Authors: Allison Brennan
TWENTY
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ONE
N
ICK WALKED WITH
C
ARINA
to the coroner’s office. “I’m glad Dr. Chen is willing to come in early and take care of Becca Harrison,” Carina said. “You don’t have to observe.”
“I do,” he said. Of course he would observe. Knowing the victim helped know the killer.
So far, law enforcement hadn’t come up with any similar crimes. Nothing in California matched, and so far the FBI database had come up dry.
He couldn’t help but think about the Butcher’s first victim. If the investigators had followed up on every thread, talked with more people, did more legwork, maybe—maybe—the killer would have been stopped before claiming twenty-one additional lives. Because the Butcher’s first kill had been personal. Something starts the chain reaction. Something leads to the first kill. Going back to the first kill of the Butcher led them to the killer.
If Angie was, as Nick suspected, the first victim of this San Diego killer, it was personal. Something about Angie had specifically set him off. What was it? Her double life? Something else?
They walked into the overly air-conditioned laboratory and Jim Gage, who Nick had met at the crime scene the night before, approached.
“I’m assisting Dr. Chen on this one.” He stared at Becca’s prepped body on the cold stainless-steel table, his expression unusually grim.
“You okay?”
“Fine.” He looked over her shoulder at Nick. “You were right.”
“About?” Though he didn’t need to ask.
“Her entire body is covered in plastic wrap except for her vagina. There’s residue from a condom and spermicide. I’ve already sent it to the lab for identification.”
“DNA?” Carina asked.
“Don’t know yet.”
“Was her body washed?”
“Yes. But he was rushed this time. There’s a lot of soap residue. And get this: there was a head injury.”
“Maybe he hit her when he abducted her,” Nick said. “The Butcher lured his victims from their vehicles, then knocked them unconscious.”
“Possibly, but—”
Chen interrupted. “Rather than speculate, let’s observe the body.”
Carina gathered her professionalism and looked at the victim as a puzzle, not a person. Becca Harrison’s autopsy was as methodical as Angie’s, but this time Carina focused on similarities and differences.
Both victims had been sexually assaulted, including raped with a closed beer bottle, the marks on the inside of the vagina now distinctive. Both had had their mouths glued shut and secured with a black bandanna, and had been restrained with white nylon rope. Both had been released from their restraints and thoroughly washed before being killed. Both victims had suffocated in a garbage bag. Both victims were in their late teens. Both victims lived or worked in La Jolla, the upscale community in north San Diego but still within the city limits. Both had been kidnapped after dark.
Angie had been raped both anally and vaginally, Becca only vaginally. Angie had been imprisoned for more than forty-eight hours before being killed, Becca between twenty-four and thirty. While both bodies had been dumped, Becca had been returned to the library where she was last seen.
Why had Angie been dumped on the beach? Had Angie gone to the beach after Steve had followed her home? If so, why? Or did the beach hold some significance for the killer?
Carina noted that the plastic wrap on Becca was a key difference. Dillon and Nick had agreed that the plastic wrap had allowed the killer to get physically closer to his victim while still giving him a level of protection against leaving evidence on her body. Gage was taking the plastic to the lab to see if he could collect any trace evidence, because plastic attracted hair and fibers.
“We might get lucky here,” Gage said. “The plastic garbage bags don’t hold fibers as well as plastic wrap. Different properties. And the contamination at the scene with the sand is making any evidence harder to find. I’m going to prioritize this.”
“The killer has been so careful with the bodies and not leaving evidence, it seems odd that he’d change his MO to a less-safe method,” Carina said.
“You have to think like the killer,” Nick said. “It’s not about protecting him, though he has taken a greater effort than many serial killers to foil forensics.”
“If it’s not about forensics, what’s it about?” Carina asked.
“His pleasure. His fantasy. It’s all about him. On the surface, he gets what he wants—closer to the dying victim. Logically, he’s thinking the plastic wrap will prevent evidence transfer. And if he’d dumped her body on the beach, the sand would contaminate any evidence. But a parking lot isn’t the same, just like the properties of the plastic wrap and garbage bags aren’t the same.”
“So he made a mistake.”
“He’s going to realize it,” Nick said.
“You think?”
“Eventually.”
Jim Gage spoke. “He’s taking such pains to stymie the forensics investigation it makes me think that he’s in the system.”
“We’ve run like crimes,” Carina said, “and so far nothing. I have two dedicated officers on it now, so we’re digging deeper.”
Gage said, “Dr. Chen, you said there was another difference between the first and second victim.”
He nodded and motioned them to a light box against the wall, flipping the switch while dimming the overhead lights at the same time.
“The second victim has two head wounds. The first is a faint subdermal bruising. Not fatal and likely caused by a hand—see, you can see distinct fingers. It’s on the side of the head, as if he slapped her hard. The second is on the lower left quadrant of her skull. I don’t see how he could have hit her there. He would have had to swing up with something sharp enough to leave this deep gash.”
The wound was about two inches long, wider in the middle.
Gage nodded. “From the angle, I think she fell.”
“How could she fall if she was restrained?” Carina asked.
Nick spoke up. “He untied her to wash her, probably in a bathtub. He wouldn’t let her walk behind him, so she comes out first and makes a run for it. Maybe slams the bathroom door to delay him, throws something in his path. It had only been a day, she wasn’t as weak as Angie, with a burst of adrenaline she runs.”
“But he catches up with her,” Gage said, nodding. “Maybe pushes her.”
“Look here,” Chen said. “This is another faint subdermal bruise, a minor wound, in the very back of her head, which might indicate that she was pushed against a wall. No broken skin.”
“So,” Nick used Carina to demonstrate, taking her by the shoulders and gently pushing her against the wall. “Becca runs. He catches her and slams her against the wall.”
Nick stood very close to Carina and she held her breath.
“He’s angry. Furious that she tried to run. He wants her back in position so he can finish it. But he’s mad, throws her down.” Holding Carina by the arms, Nick pretended to throw her, going with the momentum to control it. “Maybe a coffee table, a cabinet, a chair—something with a sharp corner—is in the way and she hits it.” Without letting Carina hit the ground, he pulled her up. She stumbled and he caught her, gave her a wry grin. “Sorry.”
She swallowed, nodded, unable to talk. Few men made her feel small and feminine. Nick Thomas was definitely one of them.
Gage was nodding. “I can see it.”
Chen concurred. “Holds with the evidence. There is no soap residue in the wound, which suggests it occurred after the washing.”
“Anything else that’s different about this crime scene?” Carina asked, finally finding her voice.
“Look at her right hand.” Chen lifted the victim’s hand, showing deep gashes under her nails.
“What did he do to her?” Carina asked.
“Cleaned her fingernails with a knife,” Chen answered. “Then doused them in bleach.”
“Why?” she asked.
Nick answered. “Remember that she ran. She’s unrestrained and fighting back. What would you do?”
“Hit, kick, scratch—” she paused. “She scratched him. Were you able to get a sample of his skin?”
Jim shook his head. “Doubtful, though we’re taking extensive samples from her fingers. The knife turned the ends of her fingers to pulp, the bleach messes with the tests.”
“Anything else?” Nick asked.
“Becca Harrison had been a virgin.”
“Well, that certainly shoots down the theory that she had an online sex diary,” Carina said. “So where’s the connection?”
“Let’s go to the library,” Nick said. “They should be open by now.”
The library wasn’t open to the public yet, but several people were inside. Carina knocked briskly on the glass double doors and flashed her badge when someone looked her way.
A petite silver-haired woman unlocked the door, her eyes red-rimmed. She clutched a pile of damp tissue in one hand.
“Is this about Becca?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The woman’s eyes teared again. She let Carina and Nick in, locked the doors behind them. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”
“Are you the librarian?”
“The head librarian, yes. Marjorie Kimball.”
Carina introduced herself and Nick, then asked, “Were you working Wednesday?”
“Yes.” She rubbed the tissue against her eyes. “Please come in. I called the other staff and volunteers when Mr. Harrison told me Becca had been . . . ” Her voice trailed off. “We were so worried yesterday, but thought for sure there was some logical explanation. At least we tried to tell each other that.”
“Ms. Kimball, we’d like to speak with you first, then to the rest of the staff, in private. Is there a room we can use?”
“Um,” she looked around as if she’d never seen the library before. “We have a meeting room in the back. Will that do?”
“Perfect.”
Carina let the librarian lead the way. The La Jolla Public Library had been lovingly maintained and upgraded. It was multileveled, with skylights in the large reading room and work stations throughout. Far different from her small neighborhood library, which had been walking distance from the house her parents still lived in. But this library smelled the same, of books new and old, newspaper, and quiet.
Carina let Ms. Kimball give them Becca’s schedule—Tuesday and Thursday from four in the afternoon until eight in the evening. Becca had been volunteering at the library for more than a year, since she turned sixteen. She’d been filling in for a friend on Wednesday.
After going through the preliminaries, Carina asked, “On Wednesday did Becca tell you she was planning on being picked up or meeting with anyone?”
Ms. Kimball shook her head. “No. She left promptly at eight.”
“Has she talked about a boyfriend or special friend?”
Again, no. “She didn’t date. She’s shy around boys. A late bloomer.”
“Do you know if she had a Web page or an online journal of some sort?”
“She never said.”
“Did she ever tell you about someone who’d been harassing her or any fears that she was being followed?”
“No. She was always joyful. That’s what I think of when I think of Becca: joy. On Wednesday she was just as happy as ever.”
This wasn’t getting anywhere. “Did she talk to anyone here?”
“Patrons.”
“Anyone who was new? A stranger? Someone who wasn’t a regular patron?”
“I don’t know. No one I noticed as strange. I don’t know everyone who comes in here, but I recognize most of the faces of the regulars.”
“Okay, think back to that night. Was there anyone who left either right before or right after Becca?”
“I wouldn’t know. I was at my desk, which is in the back of the library. Midge, she’s out in the annex waiting, was at the front desk. She would have a better view of everyone who enters.”
Nick escorted Ms. Kimball out and brought in Midge. They went through the same questions. “Becca talked to everyone,” Midge said. She was younger than Ms. Kimball by at least ten years, but seemed stodgier. “I had to constantly work on her to focus on her job, not chatting. But she’s a volunteer,” she said in a “what can you do” tone.
“And on Wednesday?”
“She talked to at least six people while she was working. I can’t imagine any of them hurting her.”
“Can you describe any men she spoke with?”
“Mr. Sanders and his wife. They come in every Wednesday and Sunday to read newspapers.”
“How old are they?”
“In their eighties.”
Forget them, Carina thought.
“Who else?”
“The nice young man who lost his cat.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No, he comes in a few times a month, in the evenings usually. Doesn’t have a library card.”
“And his cat ran away?”
She shook her head. “Becca said that someone shot the poor animal. Can you imagine? She was heartsick over it.”
Carina glanced at Nick and he gave her a brief nod. “When did he leave?”
“Oh, early. Five, five-thirty. I don’t really remember.”
“What does he do when he’s here?”
“Studies.”
“He’s in college?”
“I think so, I’m not sure. He brings in textbooks and his laptop.”
“He doesn’t use the library computers?”
“No. He prefers one of the laptop stations in the annex.”
“Can you describe what he looks like?”
Her brow furrowed as she concentrated. “Nice-looking. Average. Tall, but not as tall as you.” She pointed to Nick. “A little on the skinny side. But he’s very nice, polite. Clean-cut. I think Becca had a crush on him, but she was too shy to ask him out and I think he was too shy to ask her out.” She shook her head. “She was such a sweet girl.”
“About how old would you say he was?”
“I don’t know, maybe early twenties. Maybe younger. Kids look so much more mature these days.”
“Do you remember his hair color?”
“Um, light.”
“Blond or light brown?”
“I don’t know. More on the brown side, I’m not really sure. You don’t think . . . he’s not . . . he can’t be. He’s just a young man.”
As if being a young man meant you couldn’t rape or murder. “We don’t know right now, we’re trying to talk to everyone who spoke to Becca the day she disappeared. We’d like to talk to him, maybe he saw something.”
“Oh, right, that makes sense. I can get you the Sanders’ information.”