“Were you upset that Angie and Steve were together?”
“No.”
She was lying, but Carina didn’t think she could press out the truth, and what would it accomplish if she did? “Why do you think Angie got a restraining order against Steve?”
She looked them in the eye. “She was scared.”
“Of Steve?”
“I don’t know. He scared her, something he said, and she didn’t want to talk about it. I don’t think it was just because of Steve.”
“Why do you think she was scared?”
“I don’t know. Really, it’s something Abby and I were talking about last night. Just a feeling. But it was also around the time she found out Doug was two-timing her, and that really upset her. So maybe we’re just trying to read something into it because of what happened.” She took a deep breath. “She did start getting some weirder than normal comments on her posts.”
“Anything specific?”
“I never saw them. She deleted a bunch of them. But they made her nervous, and then with Steve hounding her all the time to stop writing the journal, she wondered if he was the one posting the comments. You know, to scare her into not posting her sex diary.”
Carina glanced at Will and saw that he was thinking the same thing she was.
“Thank you, Jodi,” Will said. “Please be careful, okay? Don’t go anywhere alone, at least for the time being. Be aware of your surroundings. We’re concerned about your safety.”
“It was a dumb thing to do. We were drinking and one thing led to another…” Tears welled in her eyes. “Will you find out who killed her? Can you stop him?”
“We will,” Carina said. She hoped.
Carina and Will thanked the dean for the use of his office and walked back to their car. Carina called her brother Patrick.
“Patrick, it’s your big sister.”
“What do you want?”
“Do I always want something?”
“Yes.”
She grinned. “We might have a break.” She filled him in on the deleted messages. “Do you think you can retrieve them?”
A long silence. “Don’t think so, Cara.”
“Why not? I know those undelete programs the department got from the FBI e-crimes division are the best.”
“True, but those comments would have been saved on the external server, not the victim’s own hard drive. Unless she copied them for some reason and saved them, you’ll need a warrant to access the MyJournal server, and then if they were deleted before a backup was complete, I doubt there’ll be any record of them.”
“Dammit, Patrick, that wasn’t what I wanted to hear.”
“But,” he continued, “I can find out if any of the comments were posted by your suspect. And there’ll be a log on Angie’s computer as to when the comments were deleted. Maybe she e-mailed them to someone, maybe she saved them. I’ll look, sis, but I can’t promise I’ll have the answers you want.”
“Thanks.” She hung up and relayed the conversation to Will. “We need to get back downtown ASAP. Dillon’s probably already waiting for us.”
“I hope he can help with a profile,” Will said.
“Dillon is unusually good at getting into the mind of murderers,” Carina said. “If anyone can help, it’s him.”
Nick arrived at the police station just before the lunch hour, hoping he could convince detectives Kincaid and Hooper to accept his assistance with the investigation.
If they didn’t want his help, he’d work it alone. But he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“May I help you?” the desk sergeant asked.
Nick showed his badge, knowing it was the fastest way to get information. “Sheriff Thomas, from out of state. I’m looking for Detectives Kincaid and Hooper about a case they’re working.”
“They just left.” He glanced at a sheet in front of them. “Signed out for lunch. I can page them for you.”
Nick hesitated. He’d rather talk to them in person, especially with what he wanted to discuss. “When will they return?”
The sergeant sized him up, approved. “They went across the street. To Bob’s Burgers. They left five minutes ago.”
Nick smiled, put his hat back on. “Thanks, Sergeant.”
“Anytime, Sheriff.”
THIRTEEN
CARINA GREETED HER BROTHER with a hug, then sat down across from him in the booth. “Sorry we’re late,” she said.
He waved off the apology. “I only just got here myself.”
“We really appreciate you doing this off the clock.” Though Dillon was a freelance forensic consultant for the District Attorney’s Office and often worked with the police department on complex cases, he was rarely called in before a suspect was in custody. He also maintained a private practice.
Dillon looked more like their Irish-American dad than any of the seven Kincaid children. While Carina shared the darker complexion of her Cuban-born mother, Dillon had the fair skin and red-brown hair of their father. He was built more like a lean football player than a shrink, which made sense since he’d played college ball and had intended to go into sports medicine before being diverted into criminal psychiatry.
Carina let her partner fill Dillon in on the details of Angie’s life, as they knew it, and her death. Dillon looked through the crime file while Will spoke.
“The DA doesn’t think we have enough to prosecute Thomas,” Will said. “That’s why we came to you. Carina and I are leaning toward him as the killer, but there’s no hard evidence. It’s all circumstantial.”
“And you think he’s guilty because she put a restraining order on him.”
“That and she ridiculed him in public,” Will said. “Through the online journal. He lied to us at least twice.”
“In addition to Thomas, we have a missing boyfriend, a small-time drug dealer named Doug Masterson,” Carina added.
“Are you certain the killer is somehow connected to her sex journal?” Dillon asked.
Carina glanced at Will. “We’re not certain about anything at this point. But because the murder was sexual and her body defaced with profanity, it was the logical place to start.”
Dillon agreed. “After reviewing the autopsy report Will sent over, I think it’s personal as well. She knew her killer.”
That had been Carina’s gut reaction as well. “Someone like Steve Thomas. Ex-boyfriend.” Carina stopped speaking when she sensed someone watching them.
Sheriff Nick Thomas crossed the length of the burger joint, hat in hand. He wasn’t rushed, but ambled over with a steadfast stride. She was struck again by his quiet confidence. He didn’t exude arrogance like so many cops she worked with. Instead, Nick Thomas had an aura that bespoke competence, intelligence, focus.
And he was nice on the eyes. Very nice on the eyes.
“My Mama always said you can catch more flies with honey.”
One conversation with Sheriff Thomas the day before and she was already eager to listen to him again. His voice was even sexier than his firm body. She picked up her iced tea and sipped. The temperature in the room felt like it had risen at least ten degrees.
“I’m sorry to bother you at lunch,” Nick Thomas said matter-of-factly, “but I was hoping you might have a few moments to discuss the Vance case.”
Carina’s first instinct was to dismiss him. Set up something for later. He was the brother of a suspect. But Nick knew about serial killers, had caught one in his own jurisdiction. And he was a cop first, she had known that the minute she had laid eyes on him yesterday.
She glanced at Will and he gave her a half shrug. Her call. She nodded, and Will said, “Sheriff, we’re talking about the case now. Your input may prove valuable, in light of your knowledge about your brother and your experience with sexual predators.”
Carina watched something intense flash behind Nick’s blue eyes, then disappear. He didn’t so much as move a muscle, but his entire body gave off a warning vibe.
“But,” Will continued
, “how do we know you won’t take something from our conversation and screw with our investigation?”
Slowly he said, “You only have my word.”
No one said anything for a long minute. Carina was still torn—she didn’t want to jeopardize a conviction for anything. But what Nick had said yesterday had stayed with her. If Steve is guilty, I’ll be the one to throw away the key.
“All right,” Carina said. “Your word is good with us.”
Nick slid into the booth, extending his hand to Dillon as Carina introduced them. “Dr. Dillon Kincaid—yes, he’s my brother—is a forensic psychiatrist. We’re talking informally right now, trying to get a handle on the situation.”
She filled Nick in on the manner of Angie’s murder. When she was done, Nick said, “You think you have a serial killer on your hands.”
“We don’t know enough of anything,” Will said, “except that the crime seems both ritualistic, like a serial killer, and personal, like she knew her attacker.”
“It doesn’t sound like a crime of passion,” Nick said carefully. “Too carefully planned. Premeditated. Generally crimes of passion are sudden, unplanned attacks fueled by some perceived wrong.”
Dillon leaned forward, nodding. “I agree.”
“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t an elaborate setup. To make the murder look like something it’s not,” Will said.
“Anything’s possible these days. But I’m just saying, in my experience, Angie’s killer enjoyed it.”
“This is unofficial, right?” Dillon asked, looking at Carina.
“Completely off the record,” she said, realizing that Nick was right. Whether the killer had attacked Angie for lust or anger or power, he’d enjoyed it. And when he stopped having his fun, he killed her.
“We need a little direction,” Will said. “If there’s a better than fifty-fifty chance that the killer is our suspect, we’ll work hard to find the evidence to prove it. If we’re barking up the wrong tree, we need to learn the identity of each and every man the victim wrote about on her website, then everyone who posted comments. That’ll take weeks, months, and I don’t see the chief giving us any more help on this one.”
Carina concurred. She hated it, but that was the politics of working in a big-city police department. Angie’s murder wasn’t high-profile enough.
“Your chief will give you the resources when the killer strikes again,” Nick said.
Dillon concurred. “Nick’s right.”
Carina’s stomach sank. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“A crime of passion might have some elaborate cover-up to make it look like something else,” Dillon explained, “but I don’t see that here. The killer glued her mouth shut before he killed her, and according to Dr. Chen, before he raped her. You might think it’s a variation on a gag, but it’s more than that. A gag can be removed. Glue might be seen as a permanent seal. The killer was essentially telling her to be quiet forever. He didn’t want to hear anything she might have to say.”
“Could that be some sort of grotesque punishment for what she wrote online?” Will asked.
“Possibly. Something she wrote may have set him off.”
“So we’re looking for someone she wrote about. That’s one of at least eight men, all of whom are identified only by their initials.”
Carina commented, “Her friends might be able to identify some of them. We know of Steve Thomas and Doug Masterson. There must be others they’ve met.” She jotted down a note to remind herself.
Dillon put up his hand. “While it may be someone she was intimate with, I’m more inclined to think it was a lurker, someone reading her journal, becoming excited by her comments, and hating himself for it. If he already has an unhealthy fantasy life, her blatant sexuality may have spurred him to action.
“But I’m undecided on that point,” he continued. “I’ve read the coroner’s report in detail. Because she was repeatedly raped with foreign objects, including a capped beer bottle, the damage to her body was extensive. However, piecing together the evidence, Dr. Chen believes she was initially raped by the killer, then he used a beer bottle and other devices on her.”
“Why?” Will asked. “Isn’t rape about power? Isn’t the ultimate power for these sick bastards to dominate?”
“Having forcible sex with her wasn’t enough of a high for him,” Nick said quietly.
Dillon stared at Nick. “Exactly,” he said. “After he raped her he didn’t obtain the satisfaction he thought he would. It angered him and he blamed her. So he tried other means of bringing on the reaction he wanted.”
“Each weapon he used on her,” Carina said, “was a common household item. Nothing that had to be specially purchased.”
“Yes and no,” Dillon said. “Rope and glue? I’d say he planned to kidnap her and rape her. Maybe he didn’t plan on killing her, or hadn’t thought it out completely. But once she was captive, he knew he was going to kill her. He had to. She wasn’t blindfolded, and unless he had a mask on the whole time, she’d be able to identify him.”
“The question remains how he kidnapped her,” Will said. “She came home late Friday night, but disappeared before her mother woke up Saturday morning. She wouldn’t have left the house voluntarily with a stranger.”
“She knew her attacker,” said Carina.
“Yes. Someone she trusted or had no reason to fear.”
Nick played devil’s advocate. “If she was scared of Steve, why would she go off voluntarily with him?”
“Maybe she was drugged,” Carina countered. “Forensics is running additional tests.”
“Let’s consider another possibility,” Dillon interrupted. “For the sake of argument, put aside the restraining order for a moment. The manner of death is particular. The glue. The journal is anonymous, but you and I both know how easy it is to learn the real identity of the posters.”
Carina nodded. “Patrick explained it to us.”
“There was a case I consulted on last year where a girl in Poway had one of those journaling Web pages. A sexual predator tracked her down, lured her out by convincing her he was a high school senior at a neighboring school, then raped and killed her. Her content was all very innocent, and her parents had helped her set it up according to all the safety rules—no personal information, no identifying comments. One of her friends had a picture of her on their journal page and identified her by her login name; another friend on the list mentioned some geographical information; another friend talked about losing a big game on Saturday night and named teams. The killer put all the information together, tracked her down, lured her out, and killed her.”
“So even being anonymous doesn’t help,” Nick said.
Dillon shook his head. “Unfortunately, it’s a false sense of security. Getting back to this killer, I think you need to look at the manner of her murder.
“Using industrial-strength glue to seal her mouth may have been personal, but I think it’s simpler than that. He didn’t want to hear her cry; he didn’t want her to say anything. Maybe he feared he could be talked out of it, maybe he was in a location where someone might hear her. With the glue, the victim would be in extreme pain if she tried to move her mouth. She would be focusing on breathing through her nose and not choking. But there’s something about her mouth and her voice that sets him off.
“The other thing that really stands out to me is that he didn’t kill her with his own hands. He put her in garbage bags, bound them, and she suffocated to death. This might indicate that he’s removed from the killing, that he feels it has to be done but he doesn’t want to do it.”
“So this isn’t some elaborate setup?” Will asked.
“Setup?”
“Like some guy wanting payback for the victim talking about him online. Rapes her, hurts her, kills her, but then trying to make it look like some psychotic asshole.”
Dillon looked at him. “Anyone capable of a murder like this is a sociopath.”
“May I look at the report
?” Nick asked.
Carina hesitated, then handed him Dillon’s copy. “It stays here,” she said.
“Of course.”
Dillon continued. “Your killer is very immature. The crude manner of the rape, the awkwardness of the way she was bound, writing across her breasts in marker—it all points to someone who isn’t a seasoned killer. The supplies he used were common household supplies, as you already noticed.”
“Why is writing in marker a sign of immaturity?” Will asked.
“Virtually every similar case I’ve investigated, a killer marks a body by carving into it or taking something away like hair or an appendage. Writing on the body with a marker or pen or paint seems almost like an afterthought. Not so much branding the victim, but sending a message as to what he thought she was in case anyone missed it. It wasn’t for him so much as for anyone who might find her.”
Carina said, “Dr. Chen’s report indicated that the marker had been applied after she’d been washed.”
“And then there’s how he disposed of the body,” Dillon said.
“Killers often leave their victims in plain sight,” Carina said, “as a way to taunt police. To show us they’re ‘smarter.’ ”
“I’m looking at the big picture,” Dillon explained. “The common restraints. Not wanting to hear her talk or cry or scream. Putting her in garbage bags to die on her own without any help from him.”
“He put her in them!” Will exclaimed.
“Yes, but he’s a step removed, he’s watching her die as opposed to being an active participant in her death.” Dillon had a rare look of frustration on his face. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that each step he took—restraining her, sealing her mouth, washing her body, suffocating her, dumping her body—fits together if you look at it from the killer’s point of view.”
“She’s dead, she’s nothing, he throws her out like garbage,” Nick said.
“Right. She holds no more allure for him. Dead, she’s an annoyance, a chore that needs to be done. Like taking out the trash. Now, there’s one more thing that’s important.”
“He cleaned the body,” Nick said.
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