The first room beyond the main doors was a prep room for staff and professional visitors. Lionel and Shawn both donned surgical gowns, latex gloves, face masks, and hair nets. Lionel always felt like a buffoon in full garb, but he had watched enough autopsies to understand the need for Perry’s autopsy suite requirements.
After they were dressed, Perry offered them both a jar of mentholatum ointment. Lionel took the ointment, slathered it under each nostril, and placed his face mask over his nose and mouth. Once Shawn did the same, they followed Perry through the door with a sign requiring appropriate attire at all times.
Death floated in the clouds over the autopsy suite, observing the mass of stainless steel, bright lights, and medical supplies below. The large room contained three autopsy tables, each one on a slight slope with a drain at the bottom of the table. A nozzle that looked like a showerhead dangled over the tables. Next to each table was a scale to weigh organs. Coiled plastic tubes to drain the body of fluid sparked a bit of anxiety in Lionel’s chest. What happened to the body during an autopsy gave him more nightmares than the crime scenes he visited.
A stainless steel tray with autopsy tools appearing more medieval than those in a dentist’s office sat alongside each table. Though Lionel knew everything had a purpose, he avoided looking at the instruments that were used on the body after death. It was too much of a reminder that some bodies needed to be violated in a gruesome manner in order to determine the way they died. Their victim was thankfully covered up to her neck with a white sheet. More than anything else in the autopsy suite, Lionel disliked seeing the Y incision, even if stitched closed.
After slipping on a pair of latex gloves, Perry walked around her body and lifted up the sheet to pull out one of her hands. He brought down an overhead light closer to her hand, illuminating her index finger and pinky, the only digits the killer didn’t cut off. “Look here and tell me what you see.”
Lionel leaned over to take a closer look at her hand. “This yellowing around her fingernails, is that what I think it is?”
Perry flashed a rare smile. “Your victim was a smoker. From the look of her lungs, a pretty heavy one.”
Lionel straightened with Perry’s words. He turned to Shawn, whose face showed he was digesting the new information with the same excitement as Lionel.
“That’s why I wanted to show you. I know you’ve been looking for this and you needed to see it for yourselves.”
“It’s definitely something we’ve been looking for,” Shawn said.
“So why now?” Lionel asked. “Why break the one pattern in the victimology we had and kill this girl?”
“She’s special,” Shawn said. “Something is different about her and that’s why he chose her. He was willing to go outside his set victimology pattern because there’s another pattern, one we don’t know about. That’s why he went to such great lengths to mutilate her face.”
“I’m sure these are all interesting thoughts, but that’s your world, not mine,” Perry said, his words a polite dismissal.
“We won’t keep you,” Lionel said. “Thank you for showing this to us. When your report is ready, you’ll send it over right away?”
“Of course,” Perry said.
“Thanks,” Lionel said. “I’ve got to get everything we have over to the FBI for their review.”
His statement caught Perry’s attention. “When are they coming?”
“Monday,” Shawn said. “And we’re to the point that we’re welcoming the help.”
“Just so they don’t tear apart my work,” Perry said. “Then I’m fine.”
“Understood,” Lionel said. “Again, Perry, thank you. This information is invaluable.”
Perry escorted them out of the autopsy suite. After they removed their gowns and other protective wear, they entered the main hallway.
Lionel turned to Shawn. “As soon as we get an ID on this victim, I want to know everything about her we can find. From the time she was born until the time she ended up dead in that alley, I want every detail.”
Shawn paused in taking notes. “She’s the only one who is different, so there must be a reason for that.”
“Let’s rush the prints through and then get everyone we have on this. I don’t care what lead they’re following, just have them focus on her. Let’s look at any connections she may have to other victims, anything odd in her background that can help us. Look at family and friends as possible suspects.”
Shawn continued scribbling in his notepad. “Do you think she knew her killer?”
Lionel hesitated. It was such a slim chance that she knew her killer, and he second-guessed his hunch. This victim being a smoker may not mean anything. What they previously perceived as a pattern could simply be coincidence. The health-nut community was growing at a rapid pace, and it was possible that six women who ended up murdered by the same man didn’t smoke, drink, or do drugs.
“Leo?”
But the same instinct that overcame him at the crime scene bothered him again. Since the moment he saw her body, he couldn’t shake the thought that something was off about the murder of this victim. He wasn’t sure why, but one thing kept going through his mind over and over.
Lionel looked up at Shawn. “I don’t know if she knew her killer, but he definitely knew her. There was too much anger expelled in the killing for him not to have known her.”
Shawn watched Lionel for a moment, as if contemplating his words. His cell phone rang and he dug it out of his pocket. “Sergeant Brandt,” he said into the phone. After a brief conversation he ended the call.
“We have a missing persons report for a girl who disappeared late last night,” Shawn said. “Normally they wouldn’t have taken the report since it hasn’t been long enough, but because the girl is in the age group as the other victims they put out an APB on her car. It was just located outside of the city, and it’s very strange.”
“Strange how?”
“Looks like she hit some road kill and may have gotten a ride somewhere, but her purse and cell phone are still in her car. Her roommate says that there’s a dead zone in that area, and sure enough, the cell phone in the car has no service.”
Lionel’s instincts jumped. “Get a crime scene unit out there now. If our guy is the one who took her, we don’t have much longer to find her.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Lionel examined the windshield of Stephanie Price’s car. Cracks spread out from the point of impact, and blood and matter adhered to the glass. “This is definitely from something hitting the windshield from the outside,” Lionel said to no one in particular. He followed the blood down the hood to the fender, where the road kill first hit the car.
Shawn turned to Bill Evans, the supervisor of the crime scene unit that had investigated the crime scenes for each of the murders. “What hit her car?” he asked.
“Opossum,” Bill said. He scratched his balding head with the end of his pen. “It’s over in the ditch on the other side of the road. According to the blood trail, it hit near the top of the fender at just the right angle and speed that it bounced up and crashed into the windshield, flew off the car, and bounced into the opposite lane. Then it looks like someone kicked it or slid it off the road. Are you sure this is our guy? There could be a dozen different scenarios for whatever happened.”
“Better to investigate and be wrong than to have the opposite outcome,” Shawn said.
Lionel stepped back and watched one of the crime scene investigators fingerprint the handle on the driver’s side door. With such a meticulous killer, the chances of finding prints other than Stephanie’s were slim, but they had to try.
He wandered toward the ditch on the opposite side of the road. Harry Parker, a crime scene unit photographer, snapped photos of the mutilated opossum carcass. When Lionel peered into the ditch, the smell of decay overcame him. He covered his mouth and nose with his hand.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Harry asked. “Hard to believe this thing has only been dead h
alf a day.” He knelt down and snapped a few more photos, before giving into the smell and stepping back. With a hand over his nose, he added, “Smells a lot deader than that.”
Staring at the corpse of the opossum, Lionel said, “Harry, you may be onto something.” He twisted and called out to Shawn to come over.
Shawn shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket as he walked up to Lionel. “What’d you find?”
“Let’s get animal control out here to take care of this guy,” Lionel said. “He smells way too dead and I have some questions for them. Make sure they send a couple of their most seasoned people and a supervisor, preferably someone high up. I want people who know what they’re talking about.”
Shawn knelt beside the opossum and pointed to the midsection, which appeared flatter than the rest of the body. “Are those tire tracks?”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Lionel said, “but it’s hard to tell in all the mess. If they are tire tracks, then there’s no way the opossum was killed by Stephanie’s car.”
They moved in tandem back to Stephanie’s car. Shawn went to the passenger side front tire, while Lionel inspected the driver’s side tire. No blood or guts clung to the tread. He looked at Shawn, who shook his head.
Shawn walked over to Lionel, punching in numbers on his cell phone. “If you hit an animal that’s already been run over, it won’t fly up and hit your fender and windshield.”
“It sure wouldn’t,” Lionel said. “Your tires would just smash it further into the ground. I’ve done it hundreds of times on these back roads.”
“It’s Brandt,” Shawn said into his phone. “We need to get animal control out to this crime scene as soon as possible.”
Lionel tuned out Shawn’s conversation and walked to the ditch by Stephanie’s car. He ambled up the shoulder of the road, keeping his eyes glued to the ditch. If their guy had thrown the opossum at Stephanie’s car, he would have done so from this ditch so she wouldn’t have seen him. Not far down from the car, a black tarp gripped the wire of a short fence. The dirty tarp didn’t appear weathered like something exposed to the elements for a long period of time.
He raced back to the car and flagged down Bill. “There’s a black tarp in the ditch that needs to be collected. I think our guy waited on it until her car passed. Let’s get a couple of people to walk this ditch, see if there is an impression of his shoes, even if the tread isn’t visible. And check the tarp for prints.”
“If someone was in there, we may just find something. The rain has kept the ground nice and soft.”
“Have an officer tape off both lanes of the highway going five miles in each direction, and I’ll get patrol out to redirect traffic. If Stephanie was taken by another car, then he may have parked it off one of these little farm roads. I want people looking for tire tracks, footprints, whatever they can find that may indicate someone else was here with her last night. Start with collecting that tarp.”
Bill gathered his team and barked out the new orders.
Lionel walked back to his unmarked patrol car. He planned on sticking around in case Bill’s team found a footprint or something else they could go on. He also wanted to talk with animal control so he could find out if the opossum was run over, and if so, when approximately that had happened.
Harry was correct in stating the opossum smelled way too dead. That could only be true if the road kill was already dead and relocated to this spot for the sole purpose of stopping Stephanie Price’s car right where her cell phone happened to have no service.
A deserted road, no cell service, a trusting girl, and intuitive planning. All the ingredients a serial killer needed to take his next victim. The elaborate scheme followed exactly what Cassie said about the killer escalating his methods of taking women to get more of a thrill. They just had to find this girl before she ended up on Perry’s autopsy table.
Chapter Thirty-seven
From the time Jake stuck his head through her office door, Emily felt better than she had all day. When he greeted her with a hug and kiss, the darkness retreated so far back in her mind that she barely noticed it.
She expected Jake to bring fast food or some kind of carryout for lunch. The lunch spread of blackened mahi-mahi, wild rice, and steamed broccoli surprised her. He seemed pleased with her enjoyment of the meal.
“What do you have planned for the rest of your day off?” Emily asked, as he packed their empty plates and silverware back into his bag.
“I don’t know,” Jake said. “I’ve not taken a day off in so long that I wouldn’t know where to begin. Even when I moved here for the job, I went to work the next day. It would be nice if you could take some time off with me.”
Emily grinned. “I would love to, but I’m still so far behind. Cassie’s been working half the nights away in the field, and I’m just trying to catch up on paperwork from her investigations. I hate that I have to kick you out when it feels like you just got here.”
“Don’t give it a second thought. What time are you getting out of here?”
“Around six, but I planned on visiting Mom right after work,” Emily said. She squirmed in her seat with the thought. “It shouldn’t take too long.”
“With everything you told me about her, I know that’s got to be hard. Do you want me to go with you for support? I won’t intrude when you go into her room, but I can wait for you in the lobby.”
Emily wanted nothing more than for Jake to go with her, but she worried about her own reaction to the visit. If her mom was in a good mood, she would only insult Emily a little bit. If she was in a bad place, it could get ugly very quick, and Emily might need time to decompress before seeing Jake. She didn’t want him to see her out of sorts and emotionally exhausted.
“I appreciate the offer,” she said, “but I think it’s best if I go alone this time. Maybe I’ll take you up on that when I go again in two weeks.”
“It’s okay,” Jake said. “I completely understand. Why don’t you just come over to my house once you’re done?”
Emily smiled at the compromise. “Perfect. By the way, you’ll be happy to know I had seven interviews this morning and we have five more scheduled for tomorrow morning.”
“I’m impressed,” Jake said. “Any early frontrunners?”
“Actually, there’s one girl from yesterday who I’m really excited about. I think she’d be a great fit here. Her husband’s job transferred them here from Austin, and she has quite the résumé. Cassie started the background check on her yesterday, and if everything comes back good, then she’ll start on Monday.”
“If you already plan on hiring her, then what are you going to do with the others who are interviewing?”
“Cassie thinks it’s a good idea to hire two people, and keep a list of good candidates for the future. The new contract with Heartland Insurance is going to keep us far busier than we anticipated.”
Jake took her hand. “I’m really proud of you. You’re taking a giant leap forward by interviewing potential new employees and letting people into your life, when they may accidentally discover your secret.”
“I think you may have a little bit to do with that.”
“Only a little bit?”
Emily pinched her index finger and thumb together until they almost touched. “Just a little, teeny, tiny bit.”
“I’ll accept whatever credit I can get,” he said, and pushed himself up from the office chair. He grabbed onto the armrests of her chair and leaned over for a kiss.
“I hope for both of your sakes that this is Jake.”
He broke the kiss and straightened up at Cassie’s voice.
Emily lifted her hand to her mouth and turned to Cassie. “What are you doing sneaking in here?”
“I don’t sneak, I move with stealth,” Cassie said. She thrust her hand toward Jake. “Cassie Reid.”
He accepted her hand. “Jake Hanley.”
“Finally,” Cassie said, glaring at Emily. “I was beginning to think you weren’t real.”
br /> “I’m not sure how to take that, but it’s nice to meet you, too,” Jake said.
“You know how it is,” Cassie said. “If I act too excited to meet you, you’ll think Emily talks about you all the time and that might scare you off. If I don’t act excited enough, you’ll think she doesn’t like you at all and that will scare you off. The perils of dating in today’s world.”
Jake chuckled. “It would take a lot more than that to scare me off.”
Cassie’s eyebrows shot up. “That sounds like a challenge and Emily knows how much I love a challenge.”
“Was there something you needed?” Emily asked Cassie.
“Yeah, Uncle Leo called. He has some more news for us.”
Emily’s mood deflated and the darkness, which had been absent during her lunch with Jake, flooded her mind again. “That’s not good.”
Cassie rested her hand on the doorknob. “Never is. We can talk about it in a little bit. Jake, it is very nice to meet you. Hope to see you again soon.”
“Likewise,” Jake said. Cassie shut the door behind her, and Jake picked up his bag. “It’s about the serial killer, isn’t it?”
Emily nodded. Now that Jake was leaving, the darkness threatened to come out of the shadows of her mind. The same weakness she experienced at her house when the last victim died crept through her limbs and teased the edges of her stomach with nausea.
“You know I don’t like this at all,” Jake said.
“I promised I would only do minimal work on the case, and I plan on keeping that promise.”
“You plan on it, but you’re not one to just do the bare minimum.” Before Emily could respond, he said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be on you about this. I just want to make sure you’re out of harm’s way.”
Despite the gloomy fog in her mind, Emily forced a smile and rose from her chair. “I know you do, and I appreciate it.” She gave him a goodbye kiss, lingering to keep him around longer. She did not want to be alone, and contemplated taking him up on his offer to spend the day together despite the mountain of paperwork waiting for her.