The Silent Wife: From the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author comes a gripping new crime thriller (Will Trent Series, Book 10)

by Karin Slaughter

  “Jesus.” Faith wrote paralysis in her notebook, but only to give herself time to recover.

  “Dr. Linton,” Amanda said. “Walk us through the other links.”

  “The most tangible link that can be proven with X-rays is the head wound. Caterino’s skull fracture was crescent-shaped. It matched the hammer. The red impression on the side of Leslie Truong’s head matched the hammer that was found inside of her. When I autopsied Alexandra McAllister yesterday, her skull fracture was consistent with the head of a hammer.”

  Faith wrote down the information as she asked, “What about Tommi?”

  “She said that her attacker hit her with something very hard. She didn’t see what it was.”

  Amanda prompted, “And the next link?”

  “Eight years ago, Tommi told us that during her abduction, she was forced to drink a blue, sugary liquid consistent with Gatorade. Rebecca Caterino’s vomit and throat contents had a visible blue coloring. During Leslie Truong’s autopsy, I noted a blue liquid in her stomach. Yesterday afternoon, when I performed the full autopsy on Alexandra McAllister, I found a similar blue liquid in her stomach, plus staining in her throat and mouth. I’ve sent the sample off to toxicology.”

  Faith asked, “Did the Grant County coroner—”

  “Dan Brock.”

  “Did he get back the toxicology on Truong?”

  “Brock sent all the samples to the GBI. Even with a rush, back then it usually took a few months to get results. I never asked to see them because at that point, Daryl Nesbitt was the presumed perpetrator.”

  Amanda started typing on her phone. “We should have copies of the labs.”

  “Okay.” Faith needed clarification. “I get that there’s a progression in his attacks where he’s learning, and the hammer and the Gatorade make sense, but Caterino is an outlier. Hell yes, she was damaged, but she wasn’t mutilated like the other two victims.”

  “If I may, ma’am?” Nick waited for Amanda to give him the nod. “One of the theories the Chief and his team had was, maybe he doesn’t abduct them. Maybe he follows them into the woods. He knocks them out and carries them to a more secluded spot, usually off the beaten path. He drugs them into oblivion. He rapes them. He leaves them there and then he comes back, doing more damage with each visit. Then the body gets found and he has to look for a new victim.”

  Faith felt sick. “They’re alive the whole time? Just waiting for him to return and hurt them again?”

  “And paralyzed,” Sara said. “They could live for three days without water, three weeks without food, but if he came back—who knows?”

  “Ted Bundy returned to his victims,” Faith said. “If this killer is like Bundy, part of the excitement could be the fear of getting caught.”

  “Nick,” Amanda said. “Tell them about the profile.”

  Nick unsnapped his Liberace briefcase and pulled out a stapled stack of pages. “The Chief asked me to get the FBI to do a profile. Y’all know stranger homicides are a bitch. We figured it had to be somebody in town who knew the layout of the forest and where the students hung out. The Fee-Bees sent this back a year later.”

  Faith didn’t set much store by profiles, not least of all because they tended to be generated by older white men with personal issues of their own. “Let me guess. He hated his mother.”

  “They said his primary driver was Daddy issues. Dad coasted through life, our killer did not. He was socially isolated. An okay student who never applied himself. Ended up working with his hands. Mid-to-late thirties. Low self-esteem. Can’t find a woman, let alone keep her. Felt like he was a lesser man, is where Daddy comes in. The killer was seeking punishment, was how the FeeBees explained the risk-taking of leaving the bodies hidden in plain sight, then coming back to them until they were found. I’m sure as hell not one of those ‘the killer wants to be stopped’ kind of guys—I think killers never want to be caught—but this sick mofo was definitely taking some big-ass risks.”

  Amanda asked, “Sara?”

  She said, “I can see what they mean. Grant was a small, insular town. The killer was targeting young white women who were students, part of the community, with extended families. That’s asking for a lot of scrutiny.”

  Nick said, “He could’ve done his thing night and day in Atlanta with prostitutes and dumped their bodies in the Chattahoochee and nobody would’ve put any of it together.”

  “Question.” Faith raised her hand. “If he has Daddy issues, why didn’t he kill men? And why the mutilation?”

  “Because he hated his mother.”

  Bingo.

  “Anyway,” Nick continued. “The profile hits Daryl Nesbitt in the sweetmeats. Stepdad was a successful business-owner, at least until the law caught up to him. He never formally adopted Daryl, so the kid felt unwanted. Mom was a speed freak who tricked herself out. She OD’d when Daryl was eight. He dropped out of high school at sixteen and worked a series of menial jobs. He thought he was gonna be Tony Hawk, but he ended up being a day-laborer taking cash under the table to get out of paying taxes.”

  Sara said, “I don’t want to make sweeping statements, but the entire family was considered bad news. The stepfather’s shop was busted a few years ago for stripping stolen cars for parts.”

  Will said, “You’d need a machinist’s hammer for that.”

  “Correct,” Nick said. “All the evidence pointed right at Daryl Nesbitt. He lived in the vicinity. He had access to the hammer, which was a very particular type, even though it was readily available. He was connected to the victims. Motive, means, opportunity. It was all there.”

  Faith chewed at her tongue so she didn’t counter with the obvious, which was that their suspect was still out there killing, so the evidence wasn’t really evidence, it was more like a debunked alternate theory.

  She said, “Maybe, in the beginning, the killer wanted to get caught. But then he realized that he could make it more exciting by getting away with it.”

  Will cleared his throat. “If he’s really learning with each kill, then spreading his victims out all over the state is a smart move.”

  Faith said, “Bundy did that, too.”

  Amanda gave her a stern look of warning. Faith shrugged. She could only say the truth, and the truth was they were talking about a serial killer.

  Sara said, “To Faith’s point, if you want to discuss the thanatological aspect of the crime, I have some statistics.”

  Amanda never shut Sara down the way she did with everyone else. “They are?”

  “In sixteen percent of serial murders, you see some form of post-mortem mutilation. Desecration falls at under ten percent. Necrophilia and cannibalism less than five. Three percent of the time, there’s posing of the body for some kind of shock value.”

  Amanda asked, “Would you say Caterino and Truong were posed?”

  “They were effectively paralyzed, but both found on their backs. We have to assume the killer posed them that way. Alexandra McAllister could’ve been left on her back, but the predators fought over her body, so she was moved post-mortem.”

  “Okay.” Faith had to make a chart to keep track of this. “We’ve got four solid links between Humphrey, Truong and McAllister. The hammer to the head, the blue Gatorade, the paralyzing, and the mutilation. Caterino had the hammer, the Gatorade, the paralyzing, but not the mutilation. Truong and Caterino were missing personal items, the headband and the banana clip, respectively.”

  Will said, “Gerald Caterino hedged on the missing headband. It could be that things were missing because things were missing.”

  Faith looked at the grid she’d drawn on the page. She silently checked through the other victims from Daryl Nesbitt’s newspaper articles. She had to try one more time with Amanda.

  She asked, “Can we just go there for a minute?”

  Amanda knew where the where was. “Thirty seconds.”

  “You’re telling us that we can’t call this guy a serial killer, that we have a hunch but not concrete
links because there’s no evidence that he’s killed three or more women, right?”

  Amanda looked at her watch.

  “So, we’ve got eight possible victims from the newspaper articles. In order to get evidence that they were murdered and not all coincidentally a bunch of clumsy hikers, we’d have to talk to the investigators and coroners and any witnesses on all of those cases, right?”

  She was still looking at her watch.

  “So.” Faith punched out the word. “Why aren’t we talking to those coroners and witnesses and cops to ascertain whether or not there are more victims?”

  Amanda looked up from her watch. “Right now, the number of victims is immaterial. We have a murderer. We know he is a murderer. We also have something that we seldom get in these situations, and that is the element of surprise.”

  Nick said, “He doesn’t know that we know he’s still out there.”

  “Correct,” Amanda said. “If we start knocking on the doors of eight different jurisdictions that have anywhere from ten-to-fifty different officers standing around looking for gossip, how long do you think that element of surprise will last?”

  Faith asked, “But what do we lose?”

  “What do we gain?” Amanda countered. “There are no autopsy reports because the deaths were not ruled suspicious. In half the cases, the bodies were cremated. No investigations were started, let alone completed. We already have access to the details of the women’s disappearances. We already know where they were found, how long they were missing, their names, their addresses, their occupations, the names of their relatives. What more do you think we’ll get?”

  “Maybe one of the detectives was uneasy with the coroner’s finding.”

  “Weigh that against CNN following our every move. Or Fox doing a prime-time special. Or the newspapers or the reporters or the police officers talking off the record about every finding or possible lead or suspect.” Amanda said, “Now think about the killer watching those shows, hearing those leaks, adjusting his M.O. Possibly going underground or moving to another state where we have no contacts and no authority.”

  Faith couldn’t articulate a defense, but she knew in her gut that talking to people was the best tool, sometimes the only tool, a detective had.

  Amanda said, “We can discuss the newspaper articles in here, inside these walls, until you are blue in the face, but not one phone call gets made, not one source gets tapped, without my permission. Understood?”

  “Does it matter what I answer?”

  “No,” Amanda said. “Dr. Linton? Do you have anything further to share?”

  Sara shook her head.

  “All right, let’s get to the Gerald Caterino of it all.” Amanda said, “Faith, you’re up. Please feel free to start with the articles.”

  Faith had planned to do just that, but she gave a heavy sigh that Emma would’ve been jealous of. She turned back through the pages in her notebook as she took Sara’s place at the podium. She felt like Barney Fife following Charlize Theron. Sara had done some kind of John Hughes nerd thing where she’d slapped on some make-up, took off her glasses and was suddenly Julia Roberts. Faith looked like what she was—a single mother who spent ninety percent of most mornings asking a two-year-old how something got wet.

  Faith had spent half the night collating information and most of the morning on the phone, but she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to take a dig at Amanda. “All of this is scanned into the server if you want to dig into the details, but for now, we’ll do exactly as Amanda ordered and start with the victims from the articles.”

  Amanda remained stoic.

  “Joan Feeney. Rennie Seeger. Pia Danske. Charlene Driscoll. Deaundra Baum. Shay Van Dorne. Bernadette Baker. Jessica Spivey.” Faith clicked the remote for the Smart Board, pulling up the images she had pre-loaded. “Gerald Caterino had copies of all the coroner’s reports. As has been stated, no autopsies were performed on any of the victims because no foul play was suspected. Gerald spoke by phone or in person to friends and family members. He talked to some of the local investigators. Extrapolating from his notes, I think we can remove Seeger, Driscoll, Spivey, Baker and Baum.”

  “Because?” Amanda prompted.

  “Seeger had a history of suicide attempts. Driscoll was suffering from postpartum depression. Spivey was an obvious trip-and-fall. Baker had a jealous husband and two even more jealous boyfriends. Baum drowned in shallow water, which is suspicious, but not our kind of suspicious.” Faith pointed to the remaining women. “Joan Feeney. The coroner’s report states animal activity around her breasts, anus and vagina. Pia Danske. Animal activity, unspecified. Shay Van Dorne. Animal activity in ‘sex organs,’ according to the dentist who serves as the Dougall County coroner.”

  Will provided, “Gerald Caterino didn’t know about the mutilations, so he didn’t ask.”

  Sara said, “As far as I know, Tommi never spoke about what happened to her, and Leslie Truong’s case is technically still open, so it’s not subject to a freedom of information request.”

  “Correct,” Amanda verified. “Faith?”

  Faith did not appreciate being needled, but she clicked back to images she had culled from Gerald’s murder wall.

  She said, “Pia Dankse’s best friend reported that Pia was very worried because her grandmother’s silver hairbrush was missing. Joan Feeney had to borrow a headband from a friend in exercise class because the one she always kept in her gym bag had gone missing. Shay Van Dorne was driving in her car with her neighbor’s daughter. The kid asked to borrow a comb. Van Dorne seemed very concerned that the comb was missing. Also, according to Gerald, all three women reported independently to a friend or family member that they were feeling uneasy before their disappearance, as if they were being watched. So, without any of the bodies, we’ve got two connections. The missing hair accessories and the feeling of being stalked or watched prior to death.”

  Sara asked, “Do you know the disposition of the bodies?”

  “All but Van Dorne were cremated.” Faith walked over to one of the boards. “Here’s the important thing, though. There’s a pattern to the three recent murders.”

  Amanda said, “We have no proof of murder.”

  Faith made a face. “Feeney, Danske and Van Dorne. I ran through their social media profiles, checked dating sites, credit reports, addresses, all the usual stuff, but there’s no connection. But then I looked at the calendar. Feeney and Danske both disappeared the last week of March. Van Dorne disappeared the last week of October.”

  Sara said, “Tommi Humphrey was attacked the last week of October. Caterino and Truong were attacked in late March.”

  Faith said, “And Alexandra McAllister was killed in October. We’ve got a murderer who averages two victims a year, roughly five-to-seven months apart.”

  Amanda gave her another sharp look, because that sounded like a serial killer.

  Nick said, “The FBI profiler says that the killer thinks about what he’s doing for a while. There’s a fantasy element. Then, something sets him off. Maybe he loses another job or his mother nags him about leaving his socks on the floor, so he pops off.”

  “Hold on, I’ve got an update from the lab.” Amanda looked at her phone. She tapped the screen a few times, then silently read. Finally, she told them, “The GBI doesn’t have a record of the Leslie Truong toxicology reports from Grant County eight years ago.”

  Nick said, “We were still faxing back then. I might have a copy in my old files. The report would’ve gone from me to Brock with a cc to the Chief.”

  Sara said, “It wasn’t in his files.”

  Amanda told Nick, “Track it down.”

  He closed his briefcase and left.

  Sara said, “Brock should have a copy, too.”

  “Good.” Amanda said, “Rasheed, go back to the prison and work on the Vasquez murder. Gary, you’ve still got your training wheels on. I need you out of here for this next part.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Gary closed
his notebook. He left with Rasheed.

  Amanda waited until the door was closed.

  She told Faith, “Heath Caterino.”

  Faith doubted Sara and Will had talked about yesterday’s revelation, so for Sara’s sake, she said, “Beckey Caterino has a seven-year-old son. He’ll turn eight at Christmas.”

  Sara bit her bottom lip. She had done the math.

  Faith told her about the letter Daryl Nesbitt had sent Gerald from prison. “Gerald supplied us with the DNA report off the saliva from the stamp and envelope seal. An AABB-accredited, court-recognized commercial lab ruled out Daryl Nesbitt as the father.”

  “So,” Sara was clearly struggling to make sense of this new detail. “If Daryl isn’t Heath’s father, that means he wasn’t the person who attacked Beckey, which means he wasn’t the person who attacked Leslie Truong.”

  Faith tried for the positive. “As soon as we find a suspect, we can prove he raped Beckey through a paternity test that ties him to Heath.”

  Amanda said, “We can prove that he had sex with Beckey around the time that she was attacked. Yes, she identified as a lesbian, but any defense lawyer worth his salt would challenge her fluidity. The truth won’t matter. The girl is in no condition to say otherwise.”

  Faith leaned her elbows on the podium. She was getting tired of Amanda knocking them down. There were so many flashing signs that they were practically landing on the Vegas strip.

  Amanda picked up on her mood. “Faith, you of all people should be familiar with taking baby steps. We move one foot, then we move the other. We don’t jump across the room. Slow and steady builds the case. What about this Love2CMurder website?”

  Faith paused to make her reluctance felt. “According to the site, Dirk Masterson is a retired Detroit homicide cop. He moved to Georgia with his wife, who is a retired school teacher, because they wanted to be close to their ten grandchildren. His invoices go to a post office box in Marietta. The city of Detroit has no record of an officer named Dirk Masterson. Meanwhile, he’s bilked Gerald Caterino out of tens of thousands of dollars.”