Cold Truth

by Mary Stone

  “I did. I found out a lot of things, and they led basically nowhere.”

  Jillian’s smile slipped into a frown. “That’s disappointing. I thought you’d find something.”

  “I found a lot of new information, but that’s about all. I still don’t have a suspect, though I do know a bit more about him.”

  “Are you sure it’s a man?”

  “Statistically, it’s far more likely to be a man than a woman, especially when the victims don’t appear to have a personal connection with the murderer.” Ellie took a long draw of her coffee, steeling herself for the day and all the gruesome possibilities. “Then there’s the dismemberment. That took a lot of strength.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Jillian visibly shuddered.

  Ellie took a seat at her desk, fishing the pictures of the dumpsite out of the stack of papers. “Here’s where it gets interesting. I’m glad I went to the park because what the pictures don’t tell you is how close this spot is to everything.”

  Jillian leaned in over her shoulder. “It looks remote in the photos.”

  “I thought the same thing, but look.” She typed the address of the park into her search engine and pulled up the satellite image, pointing out the grassy spot by the water with her cursor. “Here’s where the body was found, and here is the playground and the soccer fields.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know. They’re right there. When I was looking over the crime scene, I could hear the kids. I was only there for a couple minutes before someone walked by, and on the way out, I passed three more people out for a walk. This is a high-risk dumpsite. Whoever did this was incredibly confident, bordering on arrogant.”

  Jillian’s face reflected all the emotions Ellie had experienced at the horror of knowing how close people enjoying the park might have come to the killer. She shook her head. “Or he was incredibly lucky.”

  “I don’t think luck has anything to do with it. There was no sign of him being in a hurry at all, and the fact that it took twelve hours to find the body means he dumped Jane Doe right after the park closed since no one saw him enter or exit. Plus, he spent considerable time with the body.”

  “You’re right. It’s a whole lot of new information that doesn’t move us forward.”

  “It doesn’t.” Rather than focus on that, Ellie preferred to stay positive. “But when we solve the case, it will all make sense.”

  Jillian’s red-glossed lips spread in a generous smile that lit up her face. “I love the sound of that. We. No one has ever given me credit for helping.”

  “Your help has made all the difference.” Ellie gestured toward the room where the cold case files were kept. “That’s why I’m hoping you know where the other Jane Doe from West Ashley Park is.”

  Jillian frowned. “The other Jane Doe?”

  “Jacob says there was another case not long after this one. The woman was about the same age and was left in the same general area.”

  “I don’t remember that one.”

  “There wasn’t long-term coverage of the first Jane Doe. The case stalled, and the media lost interest. I suppose that the second woman found revived the coverage, but in this day and age of crime fiction television shows and novels, people move on to the next thing pretty fast.”

  Jillian nodded, but Ellie could tell she was already thinking about the other case—mentally recalling the boxes in the vast section filled with Jane and John Does, in search of the case Ellie was talking about. Shaking her head, Jillian unlocked the door to the evidence room, heading for the cold case section without another word to Ellie, hands on hips, lower lip caught between her teeth.

  Ellie followed and double-checked the date on Jane Doe One’s box, then she walked down the aisles checking boxes for a date that was close. Every time she found a similar time frame, she checked the dumpsite, only to come up empty. There were so many unidentified murder victims over the past twenty years, their bodies scattered throughout Charleston County, which covered over thirteen hundred square miles and held a population of just over four hundred thousand. Of all the victims, most were women. The stacks and rows of boxes were a sobering reminder that she was only one person, and despite her best efforts, many of the cases would remain unsolved. That knowledge should’ve discouraged her, but it propelled her onward instead.

  Every victim in Cold Cases deserved justice, just like everyone else.

  “I think I found it,” Jillian called out from the far end of the middle aisle. “This one is in the wrong place entirely, but the date is a couple weeks after our Jane Doe.”

  Jillian set the box on the closest table, and Ellie carefully removed the lid. “This looks like exactly what Jacob was describing to me last night.” She read the M.E.’s report, then handed it to Jillian.

  Jillian’s eyes flicked over the report. “The deaths aren’t the same.”

  “They aren’t, you’re right. But in both cases, it appears the murder weapon was a knife. That’s something.”

  “But dumpsite and the use of a knife isn’t enough to link them, right? Makes it just as likely that they’re not linked at all?”

  “Are you sure you’re in the right job? Maybe you should try for detective. Right, but it’s worth looking into. Jacob said he wasn’t the only officer who thought they might be linked.” Ellie began to pull evidence bags out of the box. “But the detective assigned to the case dismissed their concerns.”

  Jillian searched for the name of the detective, and when she found it, she huffed out a breath. “That’s because he was set to retire. I remember this now. He half-assed this case like you wouldn’t believe. I was mad, but there was nothing to be done. He put everything else he had on the back burner while he went after the man who murdered Franklin Lacey.”

  “Franklin Lacey.” Ellie tapped her chin with her finger, tipping her head to the side. “Didn’t his stepson hire a hitman to kill him, expecting to get the inheritance?”

  “He did, and it backfired.”

  Ellie eyed the evidence bag that contained an article of the victim’s clothing. “That’s what happens when you’re fifteen and don’t understand how inheritance works. I know everyone was shocked when it turned out not to be the wife who hired the hit.”

  “That’s the case Detective Jones retired on, so no one realized he let this and a few others languish when they didn’t turn up leads right away.”

  “That’s not the legacy I would choose to leave behind,” Ellie said as she held up a sealed bag containing the victim’s hair, the color of a moonless night. It was the hair samples that were the saddest. They made her almost feel a connection with the victim, as if the woman was still in the room, whispering clues that she could almost make out but not quite.

  “Right? But that’s burnout for you. There are more cases than detectives can handle, and sometimes, they choose the case that will make Charleston PD look the best.”

  Ellie thought back to the list Fortis had given her and cringed. “I’m already getting a taste of that. Fortis wants me to abandon the Jane Doe case and start on his to-do list.”

  Jillian rolled her eyes. “It figures. When do you have to ditch?”

  Ellie could practically hear the tiny grains of sand flowing out of the hourglass. “I have until I clock out Friday.”

  “It’s already Tuesday.” A note of panic laced Jillian’s voice.

  “I know. That’s why I spent ten hours chasing leads yesterday. This is important.” She took the notes on Jane Doe Two back from Jillian with a sad smile. “We don’t know Jane Doe One’s name, but I know she deserves justice, and so does this one.” Ellie gestured to the room at large. “They all do.”

  They were quiet for a long time as they each took one item out of the box, examined it, then passed it across the table. By the time they got down to the photos of the body, still stacked in the bottom of the box, Jillian was already looking discouraged. “Do you see anything that connects these two cases?”

  “Nothing,” Ellie admitt
ed, feeling a tad discouraged herself. “They both have a note about a tan line where a watch had been worn on the wrist, but that’s so common I’m sure half these cases are missing the watch they were wearing.”

  “Were they able to match the shape of the tan line to any specific brands?” Jillian asked. “Some lady’s watches have very unique shapes.”

  Ellie looked back at the report and shook her head. “No. In fact, there was no attempt at a match noted for Jane Doe Two.” Quickly, she flipped back through her notepad. “And Jane Doe One states no known brand matches the shape.”

  “That’s something, isn’t it?” Jillian brightened. “Maybe that’s how they met their killer. Someone who sold knockoffs?”

  “Seems like a stretch.”

  Jillian shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  Reaching into the bottom of the box, Ellie braced herself for the gruesome pictures she expected to find.

  And she was right to do so. The body was in horrible shape. Some of that was decomposition, like Jacob had said. But most of the damage to the body had been done by scavengers, not time in the elements, which made it hard to tell the woman’s age or any other identifying features. The shape of her face was largely intact, though, and the accompanying police sketch seemed to match it almost perfectly. When her gaze landed on the hair, Ellie sucked in a breath and froze.

  “What?” Jillian asked.

  “Her eyebrows don’t match her hair.” Ellie pointed out the obvious difference in hue—her light-colored, almost blonde eyebrows, compared to her dark hair.

  “So?”

  “Her hair is dyed.”

  “A lot of women dye their hair.” Jillian leaned over the photo to get a better look.

  “But this woman’s hair is dyed almost pitch-black, and judging by her eyebrows, her hair should be much lighter. It’s not.” Excited, Ellie dug through the pile of evidence bags lying on the table until she found the hair samples. “Look. This is just like the other victim. There’s no root growth, so her hair was dyed right before she died.”

  Flipping through the pages of the M.E. report, Ellie scoured through the notes, looking for anything that mentioned a lingering smell. But her excitement quickly faded, and after reading over the notes three times, she sagged into a chair.

  “No mention in the medical examiner’s notes?” Jillian guessed.

  “No. It’s not clear how long she was out in the weather before she was found, but it was probably at least two weeks according to this.”

  Jillian pulled on a strand of her light blonde hair and wrinkled her nose. “When I dye my hair, that smell lasts for a week unless I wash it several times. The chemical that lightens the hair has a very distinct scent, and—” She stopped abruptly, her gray eyes lighting up. “But this woman’s hair wasn’t lightened.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “You’ve never dyed your hair?” Jillian flicked amazed eyes to Ellie’s head and gave her a mock scowl. “Right. You have the kind of hair many of us would kill for, so of course, you’ve never dyed it. Not all hair color works the same. Lighter colors work by bleaching the pigment, which leaves a strong odor behind for several days. But when you take someone whose hair is naturally light and darken it, the dye instead coats each strand with the color. Depending on the brand, going darker is gentler on your hair.”

  “What about the smell?”

  “If the dye is ammonia-free and there’s no bleaching, the smell isn’t bad and tends to fade in a day or two.”

  Ellie’s eyes widened. “So no one would have noticed a scent, with her being out in the weather, especially.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You know what this means?” Her heart rate picked up speed as she realized what it did mean. “These cases are connected. Why else would they both have fresh dye jobs, dumpsites that are really close to each other, and the same type of weapon?”

  “I’m with you on the first two, but the first victim’s death was very specific. I’m not sure I’m buying that it’s the same guy.”

  Ellie loved the way Jillian wasn’t afraid to state her opinion. She found that Jillian’s opposing view actually sharpened her senses on the case.

  “You think it’s a copycat?”

  Jillian scrunched her lips into an almost pout. “Possibly. It would explain the similarities.”

  “Not the dye.”

  Jillian tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

  Ellie flipped through the detective’s notes and pointed at a line halfway down the page. “The hair dye was never made public. Women dye their hair all the time, and Detective Jones never noticed that the two women had their hair dyed to match the other woman’s natural color, one reason the cases were never connected.”

  “That’s giving me chills. The killer dying the women’s hair to match the other’s original color somehow makes this whole scenario that much more sick. When you put it that way, how could it be a coincidence?”

  “Exactly.” Ellie slapped the file folder down on the table in triumph.

  Jillian was quiet for a long time, eyes trained on the evidence spread out on the table. “But why dye their hair like that?”

  The momentary triumph faded away, and Ellie shrugged. “I told you, this case has got me chasing my tail. Every answer I come up with only brings up more questions. But now that we know these cases are related, maybe something will stick out. At the very least, it made identification harder.”

  “How so?” Jillian rubbed her temples. “I have a feeling that has an easy answer, but my brain is just so full of the facts of the two cases that I can’t see the murder for the blood.”

  Ellie quirked an eyebrow at her interesting comment. “If their families filed a missing persons report, the description was likely with their natural color of hair. If I’m looking for a blonde woman, I’m not going to waste my time looking through files where the woman has dark hair.”

  “And if your daughter’s hair is so dark it’s almost black, the police aren’t going to show you sketches of blondes, or almost blondes.”

  “Exactly.” Ellie’s excitement was growing again. “And in this case, the blonde was significantly taller than the brunette, so all the stats would’ve been wrong. It’s an excellent forensic countermeasure.” Writing feverishly, she noted every singularity, right down to the matching watch tan lines. When she turned the notepad around, she smiled at Jillian. “Taken separately, none of these things seem important. But now that we know the killer went to such great lengths to conceal the link between these two, we can change our approach.”

  “Is it enough to prove it, though?”

  “It’s closer than we were yesterday. We’ve made more headway in the past day and a half than I did all of last week.” She reached into the box again, pulling out the sealed bag that held what was left of the victim’s shirt. “This woman’s shirt is lavender too.”

  Jillian took Jane Doe One’s shirt out of the other box and used a magnifying glass to go over them side by side, then she laid them together so they were almost overlapping. “They’re not just the same color. They were wearing the same shirt.” She handed the magnifying glass to Ellie. “See? The fibers are identical.”

  Ellie nodded, then compared the other clothing items from each woman’s box. “Same color jeans and underwear too.”’

  “Ugh,” Jillian muttered. “The same underwear? Why does that make it worse when this is already about as bad as you can get?”

  “I don’t know, but I agree. It’s so sadistic. And frightening.” She shivered. “I wonder if they knew he’d dressed them alike. And they knew he’d dyed their hair. But this makes me wonder if they weren’t abducted and held together, made into some kind of sadistic twins in the opposite.”

  “That’s awful. Isn’t it bad enough he was going to kill them?”

  “No,” Ellie said, going on instinct. It was almost like she could hear a voice in the back of her head, could almost see the first victim sitting, bound, across
from the other victim. “I’m sure this was part of it. He didn’t just torture them physically. The psychological aspect would’ve been important to him.” She scribbled notes on the pad, teeth working her bottom lip. “Whoever this man is, he’s deeply disturbed.”

  “It’s almost lunchtime. What do you think about grabbing lunch and then checking out the second crime scene?” Jillian’s eyes held a glimmer of excitement in them that Ellie had yet to witness. “I can be gone for an hour without anyone losing their minds. After that, people ask questions.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Ellie placed the evidence back into the boxes, careful not to mix anything up. “I’m going to shelve these side by side since the second case is in the same time period.”

  “That’s where it should’ve been,” Jillian confirmed, her expression grim as she turned to look at the rows of boxes. “I wonder how many other files are misplaced like that?”

  “I’d be the last person to tell you how to do your job, but can you wait on looking into that?” Ellie shot Jillian a conspiratorial look. “So we can focus on this case? Checking and rearranging the files is a big job, and I only have until Friday. And I need your help. When this case is solved, and this monster is in a cage where he belongs, then you can rearrange to your heart’s galore.”

  “You sound so sure we can solve this case by Friday. That’s four days, counting today.”

  “I’m not.” Ellie exited the evidence room and waited for Jillian to lock up. “The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m not going to give up until I find this man. As long as he’s free, no one is safe.”

  15

  The second Jane Doe’s final resting place wasn’t nearly as accessible as the first. Closer to the sinking wetlands that only wildlife could access, this site was well-hidden and far off the beaten path.

  Ellie picked her way across the soft ground, doing her best to avoid the patches of mud scattered like landmines around her. More than once, she had to back out and readjust her course. Dry leaves and debris masked some of the softest places, making the trek more difficult.