“No, thank the Lord,” Sarah said. “This is actually the first time I’ve been in here for ’bout six months. I can’t believe how much worse it is. I’m surprised we don’t have no bug infestation or, even worse, rats.”
“Once our investigation is complete, I’d get this cleaned up as soon as you can,” Leah said.
That all happened yesterday, and today, Chris and Leah drove into Satsuma once again to visit the medical examiner, Norman Crabtree, this time to get his full report on Mercy Jo.
They met with Norman in the refrigerated section of the autopsy room. Leah was thankful there was no stiff on the table. The room had a strong disinfectant smell and was very cold (forty degrees, to be exact, Norman had told her on a previous visit). The floor was tiled and the room just reminded her of death. She saw the selection of tools and saws he used, and shivered. She could never be a medical examiner.
Norman told them the body couldn’t have been dead more than thirty-six hours before they found it. Forty-eight at most. There was very little decomposition, and floating in that lake, the body would decompose fairly quickly.
Postmortem blood alcohol levels are fairly unreliable, but the victim’s measured .40, which is near fatal, especially in someone weighing in at 135 pounds. Some research indicates that death can raise the blood alcohol level. Norman also found traces of Rohypnol, a drug better known on the street as “roofies.”
“Rohypnol was developed in 1963 by a team led by Leo Sternbach at Hoffmann-La Roche,” Norman explained. “Its use was initially intended to be a short-term treatment for chronic or severe insomniacs who were not responsive to other hypnotics. It is considered to be one of the most effective benzodiazepine hypnotics on a per-dose basis.”
Leah thought this over. Norman practically read her mind.
“Someone wanted this woman knocked out or possibly killed by drugs and alcohol,” he said. “He must’ve kept her on a continual diet of alcohol and roofies.”
Strangely, and to Leah’s surprise, the medical examiner found no evidence of any sexual contact. Leah had expected the quickly done-up shirt pointed toward this being a crime of passion, but now it appeared that it was a crime of waterproof marker, simply baring her chest so the killer could write his obscure message.
But whom was the message for?
Chris was right. The bullet the medical examiner dug out of Mercy Jo’s brain was indeed a .22 caliber round. He sent it to the Satsuma ballistics lab to have it checked out. “Twenty-two calibers are suicide rounds,” he explained to Leah, “simply because there’s no exit wound. The bullet does more damage than, say, a full-metal jacket would because it bounces around the brain hitting all different parts of it. A full-metal jacket can make a clean shot and just take out a piece of the brain, leaving enough intact to keep the victim alive.”
“So you’re sayin’ our killer knows what he’s doin’?” Leah asked.
“Would appear so.”
“Find anythin’ else?” Chris asked.
“Yes, ligature marks on the ankles and wrists. Wherever she was kept before she was killed, she was tied up and tied up tightly. Appears to be either thick rope or leather bands—hard to tell which. Did you find any fibers at the scene?”
“No,” Leah said. “If there were any, they were washed away into the lake. Can you reckon how long she was tied up for before bein’ killed?”
“The ligature marks are deep. She struggled a lot. Given that when you found her she was zonked out on alcohol and roofies, I’d say the killer was bringing her in and out of consciousness with drugs and alcohol for a while. A few days at least. More likely six or seven. I’m puttin’ my money on a week.”
“Why keep her alive for a week if it’s not sexual?” Chris asked.
“Maybe because it is sexual,” Leah said.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe for him it is sexual. Maybe he gets off on watching her struggle. Like David Berkowitz, you know, the Son of Sam? He’d go back to his murder scenes and masturbate. For him it was purely sexual, but not with the victims. Maybe our killer is the same. Maybe he gets off while he watches them struggle.”
Chris’s eyes grew for a minute. “You’re a little scary sometimes. Things you know.”
“Yeah, two days ago I saw a girl with her eyes sewn shut. So did you. The whole world’s a little scary.”
“What about the thread in the eyelids?” Chris asked Norman.
“Size forty all-purpose black cotton thread. Size forty is thicker than standard cotton thread, which is a size fifty. The stitch pattern used was a French knot followed by loop stitches and ending with another French knot. Obviously done by someone who knows something about stitching.”
Leah thought about this a minute.
A maniac tailor . . . Very dangerous . . .
This was a little too close to the psychic’s prediction for comfort. An uneasy feeling filled Leah’s stomach. And the number seventy-eight being important. Could this psychic actually have predicted this homicide? Leah shook her head clear. That was ludicrous. Besides, she said a body in darkness. This one was outside under a wharf. And then there was the sign: Welcome to Gray . . . something. That made no sense. They were in Alvin, not Grayland or anything like that.
“If this thread isn’t a standard size,” Leah asked, “do you have to go somewhere special to buy it?”
“Unfortunately, no. Any sewing supply store should sell it.”
“So there’s no way to trace it? Find out what brand it is, track where it came from? Who distributed it?”
“I highly doubt it.”
She looked at Chris. “I guess that answers all our questions,” Chris said.
“Well,” Leah said, “not all our questions. Just the ones you can answer. I still have one big one that needs answerin’ and I’m gonna make sure it gets answered.”
“How’re you gonna do that?” Norman asked.
“By huntin’ down the bastard who did this.”
CHAPTER 7
Carry felt the Christmas rush slipping away beneath her as she walked down Hunter Road toward Main Street. A cold breeze was on her face, and she felt her cheeks stinging, likely turning pink. The rest of her body was quite warm. She was wearing her winter jacket, a pair of knitted gloves, and a scarf that a friend knitted for her in the seventh grade. The scarf was purple with yellow lines running through it.
She couldn’t wait until Christmas break. She loathed school. The only part of school she even half liked was the socializing aspect, but even that had lost her interest lately. The weird part was that she actually was fairly popular, only there were more and more kids at school, and so her percentage of popularity always seemed to be going down. Because of the new car assembly plant they built on the outskirts of town, Alvin’s population kept growing. She had definitely lost ground from last year and the year before to this year. It just felt as though the older she got, the more everyone went in different directions. School was now just full of cliques, and it was too much of a bother for Carry to try and keep up with which ones were cool and which ones smelled like a cat fart.
She was sure if she tried to make new friends, she wouldn’t have any problems. After all, she was witty and charming and had beautiful golden curls. Okay, that last one might have been a bit over the top, but she wasn’t half bad to look at. Now, of course, she was thinking about what the psychic said—that she was going to meet a boy soon who would become more than a friend. She doubted that was going to happen in the next two weeks, but this possibility was the only thing Carry had to look forward to other than a great Christmas, a lonely New Year’s, and then the horrific going back to school that followed all that.
The idea of a new boyfriend thrilled her. Especially if it could be someone both she and her mother liked. As hard as she could, she tried to picture in her mind how he might look. Maybe he’d be tall and muscular with black hair. She’d always liked boys with black hair. And blue eyes.
Muscles would b
e a definite bonus.
She realized she should’ve added “daydreamer” to the list of attributes she had given to herself, because she had been so busy thinking about this boy that she ran right into someone coming up the sidewalk carrying a bunch of pizza boxes.
He was a redheaded guy maybe a couple of inches taller than Carry and had on a jacket that said RAVEN LEE’S PIZZERIA. Under his open jacket, he was nicely dressed, with a gray button-down shirt and black trousers. He wore boots that looked recently shined. His clothes didn’t look nearly as warm as Carry’s.
“Whoa!” he yelled. He must’ve had at least eight large pizza boxes stacked in his hand. He tried to keep them from falling, but the two top ones slid off and landed on the sidewalk. One landed upside down and opened. The other just opened and the pizza looked a bit squashed.
“I’m so sorry,” Carry said.
“At least I saved six,” the boy said, smiling. Carry couldn’t pin an age on him. He looked maybe sixteen.
“The other two are still . . . edible . . .” Carry said. “Just a little . . . squashed.”
“Yeah,” the boy said, scratching the back of his head while balancing the other six boxes on one hand. “’Fraid we can’t deliver ’em that way, though.”
“I really am sorry.”
“Oh, don’t be. It was at least half my fault. I took too many at once. I couldn’t really see where I was goin’.”
“Want me to help you clean these off the sidewalk?” Four crows landed in a bare maple tree about ten feet away. Carry was pretty sure they wanted to help clean the pizza off the sidewalk more than she did.
“Actually,” said the boy, “have you had lunch?”
“No, why? I was just goin’ down to Main Street to see what I could find to eat. I was gettin’ antsy and bored sittin’ at home.”
“Well, like you said, these ones on the ground are still edible, they just don’t look pretty. How ’bout you share an ugly pizza lunch with me?”
Carry gave him a big smile. “I’d love to!”
“My name’s Jonathon,” the boy said. “Jonathon Mitchell.”
“I’m Caroline, but most folk just call me Carry. Carry Teal.”
“Nice to meet you, Carry.” They shook hands over the squashed pizzas.
They both sat on the sidewalk on either side of the pizza disaster and ate pizza. One was ham and pineapple (which just happened to be Carry’s favorite), and the other was pepperoni.
They sat there for almost half an hour and Carry began wondering about the other six pizzas. “Ain’t the people you was deliverin’ these other pizzas to gonna be pissed off that you’re not only thirty minutes late, but their pizzas are cold?”
“It is cold out here, ain’t it?”
“It is. I bet those pizzas are frigid by now.” One of the crows from the maple hopped down to the sidewalk and gave the pizzas a sideways glance. He took three hops toward the open box. Carry and Jonathon just watched him. Carry wondered if Jonathon was going to let him take a piece if he got close enough.
“Oh, well. I hate this job anyway. I have a second job that’s a lot better. So I’m kinda hopin’ I get fired.”
Every time a car went by, Carry had to increase the volume of her voice and then lower it again when the car was gone. It was quite annoying.
“Where’s your second job?”
“I work at Shearer’s cotton farm. They pay real well. The only problem is, the work is sporadic and I have to do it round goin’ to school.”
“Where do you go to school? I don’t remember seein’ you at Satsuma High or on the bus headin’ there or nothin’.”
“That’s where I go. I’m in the eleventh grade. Don’t take the bus, though. I got my own car. Shit box car.”
“So you’re—” Carry looked up. “Sixteen?”
“Seventeen,” Jonathon said, ignoring her embarrassment at displaying her lack of math skills. “You gonna eat any more of this pizza?”
“No, I’m stuffed. It was really good, though.”
“No, it wasn’t. Our pizza tastes like the inside of a donkey. It was terrible.”
Carry laughed. “You’re a funny guy.”
“Am I? Funny enough to give your phone number to?”
The crow hopped closer. He was only about three feet away. “You gonna let him have a piece if he gets close enough to take one?”
“I dunno,” Jonathon replied. “I haven’t decided yet. Besides, I am far more interested in the answer to my last question.”
Carry laughed. The inside of her head was a swirl of colors. Could this be the boy Madame Crystalle told her about? “Sure, I’ll give you my number,” she said. “Do you have some paper and a pen?”
“Of course. I deliver pizzas. Gotta have paper and a pen.” He pulled out a little pad and a fountain-tipped pen from his front pocket.
“That looks like a nice pen,” Carry said.
“It is. I like to write everythin’ I write in calligraphy.”
“Why?” A cold breeze picked up and blew down Hunter Road. Carry barely noticed.
“Because I can. Why develop a skill and then not use it? It would be useless. Usin’ your skills gives you power. Even if the skill is somethin’ dumb like bein’ able to write in calligraphy.”
Carry thought this over. “I like that. It makes sense on some really weird level.”
“A lot of stuff I’ll tell you is like that. It won’t make sense until you rearrange the world to fit it. Then it will be perfectly at home.”
Carry told him her number, looking at his red hair glistening in the cold afternoon sun as he wrote it on his pad. He was a strange boy, this Jonathon Mitchell. She’d never met anyone exactly like him. But one thing was clear—she thought she really liked him.
“What’s the best time to call?” he asked.
“Any time before ten o’clock.”
“What about your supper, when is that?”
“My mother is the town detective. We usually make our own supper and just eat it in front of the television, so you wouldn’t be interruptin’ anythin’.”
“We? Who’s we?”
“Me and my little brother, Abe. He’s the reason you can’t call past ten. He goes to bed at ten. He’s okay, although sometimes he acts like an ass face.”
Jonathon laughed. “I have a little sister. I think you just gave me the perfect name for her. Until now, I’d been callin’ her Frustration Girl, but ass face gets so much more across with just two little words.”
“Yeah, I like it. I’ll give you permission to use it. Not like it’s copyrighted or anythin’.” She laughed.
Jonathon pushed the box containing the leftover four pieces of pizza toward the crow. It got scared and flew back into the maple, but within five minutes all four of them were down in the box basking in the delight of Raven Lee’s pizza.
“I always knew crows had no taste,” Jonathon said. “Anyway, I really gotta get these pizzas delivered. It certainly was an incredible pleasure to meet you, Carry.”
“Same for me. Call me soon. Please. I always feel like a princess locked up in some tower unable to get away. We can go out and do stuff. Even before Christmas break if you want. I would love to do anything between now and after New Year’s.”
“Sounds like you just love Satsuma High.”
“It’s not any particular school I hate, it’s all schools. And it’s not that I do badly at it, my marks are usually quite good. I just hate goin’ to school.”
“I think I understand. Anyway, see you later, Destroyer of Food.”
“See you later,” Carry said, “Deliverer of the Ice Pizza.”
Jonathon stood and Carry followed suit. Then he said, “Do you mind if I hug you?”
She felt her face flush. “No, not at all. I’d like that, in fact.”
He gave her a nice, tender hug that lasted at least ten seconds. Carry felt her insides melt in his arms. When he broke free of their embrace, he picked up the remaining six pizza boxes and said g
ood-bye with a smile before he continued up Hunter Road, whistling as he went.
Carry watched him until he disappeared over the hill, disbelieving what had just happened. Madame Crystalle’s premonition had come true. She’d met a boy. And he may not have black hair and muscles—he had blue eyes and was extremely funny and cute. And in the end, extremely funny and cute wins out over muscles any day.
She was a little leery about introducing him to her mother after what happened last time her mother met a boy she was seeing. Madame Crystalle may have said her mother would be okay with it, but when your last experience ended with your mother pointing a loaded firearm at your boyfriend’s private parts and threatening to blow his balls off, you tend to become a little skeptical.
But Carry didn’t care. She still had a stomach full of air balloons from Jonathon’s hug. She felt herself falling into a big hole, like the one Alice did in Through the Looking-Glass. Only, Carry wasn’t sure she’d ever want to get out again.
CHAPTER 8
Leah stood in her kitchen trying to think about what to make for supper. She was home unusually early, so she wanted to take advantage of it. Uncle Hank had gone to Satsuma for the day to do a little shopping, and the kids were out, so it was just her and her thoughts—always a bad combination.
She still couldn’t get her last view of Mercy Jo out of her mind. Leah hated autopsy rooms, and she felt like she was really starting to let Mercy Jo down with the investigation. Leah was running out of leads, and she was running out of them fast.
Putting on some coffee, she sat down at the kitchen table and thought about all the things they didn’t know about this case. Questions like, Why did the killer keep her alive for a week with her eyes sewn shut, basically torturing her before finally killing her? Was this symbolic in some way?
Why was she left with a sculpted cross in her pocket? Again, was this a symbol of some sort? Or a gift? Or did it hold some bigger meaning?
A Thorn Among the Lilies Page 5
