “That’s not going to help us.”
Darren reaches his hand out to me and touches my arm. “Everything helps. You know that.”
I nod, again distracted by his touch. After everything that happened with Josh I’m just not ready to get involved with Darren. And it’s still hard to let any man touch me after what happened on the Slasher case. And we’re in the morgue…not exactly a suitable ambience.
Darren senses my discomfort and withdraws his hand. He looks down at Cindy’s body. “Cindy,” he says, moving back to the front page of the report. I do the same.
“So, we’ve got cause of death as strangulation, time of death as yesterday and the high blood-alcohol level.” Darren scans the report, reading out the most pertinent details. “Handcuffed.”
“And the rape.” I flip to the next page.
“There were traces of nonoxynol from the vaginal swab, so certainly sex with a condom took place. Bruising was minimal.” Rape victims often have bruising on the inner thighs and around their genitals. Most of Cindy’s bruises are where the cuffs were.
“If all four limbs were restrained before the rape took place, she wouldn’t have been in much of a position to struggle.”
Darren nods. “He gets her drunk and she wakes up tied to a bed, basically unable to move.”
“Exactly. Besides moving her hips a little bit and pulling on the cuffs, she wouldn’t have been able to offer any resistance. That might account for the lack of bruising.” I read down the report. Her organs were all normal, and the only thing under her fingernails was minute traces of sand.
I look at Cindy’s face again and wish I could do more, see more. But the vision of the brunette was so intense and I don’t know if I can handle that again.
I move back to the report. The ME found no other signs of trauma. Before her death, Cindy was an extremely healthy young woman. I shake my head, morbidly captivated by the fresh, pretty face on the slab. Someone will pay for taking her life.
NeverCaught: I should have gone higher for Cindy.
AmericanPsycho: Another five days. It’ll fly by. Then someone might be yours.
NeverCaught: Five days? Might? I beg you to make it Brigitte and let me have her now. Look at the way her long legs are draped over the milk crate and parted ever so slightly so I can see her lacy red pants. I need a kill now.
AmericanPsycho: You’ll just have to wait.
14
On the second leg of our Tucson-L.A.-Vegas flight, Darren and I manage to get three seats. I’m on the window, he’s on the aisle and the middle seat is occupied by our files.
“I’m looking forward to getting to Vegas,” I say.
Darren looks past me, out the window. “Take in a show? Play a bit of blackjack?”
I smile. “No, I’m looking forward to getting to the bottom of this case.”
“Oh. Almost as exciting as playing blackjack.” He pauses and looks at me. “Have you ever been to Vegas?”
“No.”
“Well, you’ve got to go to at least one production and put a quarter in the slots.”
“You want to show me a good time?” I smile.
He looks away. “Something like that.”
I shift uncomfortably in my seat and fall back on what I know best—work. “This case seems so disorganized.” I flick through the files we’ve brought with us: Cameron Michaels, the femme fatale’s first vic all those years ago, Malcolm Jackson, Cindy Star and Janice Dust.
Darren stares at the files on the seat between us, seemingly also happy to be back on the more solid ground of the case. “All the leads are pulling us in different directions. We need about five to ten cops on this, full-time. You, me and Stone doesn’t cut it.”
“A task force.” I nod. “It’d be nice.” I stare out the window, avoiding the decision of which file to review first, which lead to follow. “I bet Evans is rallying for one. It might happen.”
“We’ll need it if the gap of one week between victims becomes our pattern.”
Darren’s right—one victim a week is both bizarre and frightening. “The Bureau might assign someone from our field office over here.”
Darren leans across, closer to me. “You know, more dreams or visions could help. Then we mightn’t need any extra resources.”
I turn away from Darren to hide my slight annoyance. I know it’s irrational, but it feels like he’s pushing me and I’m putting enough pressure on myself without him adding to it. The truth is, having psychic stuff happen again brings up painful memories, memories I don’t want to relive. “It’s hard, Darren,” I say.
Darren puts his hand on top of mine, tentatively. “I’m sorry. But it’s not going to just disappear, you know. You went through—” he searches for the word “—hell. Pure hell. And that’s not going to change, no matter how much you want it to.”
My annoyance disappears. How can I be annoyed when he’s being so sweet? I smile. “God, you’re worse than the Bureau shrink.”
He smiles, but it’s only a small smile. “Nice diversionary tactic.”
“A girl’s got to try.”
I pick up Janice’s file. It’s the one I’ve spent the least amount of time on but it definitely holds my interest. Janice wasn’t in the Mojave, but she knew something, that’s for sure. “I’ll take Janice.”
Darren nods. “I’ll give Cindy’s another going over, then swap you.”
I review the photos, re-creating the crime with different routes to the same end—Janice, in the kitchen, slumped on the floor. I study the photo of her body. To her left is the kitchen table and slightly behind her is a chair that lies on the ground. She must have been sitting in that chair when she took the hit. Then, as the heroin engulfed her, she fell onto the floor, taking the chair with her. I flick through the other photos, getting acquainted with the girls’ home, and then take another crack at the autopsy report. No crime-scene photo is a substitute for the actual location, especially if it is the tactile nature of the real-life crime scenes that helps trigger my psychic abilities.
When I move onto Cindy’s file, there are stark differences. Her body was discovered outdoors, in the early hours of the morning, and the photos contrast dramatically to the daylight, indoor photos of Janice. I flick through the file again, but nothing sticks out.
With only fifteen minutes to touchdown, we decide to go over the way we see the events one more time.
Darren starts. “So, Malcolm leaves Chicago, lies about what he’s doing and where he’s going. He takes off, presumably for the Mojave, but isn’t registered on any of the airlines, buses or trains. Nor does he hire a car.”
I nod. We got confirmation early this morning that Malcolm Jackson wasn’t a registered passenger on any flights out of Chicago. We also couldn’t link him to a train or bus, but it’s possible he paid cash and used a fake name. “Cindy also goes to the desert and lies about what she’s really doing, except she tells her best friend and roommate, Janice.”