The Enemy Inside (7 page)

“Yep, I agree.” Jay drove to the site, and a few minutes later, they found the truck surrounded by another forensic team, their cameras already firing rapidly.
 

Walking up to the truck, Berg and Jay donned new latex gloves and joined the action.

“Engine’s cold.” Jay rested his hand on the rig’s grill. “So, it probably wasn’t used to transport him. But a truck on the side of the road for more than a day would attract attention. Pity we’re too far out for traffic cameras.”
 

He opened the driver’s door and stepped up, popping his head in the cab. “It’s gross in here. Fast-food containers galore, dirty clothes, foam coffee cups, looks like it needs a good hose-out.”

Berg arched a brow. “So, it’s like your desk, then?”

“You’re so fucking funny,” Jay said, still bent over as he checked out the space.
 

Berg couldn’t help noticing the shape of his tight ass through his designer slacks, and quickly turned away to study the surrounding scene.
 

“The sleeping compartment is littered with dirty clothes and evidence that this guy got some loving.” Jay moved out of the way so photographs could be taken before he touched anything. Lifting out a torn condom wrapper, he waved it at Berg. “Even old, ugly guys get more than you.”
 

Berg glowered at him.
 

“Got his logbook here. Probably total bullshit, but worth checking out.” Jay flipped to the last entry. “Says he was headed back to Chi Town from Wisconsin twenty-four hours ago.”

“Anything else?”
 

Jay continued rummaging through the messy cabin, half-hanging out of the door and balancing on one leg on the door rim so as not to sit on the seat and disturb any evidence. “No, nothing interesting, just a load of junk. No blood, fluids, or anything else I can see. Let’s print the cab and doors. I’ll leave the rest up to forensics to bag and tag.”
 

“Okay,” Berg said.
 

Jay hopped down and reached for his fingerprinting kit. The pair methodically dusted the surface areas of the cab. “Anything?” he asked, finishing with the seat and dash.
 

Berg, running her brush over the inside passenger door armrest for the second time, shook her head and frowned. “Looks like it’s been wiped clean. There are no prints here at all, which is not normal.”

“Yeah, no prints here either.”

Ripping off their gloves, they headed back to the car.
 

Jay tossed the keys to Berg. “You drive.”
 

“Weird.” She revved up the engine and headed toward the station. As they hit the open highway, Berg gunned the engine and forced the sedan to leap forward like a hunting lioness. She liked to drive, the faster the better.
 
“These kind of white, middle-aged guys are rarely the victims,” she said.
 

Jay nodded.

“You can usually rely on a serial killer to stick to a certain MO, same cause of death, same style of victim, usually women, same torture patterns. And it’s unusual for one to kill again this fast. The last one was only forty-eight hours ago. The killer could even have had these two guys going at once.” She concentrated on the road. “Let’s check our MO files and see if this has come up before.”

She looked over at Jay, who was clutching the seat, his eyes wide. “You drive any faster and we might actually go back in time,” he said through gritted teeth.
 

Berg grinned and slightly eased back on the accelerator.
 

“Different cause of death, but same style of victim. I agree it’s strange to deviate from a serial murder pattern, but you can always rely on people to come up with new, more fucked-up ways of killing each other,” he replied. “That’s what keeps us employed.”

Chapter Nine

Halfway back to the station, Jay’s cell rang, its low decibels almost inaudible thanks to the song Berg had blasting on the stereo as she drove.
 

“Yep?” He listened for a moment as Berg turned down the volume. “You sure? Okay.” He hung up and turned to study his partner.
 

Berg was now squeezing the car in and out of nonexistent gaps in the afternoon traffic, missing collisions by fractions of an inch.
 

“You’re not gonna believe it. Halwood called. You need to turn around. They found another body during their grid search of the woods off the highway. They think it’s Melissa.”

Berg switched on the siren and lights, and slammed the car across six lanes of traffic, eliciting the kind of driver abuse and gestures reserved for taxis and bicycle couriers. She forced the car into the far right-hand lane, almost scraping a concrete road divider.
 

“Fucking hell, Berg!” Jay pulled the seatbelt across his body and clicked it into place.

Reaching the day’s first crime scene, Berg slammed on the brakes, and the car came to a shuddering halt. The pair was out of the car almost before it stopped moving.

“Where’d you find her?” Berg called to Halwood as they hurried toward him.

“Good, you’re here.” Halwood looked up from the bagged trucker’s body being loaded into the coroner’s van back to the morgue. “We carried out a grid search that included the outskirts of Busse Woods.” He removed his latex gloves, taking some new ones from his kit, and walked toward the forest. “Follow me.”
 

Negotiating their way past oak and hickory trees, the trio trekked swiftly south through the forest for five minutes. The rocky trail, lined with thick scrub and tall black ash trees, was uneven, and soon enough both Halwood and Jay were breathing hard from the exertion.
 

“I’m curious. What makes you so sure it’s Melissa?” Berg asked as they walked, her breath even. “Even if you found her ID, she went missing eighteen months ago; so what’s left of her to compare it with?”

“It will become clear when you see her.” Halwood gasped between taking desperate lungfuls of air. “I need to lay off those cheeseburgers,” he said, patting his stomach.

As he spoke, they reached a section of the trail roped off by yellow and black crime scene tape guarded by a young patrol officer.
 

“Thanks, James,” Halwood said. “Can you go to the original scene and get the team to come here so we can finish up? Be sure to tell them to change their gloves and clothing coverings so there’s no evidence transfer, okay?”
 

James nodded grimly and trudged off toward the trail.

Entering the scene behind Halwood, Berg and Jay stared at the sight before them in disbelief.
 

“What the hell?” Jay was unable to tear his eyes away from the body in the dirt.

“Now you see why I know it’s her. I estimate she was killed in the last twenty-four hours, not eighteen months ago.” Halwood bent down over the body, which was fully clothed and on its back, arms and legs splayed, eyes open wide. “Clean shot to the head, no through and through, so the bullet is still in there.”
 

Halwood moved Melissa’s head, pushing her blood and gore-smeared hair to the side so Berg and Jay could see the ragged, star-shaped wound to the back of her head.
 

“Judging by the tattooing around the wound, it looks like a smaller caliber contact wound, but I’ll have to take measurements and examine the slug to be sure. I would assume that’s the cause of death. No evidence of animals scavenging on the body, which is why I think she hasn’t been here long. An unburied dead body in the forest tends to attract small predator activity quickly.” Halwood rolled the body to the left and made a small incision with a scalpel. He then took out a long thermometer and inserted it through the cut and into the liver. “Let’s get time of death.”
 

Jay and Berg stood back and let him finish.
 

“She’s in good shape; no obvious marks apart from the bullet hole. No evidence she has been tied up or restrained for the last eighteen months. She is well-fed.” Halwood looked up. “Are these the clothes she went missing in?”

Berg shook her head.

“I didn’t think so.” Halwood extracted the thermometer. “Just under seventy degrees. That, combined with the air temperature and the fact that rigor is setting in, indicates she was killed approximately seven to eight hours ago. Curiously, a similar time as our trucker friend.” He nodded toward the highway.
 

Berg leaned down, examining Melissa’s still-pretty face. “What the hell is going on?” she asked herself and the victim. “Where have you been for the last eighteen months?” Straightening back up, she looked at Jay. “Any theories? Because, at this point, I’m all out of ideas.”

Jay shook his head. “I’ve got no idea why a woman would just disappear for eighteen months, not contact her family, and then turn up dead, execution style. Maybe she was holed up with a boyfriend or a dealer?” Jay rubbed his face with both hands as he tried to make sense of the scene. “How can a face this well publicized stay hidden? She was all over the media when she first went missing. Any reason to think she is connected to this latest trucker murder?” he asked, directing the last question to Halwood.

“Apart from proximity, nothing obvious,” he replied.
 

Jay nodded. “Yeah. The trucker was placed out in the open for us to find, while she appears to have been hidden.” He looked at his perplexed partner. “Maybe trace will give us something. Thinking out of the box, guys, could she have offed Taylor?”
 

Berg shrugged. “Well, it seems she was still alive, meaning the hair we found on that trucker could make her a suspect, but Taylor’s death was so brutal and bloody, I can almost guarantee an amateur killer would have cuts on their hands from slipping down the bloody murder weapon. But look, her hands are clear. Plus she just doesn’t have the strength to move a man that size on her own. Or a motive. It’s far more probable she got a ride with him sometime before her death. One thing’s for sure, I can’t wait to tell Consiglio about this strange development.”
 

Jay cocked his head to the side, feigning deep consideration. “Yep. I’m pretty sure you can be the one to do that.” He led the way back to the trail. On the walk back, Jay’s cell rang. He answered it with his usual greeting and listened for a moment before rolling his eyes. “No comment.”

Berg indicated he should put the call on speaker.
 

Jay pressed the screen.

Stella’s voice rang out loud and clear. “Is it true?” she asked. “Have you found Melissa?”

“No comment,” Jay and Berg said in unison.

Stella sighed, changing tactics. “Look, my source informed me you found her today, along with a second trucker’s body. Are you telling me this still means the hitchhiker case is solved? Because it would be more believable if I reported aliens landed downtown.”

Jay and Berg remained silent as they wondered who Stella’s well-informed source was.
 

Undeterred, Stella continued. “This isn’t about your jobs or my job, good politics, or getting an exclusive. This is about whether justice has been done and whether it’s safe for young women out there.”
 

“No comment,” Jay said.
 

The reporter continued stubbornly. “Every time I get a statement from your station it’s about this case being solved or that case being solved, it’s all bullshit. I mean, is it real or is it just spin?”

Stopping in the middle of the trail, Jay and Berg looked at each other.

“We can’t . . .” Berg said.
 

“Okay,” Stella replied, pouncing on the indecision in the detective’s voice. “You don’t actually have to say anything. If you think that I shouldn’t give up investigating Melissa and the other victims, if you think it really isn’t solved at all, just stay silent, okay? That’s not even a comment.”

Berg looked at Jay and nodded. Making a joint decision, they remained quiet.

“Thanks,” Stella said before ringing off.
 

“Why couldn’t I leave you back at the station?” Jay put his cell away and looked at Berg. “You know we’re going to catch hell for that.”
 

After the day’s body influx, the remainder of the afternoon was dedicated to chasing down leads and conducting interviews. Berg visited Cook County to interview Taylor’s old cellmate who confirmed what they already knew—Taylor was a scumbag who had boasted about raping and beating young women.