by Jo Robertson
She flinched anyway.
“Are you telling me,” he ground out, “there’re four crimes that have enough similarities for you to think they’re connected to a single killer?”
“Yes,” she muttered. Five, she thought. The fifth one in Preston, Idaho, that she could never forget.
“Look, Slater, I’m sorry.”
“Damn it, Kate. Four?”
“I should’ve told you right away.”
“Damn straight you should’ve told me. Your half-assed lies and secrets could’ve hurt the investigation.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Yeah, well sometimes sorry isn’t good enough.” Slater gave her a hard look before he stomped out of the office.
Kate stared at his back as he grabbed his jacket and headed out of the building. Great, now he’d never trust her. And she didn’t blame him at all.
#
Apparently deep in thought, Myers didn’t hear Slater until he gently closed her office door behind him. Her face flushed when she came out of her reverie to see him standing there and her mouth made a perfect round oh, but no sound emerged.
“Close your mouth, Doc. You’ll catch flies.”
She promptly clamped her jaws together. “Are you through being mad?”
He glanced over his shoulder to the near-empty squad room, noted the watery Pepsi on her desk near the stacks of files and papers. “I’m still pissed as all hell.” He shook his head in exasperation. “What were you thinking, Myers?” He held his hands up to ward off an answer. “No, never mind. You weren’t thinking. That’s obvious. Explain everything to me.” He jabbed his fore-finger at her. “And no equivocation this time.”
“I promise,” she said in humble meekness.
Slater rolled his eyes and moved the chair around her desk, scooting up to her right side. “Okay, let’s put this behind us for now. Bring me up to snuff. No time to lose.” He watched relief flit across her face as she expelled a breath.
“I began the investigation seven years ago,” she began. “No help from local authorities because they didn’t see any similarities. Now that two murders were committed here, I think we’ll find the connection.”
An hour later Slater understood the enormity of the situation. If Myers was right, if the same person killed Jennifer and Mary as well as the Virginia and North Carolina girls, damn it, they had a serial killer on their hands.
“Okay, what’s the link?” Slater asked. “What’s the common factor that ties the murders together?”
“I’ve been wracking my brain all morning.”
A sudden thought jiggled the back of Slater’s mind. “Maybe the key’s not with the victims, but in the locations where the murders occurred.”
Kate was already turning toward her computer. “Where should I start?”
“Google all three towns, and let’s find out what they have in common.”
Kate entered Hopewell, Virginia, first, and then Fayetteville, North Carolina. Peering over her shoulder, Slater scanned the information that popped up. Geographical location, police department, services available, population, main source of income, economy, educational facilities.
“Click on census records,” Slater suggested.
Kate brought up the census records for each town.
“See if the data goes back far enough.”
She complied and the information flashed on the screen.
“That’s it, right in front of us,” Slater said.
“What? I don’t see it.”
But Slater did. Right there, so obvious. Both towns boasted populations of less than 35,000. “Double-check Bigler County website and bring up Placer Hills and surrounding towns.”
She complied. Nearly 29,000 residents in Placer Hills, which Slater already knew. New Haven to the northeast, less than 2,000. Rosedale and Citrus Hills, the same.
“They’re all small towns,” she exclaimed, understanding finally showing on her face. “This is it, Slater. DNA fingerprinting was a new science in the nineties. Even if they got trace evidence, these findings wouldn’t have made it into the national database until – maybe never.”
“And that’s very likely since small-town law enforcement usually doesn’t have the resources to communicate with other jurisdictions,” Slater said. “Or the inclination.”
In fact, evidence could’ve been collected at these crime scenes and been sitting in their evidence rooms and archives waiting for matches in VICAP or CODIS, he thought. They wouldn’t make that a priority over current cases.
“Shit, they’re all towns with relatively small populations.” He shook his head. “Still – ” He warned himself not to get ahead of the evidence, but he spoke aloud the same thoughts that had to be going through Myers’ mind. “Stuckey died in 1989, the Virginia girl some years later, and the North Carolina woman two years after that.”
“I don’t see a developing pattern.”
“No, but he’s stayed under the radar all this time.” Slater shook his head in amazement.
“He’s clearly a highly organized killer,” Kate added, turning her excited face toward him. “Though he probably didn’t start out that way. There are probably other killings in between these that’ll show a pattern.”
“The murders move geographically from west to east and back again,” Slater noticed. “That’s not normal, is it, three thousand miles apart?”
“It supports my theory that he’s nomadic. He alters his behavior just a little to fool the authorities.”
“Is he that smart?”
“Or just dumb luck,” Myers muttered.
“He uses the system to cover his tracks,” Slater continued. “He knows if he sticks to small towns, investigators won’t likely connect the murders across the country. The killings will stir up the community for a while, but without leads, the fervor will die down, and the case will end up in the cold files.”
Kate smiled without humor. “Doesn’t law enforcement have a name for the inability of small forces to link crimes committed somewhere else to the ones in their own counties?”
“Yeah,” Slater said grimly. “It’s called linkage blindness, and we’re probably the only ones who’ve made these connections.”
“There’ll be other unsolved cases with similar profiles,” Kate declared. “The killer might alter his modus operandi, but he won’t be able to stop what compelled him to commit the crime in the first place. We have to continue looking for the links that tie this guy to the other deaths.”
Slater wanted to smash something. Christ, how many girls were there? “The bastard’s just gotten better and better at killing.”
“And thumbing his nose at us.”
Chapter Sixteen
The palest bluebells laced the neck and hem of the yellow dress. A pair of black patent leather shoes lay next to it, one turned on its side, the strap torn from the buckle. Shadowy fingers reached across the warped floorboards. It was dark and she was alone. She wanted to go home. She began sobbing softly.
Kate awoke with a start. Her body jerked upright and her heart thundered in her chest. She ran shaky fingers over her mouth, pushed the tangled mess of hair off her cheeks. As a sudden burst of bile erupted, she rushed to the bathroom.
Rinsing her mouth and splashing tap water over her face, she stared at her reflection in the sturdy, white-framed mirror set over the sink basin. The face that looked back at her showed dark smudges etched beneath wide eyes and a tremulous mouth. She traced the delicate veins at her temple, pulsating blue rivers.
The seventeen-year-old girl that had been Katherine Myers was somewhere inside her, she thought. She touched shaky fingers to the mirror. Where was that young woman now?
Images of that period in her life burned into her brain as if it’d been yesterday. The pictures in her head were so fierce, so vivid, they were no longer imagination, but reality. Her reality. As if she’d been there, felt the sharp edge of the knife against vulnerable flesh, smelled the loss of bodily functions.
She’d seen herself bleed and die, her cold form stiffening and then becoming flexible again. As she lay in that dark, abandoned cabin, she’d heard the scurry of insects and the pawing of small animals. Waited for them to feast on her flesh.
She splashed more water on her face. Her teeth chattered so hard she clamped down to control the clacking. A few nights in her short-term leased duplex, and she was reverting to the nightmares that’d plagued her since her teens.
The dreams meant she was getting close.
She stared fixedly at her own image, seeing a girl as vulnerable and wounded as Jennifer Johnston. Her scars were wrapped in confidence, but festered beneath the cool façade she always wore. She knew she’d never be healed until she caught the monster.
#
This chilly weekend morning Kenny Brown hip-hopped his way through the park to Durham High School in Rockville, one of the county towns south of Placer Hills. He was late for his detention in Saturday School, which was ironically his punishment for ditching so many first-period math classes.
A sliver of bright green cloth peeked through a thicket of ivy and honeysuckle, attracting his attention. Kenny slowed down. He hadn’t worried about being late all year and didn’t see any sense in starting now.
Because green and white were Durham’s school colors, he stopped the music on his I-Pod to inspect the area where a mixed terrier rooted. Maybe there was a back-pack he could ransack. Taking a quick look around, he edged deeper into the thicket, lifted a low-lying branch, and nudged a decaying log.
What he saw behind the log scared the shit out of him, and despite the fact that he was a tough guy of fourteen, tears and snot rolled down his face and saturated his new 49ers jacket. Five days after the discovery of Jennifer Johnston’s body at Beale’s Lake, Kenny Brown had the dubious distinction of stumbling on Bigler County’s second murder victim.
Local and state media immediately jumped on the sensational story and, because of the bloody nature of the crimes, would affix the unimaginative title of The Bigler County Butcher to the unknown killer. Or more often, simply The Butcher.
#
An alarm clanged from somewhere deep in Ben Slater’s sleep-numbed brain, strident as hell and twice as effective. He grappled for the blasted shut-off button, finally gave up, and shoved the clock off the nightstand. It landed with a resounding thwack, but continued ringing. His pillow landed on top of it, followed by the thud of his bare feet on the pillow. The muffled sound barely penetrated. Grinning, he scooped up the pillow, turned off the alarm, and headed for the tiny bathroom in his one-bedroom apartment overlooking the park. The apartment was so small he joked that he could scramble an egg and whizz at the same time, but it suited him just fine.
He liked it here in Placer Hills, liked the serenity of the mountains and lakes, his cabin at Lake Tahoe. The folks were good people, had taken him in at a hard time in his life and accepted him as one of their own. Years ago he’d abandoned the posh apartment and affluent lifestyle that went along with his fancy position as a junior law partner in San Francisco. He’d never looked back. If he wasn’t exactly content, well, he’d found a measure of peace.
Then Kate Myers had walked into his life a week ago and reminded him that he was alone. No wife, no girlfriend. Hell, no dog. She was one of the most irksome women he’d ever met and had the gift of getting into a person’s head and wreaking havoc. Not so good at getting into her own head, though. One minute she seemed vulnerable, the next cold and distant. She could be disarmingly open and frank, but withdraw into herself so deep that he couldn’t tell which Kate was the real woman. He sensed she had layers of secrets hidden beneath a beautiful exterior.
Sanderson was right about her. She was way too pristine for their little town, dressed in her white suit and sling-back pumps, golden hair artfully arranged in an elegant, wind-blown look. He knew what it cost in time and money to keep a woman like Kate Myers looking like Christmas morning.
He’d had plenty of experience with his ex-wife.
He pulled a face at the direction of his thoughts. Forget about it. He couldn’t figure Kate Myers out, but so what? He would use her expertise, but he’d be a fool to let physical attraction get in the way of a major case.
Swishing mouthwash around his teeth, donning a tattered tee-shirt and sweat bottoms, and clipping his cell phone onto his waistband, he locked his apartment and jogged out into the pale morning sunlight. He set off at a respectable pace. The bare branches swayed lazily against a clear, crisp sky. He followed a path that wound into the heart of Ralston Park until he reached the hill that swooped down to the edges of the creek. He felt the surge of adrenalin.
Just as his thoughts ran to the Johnston case, his cell phone vibrated at his waist, and he stopped to answer, panting slightly. “Slater.”
“Slater.” He could hear the uncontrolled tremor in his partner’s voice. “There’s another one.”
Shit. “Where?”
“Sunset Park.”
“I’m on my way.” Slater snapped the cell phone shut.
Shit, shit. Myers was right.
#
Kate was locked in her office cubicle when Slater rapped on the door and poked his head in. She knew immediately from the grim look on his face that he had bad news. “What?”
“Another body.”
She rose, pressed the backs of her knees against the chair to anchor herself. “Who?”
“Don’t know yet. No one’s reported a missing girl.”
“Ten days since the Johnston girl was kidnapped,” she murmured. “That’s too close.”
“What does it mean?”
“He’s disintegrating fast, losing control.”
“That’s a good thing, right? He’ll make mistakes.”
“Maybe. Or it could mean he’ll just go crazy out of control and start slaughtering teenage girls.” She rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “Where did they find the body?”
“Sunset Park on the west side. Some kid on the way to school noticed the green shirt she was wearing.”
She felt cold and sweaty at the same time, swayed and reached behind her to grab the back of her chair. The rollers on the legs slid and she lost her balance. Slater reached across the desk to steady her, gripping her forearm as he forced her to sit down.
She batted at his hands. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”
“Yeah, sure you are.”
He wet a handkerchief dipped in the water pitcher from the squad room and laid it against the back of her neck. Turning the chair sideways and crouching in front of her, he held both her hands in his. Against the dryness of his large hands, hers felt sticky.
He pushed damp strands of hair back from her forehead and examined her face. “What was that about?”
She knew this was the time to tell Slater about Kassie, but the words stuck in her throat. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I missed breakfast this morning. Low blood sugar.”
His glare told her the lie was too glib, but she didn’t care. If she chose to fib about her reaction to a murder, that was her business.
“They’re holding the body at the crime scene.” He stood and turned toward the door. “Bauer and I can take care of it.”
“No, just give me a minute.”
In the restroom Kate splashed her face with cold water, reapplied her lipstick, and brushed out her hair. She still felt shaky, but her heart had stopped racing.
Fifteen minutes later they arrived on the west side of Sunset Park, past the amphitheatre and deep into the heart of the wooded area where officers were securing the crime scene. The press waited at a distance for an official statement. Kate had an eerie sense of déjà vu as she stared at the crowd.
The girl’s body was partially hidden behind a log from which small bugs scurried. The medical examiner looked up at their approach.
“Any idea how long she’s been here?” Slater asked as he knelt over the girl’s body. Like the Johnston girl, her clothing lay on her naked form an
d her panties were missing. Blood seeped through the green shirt.
“I won’t know definitely until I get her back to the morgue, but my guess is ten, twelve hours at the outside. Rigor has fully set in, but not abated yet, and there’s no significant decomposition. The killer wanted us to think she died of strangulation, but see these marks? And the cut throat?”
Wilson pointed with a gloved finger to the depression marks beneath the severed tissue. “Had these marks been made before death, they would be more prominent, more bluish-black because the heart was still beating. There would be more blood from the neck wound. She has the same kind of trauma to the torso and extremities as the Johnston girl, but she didn’t die from either strangulation or the cut throat.”
“The prick tried to cover up the similarities to the first case,” Slater muttered.
Wilson turned the girl’s face toward them and pointed to her neck and shoulder. “Ah, what have we here?”
“Jesus, what are those?” Slater asked.
“Bite marks,” Kate replied, touching the side of her neck, almost feeling the feral rip of teeth into flesh. “He bit her.”
“Not only that,” the M.E. continued, “but he tore off pieces of her flesh. He literally chewed her skin. See these teeth marks?”
“Can we get trace?” Slater asked.
“I’m afraid there’ll be no DNA,” Wilson continued. “Notice the smell?”
“What smell?” Slater asked.
Kate knelt beside the body and placed her face to one of the bite wounds, inhaling deeply. “Bleach. He doused the wounds with chlorine.”
“Yes. A crafty fellow, our killer,” Wilson confirmed, clucking his tongue.
“It’s the same guy, isn’t it?” Slater asked.
Wilson nodded. “He tried to cover the real cause of death by strangling her postmortem, then slitting her throat. My guess is she died from one of the stab wounds. From the little I can see there is similar evidence of battering and genital mutilation, postmortem. I’ll know more during autopsy.”
“Did you check for a mark inside the thigh?” Slater asked.