by Stacy Green
Blanchard unlocked the suite and Nikki tried not to recoil at the potent aroma of formaldehyde. Madison and Kaylee’s bodies lay on the steel gurneys, covered by a sheet. Their clothes had been carefully removed, the pictures taken, the autopsy performed.
Blanchard pulled Kaylee’s sheet down to her chest. Her blue, pasty skin had lost much of its elasticity. Large purple bruises covered her neck. “Kaylee died first.”
“Strangled?”
Blanchard nodded. “After what appears to be consensual sex. A condom was used, and there’s no tearing or damage; we sometimes see that with assault. She was alive when it happened. It also appears she remained on her back for a while, because lividity set in, as you can see. However, being frozen can mess that up, so it’s not an absolute. What is definite, however, is that Kaylee was coming out of rigor mortis when she was frozen.”
Nikki must have heard wrong. “Excuse me?”
“Both her knee and hips joints have clear postmortem tears,” Blanchard said. “The lower extremities stay in rigor the longest. Kaylee wasn’t completely out of rigor when she was forced into the fetal position.”
“Which means she’d been dead, what, eight to twelve hours?” Liam asked.
“On average, yes.”
“This sounds ignorant,” Nikki asked, “but there’s no way these tears could come from being partially frozen first and then secured into the fetal position?”
“It’s unlikely. A partially frozen limb would be harder to move than one coming out of rigor.”
The killer hadn’t known what to do with the bodies initially. They’d been hidden somewhere. “What about Madison?”
“The girls had pizza before departing the Bankses’ home, and that’s what I found in Kaylee’s stomach. Madison’s was empty. Her bowel, however, is full,” Blanchard said.
“So, six to eight hours to digest,” Liam said. “Usually a bowel movement within a day or two?”
“Usually, but it could be a bit longer.” Blanchard removed Madison’s sheet.
Nikki and Liam both gasped. Her frozen clothes had hidden the litany of bruises on her body. Her arms and feet had clear ligature marks.
“No sign of sexual assault, but her fingernails are broken, along with a couple of fingers.”
“She fought like hell.” Nikki jammed her hands at her waist. She’d learned a long time ago to never put herself in the victim’s shoes, but as a mother, seeing the horror Madison had endured made her want to leave the room.
“She has a couple of bruises here”—Blanchard pointed to Madison’s right arm—“that are lighter and have just enough yellow to make me think the healing process had started.”
“How did she die?” Nikki asked.
“That brings me to the worst part.”
“There’s something worse?” Liam asked.
“Lividity showed she died in the fetal position, tied up. She experienced both liver failure and kidney failure. Her heart was compromised as well.” Blanchard moved the sheet so they could see Madison’s hands.
“Frostbite,” Liam said.
“Jesus Christ. She froze to death?”
“She had internal bleeding. The back of her skull is broken from blunt force trauma. Her brain bled and swelled, which means she didn’t die immediately. She may not have been fully conscious, but the frostbite proves that she was alive when she was tied up and put into the freezer.”
“And Kaylee had been dead for several hours, if not longer.” Liam looked at Nikki.
“Blunt force trauma is evident in both Madison and Janelle, and both died in severe conditions,” Nikki said. “Was Madison left to freeze to death intentionally, like Janelle?”
“It’s very possible, but the killer may have assumed she would die much faster than she did. I swabbed underneath all three victims’ fingernails,” Blanchard said. “But we’re days away from any results. Courtney picked up both girls’ clothing yesterday. Madison wore a belt and a watch. We’re looking for fingerprints.”
Nikki was already texting Courtney for an update.
Blanchard carefully turned Madison’s arm so that her palm lay face up. “See the lower part of her forearm?”
Nikki’s breath caught in her throat. The marks had likely been relatively fresh before Madison became incapacitated in the freezer. “Are those… letters?”
“I think the first one looks like an ‘P.’” Dr. Blanchard squinted at the scratches. “Or possibly an unfinished ‘R.’ I can’t tell if the second is supposed to be a letter or a number.”
“It looks like a vertical line,” Nikki said. “Maybe an ‘I.’ Probably not ‘S’ or ‘G’. Or ‘C’.”
“‘J,’ ‘O,’ ‘Q,’ are out. ‘X,’ ‘Y,’ and ‘Z’ too. But that still leaves plenty of possible letters.” Liam shook his head. “That’s a lot of variables.”
“She had fake nails,” Nikki commented. “Those are too dull to make scratches like this.”
“Shellac,” Blanchard said. “Once the base loosens, they’re relatively easy to pull off. Her right index fingernail is missing the shellac and the nail is jagged and clogged with Madison’s own blood. These scratches happened shortly before she died. They’re not particularly deep, but they had no chance to heal. The cold actually preserved them.”
Madison had carved into her own flesh so her killer could be found.
Twenty-Nine
Adrenaline pumped through Nikki. “Kaylee was probably killed within a couple of hours after their disappearance, but he took his time with Madison. He wanted her to suffer while Kaylee’s death looks relatively painless.”
“Kaylee had sex with him and then he kills her,” Liam said. “Madison could have been collateral damage.”
“Maybe,” Nikki said. “But Miles Hanson said Kaylee was a virgin. Assuming he’s right, Madison and Kaylee might have just gone to hang out and then Kaylee decides to have sex with the killer.”
“Did the killer plan to murder Kaylee all along? Why not just strangle Madison too? Why make her death so much more brutal?”
“Strangulation is extremely intimate and almost always driven by a volatile temper that snaps,” Nikki said.
“Bobby was Kaylee’s crush,” Liam said. “Is there any chance he’s lying?”
“They disappeared on Saturday. Bobby doesn’t have a car, so he would have needed Mindy to pick him up. Miller questioned everyone close to the family and checked all their alibis. Mindy was at work all day Saturday, and both she and Bobby told me that Mindy picked him up early Sunday morning so he could come home and search. That also matches what they originally told Miller in October.”
“I’ve re-interviewed all their friends now,” Liam said. “There are no other male friends with cars, and I still haven’t been able to find the cell phone data to narrow down a pick-up location.”
“Are you still going to talk to John’s favorite girls at the strip club? We need to find out anything he might have told them that he didn’t tell us. Can we see if they recognize anyone else from our list of suspects?”
Liam nodded. “They’re both working this morning, so I’m headed to The Doll House from here. What about that other friend of Madison’s? Have you talked to her again?”
“She only works two afternoons a week. Fortunately, today is one of those days. I think she’s hiding something,” Nikki said. “After you’re done at the club, go back through all the interviews and look for any combination of first and last names starting with ‘P’ and ‘I.’ Local businesses and residents, too, although there may be too many. Talk to the geeks in the computer department. They might have a program to help narrow down results.”
“What about the fake nail?” Liam asked.
“Madison’s shellac was French tip. If she peeled it off in the freezer, her killer may not have noticed it when he moved the bodies. No one outside of the investigation needs to know about it right now, or about the initials on her arm. On the off chance the nail is still in the freezer, we don’t want to give the killer a chan
ce to get rid of it.”
Thirty
Nikki was surprised to see the library so busy. With most young people engrossed in their phones and social media lives, she’d expected a quiet afternoon. The computer lab was nearly full, a handful of people were in the process of checking out books, and a group of teens hung out in the activity area playing cards.
She found Brianna organizing shelves in the mystery section, wireless headphones cutting her off from the world.
Brianna removed her headphones, looking warily at Nikki. “What are you doing here?”
“Would you believe I was just browsing for a book?”
Brianna shook her head.
“I didn’t think so.” Nikki smiled, trying to set the girl at ease. But she stood at attention, ready to bolt.
“Are you allowed to question me without my parents or an adult?”
“Not as a suspect, no,” Nikki said. “But I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Madison.”
“I already talked to you. My mom told the police to leave me alone.”
“But you didn’t tell me everything.”
“Yes, I did.” Brianna turned back to the bookshelves.
“Do you know what kinesics are?”
“No.” Brianna crammed a book into the already tight row.
“It’s a broad term for nonverbal communication. Body language. Like you just shook your head when you said ‘yes, I did,’ instead of nodding. And young people—especially those who aren’t normally deceitful—get really jittery. Kind of like the way you’re rocking back and forth on your heels.”
Brianna stilled. “I don’t know anything else that will help you.”
“Maybe you don’t,” Nikki said. “But you’d be surprised at how many times supposedly inconsequential details blow a case wide open. Don’t you want to find out who killed your friends?”
Brianna’s lips trembled. “Of course.”
“Listen, I know how tough high school can be. Saying the wrong thing can get you kicked out of your social circle, and then suddenly you’re a pariah. But that’s only temporary, Brianna. Not doing the right thing leaves you with a lifetime of regret. Don’t abandon Maddie now.”
Brianna’s eyes filled with tears. “Her parents were fighting a lot.”
“Did Madison say why?”
“Her mom hated Kaylee. Mrs. Banks said something about Kaylee doing sneaky things no one knew about. She needed to be put in her place.”
Nikki already knew this from speaking to Amy. “Did you talk to Kaylee about this?”
Brianna nodded, chewing the inside of her cheek.
Nikki stepped forward and touched her shoulder, gently turning Brianna to face her. “Why did Amy feel that way?”
“When Kaylee first started hanging out with Madison, she told her about some night last summer when she’d gone to Hudson with some older friends and used a fake ID to get into a bar. Some drunk older guy kept hitting on her, grinding up on her. He asked if she would let him take some pictures of her, in private. She told him to fuck off.”
Nikki’s stomach soured. She didn’t like where this was headed.
“Then one night, a few days before they disappeared, Madison overheard her parents fighting. Her mother, mostly. Her little brother came into Madison’s room crying and saying it was his fault,” Brianna said. “He’d been snooping through Mr. Banks’ office and found a box of pictures. Mr. Banks was in most of them, and there were different women, and they were naked. Some weren’t even awake. Mrs. Banks got really upset, so Bailey felt like it was his fault. Madison told him it wasn’t, and that whatever happened was between their mom and dad. Madison intended to confront her parents about it. She was certain Mr. Banks was the one who approached Kaylee. She was going to ask her about it.”
“Did she talk to any of them?”
“I don’t know. They disappeared the next weekend. I think her mom made her promise she’d let her handle things.” Brianna crossed her arms over her chest, her fingers leaving pressure marks on her skin.
“Did Madison see the pictures?”
“I don’t think so,” Brianna said. “But Maddie knew they must have been as bad as Bailey said because her mom was a wreck.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“Parents fight, don’t they? Madison loved her stepdad, and they were close. Just because he cheated on Maddie’s mom doesn’t mean he’d hurt Maddie, right?” Brianna hugged her chest, her gaze pleading with Nikki to agree.
“I can’t answer that right now, but I promise to keep digging until we know what happened to them.” Nikki thanked Brianna for her honesty and walked outside in a daze.
Nikki could see that at least six more protestors had joined the group outside the government center when she arrived. Doug folded his arms over his chest and stared at Nikki. She ignored him and scanned the group.
Bobby stood on the other side of the entrance with a couple of protestors Nikki recognized from the first day she’d arrived. Nikki pointed to the parking lot, signaling him to follow her, and then pulled into the nearest parking spot.
She heard the shouts as soon as she stepped out of the jeep. The entrance didn’t have any sort of barricade, and the rest of the protestors seemed to be warning Bobby that he was crossing a line. At least the group respected the law enough to protest outside of the parking lot.
Bobby stopped a few feet away from her. “Just so you know, they’re all recording this on their phones. It’s like I’m crossing a picket line or something. They’re going to pounce when I come back.”
“I can take care of that.”
Most of the protestors quieted down as she approached, and Doug’s crude voice was quickly hushed by a young woman half his size. She stepped forward, her cell phone pointed at Nikki.
“Agent Hunt. Are you going to talk to us about Mark Todd?”
“I legally can’t talk to you about him,” Nikki replied. “Mark Todd is appealing his conviction, and I’m not only a witness, I’m an FBI agent. Believe it or not, my speaking to you could have a negative effect on his case. I’m sure Ms. Newport would tell you the same thing.”
“Then what are you doing?” Doug replied, coming forward.
“I’m working an active murder investigation. One of the victims was a family friend of Bobby’s, and I have a couple of things to verify with him. That’s the only reason he’s speaking with me, so please don’t ambush him when he returns.”
She walked back to Bobby.
“I need you to be completely honest with me. I don’t think you would hurt Madison, but I need to know if you’re aware of anyone else Kaylee or Madison was spending time with before they died.”
Bobby looked stunned. “I already told you I don’t know anything else. They spent so much time together: gossiping, chatting, running about just the two of them. It’s why Madison and I weren’t as close anymore. They were best friends. And I hadn’t seen either of them since I took them to Hudson.”
“All right,” Nikki said.
“Did she suffer?” Bobby’s voice cracked. “Could the medical examiner tell if it was quick?”
“You don’t want to hear the answer to that,” Nikki replied. “Are you staying in Stillwater until the funeral’s over?”
“Um, I think so. My professors have been good about me doing online work.”
“I’m glad,” Nikki said. “And I have a favor to ask.”
His eyes lit up. “Of me? Sure.”
“You’ll go back to school after the funeral and not get hung up here with the protestors. If you’re passionate about Mark’s innocence, there are things you can do from campus. Don’t let all of this interrupt your life.”
Bobby looked down at his scruffy shoes. “My life’s already been interrupted plenty, Agent Hunt.”
“I know it has. Losing a parent is awful, especially when you’re young.” She almost laughed at the irony of her saying those words to someone who believed her own parents’ killer
might be innocent. She didn’t know how Bobby’s father had died, but she knew what it was like to lose someone. “If I’d stayed in Stillwater after I graduated, I don’t know what would have happened to me. It’s great to come back and see friends and family, but it’s okay to live your own life and heal. I’m sure that’s what your father would have wanted.” She turned and started walking toward the main building’s front entrance before her emotions spilled into unprofessional territory. “Good luck, Bobby.”
Nikki ducked her head against the wind and wished she’d parked closer to the front entrance. She’d just made it into the warm lobby when her cell vibrated in her pocket.
Adrenaline rushed through Nikki at seeing Courtney’s name on the screen.
“Please tell me you have the results of the DNA and fingerprint testing.”
“Well, hello to you, too.”
“Sorry.” Nikki shouldered her phone and rubbed her hands together. She kept forgetting her gloves, and her hands were constantly freezing.
“We found prints on Madison’s belt and they match those found on Janelle,” Courtney said. “The weird thing is that they don’t match any of the prints lifted from Janelle’s motel room.”
“What about her ex? His prints are in the system.”
“Negative for both. If you can get a warrant for John’s prints, I can analyze them.”
Nikki worried it was too soon to take John’s fingerprints. She wanted to have a solid case first so that he didn’t have the opportunity to run. “Thanks, Court. I’ll let Liam and Miller know. They’re headed home for the day, but I’ll be available if you find anything else.”
Nikki went straight to the administration desk. She showed the attendant her badge. There was something else she needed to do.
Thirty-One
Nikki set the case file aside and dug into the Chinese food she’d picked up on the way to her hotel. She moaned in appreciation as she bit into the sesame chicken. Tao’s had always been her favorite Chinese restaurant in Stillwater, and the food was just as amazing as she’d remembered.