Deception (Southern Comfort) (18 page)

“Um, thank you but I have one.”  She disappeared into the guest bedroom briefly and then returned with a book from the library.  “I’ve been reading to Donnie every day so I always have something on hand.”

When he glanced over, blinked at the cover, Sam felt the flush creep up her cheeks.  Which was just ridiculous.  There was no way he could know how often she envisioned him while she read.

But because she felt at a disadvantage, she went on the attack. 

“It’s a romance novel. Despite popular male opinion, most of them are actually quite well written.” 

Dish soap dripped from the hand he held up in peace.  “You’re talking to a man who draws criminals and dead people for a living.  I’m not about to knock anyone else’s art. I’m just… well, honestly, I’m a little amused that you’re reading that to your brother.”

Feeling foolish, Sam walked over to curl into a corner of the couch.  “That’s sort of the point.  I figure if I annoy him enough, he might eventually shake out of it.  Besides, I was getting tired of reading the classics.”

“Ugh.”  Josh made a face.  “Like Beowulf?  I had to read that in high school.  I’m pretty sure it was written as a sleep aid.”

  “Tell me about it.  Donnie, he’s a natural born lover of literature, but it comes a little harder for me. When we were kids, he’d tell me about the books he’d read since I couldn’t read them myself.  And he has a gift for making a story come alive.  I think that alone saved me from taking the attitude that books were stupid.”

HAVING
filled the sink with soapy water, Josh slipped the skillet into the basin to soak.  “I don’t mean to… probe at any old wounds, Sam, but were you actually diagnosed with dyslexia?”

“I was,” she agreed easily enough, looking up at him from the corner of the sofa.  “You were right on the money when you suggested it.  I went to one of those learning centers after I moved away, and hearing them confirm it explained a hell of a lot.  They helped me create a program that would allow me to get my GED.  And it took a couple years of hard work but I was eventually able to get accepted into college – barely, but I got there.  Never thought that would happen.”

She opened the book on her lap and Josh’s heart squeezed with love and pride.  And though he hated to spoil any of the easy camaraderie they’d regained tonight, her mention of leaving Savannah was an open doorway he couldn’t ignore.

He wanted to know why she’d disappeared.

Why she hadn’t bothered to say goodbye.

But before he could say anything his
cell phone went off.

“Work?” Sam inquired, glancing up.

“Yeah.”  He swallowed his disappointment.  “Excuse me a minute while I see what they need.”

SAM
returned her attention to her book, trying not to eavesdrop on Josh’s conversation, but from the overall tone of his murmuring she got the impression that he was unhappy.  But then a note of pleasure crept into his voice and she hoped that was a good sign.  After a few more minutes of unhappy, he ended the call with an audible sigh.

“Trouble?” she asked when he wandered over and stood near her.

“You could definitely say that.”  He surprised her by perching on the edge of the couch.  “I have to go back down to the station.  There’s a case I’ve been helping with for the past week or so, and it looks like there’s been a break of sorts, although certainly not the kind we wanted.  A girl came in tonight, with her parents, and it looks like she was raped.”

Sam’s gut clenched with familiar horror.  “Unfortunately,” Josh continued, “she’s the second girl to come to us with the same basic story, so it looks like they might be connected.  I need to go down and work out a composite, get as much as I can while her memory is relatively fresh.”

“I… didn’t realize you worked with rape survivors.”

“If it’s a stranger rape case I usually do.  And it’s a lot harder than working with homicide.” He turned to look at her full on. “This girl who came in tonight… she was ashamed, but she told the detective handling the case that a volunteer from the rape crisis hotli
ne convinced her to report it.”

Sam couldn’t help it; her eyes filled with tears.

Josh reached over and brushed the one that spilled over.  “You’re doing good work, Sam.  You’ll make a hell of a victim’s advocate.    

CHAPTER  TWELVE

“STUPID
bitch,” Joey muttered under his breath as he listened to the disgusting sound of retching.  He struck a match on the cinder block wall, lit the cigarette dangling from his swollen lip.  Bitch had popped him one when he was hauling her out of her truck.  Stupid thing to do, considering he had a knife poking against her ribs, but little Karen had a lot more spunk than he’d given her credit for.

Not a bad thing, all in all.

He grinned around the cigarette.

It was always more fun when they fought.  The ones that just laid there were enough to make him sick.  Like he was gonna be so happy they cooperated that he’d just decide he really didn’t want to hurt them?

Yeah, right.  Stupid bitches, every damn one.

He sucked in a lungful of smoke, blew a steady stream out through his nose, then pushed open the door to the bathroom.  Good old Karen was curled up in a corner, brown hair hanging limp in front of her eyes, arms tucked around her bare legs.

She had a better body than he’d thought.

And he’d been looking forward to getting himself acquainted with it.  But the bitch had started in hurling up a storm pretty much the minute he’d cut her uniform off her.

At first he’d thought that maybe she was just scared, which was okay even if it was gross.  He liked the fact that he was a scary bastard.  

But it was pretty clear now that she was sick.

“Stupid bitch.”

She moaned and curled up tighter, giving him a nice little view of her cheeks.  She had a tight ass, alright, and he’d be damned if he’d gone to all this trouble and then wasn’t able to enjoy it.  Bitch had to go and get sick on him and ruin all his plans.

He probably should just cut her, dump the body and be done with it, but Karen-pie had been such a royal pain in his ass for so long that he was lookin’ forward to being a pain in hers.

But he didn’t want to catch no damn virus.

He walked over, yanked her by the hair, and studied her face to make sure she wasn’t faking.  Her eyes were Bambi-wide and piss-your-pants scared, but they were also glazed with fever. He’d been working in that damn hospital long enough to recognize the signs.

Shoving her away from him in disgust, he smiled when her head hit the concrete.  She let out a little, mewling cry, like some kind of hurt kitten. His pleasure went up a notch.

So he kicked her, and smiled when she started to cry.

Then the little bitch spit at him, and he jumped back before she could infect him.  “You’ll pay for that.”   He took another drag off his cigarette.  Then threw it at her and watched it sizzle her skin before she squealed and swatted it away.

From what he’d seen at the hospital, this damn virus lasted for a couple days or so, so he’d have to wait to make good on that promise.  Until then, the bathroom had a padlock to keep little Karen inside and running water so she wouldn’t dehydrate.  He didn’t want her kicking off until he was ready. 

And this warehouse was far enough away from civilization that no one would be able to hear her when she tried to scream.  Nope, little Karen was his to play with.  To do with whatever the hell he liked.

And he liked a hell of a lot.

Grinning, Joey rapped his knuckles against the door as he shut it.  “I’ll be back later, Karen.”  God, she was probably so happy that he was leaving, thinking that she could get away while he was gone.  But then she’d realize how wrong she was, start to get cold – it was gonna be like forty-eight or some such shit tonight – and hungry and scared, and eventually she’d be so afraid that he’d just left her here to rot that she’d almost be happy to see him again.

Almost.

Laughing out loud, he patted his front pocket.  He’d wasted most of his last cigarette on Karen, and decided he wanted another.  From inside the bathroom, he heard the muffled sound of sobbing.

Karen must be broken up to see him go.

“Don’t cry now,” he called out, striking another match and lighting up.  “I promise we’ll have fun when I get back.  Or at least I will anyway.”

When she choked out an order for him to take a quick trip to Hell, he grinned as he took care of the padlock.  “Don’t worry, baby.  I plan to.  Of course, I’m going to take you with me.”

JOSH
hated the smell of the morgue and worked hard not to wrinkle his nose as he and Kathleen talked to the forensic anthropologist. At least it wasn’t a typical autopsy.  And Phil Thomas, their anthro, was an endearing old goat, with white hair that stuck out in tufts behind his ears and a bow-tie printed with roosters.  A night owl, he’d spent the last one working on the remains of the female victim they’d pulled from the drain pipe.    

Although he needed to run a couple of tests to determine the length of time she’d been in that hole, they already knew it had been several months, given both the rate of decomposition and the timeframe involved in the construction situation.  And Phil also had some ideas about what kind of background the woman had come from.  Girl
, really.  Phil guessed she was barely out of her teens. And she’d come from money and was accident prone, as was evidenced by both her remaining teeth and her tibias.

“See this?” he slapped up an x-ray showing the mandible and part of the maxilla.   

“They look like screws,” Josh observed, noting the implements attaching a couple of molars to her jawbone.

“They are screws,” Phil agreed, glasses slipping down his nose as he squinted at Josh.  “I’m not a forensic ondontologist, but I do know that these screws are used to anchor dental implants into the bone.”

“Dental implants?” Kathleen asked, from her position on the other side of Thomas.  “I thought those were for denture wearers.  Or people with missing teeth.  She was awfully young to have those kinds of problems, wasn’t she?”

“Well, some folks’ teeth rot out before they’re out of their teens, if they’ve had poor nutrition and aren’t given to oral hygiene.  But then, we wouldn’t exactly expect to see evidence of expensive cosmetic surgery on their remains if they had grown up with deprivation.  Could be she was born missing a couple teeth – that happens.  Or could be she got cavities and they didn’t want to mar her looks with fillings, or maybe her molars just weren’t all that pretty to begin with.  But the point is; this is an expensive procedure and one not covered by many dental plans.  Our female was well cared for.”

“Could the teeth have been knocked out?” Kathleen asked, obviously thinking of the healed fractures Phil had pointed out on the victim’s legs.  She’d broken both legs, on separate occasions.  Possibly a pattern of abuse.

“Her molars?  Not likely.  Usually the front teeth are the ones to go.  As you can see by the fact that hers were knocked out peri-mortem.”  He pointed to the gap on the x-ray.  “Did your forensics people ever find the missing teeth down that pipe?”

“No.”  She shook her head.  “They either washed away or were never at the scene to begin with.  Which is most likely since she was probably killed elsewhere. There’s a good amount of traffic in that area.  Beating a woman to death would likely draw a crowd.”   

“Hmm.”  Phil turned to Josh.  “You’ll want to factor in the cosmetic surgery when you do your reconstruction.  A young woman who spent all that money just to have perfect back teeth will be the type who took great pains with her appearance.  There’ll be nothing unkempt about her.”

“There was evidence she dyed her hair,” Josh said.  “A few strands of blonde were still clinging to the scalp.  I guess it probably wasn’t a home job.”

“Salons,” Kathleen said.  “We can show the composite around when you get it finished.  And there’ll be records of emergency room visits and dental surgery,” she mused.  “Somewhere.  Of course, she could have come here from Toronto for all we know.”  She pursed her lips as she glanced at Phil.  “Is there a chance those screws have serial numbers?  Like surgical plates and pins?”

“I don’t believe so.” Phil was apologetic. “Though I believe it’s a relatively small community of dentists who handle such cosmetic procedures – the surgery sometimes requires hospitalization.  Extra training and insurances and all that.  I know it’s not much, but it may help you narrow down your search.”

“No, it’s great,” she said.  “Really.” 

“Most of this is stuff the ME should have been able to tell you.  This wasn’t a difficult case.  I don’t know why she gets jumpy when she sees a few naked bones.”

“She wants her pound of flesh,” Kathleen quipped, then glanced over at Josh.  “I’m going to head back to the station, see if I can get Mac working on some of this, too.  You going to get started with the reconstruction?”

“Yeah,” Josh concurred, holding up his camera and a bag of markers for approximating the depth of the tissue which would have clung to her skull. 

“Super.  I’ll see you later Phil.  Thanks again.”