I See You

by Burton, Mary

  “I watched the news and know you have your hands full. I wanted you to know the examination of Galina Grant is complete. As you suspected at the crime scene, it was the knife wound to her neck that killed her. Even if she’d been in an emergency room seconds after it happened, it would have been nearly impossible to save her.”

  That gave Vaughan little comfort. “I also sent a Jane Doe your way.”

  “After I conducted a preliminary external examination on this victim, I expedited her autopsy.”

  “Why?”

  “Her wound patterns are almost identical to Galina Grant’s.”

  Vaughan was silent for a moment as he weighed this new development. “Special Agent Zoe Spencer and I can be there in half an hour.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  The drive west to the Commonwealth of Virginia Medical Examiner’s Northern Virginia office took almost forty minutes. He looped around the I-495 beltway but was quickly brought to a standstill on I-66 thanks to a fender bender. It was past eleven o’clock before he pulled up in front of the modern building outfitted with large windows.

  Both showed identification to the night guard, who called down to Baldwin. Minutes passed before the elevator doors opened and Baldwin stepped off. Dressed in scrubs, Baldwin was a tall man in his late thirties with wide-set shoulders and thick dark hair. A five-o’clock shadow blanketed his square jaw.

  His athletic shoes squeaked slightly as he crossed the lobby. He extended his hand. “Vaughan. It’s been a while since we’ve seen you in the cycling group.”

  “Launching Nate has been all-consuming for the last few weeks,” Vaughan said.

  “He has been delivered to college?” Baldwin asked.

  “Thirty-six hours ago.”

  “I’d ask you if you missed him, but judging by the news, I’d say you’ve not had time.”

  Vaughan knew life would slow, and he would have real time to miss Nate. He dreaded it. “This is Special Agent Zoe Spencer.”

  “I believe we spoke on the phone over the summer,” she said, extending her hand.

  “The Jane Doe skull, a.k.a. Marsha Prince. I saw the pictures of your facial reconstruction work,” he said. “Nice job.”

  “Thank you.”

  “As you know, I did examine the bones and found knife marks on one of the ribs.”

  “Can you inspect the bones again?” Spencer asked. “Look at the neck vertebrae especially.”

  “You think the same killer?” Baldwin asked.

  “I don’t want to rule it out,” she said.

  Baldwin nodded, letting out a sigh. “I can tell you how Jane Doe died. Come on down to the autopsy suite, and I’ll brief you.” They rode the elevators down a couple of floors. The doors opened to a long white hallway lit by high-wattage fixtures. Vents blasted cool air as they made their way to the storage room.

  They each donned latex gloves as Baldwin crossed to a bank of drawers reserved for the dead. He opened number 202 and pulled out a slab that held a sheet-clad body.

  Baldwin carefully drew back the sheet to expose a drawn face that was blackening due to decomposition. The chest was marked with a sutured Y incision.

  “She’s a Caucasian female in her mid- to late thirties,” Baldwin said. “Judging by her teeth and bones, she enjoyed reasonably good health and nutrition. She was approximately five foot three inches tall, and she died as a result of multiple stab wounds. The lethal cut was across her neck, severing the carotid artery.”

  “Like Galina Grant?” Vaughan asked.

  “Almost identical, and judging by the jagged marks on the wounds found on both women, I’d say a similar knife was used. The wounds were also deep. There were no minor stab wounds, which would have suggested hesitation.”

  “Which would suggest worry or inexperience,” Spencer said. “This guy is comfortable with killing.”

  “I would agree,” Baldwin said.

  “Were you able to get fingerprints from Jane Doe?” Vaughan asked.

  “Yes, we were able to get an impression of the right index finger and roll a print. It’s with AFIS now, so we should know something within a few hours. And we also found a parking pass in the back pocket of her pants. Decomposition fluids made it tough to read, but one of my techs was able to confirm it was issued at the deck on the five hundred block of King Street.”

  “King Street?” Vaughan asked.

  “Near Old Town,” Baldwin said.

  “And one block away from the gym where Hadley Foster worked.”

  Spencer’s eyes darkened with interest. She dropped her gaze to her phone and pulled up the location on a map. “Was there a date on the pass?”

  “We think the first week of August of this year, but the numbers are hard to read. Forensic is putting the paper under the microscope. Based on the insect activity found on the body and the body’s state of decay, which would have been accelerated in this heat wave, I’d say she’s been dead about seven to ten days.”

  “That matches with the parking pass,” Spencer said.

  “Yes,” replied Baldwin.

  “Anything else?” Vaughan asked.

  “We found nothing else in her pockets or on her body. Hard to say at this point if she’d been sexually active or assaulted. We did pull some black hair fibers from her body, and they have been sent to the lab.”

  “Do you still have Galina Grant’s body?” Vaughan asked.

  “Yes.” He carefully covered the body with a sheet and closed the drawer before moving to drawer 205. “We did locate Galina Grant’s mother. She lives in Kansas but can’t afford to travel here to claim the body, nor can she afford to bury her.” He opened the drawer and peeled back the sheet to reveal Galina Grant.

  Vaughan studied the young girl’s still, drawn face, already blotchy with decomposition. Anger burned in him. No kid deserved to die like this.

  “Jane Doe had good dental care, while Grant had a half dozen cavities,” Baldwin said. “Radiology also revealed she’d suffered several broken bones, including her nose. That injury appeared to be within the last couple of months.”

  “There was a pizza box at the crime scene, and it contained only discarded onions and pepperoni.”

  “There was a partial slice of pizza in her stomach.”

  “Any pepperoni?” Vaughan asked.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

  So the killer hated the topping. “What else do you have, Doc?”

  “Vaginal bruising confirms she had rough sexual intercourse before she died, but her partner wore a condom and didn’t leave semen behind.”

  Spencer knitted her fingers together as she stared at Galina Grant. “She’s so young.”

  “She was nineteen,” Baldwin said.

  “A little older than Skylar,” Spencer said.

  “Even like Marsha Prince when she died,” Vaughan said. The evidence was creating a pattern that he feared painted the picture of a serial killer.

  Vaughan’s phone rang. It was Hughes. Turning and walking away, he pressed the phone to his ear. “Tell me you have something.”

  “I’ve matched Hadley Foster’s credit card transactions with video footage from several stores. You might want to have a look.”

  “We’re on our way.”

  They left the medical examiner’s office, and as he drove east, back toward Alexandria, he glanced toward Spencer, who was sitting quietly, scrolling through her phone. “What do you think?”

  Her naturally skeptical eyes swung around to meet his. “You have a killer who has a type. And he’s been active for a long time.”

  “His capacity for violence is high. That’s not easy to miss.”

  “He moves between jurisdictions and hunts prostitutes like Galina Grant. How many girls like Galina just vanish, and no one ever notices?”

  “Too many.” He tightened his grip on the wheel. “Marsha Prince, Hadley, and Skylar Foster aren’t the kind of women whose disappearances go undetected.”

  “Marsha was murdered
eighteen years ago. The world was not as connected, and forensic science was still developing. But I’d wager he learned from her that hunting in affluent neighborhoods would get him caught.”

  “So he shifted gears.”

  “For a time, yes.”

  “And then Hadley Foster returns to Alexandria,” she said.

  “She and Skylar were featured in the news in March when they won a fitness competition. Maybe seeing her stirred up memories.”

  “She starts him on a new killing spree.”

  “I would wager he has never stopped. In fact, I would wager seeing her agitated him and made him sloppy.”

  “It’s all theories until we find Hadley and Skylar.”

  “Exactly.” She slowly took in a breath, drawing his attention to the long lines of her neck. She had a grace and confidence that was hard to ignore. He liked the way she pinned her hair up.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving. But I don’t think we have time.”

  “I was thinking pizza.”

  She arched a brow. “Would this be a pizza place close to Galina Grant’s crime scene?”

  “Maybe. Pepperoni and onions work for you?”

  “Sure.”

  “My kind of gal. Find the pizza place nearest the Bragg Street motel, and I’ll buy.”

  She searched her phone. “There are three.”

  “We’ll go with the closest.”

  She called in the order, and twenty minutes later, he walked through the front door of the pizza shop, his gaze traveling to the piles of delivery boxes piled behind the counter.

  “Pizza for Vaughan,” he said.

  The slim Hispanic kid behind the counter rang up the order. Vaughan pulled up a picture of Galina. “Ever seen this girl?”

  The kid frowned and looked from side to side, as if worried. “No.”

  “I’m not here to make trouble.” He lifted the edge of his jacket, exposing his badge. “She was killed, and I’m trying to find her killer.”

  “I don’t know her.”

  Vaughan scrolled to the picture of the pizza box. “You ever use boxes like this one?”

  “No. We always got our name on our pizza boxes.”

  “Know anyone who uses this kind?” Vaughan asked.

  “Maybe Gino’s. It’s three blocks from here.”

  “Thanks.” He picked up the box, strode to his car, and set the pizza in the back seat.

  The light from her phone sharpened the angles on her face as he slid behind the wheel. “Any luck?”

  “Guy thinks maybe Gino’s.”

  “Do you want me to call in an order?” she asked.

  “Onions and pepperoni?”

  “Done.”

  The drive to Gino’s took less than five minutes, and when he pulled up, she reached for her purse. “I got it. Do me a favor and don’t park in front of the store. This vehicle screams cop.”

  He chose a spot in the shadows that also gave him a clear view into the glass storefront of the pizza shop. “And if we aren’t cops, what are we?”

  “Not we. Me. I’ll think of something. Stay in the car.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  She rose out of the car, her long legs carrying her quickly across the lot. He watched Spencer inside the shop as she grinned and approached the cashier. Her expression brightened in a way that made it hard for the cashier or him not to notice.

  The cashier, an older guy with white hair and a scruffy mustache, turned and selected her box from a tall stack.

  When he handed her the ticket, she touched her hair and straightened her back a fraction, accentuating her breasts slightly. The man leaned in toward her, and the two spoke for several minutes before she smiled again and picked up the box and left. The cashier raised his phone, but his gaze lingered an extra beat on her ass.

  She opened his back door and put her pizza box on top of his. “That your logo?”

  He turned around. “Bingo.”

  “I thought so. Galina comes in several times a week. Loves her toppings. The last time he saw her was Monday.”

  “Was she with anyone?”

  “She came in alone and paid cash. The shop has security cameras, so I suggest you get a warrant for the footage.”

  “Will do.” Shaking his head, he put his car in drive. “He told you all this?”

  “I said Galina was coming into real money, and there was a finder’s fee for anyone that helped me.”

  Vaughan arrived at the police station minutes later, and with pizza boxes in hand, he followed her to his desk.

  “Point the way to the ladies’ room?”

  “To your left, just past the break room.”

  “Perfect.”

  Like the cashier, he enjoyed watching her walk away.

  When she vanished around the corner, he flipped his attention to his desk and the dozen pink slips. He sifted through the names and numbers, deciding they could all wait.

  When Spencer returned, she held two sodas and several napkins. They opened the box from Gino’s first, and each selected a slice. He sat behind his desk, and she, in front in a metal chair, scooted up close to the edge.

  After they’d each sampled the second box of pizza, he asked, “What do you think?”

  “If I were a hungry young girl, it would be amazing.”

  “Tell me you have not eaten all the pizza,” Hughes said as she approached the desk with a computer tablet in hand.

  “For you, we have plenty.” Vaughan grinned.

  “Bless you. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.” She pulled up a chair, grabbed a slice, and took a big bite before pressing several keys on her tablet. As Spencer reached for a second slice, Hughes asked, “How can you be so slim and eat so much? It’s going to take me weeks to work off this meal.”

  “My dance instructors used to tell me I was fat,” Spencer said.

  Hughes snorted. “How much did you weigh when you danced?”

  “One hundred fifteen pounds.”

  “I weighed that in the third grade,” Hughes countered with a chuckle.

  “They wanted me closer to one hundred.”

  “At your height?”

  “The teachers liked thin and wispy,” Spencer said.

  Vaughan thought Spencer looked damn fantastic. “And how did you get to be a cop?”

  “I broke my leg when I was eighteen and, while I was rehabbing, went to school to fill the extra time and fell in love with criminal science.”

  “Ballet’s loss is the FBI’s gain,” Hughes said.

  “So they tell me.” Spencer took several bites of her food before asking, “What do you have for us, Detective Hughes?”

  Hughes wiped her fingers off with a napkin and punched more buttons. “The first act of this story occurs on July first. Hadley and Skylar are shopping.”

  The image of the two in a dress shop appeared. They stood at the counter, and while Hadley paid the bill, the girl stared at her phone. The sales clerk seemed to speak to Skylar, but the girl didn’t look up. Hadley nudged her, and the girl turned and walked out of the store.

  Hughes pressed another button, changing the camera angle. “And then this happened.”

  Vaughan understood teenage hormones and moods, secretly glad he had a boy. As he watched the screen, he noticed a man who had been leaning against a store across the street began to follow them. The man wore a hat, a long-sleeve shirt, and dark pants.

  “Did everybody see our man across the street?” Hughes asked.

  Vaughan and Spencer nodded.

  “On to act three. Hadley is at the hardware store. She bought a cooler that day. Her actual purchase was of no interest until I caught this.” Hughes pressed a button. “Remember this is around the time her husband and neighbor said she started to act differently.”

  Hadley walked out of the store, and as she crossed the sidewalk, a man came up on her right. He was tall and lean like the man in the first video, and this time he walked directly toward her. When it became
clear she had not noticed him, he called out to her. She lifted her gaze and at first appeared confused. Then she took a step back.

  Grinning, the man moved closer, stopping less than three feet from her. Her confusion shifted to worry, and she gripped the handle of the cooler. She stumbled backward and then turned and ran toward her car. The stranger pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it up.

  “Who is our mystery man?” Vaughan asked.

  Hughes selected the man’s face and enlarged it. “I don’t know.”

  “Can you print that out for me?” Vaughan asked.

  She dropped her gaze back to the list of phone numbers. “Sure.”

  When the printer across the room spat out the image, Hughes crossed to the machine, retrieved it, and handed it to Spencer.

  “Judging by Hadley’s expression, she knew this guy very well,” Spencer said.

  “We find this guy, we might find Skylar and Hadley?”

  “Maybe,” Spencer said.

  This added a new dimension to their search. “I’ll show the picture to the motel manager where Galina died. He said he didn’t see who Galina showed up with, but he might still know this guy.”

  Hughes studied her computer notes. “FYI, Mark Foster called the same number sixteen times in the last two weeks. It’s an unregistered phone, but I called it. The owner’s voicemail was canned, and the inbox was full and didn’t accept a message.”

  “Read it off to me?” Vaughan asked. As she did, he scribbled down the number.

  “Mr. Foster’s cell phone records indicated the last time he called this individual was seven days ago. They spoke for thirty-two minutes.”

  “What about Skylar’s phone?” Vaughan asked.

  “Most of her calls were to Neil Bradford,” Hughes said. “And there is one more number that doesn’t appear to be attached to a name. It has a North Carolina area code and, like the number Mark was calling, is a burner.”

  “One thing for Mark Foster to call a burner, but Skylar?” Spencer said.

  “Not all kids can afford the better phones,” Vaughan said.

  He took several more bites of pizza and then dialed the number. “Let’s see.” It rang several times but never went to voicemail.

  She nodded to the man’s image on the screen.