The Soul Catcher (25 page)

“A
nything found that could have been used as a ligature? And what about handcuffs?” Maggie showed Tully and Racine the girl’s wrists, but looked to Tully for answers. The bruises and marks on the wrists were undeniably made by handcuffs. She watched Tully’s face, pretending to wait for the answer but really trying to see if he was okay.

This time Tully didn’t glance at Racine, but Maggie did, and she could tell the detective wanted to answer, but stopped herself. Tully started pulling out his eyeglasses and pieces of paper from somewhere beneath the gown, tangling his hands in the process. Typical Tully, Maggie noted. He put the glasses on and began sorting through his slips of paper, an odd assortment that included some sort of pamphlet, a folded envelope, the back of a store receipt and a cocktail napkin.

“No handcuffs,” he finally answered, and continued to search his scraps of paper.

She wished he would relax. Tully was usually the laid-back one. She was the quick-tempered, hotheaded one, the loose cannon. He was the steady, let’s-think-before-we-leap type. It unnerved her how uptight he seemed to be. Something was wrong. Something more than his discomfort with witnessing an autopsy.

“You know, Tully,” she said, “they make these really cool contraptions with sheets of paper all tacked together. They’re called notebooks, and you can even get them small enough to fit into your pocket.”

Tully frowned at her over his glasses and went back to his notes.

“Very funny. My system works just fine.”

“Of course, it does. As long as you don’t blow your nose.”

Racine laughed.

“Humpf.” Stan Wenhoff didn’t have time for a sense of humor. He motioned to Maggie for help, wanting to hoist the body onto its side for a quick search of any other lacerations.

“Why is her bottom so red?” Racine asked. “The rest of her seems to have this bluish tint, but her ass is all red. Is that weird or what?” Racine attempted a nervous laugh.

Stan sighed, exhaling what sounded like a day’s worth of sighs. He was not the most patient medical examiner when it came to explanations. Maggie got the impression he would post No Visitors signs if allowed. They eased the body back. And Stan turned around to peel off his gloves and begin his hand-washing ritual again.

“It’s called livor mortis, or the bruising of death,” Maggie said when it was obvious Stan wasn’t going to answer.

She watched and waited for him to stop her. Instead, he nodded for her to continue. “When the heart stops pumping, the blood stops circulating. All the red cells are literally pulled by the force of gravity to the lowest area, usually the area of the body that’s in contact with the ground. The blood cells start breaking down and separating into the muscle tissue. After about two hours, the entire area looks like this, sort of one big reddish bruise. That is, if the body hasn’t been moved.”

“Wow!” Maggie could feel Racine staring at her. “Does that mean she died sitting up?”

Maggie hadn’t thought about it before, but Racine was probably right. Why would the killer have positioned the girl’s body while she was still alive? Without asking, she looked to Stan for him to confirm or deny Racine’s observation. As the silence stretched out, he finally realized they were waiting for him to respond. He turned around, tugging on a fresh pair of gloves.

“My early guesstimate would be, yes. I’m curious, though. She has almost a pinkish-red tint to her. I’ll need to have toxicology check for any poisons.”

“Poisons?” Racine attempted another of her nervous laughs. “Stan, this kid was obviously strangled.”

“Really, Detective? You believe that to be obvious, do you?”

“Well, maybe not entirely obvious.”

Stan took this opportunity to choose a scalpel from the tray of instruments, and Racine’s eyes grew wide. Maggie knew they had reached that moment Racine had been dreading since she arrived. Stan started the Y incision.

“Wait.” Maggie stopped him, but it wasn’t to save Racine. There was something she wanted to check, now curious. If the girl had still been alive when sitting up, maybe strangulation wasn’t the cause of death. “Do you mind if we take a look at the ligature marks on her neck first?”

“Fine. Let’s take a look at the ligature marks on her neck first.” Wenhoff sighed again and set the scalpel aside, purposely clanking it against the other metal instruments.

Maggie knew he was doing his best to restrain his impatience, though his pudgy face betrayed him with its unnatural shade of red. Sweat beads filled his receding hairline. He was used to doing things his own way and his audiences keeping their mouths shut. That he humored her at all, Maggie regarded as Stan’s ultimate show of respect. Now he stepped aside, giving her permission to proceed.

“So there was nothing left at the scene that could have been used as a ligature?” Maggie asked Tully while she searched the countertops.

This time she saw him check with Racine, and she was the one to answer. “Nothing. The girl wasn’t even wearing panty hose. The purse strap was found intact and clean. Whatever he used, he took with him.”

Maggie found what she was looking for and grabbed the tape dispenser from a desk in the corner. She peeled off her gloves so she could handle the tape, then ripped off a piece, holding each end carefully.

“Stan, could you tilt her head, so I can get a better look at her neck?”

Stan handled the girl’s head as if it belonged to a mannequin. Rigor mortis was fully established and had stiffened the muscles. After about twenty-four more hours, the muscles would become pliable again, but at the moment, Stan had to twist the head in what looked like an irreverent way, but was, in fact, a necessity.

There were several ligature marks, some overlapping, some deeper than the others. The girl’s neck, which probably hadn’t contained a single age line, now looked like a road map in 3-D. In addition to the tracks were massive bruises, where the killer must have decided to use his hands, as well.

“Why do you suppose he had such a tough time getting the job done?” Maggie said out loud, not really expecting an answer.

“Maybe she put up a hell of a fight,” Racine suggested.

The girl was small, barely sixty-two inches, according to Stan’s measurements. Maggie doubted that she could have managed much of a fight.

“Maybe he didn’t want to get the job done right away.” Tully surprised her with his hushed remark. She could feel him close by, looking over her shoulder.

“You mean he just wanted her unconscious?” Racine asked.

Maggie tried not to get distracted and pressed the transparent tape against the girl’s skin, pushing it into one of the ligature grooves.

“He might simply have gotten off on watching her pass out,” Tully said, exactly what Maggie had been thinking. “It could have been part of some autoerotic asphyxiation.”

“That could explain her dying while sitting up,” Maggie said. “Maybe her position was simply a part of his sick game.”

“What are you doing with the tape?” Racine asked her.

Ah, so the good detective would finally admit to not knowing something. Maggie lifted the tape while Stan held a slide up for her to attach it to. When it was safely secure, Maggie raised it up to the light.

“Depending on what the killer used, we can sometimes pick up fibers left in the tracks.”

“That’s if he used a rope or some kind of clothing,” Tully added.

“Or any sort of fabric or nylon. Doesn’t look like any fibers here. But there is something odd. Looks like glitter.”

“Glitter?” Stan was suddenly interested. She handed him the slide and went back to the girl’s throat.

“He must have used something strong and thin.” Maggie pulled on a fresh pair of gloves. “Probably a cord. Maybe something like a clothesline.” She examined the sides of the neck. “Doesn’t appear to be a knot.”

“Does that mean anything?” Tully asked.

“It could help us if he’s done this before. We might be able to match up something already on VICAP. Sometimes killers use the same kind of knot each time. That was one of the identifying factors of the Boston Strangler. He used the same knot on all thirteen of his victims.”

“O’Dell, you sure know your trivia about serial killers,” Racine jabbed.

Maggie knew she meant it as an innocent joke, but snapped back, “It wouldn’t hurt you to know some. You can bet the killers know.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.

“Maybe I need to come to Quantico and take a couple of your classes.”

Oh, wonderful, Maggie thought. That was all she needed—to have Julia Racine as a student. Or was that what Racine was hoping for? Did the detective have aspirations of being an FBI agent? Maggie shoved the thought aside and concentrated on the girl’s throat.

She ran an index finger over the deep, red scars. As she did this, she noticed a bump. Not just a bump, but a swollen area in the soft underside of the girl’s throat. “Wait a minute. Stan, did you check her mouth yet?”

“Not yet. But we’ll need to get dental prints if there was no ID.”

“I think there’s something in her throat.”

She hesitated. Both men and Racine hovered over the body and over Maggie, waiting and watching. As soon as Maggie pried open the mouth, she could smell it, a sweet almond scent. Again, she hesitated and glanced up at Stan.

“Do you smell that?”

He sniffed the air. Maggie knew not everyone was capable of smelling the scent, actually about fifty percent of the population. It was Tully who finally answered, “Cyanide?”

Maggie used an index finger to scoop inside both cheeks and removed a partially dissolved capsule. Stan held up an open plastic bag.

“What’s with cyanide these days?” Stan said, then noticed the warning look Maggie shot him.

“What kind of crazy son of a bitch gives his victim a cyanide pill after he’s strangled her? Or is that the cause of death?” Racine sounded impatient. She didn’t seem to notice the exchange between Stan and Maggie, who had both recognized the red-and-white capsule. Enough of it was intact to see that the capsule bore the same brand name they had extracted from the five boys in the cabin just last weekend.

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” Stan finally answered.

He was growing impatient, too, but for the moment he was keeping what he knew quiet. Evidently he had read Maggie’s urgent look accurately. If there was a connection between this girl and those boys, Racine would know soon enough. For the moment, it was one of the few things they had managed to keep from the media, and Maggie wanted it to remain that way.

“Her mouth was taped shut,” Stan continued. “I bagged the duct tape.”

“He probably stuck the pill into her mouth and taped it shut while she was unconscious,” Tully said, trying to explain the partially dissolved capsule. The girl’s saliva glands would have still needed to be working for the capsule to have started dissolving.

Maggie glanced at Tully and could see that he had recognized the capsule, too, and had guessed what was going on. So Racine was the only one in the dark. Not a bad game plan. Maggie refused to feel an ounce of guilt over keeping this from the detective, especially after their last case together.

“Seems like overkill,” Racine said.

“Or insurance.” Stan was playing along.

“I hate to interrupt your brainstorming, everyone,” Maggie said. “But there’s something else in here. Stan, could you hand me those forceps?”

She opened the woman’s mouth as wide as the rigored jaws allowed, then squinted as she pinched onto an object that was lodged halfway down the girl’s throat. What she extracted was covered with blood, folded and crinkled, but still recognizable.

“I think I just found her ID,” Maggie told them, holding up what looked like a mangled driver’s license.

T
ully sipped his Coke, grateful for the break. Wenhoff had taken the seventeen-year-old’s driver’s license and fingerprints upstairs to the lab. But Tully knew they wouldn’t find any priors or runaway reports on Virginia Brier. From the bikini wax and the girl’s mid-November tan lines, Tully knew Virginia was not the typical high-risk victim. She wasn’t a prostitute or some throwaway or a homeless street kid. He guessed she came from a good home, a middle-to upper-class family. Somewhere a father and mother were still waiting for her to come home from last night or going crazy because it was too early to file a missing person’s report. It reminded him of waiting up for Emma last night. She had been only twenty minutes late, but what if…

“Hey, Tully?”

He realized O’Dell was staring at him again with a look of concern.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. Stayed up too late last night.”

“Oh, really? Hot date?” Racine hoisted herself up onto an empty countertop, her long legs allowing her to do it in one smooth motion.

“My daughter and I stayed up watching
Rear Window.
”

“Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly? I love that movie. I guess I didn’t realize you were married, Tully.”

“Divorced.”

“Oh, okay.” The detective smiled at him as if she was glad. Most people automatically mumbled some sort of apology, which he didn’t really understand, either.

He glanced over at O’Dell, who was pretending to be occupied with some evidence bags instead of paying attention to Racine’s flirting. Or at least, he
thought
Racine was flirting with him. He’d never been good at it himself or even good at detecting it, for that matter. At least O’Dell was trying to behave herself with Racine, as if being nice to the detective would make up for them keeping her in the dark about the cyanide capsule. He wasn’t sure he agreed that they should be withholding information. This was Racine’s case, after all. Not theirs. They were here only to assist and offer consultation.

Tully still wondered why Cunningham and BSU had even been called in on this case. Who had made that call and what did they know? Had someone already suggested a connection between this girl and the five young men from the cabin raid? And if so, who was it and how did they know? Evidently, it wasn’t anyone at the District PD, because Racine seemed clueless.

His stomach still felt queasy, though the Coke was helping. He was fine as long as he concentrated on the case and not the fact that the dead girl could just as easily have been Emma. He found himself wondering what had made this girl different. Why had the killer chosen her?

“Okay, you two,” Racine said. “Tell me what you know.”

Tully shot a look at O’Dell. Had Racine finally figured out they hadn’t told her something? Before either of them could answer, Racine continued, “Since we have some time, tell me about this guy from what we’ve learned so far. I have to get out there and start looking for this fucking psycho. You guys are the profilers. Tell me what I’m supposed to look for.”

Tully relaxed, almost sighing. O’Dell hadn’t flinched. She was good, impressive. They hadn’t known each other for very long, but he did know that O’Dell was a better liar than he was. He’d let her have the first shot at Racine’s question.

“Everything so far points to him as being organized.”

Racine nodded. “Okay, I know about organized versus disorganized. You can save me the textbook stuff. I’m after specifics.”

“It’s awfully early for specifics,” O’Dell told her.

This time Tully could tell O’Dell was not just being difficult with the detective; she was being careful. Maybe too careful. They owed Racine something.

“I’d say he’s between twenty-five to thirty years old,” Tully said. “Above-average intelligence. He probably holds a regular job and appears to be socially competent to those who know him. Not necessarily a loner. Maybe even a bit arrogant, a braggart.”

Racine flipped open a small notebook and was jotting the information down, though what he was giving her could be considered classic textbook generalities, exactly what she had said she didn’t want.

“He knows a thing or two about police procedure,” O’Dell added, obviously deciding it safe to divulge some of what they knew. “Probably why he likes to use handcuffs. Also, he knew how to ID-proof a body and that delaying her identity might delay us in identifying him, too.”

Racine looked up. “Wait a minute. What are you saying? That he could be an ex-cop or something?”

“Not necessarily, but he could be someone who knows a thing or two about crime scenes,” O’Dell said. “With some of these guys, it’s a fascination. It’s part of the cat-and-mouse chase. What they know about police procedure could be from cop shows or even suspense novels.”

Tully watched. Racine seemed satisfied and continued writing. At least the two women weren’t trying to contradict or outdo each other. For the moment, anyway.

“His posing the body is significant, too. I think it’s something more than just gaining control or some sense of empowerment.” O’Dell looked at Tully to see if he wanted to venture a guess. He motioned for her to go ahead. “It’s possible,” she continued, “that he wanted only for us to admire his handiwork, but I think there’s something more to it. It may be symbolic.”

“You said at the crime scene that it may have been to alter the scene, to throw us off.”

“Oh my God, Racine! You mean you were actually listening to me?” This time the women smiled at each other, much to Tully’s relief.

“Those circular indentations in the ground mean something, too,” Tully reminded them, “but I have no idea what. Not yet, anyway.”

“Oh, and he’s left-handed,” O’Dell added as an afterthought.

Both Tully and Racine stared at her, waiting for an explanation.

O’Dell walked back to the body and pointed to the right side of the girl’s face.

“There’s a bruise here along her jawline. Her lip is split in this corner. Even bled for a short time. It’s her right side, which means, if he was facing her, he hit her from left to right, probably with his left fist.”

“Couldn’t he have used the back of his right hand?” Tully asked, trying to play out the possible scenarios.

“Maybe, but that would be more of an upward motion.” She demonstrated, swiping a backhanded motion toward him. He could see what she meant. A person’s natural tendency would be to start with the hand down and to bring it up and across. “This injury,” O’Dell continued, “looks like a direct hit. I’d say a fist.” She balled up her left hand and swiped again, this time straight in front. “Definitely, a left fist to the right jaw.”

Throughout this demonstration Tully noticed Racine watching quietly, almost with awe or perhaps admiration. Then she went back to her notes. Whatever it was Tully had noticed in Racine’s expression, it had been lost on O’Dell. She hadn’t been paying any attention. But then she was like that when anyone seemed to be amazed by her. Most of the time, she drove him a little nuts with her anal-retentive habits, her hotshot tactics or her tendency to overlook procedure whenever it was convenient to do so. However, this—her ability to be impressive and not take note or make a big deal of it—this was one of the things he really liked about her.

“One thing,” O’Dell said, addressing Racine, “and I really am not just saying this to bug the hell out of you. This is not a one-time thing. This guy’s going to do it again. And I wouldn’t be surprised to find that he may have already killed before this. We really should check VICAP.”

The morgue door swung open behind them. All three of them jumped, spinning around to find Stan Wenhoff, his ruddy complexion pale. He held up what looked like a computer printout.

“We’re in for a hell of a mess, kids.” Stan wiped at the sweat on his forehead. “She’s the daughter of Henry Franklin Brier…a goddamn U.S. senator.”