The Body Counter (Detective Jude Fontaine Mysteries Book 2)

by Anne Frasier

  The backstory was that the current location was a repurposed food-storage facility. It had been a great idea years ago, due to a giant walk-in cooler that could store thirty-six bodies at once. Thirty-six! Alarmingly, that was no longer enough space. They were up to 1,400 autopsies a year, and it looked like they were on target to break that record.

  The center had five postmortem stations. Most morgues in cities the size of Minneapolis had at least nine. “The overrun of bodies puts me in an odd position,” Ingrid Stevenson had said to him not long ago. “I’ve been pushing for funding for a new facility, and the state keeps asking for proof of need. We certainly have it now.”

  Uriah turned off Chicago Avenue and pulled into the parking lot behind the morgue. Jude was there, standing next to her motorcycle, helmet tucked under her arm. She seemed even paler than usual, the circles under her eyes darker, her white hair in the kind of disarray people worked hard to achieve. He sometimes thought heroin chic when he saw her, then kicked himself for it. He was sure her look had nothing deliberate about it, and if she did any more than shower and brush her teeth, he’d be surprised. “Did you get any sleep?”

  “A little.”

  Something was going on. She was putting off an unfamiliar vibe. He must have given her a once-over, because she glanced down and pulled a sticky cobweb from her jeans. It was the kind of cobweb a person picked up in a basement or an attic.

  He couldn’t give it the kind of consideration it deserved right now. Local media were on site. Not many. Most reporters were still at the crime scene, but a few had taken the opportunity to attempt to grab a sound bite at the morgue where the murder victims had been taken. Smart.

  His phone rang. He glanced at the screen long enough to note that it was his father, and he remembered he’d never returned his call. He let it go to voicemail.

  On the way from parking lot to morgue door, questions were directed at the two of them as they approached the building. Since the crowd was small, the queries weren’t shouted and weren’t even rude. “Minnesota nice” was a real thing, as passive-aggressive as it might come across sometimes.

  “We’re holding a press conference in a little over two hours,” Uriah told them. “In front of the police station.” Something they already knew, of course. They were all trying to beat the mob scene. “No exclusives. We won’t be sharing anything until then.”

  That was followed by lowered mics and groans of disappointment.

  Inside the building, he and Jude checked in at the front desk, then passed through Security into the relative quiet of the morgue.

  “You know how I told you I bought the house?” Jude asked as they moved down the hall in the direction of the prep room.

  Ah, that might explain the cobwebs. He hoped to hell she hadn’t been hanging out there. Not healthy. “Let’s talk about this later, okay?” He wanted to be able to give her and the topic his full attention. Inside the room, he opened a cupboard and pulled out a disposable yellow gown and handed it to her. “When we’re done here.” His back to her, he grabbed a gown for himself.

  “I want to talk about it now,” she said.

  “The ME’s waiting for us.” She shouldn’t have needed the reminder. He shook out his gown and slipped it over his arms, fastening it behind his neck, then reached around to grab the waist ties. If Jude were anybody else, he would have offered to tie her gown and asked for help himself.

  “Now is better,” she said.

  Jude still struggled with social skills, and he doubted she’d ever get the hang of normal conversation again, or understand the difference between a good time to bring something up and a bad time. Normally that was okay. He was used to it, used to her saying things that were out of context or inappropriate for the situation. But sometimes, especially when he’d had very little sleep and was dealing with headaches that just wouldn’t stop, her timing could be irritating. His voice, when he’d responded, had probably been sharper than he’d intended.

  “What can you tell me about this photo?” she asked.

  Distracted, he turned. She hadn’t even started suiting up. Instead, she’d put the gown aside and was standing with her legs braced, helmet still tucked under one arm, an unreadable expression on her typically unreadable face. Between two fingers, she held a photo taken with an instant camera.

  He might have flinched.

  The photo was of Jude. Battered, bruised, eyes that were blank. Those eyes weren’t blank now. “I want to talk about this,” she said. “Now.”

  He took a step toward her, stopped. “Where did you get that?” Was someone stalking her? Was someone who’d been involved in her abduction still on the loose? Had Grant Vang sent it from prison somehow? His mind took another leap. “Did you receive that in the mail? Is someone threatening you?”

  “I found it in the house.”

  The house. He let out his breath in relief. “Okay. I thought maybe . . .”

  “You know why I couldn’t meet you earlier? I had something to do. I had to check the evidence room for a box of similar photos. Come to find out, the only person to sign the chain of evidence was you. Ever.”

  He swallowed.

  “You deliberately kept them from me,” she stated.

  True. He’d struggled with that decision, but in the end he’d figured they’d bring her nothing but pain. There was no sense in sharing them. And he’d deliberately misfiled the box so no one else stumbled across them, by intent or accident. But he’d discounted Harold’s ability to find anything. “By the time we discovered them, they weren’t necessary for the case,” he said. “So I sealed them and that was that.” What he’d done bordered on a lie of omission. He didn’t add that if he’d been able to, if he hadn’t been a detective who preserved evidence, he would have taken the next step and burned them. Every last one. But he prided himself on his integrity even when it hurt people he cared about. That very thing had gotten him into trouble with Jude in the past.

  Their relationship was fragile, still in the building-trust stage ever since he’d surprised her with a seventy-two-hour mental-health hold after she’d lost it at the governor’s mansion a few months back. He hadn’t stuck up for her when she’d been kicked out of Homicide for her little stunt, either. He suspected Jude would never fully trust anybody again, but the last thing she needed was to pull away from him. He was likely the only person on earth who even kind of understood her.

  “On top of everything, this”—she waved the photo—“wasn’t found by the crime-scene team.”

  His fault too. Uriah was the one who’d discovered them. He’d been so dismayed by the brutality of the images that he’d been sloppy. He’d boxed them up and attached an evidence seal before dashing into the yard for air so he wouldn’t pass out.

  But Vang had been there and had seen them too. Jude might flip out if she knew about his involvement. Then again, Jude had never flipped out except that day in her father’s house. Even now, her expression had shifted away from the liveliness of moments earlier. He suspected he’d witnessed a brief flare of the old Jude, but that person had vanished again, and right now she was looking at him with eyes that were almost as blank as the ones in the photo. As if the emotion of the conversation had been too much for her and she’d shut down again.

  “It’s okay.” Her tone shifted to one of reassurance. That was odd, her reassuring him. “You did it to protect me,” she said. “I understand.” She tucked the photo inside her jacket, very near her heart. “Thank you.”

  He wondered what she planned to do with it. He had this notion of her putting it in some flowery frame and hanging it on her wall. Of course, she’d never really do that. Would she?

  CHAPTER 21

  Jude didn’t like arguing, especially with her partner. She was relieved when their discussion was over, and almost regretted bringing it up in the first place. She was sorry she’d upset him.

  In the prep room, she slipped into the paper gown and tucked her hair under a disposable elastic cap. Somet
imes, with cases that were open and shut, they didn’t wear the gowns, but in a situation like this, it was best to avoid anything with the potential to contaminate. A single hair from someone who wasn’t on site when the crime took place could be detrimental to the investigation. So they were cautious. Gowns, shoe covers, caps, and even masks were in place before they stepped into the large room.

  Jude had never been at the morgue when all five bays were in use. Right now, each bay contained one of the murder victims. Three females, two males. The males were waiting for autopsy; the females were in various stages of autopsy, with two gowned employees staffing each table—one doctor, plus one assistant or diener. Two other people in lab coats and name tags helped where needed. Jude knew Uriah would have preferred that Ingrid Stevenson, chief medical examiner, perform all five autopsies, but that was unrealistic. Instead, she was overseeing all five. Also in the room was Dominique Valentine.

  “So far we’ve identified three of the victims,” Valentine said. “We’re still canvassing the neighborhood and hope to have all five names by the end of the day.”

  Uriah nodded, and Jude moved between the stainless-steel tables, familiarizing herself with the bodies that had been cleaned and sliced open. It was unnerving and distracting to be surrounded by so many murder victims. Ordinarily, an autopsy had a sacred, intimate feel. That was present in the room today, but it was overshadowed by the separate conversations and activity. As always, the victims seemed different here, away from the violence of the scene. “Two of them don’t look over sixteen,” she noted. “If they’re runaways, it might be hard to ID them. Many runaways don’t even use their own names.” She thought of the girl called Clementine.

  “We’ll reach out to the public during the press conference,” Uriah said, glancing up at the clock.

  Hours ago, in the burned-out mansion, it had been hard to get a good look at the victims. Here, the lights were too bright, blinding. Uriah peered over his mask and asked, “Any sign of sexual assault? Before or after death?”

  “One body had vaginal tearing.”

  “Postmortem?” Jude asked.

  Ingrid shook her head. “I doubt we’ll be able to determine that, but we’ve already taken vaginal and pubic-hair samples.”

  “Live semen!” Those excited words came from a young woman sitting in front of a microscope. She realized she’d shouted, and turned back around, shoulders hunched in shame.

  Semen could remain alive in a corpse for up to thirty-six hours. “It might not belong to the killer,” Jude said, moving to the body of the other young girl. This one had dark skin and dark hair.

  “I’ll put a rush on the most pressing DNA samples,” Ingrid said.

  Jude leaned closer to the body in front of her. “These don’t look like stab wounds.” Last night, or rather early that morning, the girl’s nude body had been covered in blood, making it impossible to visually process. Today she was clean, her wounds exposed.

  “I wanted you to see that.” Ingrid stepped closer. “We still need to wash two of the victims, but so far three have similar wounds.”

  Jude, Uriah, and Valentine moved from table to table. “What makes that kind of wound?” Uriah asked. “I’m not seeing a typical bite pattern.” He pointed to the stomach of one of the Jane Does.

  “Looks like it was caused by teeth,” Valentine said.

  Jude glanced up. “They’re biting out pieces of flesh.”

  “You’re right.” The words came from Ingrid, who appeared behind them.

  Once they got past the shock of that realization, discussion moved to the murder weapon or weapons, and they all agreed that the neck wounds looked similar except for depth and length. They also noted that the lethal wounds had been created by more than one kind of blade this time, ranging from sharp to dull, serrated to smooth. No more trying to find sales of a specific type of knife.

  One looked to have been created by a left-handed person.

  “We’re going to pay close attention to stomach contents,” Ingrid told them. “We’re hoping that might give up some clues. What they ate, when; were they together at the time.”

  Killers could cover up a lot of things, but most of them didn’t think about food.

  “Once we’re done with all five autopsies,” Ingrid said, “we’ll bring in our forensic pathologist.”

  Valentine remained in the suite with Ingrid Stevenson while Jude and Uriah slipped into the prep room.

  “Do you think it’s the same person or persons?” Jude asked as she removed her mask and untied her gown.

  “Yes, even though the MO isn’t the same.”

  “The left-handed slice is telling.”

  “I agree. And the reason behind the ramped-up MO could be escalation and the fact that the perpetrators had the freedom to spend more time with the bodies inside a secluded and secret space.”

  “My thought too. Are the pieces of flesh trophies?” she asked. “Something they saved?”

  He tossed his gown in the biohazard bin. “This is a sick-as-hell idea, but what if someone is actually eating them?” He seemed horrified by his suggestion.

  She didn’t pause as she removed her slippers from her boots. “Some killers see the murder of their victims as something spiritual, as the ultimate bonding of two people. It makes sense that they might want to partake of the victim’s body.”

  “Let’s say the killings are all related, going back to the first single body. Something triggered this,” Uriah said. “Not just this killing, but all of them.”

  “Death of a family member?” Jude suggested. “It’s usually a mother or mother figure, but that’s not always the case.”

  “Then you have the numbers thing. College students are under a tremendous amount of stress. Not the ones attending college for the social life and parties, but the overachievers. The loners. I think there was some of that going on with my wife. I thought her return to school was something she was doing out of boredom. I didn’t realize how much her less-than-perfect scores were having an impact on her. And being a nontraditional student, she didn’t have friends at school. Or even here, since we’d recently moved to the Cities.”

  It was the most she’d ever heard him talk about his wife. “Many college students have mental breakdowns and don’t become killers,” Jude said. “Even professors.”

  “What’s your profile?”

  “I’ll put one together tonight.”

  “I’d like to hear it right now. Your undiluted, instinctual thoughts. How do you see this person?”

  “Okay . . .” She had no problem tossing out ideas. “I think our main killer is twenty-five to forty-five. White male. And he recently suffered a traumatic event and possible loss.”

  “Education?”

  She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. “I think he’s educated. College, maybe a degree. Maybe self-taught. And, unlike most serial killers, I think he’s social. He’d have to be, since we’ve pretty much established he’s not working alone. And he must be charismatic. He has to be able to sway people to his way of thinking.”

  “Like a cult leader.”

  “I think he’d have to have that kind of power, anyway. Somebody who’s possibly recruiting people for his benefit under the guise of something else.”

  “And if he’s recruiting . . . Who are the most likely people to fall for something like that?”

  “They come from all walks of life, so I’d hate to narrow our focus too much. They’re black, white, rich, poor. Think Jim Jones. His followers were of every age and every background imaginable.”

  “But they didn’t kill people. They were lost and searching for answers.”

  They left the prep room and headed down the hall.

  “Okay. Then Manson,” Jude said, pausing at the exit, unwilling to continue their conversation outside, in front of the waiting press. “I hate to bring him up, because he’s too easy. What happened with him was unique, and it was very attached to the sixties underground culture. But yeah. S
ome similarities, for sure.”

  “He appealed to young, impressionable females.”

  “Right. Part of Manson’s allure was that these young women—Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, Patricia Krenwinkel—found him attractive. They were in love with him, hard as that is to believe. I don’t know about Tex Watson. Maybe he was attracted to Manson too. Or maybe it was just a case of one psychopath following another.”

  “We’ve been working on the assumption of a leader and a follower or followers, but we could also be dealing with a pair of equals,” Uriah said. “In some crimes involving more than one perpetrator, it’s been determined that the murders would likely never have happened if the killers hadn’t had each other.”

  “Like the Railway Killers, John Duffy and David Mulcahy. Or David Alan Gore and Fred Waterfield.” Not to mention her own family.

  “The Killing Cousins.” Uriah pushed the door open, paused when he saw that some die-hard media people were still there, then took a deep breath and plunged forward.

  Questions about the bodies and autopsies were tossed at them. Jude recognized a guy who had a popular YouTube channel. Everybody wanted a sound bite. Normally friendly with the press, Uriah didn’t slow his pace as he headed for his car. “Downtown,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  CHAPTER 22

  The press conference took place in front of the Minneapolis Police Department. It was just past noon, and the weather was overcast and unusually humid. Jude and Uriah took their places behind an array of microphones. Nearby stood Chief Vivian Ortega, Detective Valentine, and Medical Examiner Ingrid Stevenson. Due to her aversion to being on camera, Jude hung back while Uriah, as head homicide detective, spoke for their department; Ingrid followed up with anything he’d left out.

  The PD had a good relationship with the press, no hostility, based on mutual respect, which was fortunate, because they needed the media. They got the expected questions: Who found the bodies? Was it drug related or an acquaintance murder? Then the more disturbing ones: Was this a spree killing? We’re hearing the crime scene was reminiscent of the Sharon Tate murders of 1969. What are your thoughts on that? Who were the targets? What about the theater killings? Any connection?