Moving quickly now, back to the bathroom. Ribbon of skin placed in an empty glass vial. Sealed, then labeled. Used anesthetic wipe, scalpel, everything, tucked into the plastic case, then slid once more into my purse. Hands washed. Face and mouth rinsed.
Heart starting to pound, fingers shaking, as I struggled with each article of my clothing. Finally, skirt on, bra, top, boots. Dragging a hand through my mane of brown hair before sweeping up the loose strands on the floor and flushing them down the toilet. One last glance in the mirror. Seeing my own face and yet feeling like a total stranger, as if I’d stepped outside my own skin. My sister should be standing here. Or my father.
Not the one who looked like my mother. The supposed innocent.
I reached behind myself, snapped off the bathroom light.
I stood alone in the dark. And I wasn’t afraid anymore, because the dark was now my friend. I’d joined forces with it. It had told me what it wanted me to do, and I’d relied on it for cover.
Traveling salesman Neil would wake up in the morning with a raging headache from too much alcohol, a more pleasant soreness in other parts of his body, and a dull pain in the back of his shoulder.
No doubt, when he went to shower, he’d try to inspect his back in the bathroom mirror. At which point he’d spy a red stripe down his left shoulder blade, slightly puckered at the edges. He’d puzzle over it. Wonder if he banged into something. Except the wound would appear more like a broad scratch, meaning maybe he snagged himself on something, a belt buckle, a sharp strap.
Eventually, he’d shrug, climb into the shower. The wound would most likely sting for a second; then that would be that. It would heal, leaving behind a faint white line, the source of which remained forever a mystery.
Because who’d ever consider that his bar hookup had removed a strip of his skin with a scalpel while he slept? And even now, she kept it in a glass vial, part of a special collection she couldn’t explain but was compelled to keep.
My adoptive father had obsessed over my genetic inability to feel pain.
Maybe he should’ve been more concerned with my genetic predisposition to inflict it upon others.
• • •
I WENT HOME, conducted a thorough physical exam to ensure I hadn’t accrued any unsuspected damage, then collapsed into bed, sleeping without a single dream.
I woke up bright and early to a phone call from the prison.
Superintendent McKinnon’s voice was firm and crisp. “Adeline, there’s been another incident. Shana got her hands on a homemade shank. Apparently, spent most of the night working herself over. She’s currently stabilized down in medical, but Adeline . . . it’s bad.”
I nodded, because when it came to my sister, there had never been anything good. I hung up the phone, swung out of bed and prepared to return once more to prison.
Chapter 6
ALEX MADE ALL THE ARRANGEMENTS. D.D.’s physical therapist plus Phil and Neil would meet them at the scene of the first murder and D.D.’s subsequent stair dive. Seven A.M., D.D. sat in the kitchen across from three-year-old Jack, plying him with Cheerios while engaging in their morning contest of who could make the most ridiculous face. As usual, Jack won, but D.D. felt she put up a fair fight.
Eight A.M., Alex drove Jack to day care, at a neighbor’s house just down the street. D.D. told herself she was not nervous. Alex’s idea to reconstruct the shooting incident of six weeks ago based upon the resulting trauma to her body made perfect sense. Forensic collision experts did it all the time, looked at smashed-up car A, smashed-up car B, then rendered stunningly accurate analyses of the auto accident, including who was to blame. If it could work on cars, why not the human body?
Eight thirty. Alex returned home and the real challenge began. Pulling on fresh clothes, despite the limited mobility of D.D.’s left arm and the excruciating pain that still radiated throughout much of her neck and shoulder.
“Melvin,” she said, eyeing her tucked left arm in the mirror.
Her shoulder blazed instant pain. The kind that came from overstretched muscles and inflamed nerves, she’d been told, and would require months to heal.
What had the shrink told her? Talk to Melvin. Let him know who was in charge.
“All right,” she addressed her reflection. “Here’s the deal. Got a big morning. Gonna do some real work, and part of that work is trying to remember what you made me forget.”
Her shoulder remained . . . a shoulder, reflected in a mirror.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. This is the stupidest, most idiotic . . . Fine!” She scowled harder at her reflection. “These clothes are coming off. Then I’m going to shower so I feel like a real human being. And then I’m going to put on tight-fitting yoga clothes, because those are my instructions.”
In fact, her physical therapist, Russ Ilg, had instructed her to arrive in black yoga pants and a tight-fitting black T-shirt. FYI, he was bringing chalk and she shouldn’t be surprised if she became the blackboard.
“I don’t want to hear it from you,” she continued ruthlessly. “This is how it’s gonna be. So just . . . take a break or something, Melvin. Because life goes on and I’m sick of being stuck in this house, wearing my husband’s clothes and smelling like an animal in the zoo. It’s been six weeks and I . . . I gotta do something. I’m not meant for lying around. If you are me, surely you know that, Melvin. Surely you understand.”
Alex materialized in the mirror, appearing in the doorway behind her. “Is it working?”
“Fuckety fuck fuck fuck.”
“I’m going to take that as a maybe.”
“Fuck.”
“Shall we?” He walked into their bedroom and gestured to her top, really his own oversize shirt, buttoned over her left arm.
“Fine.”
He started with the top button and worked his way down. There had been a time in D.D.’s life when having this man slowly but surely undress her in front of a full-length mirror would’ve had her knees shaking in breathless anticipation. Now she mostly felt numb.
No, she felt broken, weak and useless. Which was worse than numb. Numb would’ve been a step up.
Alex eased the shirt from her shoulder. He unhooked her bra in the back, then carefully slid the strap down her injured left arm. A mere touch, and she hissed as inflamed nerves screamed their protest.
Her husband’s blue eyes met hers in the mirror, quietly apologetic as he finished removing the top half of her wardrobe, then transitioned to the bottom. Her sweatpants were easier. Socks, underwear. They were in the homestretch.
Alex turned on the showerhead, offering her his arm as she climbed into the tub. His turn to strip; then he joined her in the narrow space. Again, an activity that two months ago would’ve been hot and sexy, and now was just a painful parody of what could happen to a couple in three seconds or less.
She wet her hair, but it took Alex’s assistance to wash and rinse. Then, water still running, he assisted her out of the tub, wrapping a huge bath sheet around her shoulders for warmth, before leaving her to stand there, like a two-year-old waiting for parental assistance, while he finished his own ministrations, then joined her on the bath mat.
He dried her first, an act of chivalry, as it left him wet and cold. She should be grateful. Appreciative of her caring, compassionate husband. Knowing how lucky she was to have his help.
Mostly, she felt bitter, angry and frustrated. Worse, he knew it. Yet he tended her quietly and thoroughly, even as her ingratitude rolled off her in waves of impotent rage.
“You would do the same for me,” he said finally, if only to ease the tension.
“No, I wouldn’t. I suck at basic humanity.”
“Not true. I’ve seen you with Jack, remember? You can be tough for the rest of the world, D.D. But you never have to be tough for me.”
“The doctor says I’ve lost my true Self to a bunch
of control-freak Managers running around my psyche.”
“What do you think?”
“Fuckety fuck fuck Melvin,” she whispered, but she didn’t sound like herself anymore. She sounded dangerously close to tears.
“You’re going to be okay.” He kissed the top of her head.
“Don’t lie. Your rule, right? I can lie to myself, but not to you. Well, ditto. I was in the room with the doctor. I heard him say I may not regain full use of my arm. And I’ve taken the BPD’s yearly physical enough times to know what that might mean. Don’t pass the field test, don’t work in the field. Me, not on the job? Now who’s crazy?”
“You’re going to be okay.”
“Don’t lie!”
“I’m not. I know you, D.D. One way or another, you’re going to figure this out. And you’re going to be okay. And you know how I know that?”
“How?”
“Because you’re not even on the job, and you’re still about to spend your morning catching a murderer. Now, come on. Stop stalling. As long as you’re this pissed off, we might as well pull a shirt over that lovely shoulder of yours. What’s your pain’s name again?”
“Melvin,” she muttered.
“Well, Melvin, I’m Alex. Pleased to meet you. Now, fuck off.”
• • •
PHIL AND NEIL WERE ALREADY WAITING at the scene. D.D. entered the town house self-consciously, as if expecting to be surrounded by shadows and assaulted by the stench of blood. Instead, the downstairs was pleasantly illuminated by natural daylight flowing through multiple windows, while the air contained the unmistakable tang of Lysol. The landlord must’ve finally been granted permission to tend his unit. She would bet he hired professional cleaners, one of those firms that specialized in exactly this kind of work. It made her curious to see just what sort of magic they’d wrought upstairs.
“Any news on cause of death?” she asked her squad mates.
“Good morning, D.D., good to see you, too. How are you feeling?” Phil asked dryly.
“Excellent. Like I could bench-press a boulder. Assuming, you know, I could move my arm. Neil.” She gave an awkward half hug to the youngest member of their team, while Alex shook both men’s hands. Neil, a lanky redhead who looked like he was sixteen but was actually thirty-three, was finally coming into his own. He’d even led their last investigation. Phil and D.D. still took all the credit, of course, having taught him everything he knew.
Neil had been an EMT before becoming a cop. He served as their liaison to the ME’s office and was the person most likely to answer her question.
“Chloroform,” he said now.
D.D. blinked. She and Alex came to a halt near the kitchen island. Christine Ryan’s furniture had yet to be removed, but it seemed disrespectful to sit on a dead woman’s sofa. Hence, all four of them huddled in the kitchen.
“The killer OD’d them on chloroform,” Alex asked. “Is that even possible?”
“Not overdosed, but used it to incapacitate them. Frankly, Ben should’ve caught the smell on the first body, but as he put it, the whole skin flaying proved a little distracting.”
“You can smell it on the body?” D.D. wasn’t sure if that was fascinating or horrifying.
“Absolutely. The smell lingers around the mouth and sinus cavities. One of the first steps during an autopsy is to smell the body. Many poisons and toxins present that way. Like I said. Ben sends his apologies.” Ben Whitley was the chief medical examiner, as well as Neil’s former lover. The initial breakup had proved tough, but both seemed to be handling things better these days.
“So the killer first rendered both women unconscious,” Alex stated out loud. His eyes were narrowed, mind churning. “And then?”
“Compression asphyxiation.”
“Compression asphyxiation?” D.D. spoke up, startled. “Isn’t that why doctors don’t recommend co-sleeping with newborns? Because if a grown adult rolls over on the baby in the middle of the night, it can lead to compression asphyxiation?”
“Exactly. Asphyxiation occurs when the person’s chest or abdomen is compressed to the point the person can no longer draw a breath. Hence, suffocation.”
“So we’re most likely looking for a larger perpetrator,” Alex spoke up. “Someone with enough bulk to basically crush two women?”
“Not necessarily. Compression asphyxiation can also be a matter of strategically applied force. Say, a knee dug into the victim’s diaphragm for the necessary length of time.”
“Given that the victim is already unconscious,” D.D. murmured, “I’m not convinced we’re looking for a physically imposing subject at all. With size generally comes a feeling of power, right? Whereas, this approach—stealth, ambush, drugging, then immediate suffocation, followed by a highly ritualistic, postmortem main event—sounds to me like a guy trying to avoid any chance of confrontation. Someone not confident at all, maybe even a smaller, weaker male who’s intimidated by real women; hence, his fantasy involves dead ones. Is there a chance the victims never even woke up? Never even knew what was happening to them?”
“There’s a chance.” Neil shrugged. “Ben determined COD based on the presence of petechial hemorrhages in the eyes and upper chest area. Interestingly enough, to learn more about the killer’s asphyxiation technique, he’d generally map the bruising in the chest and abdominal area, an analysis that’s complicated given the skin removal in exactly those areas.”
“Meaning maybe he removed skin from the torso to help cover his tracks.”
Phil grimaced, shook his head. “I think we’re giving the guy too much credit. This kind of suffocation, hell, he basically climbed on board and crushed his victims, yes? That doesn’t sound too sophisticated. In fact, seems like a guy looking for expedience, a no-fuss, no-muss murder, if you think about it.”
“He enters the home,” Alex filled in now. “Sneaks his way upstairs. Chloroforms his victims while they’re still asleep in order to eliminate any chance of a struggle. Then he suffocates them, knee to diaphragm. You’re right. It does seem . . . expedient. The quickest way to kill, at which point, he slows down, takes his time, lingering over each body for probably a matter of hours. Interesting.”
“Why compression asphyxiation?” D.D. asked. “That’s pretty unusual, especially adult to adult. I mean, why not just press a pillow over their faces, the more classic approach?”
Phil and Neil both shook their heads. Alex, however, had an answer.
“He sits astride the bodies, remember? We have the imprints of his shins on both sides of their hips. That position is not just how he mutilates them; it’s how he kills them, too.”
“A position that’s obviously very dominating.” D.D. glanced at Neil. “And yet still no sign of sexual assault?”
He shook his head. “Ben says no. Postmortem mutilation yes, sexual assault no.”
“Any more information on the knife?” Alex asked.
“Nah, but you should see the pile of blades Ben has accrued for comparison. It’s gonna take a bit.”
“I thought about a hunter,” D.D. announced. “The autopsy report on Christine Ryan categorized the ribbons of skin as being expertly cut. Only people I can think of who have a lot of experience skinning is hunters. So last night, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on how to skin game, you know, rabbits, squirrels, deer, elk.”
Alex was regarding her strangely. As if just now realizing his wife had gotten out of bed sometime after midnight. She wondered which was worse, not noticing her absence, or now picturing her padding through their darkened home to watch bloody home films of carved-up wildlife. The videos had disturbed her. She hadn’t thought they would, given how much of her life she’d spent staring at carved-up humans.
And yet . . . She hadn’t gone to bed for a while afterward. Instead, she’d sat in Jack’s room, watching her son sleep peacefully in the comforting glow of his
night-light.
“I’m not a hunter,” she continued, “so I’ll confess I didn’t know anything about it. But having watched a dozen how-to videos . . . The experienced hunters don’t even really use their blades. I mean, a couple of incisions around the anus, removal of the head; then most of them peel the entire hide from the animal’s body using their bare hands. Which I gather is how it’s supposed to be done, as you don’t want to damage the skin. It’s most valuable as one large piece.”
Phil was staring at her blankly. “You did what?”
“I Googled skinning; then I watched some videos. Come on, we gotta start getting into this guy’s head. You got any better ideas?”
“You’re on medical leave.”
“For an injured arm, not an incapacitated brain. Tell me the truth. For the past few weeks, you’ve been pulling hunting licenses and cross-referencing names.”
Phil flushed, shifted from foot to foot. “Maybe.”
“Exactly. Because you think of skinning, you think of hunting. Makes sense. Except I’m telling you now, I don’t think this guy is a hunter. Their technique, it’s totally different. Not to mention their blades. The knives of choice are large, fixed blades, at least an inch or two across in width. Hunters are purchasing for strength and durability, the classic Ka-Bar knife that can skin a deer, gut a fish and dig a hole. I don’t see how you can excise fine strips from a woman’s torso using such a blade, let alone wander the streets of Boston without gathering attention.”
“I’ve seen hunting knives that fold,” Phil countered. “And I’ve got some buddies who carry multiple blades. Ka-Bar has its uses, but they have smaller, lighter knives they also take into the field.”
“But do they remove the skin of their catch in long, thin strips?”
“No,” he admitted grudgingly. “That would be a new one. Though, after curing a hide, some guys will cut it into strips for making cords, that sort of thing. Given the current trend of paranoid preppers, God only knows the amount of people now studying pioneer-era survival techniques.”