by Geri Foster
“Everything is pretty much like before,” Doc said methodically. “He took his time with her which indicates he was in a safe place. I didn’t find any fibers or prints.”
“Were all her clothes present?” Mia asked, gazing at the white sheet. “Nothing missing?
“I don’t think so. She had on a pink princess shirt, a purple jacket, jeans, thick socks, underpants, and a yellow sock hat.”
Lincoln gazed at Mia. “Doesn’t it seem strange that he’d dress her all the way to her coat? As if he didn’t want her to get cold.”
“Crazy, I know, but serial killers often do that.” Mia looked at the ME. “Is there any evidence he took a souvenir? Did she maybe wear a necklace or bracelet?”
“Not that I could tell. If she had, there was no sign he ripped it off her.”
“What?” Lincoln asked, looking closer. “Could you tell with the strangulation marks?”
Dr. Abbot planted her gloved fist on the edge of the gurney. “Yes, I can tell the difference. Besides, he uses a garrote. The markings are very distinct.”
“Is it the same as in the earlier cases?” Lincoln asked, positive it couldn’t be.
Mia stepped forward, her eyes inquisitive. “The same instrument?”
“I didn’t compare that. I will today. Often, it’s very difficult to distinguish a different garrote. They all leave very similar markings.”
“I know that’s a murder weapon, and if you’re saying it was used on all the other victims, how long can one of those last?” Mia asked. “I mean, if he’d been doing this for years, isn’t it time for a new one?”
“I don’t know,” Dr. Abbott said, shrugging her shoulders. “I guess that’s determined by how many times he used it.”
Lincoln leaned closer to the body to get a better look at the wound on the victim’s neck. “Dr. Abbott, can you go back and check all the photos and see if they match?”
The ME reared back and looked down her nose at them. “What difference does it make what garrote he used?”
Lincoln put his hands in his pocket and met her gaze boldly. “Maybe it doesn’t make any difference, but we want to know.”
The doctor relented. “Okay. I’ll have the results to you tomorrow.”
“Also, we’d like to know if he made it himself or bought it.”
“I doubt he could’ve bought it twenty years ago.” Dr. Abbott grumbled. “Who would sell those back then?”
“Maybe that’s something we need to find out,” Lincoln said, reminding the doctor whose investigation this was.
None too nicely, she pulled back the sheet and exposed the tiny body. Lincoln wanted to turn away, but he knew it was his job to stay and see it through. Hard as it was to look at a young life snuffed out, he had to grit his teeth and take it.
“Tell us all you found,” he said, swallowing the bile in the back of his throat. His heartburn flared up and he reached in his pocket for his roll of Tums. Peeling back the paper, he popped three in his mouth and scrunched up his face as he chewed. “Did she suffer?”
“They all suffered,” Dr. Abbott said, annoyed. “That’s what he wants.”
“I hate this man,” Mia said bitterly. “I hope I get the pleasure of killing him.”
“Well, everything is exactly like the other victim,” the doctor said. “At least as clear as I can tell from all the reports I’ve read. Remember, I was only ten when all this went down.”
“Okay. Send us a new report and note anything you find different.”
“This is the same guy’s work,” Abbott said. “It’s identical to the other young girls. Right down to the anal sex.”
“Whatever you find will help us narrow down the killer.”
He and Mia turned and walked out of the morgue. Lincoln looked for the nearest water fountain to wash the left-over heartburn medicine down. He saw one and headed directly for it. He pressed his fist to the middle of his chest and burped. Damn barbecue did it every time.
Besides having miserable indigestion, he hated the smell of the place, the stark white walls, and all those damn rollout drawers. God, it gave him the creeps and brought back too many bad memories.
“I take it the morgue isn’t your favorite place,” Mia asked with a teasing grin.
“No, and it never will be. My wife was laid out there.”
Mia lowered her head and sighed. “I’m sorry, Lincoln. I know how much you must’ve suffered.”
“No one knows. But thanks, anyway.”
“Are you okay? I saw you taking some heartburn tablets.”
“I live on those things and barbecue makes it worse,” he said, wishing he could belch again.
Mia looked at him like he was crazy. “Then why did you choose that place for lunch?”
He looked at her with disbelief. “Are you nuts? I love barbecue.”
“But if it—”
He slashed his hand to silence her. “I love it. Period.”
Her shoulders slumped and she asked, “Where to next?”
“It’s time we met with Austin. He’s going to want to know where we’re at with this murder. And let me warn you, he’s not the most patient man you’ll ever meet.”
They arrived back at the office to find Austin waiting for them with impatience written in the lines of his frown. He stood in front of his desk, arms folded, leaning back. His expression told Lincoln he’d better have something to say or the outcome wouldn’t be good. “Well, what’s the latest?”
“Nothing new on the horizon,” Lincoln said, shaking his head. “We talked to Lucas and learned Mia’s sister was also taken within a few blocks of her home. It had been reported she’d been picked up at the school.”
Austin let out an angry breath then walked around and slumped behind his desk. “Does that make a difference?”
“Well, it stays within the evidence that every young girl abducted was right in her neighborhood. Often within blocks of her own home.”
“And yet,” Austin hissed, “no one saw a damn thing.”
Lincoln pointed to Mia. “This is Mia Alverez. I’m not sure you’ve met.”
“Yes.” Austin nodded to Mia. “We ran into each other at Quantico a few times. I’m glad we have you working on this case. We’re going to need your expertise.”
“I’m glad I can help.”
“What’s our next move?” Austin asked, and Lincoln knew he damn sure wanted a concrete answer. “Any idea where to go from here?”
“We’d like to—"
Debbie, the secretary, stuck her head in the door. “There’s been another little girl’s body found. This time right on the city line of Rainwater.”
“Christ,” Lincoln spit out. Damn this all to hell. “That’s going to really piss off Lucas.” Lincoln turned to leave. “Let’s go. The sooner we get there, the better.”
“Find some damn witnesses this time,” Austin called out. “I’m sick of nobody seeing anything.”
“Will do,” Mia said, walking out the door. She hurried to catch up with Lincoln. “Another victim so soon?”
Son of a bitch. That bastard had some balls coming back and killing another little girl. Lincoln wanted to castrate him. Gritting his teeth, Lincoln ground out, “Maybe he’s making up for lost time.”
“You don’t honestly believe he’s been sitting idle all these years, do you?” Mia asked, her voice full of doubt.
Lincoln shoved open the door. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the situation and I haven’t seen a crime spree anywhere. Yes, little girls have been murdered, but nothing like before.”
They jumped into the car and he started the engine.
“I think he’s been traveling all this time,” Mia said as he turned on the sirens. “He hasn’t stopped for twenty years only to suddenly and without warning start all over again.”
“I’m praying this time there will be someone who saw something. Anything.” Lincoln was tired of coming up empty-handed. He needed to catch this guy before anyone else died. “Let’s question
everyone there.”
She glanced over at him. “Of course. That’s standard procedure.”
“No.” He slammed his fist against the steering wheel. “I mean every single breathing person. That bastard is around here somewhere. I want him taken into custody.”
When they arrived at the scene, the place was already gathering a lot of attention. Lucas was there, kneeling next to the body. David had taped off the area and secured the perimeter.
Lincoln squatted beside the police chief. “What do we have here?”
“Exactly what we had before,” Lucas said, his words wrapped in anger. “Nothing different, nothing changed, and no one saw a damn thing.”
Lincoln stood and surveyed the area. “Do we have a name?”
“She’s not from Rainwater. Her parents are being notified now. I’m hoping the ME gets here before they have to see their daughter lying on the cold hard ground.”
“Got a name?” Mia asked, turning her back to the blistering wind. “Does anyone know her?”
“Linda Miller.” Lucas stood and pointed to a middle-aged man wearing jeans and a thick jacket.
Mia walked over to him. “You know this little girl?”
“Yes. I also know her mom and dad.” He had his hands in his pockets and a freshly scrubbed look about him although the rough texture of his skin spoke of a life lived in the outdoors. “They used to work for my dad in the fields about ten years ago. Then the husband got a job working for a pest control company and they moved away. Saw them one day in Rainwater and they had her with them.”
“Did you see anything?”
Ralph Newsome, as he identified himself, said, “No. I wasn’t the one who found the body.” Newsome pointed to an elderly man in his sixties. “He did.”
Mia and Lincoln approached the man carefully. He was big. A good eighty pounds overweight with snow white hair. “What did you see?” Lincoln asked, eyeing the man carefully.
“I saw her body lying on the side of the road. I didn’t know what it was until I drove right up on it. Then I stopped, got out of my truck, and saw it was a little girl. I took out my cell phone and called Lucas.”
“You didn’t see another car?” Mia asked, searching the area. “Nobody else passed you by?”
“No.” The man shook his head, his eyes sad from the loss of a young girl. “I was all alone until David pulled up. Then the rest of these people came out.”
Mia took Lincoln by the cuff of his coat and pulled him aside. “Is this the work of the Wise County Child Killer?”
“I don’t know.” He turned away from the elderly man. “This little girl has just been dumped on the side of the road. No dressing, no concealing the body, and no posing. If our guy did this, he’s getting sloppy.”
“Or maybe he was surprised and had to dispose of the body quickly.”
Lincoln looked both ways. “But why? There isn’t much traffic on this road. He could’ve taken her out in that field over there and done what he wanted.” He pointed to a large, empty field that dipped slightly.
“We’ll have to wait and see what the ME says. This might not be him.”
Lincoln shook his head. “My gut tells me it is, and our killer has lost some of his finesse. He’s not as good or as sharp as he used to be. Maybe twenty years can be hard on a killer.”
“God, I hope you’re right.” She sighed and looked around. “We could sure use a break.”
The ME truck pulled up, but it wasn’t Dr. Abbott who stepped out. They were closer to Denton, so they’d take the body there. As much as Lincoln hated all this, at least the parents didn’t have to see their loved one discarded like a piece of trash.
Lucas stood and stepped back when the ME drew closer.
Lincoln moved next to the tech as they picked up the body. He glanced at the ME. “I’m not asking for an immediate answer to every question, but was she raped?”
The tech shoved the gurney inside the truck.
The doctor took off his latex gloves. “I gave the vaginal area a quick glance and saw no evidence of semen, but I can’t make a clear statement until I’ve examined the body completely. I’ll let you know as soon as possible. Contact the parents and tell them to meet me at the hospital.” The ME glanced between Mia and Lincoln and Lucas and David. “Who’s going with me to explain this to the next of kin?”
Mia stepped forward. “We’ll do it. Besides, we have a lot of questions.”
They waved to Lucas and David then got in their car and followed the medical examiner to Denton Harris Hospital. There, an autopsy would be done.
Mia got on her cell phone and called Dr. Abbott, asking her to fax over what information she had to Denton so they could look for those things on the new victim.
At the hospital, they got out and followed behind as the ME’s assistant pushed the gurney toward the basement.
Lincoln groaned when he saw a young woman and her husband holding onto each other as they stepped forward, their eyes red and rimmed with tears. Now the really hard part began.
* * *
Mia stayed behind to support the mother who’d collapsed on the floor the minute her daughter’s name had been said. She was hysterical and completely out of it with grief. She made no sense and her husband felt as helpless and in as much pain as her.
Finally, a doctor came and talked to the parents. Mia and Lincoln waited for them to catch their breaths so they could question them about what happened.
They grabbed a cup of coffee each, and while Mia tried to drink the bitter brew, she just couldn’t bring herself to swallow. “This is the worst coffee in the world. It’s horrible.”
Lincoln threw his away. “It’s like drinking mud.”
When the parents calmed down, they approached with as much professionalism as they could muster. “Mr. and Mrs. Miller, when did you notice your daughter missing?”
“We didn’t know she was missing,” Mrs. Miller said. “We thought she was in school.”
“So, she left at her regular time?” Lincoln asked softly.
Her father studied his hands. “She was a little late and wanted me to drive her, but I refused. She’d been getting up later and later and I thought I’d teach her a lesson instead of always getting her out of a jam.” He threw back his head, resting it on the wall behind him. “Oh, God. How I wish I’d taken her. Why didn’t I do that one simple thing for her?”
Mrs. Miller clutched her husband’s arm. “She must’ve been so frightened. I know she called out for us. Screamed for us to help her and we couldn’t.”
Wails filled the small waiting room.
“Did you notice anyone hanging around your neighborhood?”
“What do you mean?” Mr. Miller asked, sitting up straight. “We sent her to school. Our den is in the back of the house. We didn’t see anything.”
That was one thing Mia hated about Texas. In ninety percent of the houses built in the state, most of them had the living area in the back of the house. Few ever saw what went on in their own front yards.
Mia pressed, “You didn’t receive a call from the school saying she was absent today?”
“No,” Mrs. Miller replied quickly.
“Does the school usually call to notify you if Linda doesn’t show up?” Lincoln asked, eyeing the mother.
She blew her nose and wiped her eyes. “Anytime she’s had to stay home, we’ve called the school. There was never a need from them to call us.”
“Neither of you went to the front of the house?” Lincoln asked, trying hard not to imply they should have in order to see who murdered their daughter. “That means you don’t know where your child was abducted. It could’ve been a block from home or closer to the school?”
“That’s right. When she left the house, she told us goodbye and she’d see us later.” Mr. Miller lowered his head. “She wasn’t very happy with me. I was a bad father.” He cried.
“How old is Linda?” Mia asked.
“Seven. She turns eight next month.” Both parents
cried anew realizing their child wouldn’t be celebrating any future birthdays.
“And had she ever walked to school alone before?” Mia asked, handing Mrs. Miller a cup of water she’d got from one of the nurses.
Mr. Miller squeezed his wife’s shoulders. “Usually she goes with her best friend, Megan, from across the street. But, like we said, Linda was late getting up this morning and dragged her feet until it was too late to catch up with her friends.”
“And by that time, most of the neighborhood kids were already at school,” Mrs. Miller added.
“Yes. Linda would’ve been tardy today if she’d made it to school.”
Mrs. Miller looked up at her husband pleadingly. “We’re bad parents. We deserve this. God is punishing us.”
Lincoln squatted down in front of the woman. “Thinking like that doesn’t help anyone, ma’am. It’s a horrible loss and I feel for you and your husband, but bad things happen and there’s nothing we can do about that but try to catch who’s responsible.”
Mia knew he spoke from the heart. He’d witnessed the same pain they suffered. He understood the blame a person could feel, the self-loathing. It all came with the loss of a loved one.
Finished with the Millers, Mia and Lincoln went into the ME’s lab and saw the young girl on the gurney looking much like the girl in Ft. Worth. “Can you give us anything yet?” Mia pleaded. “Anything at all?”
“She was strangled, sodomized, raped, and tortured.”
“How?” Lincoln asked. “What did he do to her?”
“There are bruises on her arms, legs, and body, where he’d probably beaten her into submission. Palm prints were on both sides of her face. Her right arm is broken in two places and there are knife cuts on both legs.”
“How long do you think he actually had her?”
“Most of the day. She didn’t die quickly. He had his fun with her.”
Mia cleared her throat and feared she might vomit. “We’re thinking this is an older man. Maybe close to sixty or seventy. Would he be sexually capable of ejaculation twice in a day?”
“Some men can,” the doctor said, his brows raised. “Don’t fall for that old myth that old men can’t get it up. They can. Many live a pretty active sex life until they die at eighty or ninety.”