“God bless you. Rest well and peacefully, dear Penny.”
He’d spoken the words in a soft, loving tone but felt them sink to the pit of his stomach. He realized the futility of the situation. He had sentenced her to damnation. He’d never brought her happiness, and instead, she left this world wanting, unsatisfied, and unhappy.
That was all on him.
Or was it?
The thought entered his mind suddenly, and he shoved it out. He had a method, a purpose, and certain women he chose. Yes, chose described his course. He didn’t target. Targets belonged to predators, to killers. He was a liberator for these women.
The blank page taunted him now, begging for charcoal to scrape against it, for him to create something from nothing. But his heart was burdened by his failure. He was empty. Void.
He left the table and went to his computer. He wondered if the FBI had found Penny yet.
-
Chapter 34
THE FOUR OF US MET back at the police station to discuss where we were so far. Jack and I shared what we’d gleaned from the principal and the two teachers closest to Penny Griffin. Paige and Zach filled us in on the three guys laid up in the hospital, and from the sound of it, they deserved a beating. Penny was doomed for a bad night all around.
The board that had started off with the images of two women, their backgrounds, and their crime scene photographs was joined by a third set. Underneath Penny Griffin’s picture, were her details:
AGE: TWENTY-SIX
APPEARANCE: BRUNETTE, BROWN EYES, 125 POUNDS, FIVE FOOT EIGHT
OCCUPATION: SUBSTITUTE TEACHER
ENGAGED: NO
BOYFRIEND: RECENTLY BROKE UP
OTHER NOTES: MEMBER OF ONLINE DATING SITE IDEAL PARTNER
I compared the three women. The first two each had a mystery man in their life. Penny didn’t have one…that we knew of.
She was probably at Shooters & Pints drinking to soothe her broken heart, not to meet with anyone in particular. I shared these thoughts with the rest of the team.
Paige nodded. “Just another thought. If her killer was the one she recently broke up with, she wouldn’t have been happy to see him there.”
Zach intercepted. “Not necessarily. Remember, Penny was described as flighty and flirtatious. Maybe in her mind he was there to make amends?”
“All right, let’s step back. Let’s assume this man wasn’t Penny’s ex,” Paige said.
“She saw a friend or acquaintance she trusted,” I added.
“She probably wasn’t completely obtuse. She likely knew what those three men wanted. She could have latched onto him,” Paige said.
“He could have simply been a familiar face,” Zach said.
“Right.” Paige’s lips contorted as though she was deep in thought. “All right. We’ve tried connecting the victims to one another, but I think we’re looking at this the wrong way. They don’t need to be connected. The killer just needs to be connected to each of them.”
What she stated was logical and straightforward. How the simplicity of it had fallen outside of our grasp I didn’t know. “What about the online dating site? Have we gotten any further with Cheryl’s computer? Do we know if she or Tara was signed up?”
“Let’s find out.” Jack dialed Nadia on speaker. “Looking for updates from you.”
Apparently Jack was either leaving Nadia to read his mind on specifics or implying he’d take what he could get.
Nadia took a few seconds to respond. “I looked into Cain Boynton’s history, and it’s clean. He worked with Cheryl, as you are aware.”
“And what about the victims’ computers?” Jack tapped the pocket of his shirt that housed his cigarettes.
With the action, I realized his chain-smoking had taken a backseat to whatever else was bothering him these days. He wasn’t smoking nearly as often. It was an ironic observation as bad news typically made one indulge in riskier behavior.
“Cheryl’s computer is on its way to me. Tara’s just arrived. It came expedited same-day shipping, and I don’t have Penny’s yet.”
We all knew the reason for the delay was because mirroring the hard drives online would take longer than sending the computers courier. Still, the frown on Jack’s face set into concrete.
“Sorry, boss, but as soon as I have them, I’ll be all over them.” The way Nadia replied, it was almost as if she could see Jack’s expression. She likely knew him well enough to imagine it based on his tone of voice.
“The second you have access to their accounts, I want to know who these women were communicating with and when. I want the men’s identities narrowed down, addresses, criminal backgrounds—everything. Do you understand me?”
“I do. I still have to look at their social media accounts as Paige had asked me to.”
Jack hit the “end” button, and the room went silent. He wasn’t known for being gentle, even to describe him as understanding could be pushing it, but he usually saved his hostility for the opposing team—the suspects, the guilty parties. He didn’t usually keep it in-house and backfire on his own people.
Zach broke the silence. “I’ve been thinking about the close proximity between our victims.”
“Do you think that’s a coincidence?” I asked.
“Hmm.” Jack’s famous exhale was back. I hadn’t heard it in a while, but I detected its implication. He didn’t believe in coincidences, especially in a murder investigation. I was starting to consider encouraging him to take a smoke break. It might lighten his mood. Even a little uptick would be a vast improvement.
It was obvious that my interjected question was pointless. I chalked it up to an underlying uneasiness in Jack’s mood. I shook it off and put my head back in the game. “The killer probably lives in the area or frequents it.”
“It could be how our killer is familiar with the women he chooses,” Paige suggested.
I nodded. “I agree. I also think we need to visit Sharon, Penny’s landlady, again. She might have seen or heard more than she realizes.”
“And I think we need to speak directly to the owner of Shooters & Pints,” said Paige.
“Powers already spoke to him,” Jack reminded her.
There was confusion written on her face, and I understood it. Since when did Jack leave it in another jurisdiction’s hands? We owed it to the victims to be thorough and talk to everyone related to the case ourselves. We could detect an inconsistency or fish out another piece of information Powers had failed to find. To top it off, Powers had mentioned that he’d spoken with the owner on the phone, not in person. A lot can be disclosed by talking face-to-face.
“With all due respect, Jack, I think we should speak with him anyway. I’d like to know about Penny’s state last night,” Paige said.
Jack put his hand to his hip. “You’re wanting to know if she was showing signs of being drugged or heavily intoxicated.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not our case. The fact that those three boys may have drugged her with ill intention isn’t our issue. Our concern is finding the man who killed her and holding him accountable, not pursuing the men who were going to rape her but didn’t.”
“So you agree about their intentions?” Paige’s cheeks flushed. “Can we at least have a tox panel run on her?”
“Yes.”
Paige nodded. I didn’t make eye contact with Zach because I didn’t need to gauge his reaction to all this. If he was thinking anything close to what I was, Jack was losing his focus and it was starting to become detrimental to the case.
-
Chapter 35
“YOU KNOW THIS IS the fastest turnaround I’ve ever given,” Manning griped in place of a formal greeting. He barely looked up from Penny Griffin’s exposed body on the steel gurney.
“It
’s probably your first serial killer, too,” Jack said, matching the medical examiner’s irritated tone.
“Yes, a day of firsts. How lovely.” Manning took his gloved hands and pointed to the bruising marking Penny’s torso. “Cause of death, like Cheryl Bradley and Tara Day, was compressive asphyxiation. The killer cut off her airflow by compressing her diaphragm.” He stepped backward to bring himself level with her head. “Her eyes show petechiae, too.”
My eyes stayed above Penny’s waist. “Was there any indication of sexual intercourse?”
Manning lifted his eyes to look at me. “No. Just like the previous two victims.”
“Were you able to collect any evidence from under her fingernails?” Zach asked.
With Cheryl and Tara, it was suspected that the killer had pinned their arms when he’d climbed on top of them.
“Again, no, unfortunately, not.”
The experience these women must have gone through in the seconds before their deaths lapped over me. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the smell of decomp invoking a sensory response or simply the human reaction to a preventable death. But to put myself in Penny’s place, to imagine myself peacefully asleep and waking up to being suffocated by someone I had trusted… It would be surreal, horrific, a nightmare of epic proportions.
“She had no way of fighting off her attacker.” Paige placed a hand over her stomach, an action testifying that she was experiencing similar feelings to my own.
The room became silent, and Manning stopped prodding around the body for a few seconds.
“We’ll need to have a full tox panel run on her,” Paige said.
“Yes, of course.”
Manning continued. “The lab has some preliminary results on evidence collected from the scene, as well. There was a black residue on the floor. It came back as charcoal.”
“As in charcoal for a barbecue?” I asked.
“No, as in a drawing pencil.”
I glanced from Paige to Zach to Jack. “Our guy could be an artist. He doesn’t take trophies, so maybe he creates them.” My heart was beating fast. “He poses them and sketches them.”
“We knew he took his time with them, but drawing them… It takes all this to another level of creepy,” Paige said.
“And here I thought forcing smiles and waiting for rigor to start was freaky enough,” I said.
Zach saved me from Paige’s glare. “The fact that he draws them is an intimate act. He has no need or desire to violate his victims sexually.”
“He rapes them on canvas.” The words blurted out of my mouth.
“Yeah, something like that,” Zach said. “But I don’t think he’s doing this because he’s vicious.”
“He suffocates women and then draws them, Zach.” Paige’s voice rose a few octaves.
“I realize that, but to him, drawing them is a loving gesture. We’ve discussed how the killer is likely recreating an event. It’s possible this goes back to his childhood.”
I glanced at the medical examiner, who held a scalpel in his hands. The way he stood there, frozen, he was either eager to get started on the internal autopsy or fascinated by our discussion.
“Let me make sure I understand where you’re going with this,” I said to Zach. “You think maybe a girlfriend or family member died and looked the way he’s posing these women?”
“Yes, possibly. It could just be his interpretation of an event, not necessarily the exact representation.”
“But you just said he’s recreating it.”
“Yes, but it could be on a creative level or on an unconscious level. The loved one may not have died in a tub. Maybe she enjoyed long baths and died in bed.”
“What about the wedding dress? How do you think it fits in?”
“I think the killer’s loved one was engaged at some point. Do I believe she died in her wedding dress? Not necessarily.”
“Do you think this first event happened as the result of murder?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. But if this event happened when the killer was young and formative, it could explain why he’s killing now. He didn’t know how to process the event and could have twisted things around. He could have discovered the body. It would have been quite traumatic.”
“Dead people often have naturally restful faces,” I theorized. “They can almost look happy.”
Zach pointed at me. “Exactly. So I believe our killer found or saw someone he cared about dead at a young age. He took the fact that they appeared happier in death as a sign passing brings happiness.”
“Talk about a sick mind,” Paige said.
“I didn’t want to interrupt as you all had a good flow going, but you’re going to want to know this.” Manning had lowered the blade and his hand rested on the edge of the gurney. He made sure he had our attention before he continued. “The wedding dress was processed. The blood pool in her lap…it came back as two blood types. One was a match to Penny Griffin. Before you ask, the other wasn’t Cheryl Bradley’s or Tara Day’s. In fact, it was dried into the fabric and my guess is it’s quite old. For that reason, I’d say it didn’t come from your killer. Also epithelial was found on the ring and it isn’t a match to Penny. We’ll be running both for DNA.”
-
Chapter 36
THE MEDICAL EXAMINER’S NEWS SETTLED into the pit of my stomach. It seemed conclusive that the wedding dress and ring had been brought by the killer, having belonged to someone else prior. That someone else was likely the person who changed the course of his life.
“He reused his loved one’s ring and dress on Penny. He improvised because Penny didn’t have either,” I recapped.
“So he’s been carting these items around for how long?” Paige paused, her mind apparently calculating.
Zach jumped in. “The most influential years are between ages six and eleven. Taking an average of nine and assuming the first victim was Cheryl Bradley, factoring in the statistical age for a serial killer starting out in their early thirties—let’s say thirty-two—we’re probably looking at the death of a loved one about twenty years ago.”
“All right. And if Cheryl Bradley was his first victim, what triggered the response in him? Why hadn’t he killed before her? Was he carrying around the ring and dress all those years?” I snapped my fingers. “We figure he was little when this happened, so there’s no way he could have obtained these items and held on to them. What’s to say they didn’t come back to him last year around the time he killed Cheryl?”
“This woman’s parents or guardians could have died, making the dress accessible to our unsub,” Jack contributed. “It’s possible the original woman was the killer’s relative.”
“Okay, this woman died when he was young. Assuming the secondary blood profile belongs to her, our unsub would need access to the dress. She was likely a close relative,” Paige brainstormed.
“It’s not a far stretch to think it may have been his sister,” Zach said.
Paige continued. “Say the parents held on to the ring and the dress, sort of like a shrine to their daughter. Of course, if she was killed in her dress, it would have shown when Nadia did a search. I’m thinking she must have committed suicide.”
“That’s a real possibility, Paige,” I said.
“Then the parents died and our unsub then had access to the dress and ring,” Zach finished off.
“I’m going to start the autopsy. Will you be staying? If you are, I’ll need silence,” Manning said.
I had become so enveloped in our discussion about the unsub, elated we were getting close to figuring out what made the bastard tick, I had forgotten where we were and that someone else was in the room.
“All right,” Jack said. “We’ll carry on as we have been. Paige and Zach, go see the other friend on file for Cheryl. See if she recognizes either Ta
ra or Penny. Brandon and I will speak to the landlady at Penny’s building again.” He looked at Manning. “Keep us updated.” Jack took the lead out of the morgue. He was already in the hallway when Paige addressed the ME.
“Do you know how the lab is making out on processing the earrings? I requested Cheryl Bradley’s be pulled from evidence, as well as Tara Day’s. Of course, I’ll also want Penny’s analyzed.”
“I will follow up when I’m finished here.” He pointed the scalpel toward Penny’s body and then flipped on a recorder.
“The date is…”
I touched Paige’s shoulder as I headed for the door, and she nodded. Our interaction with the medical examiner was at an end.
-
Chapter 37
THIS CASE WAS PROVING TO BE LIKE MOST. As the evidence was gathered and the mind-set of the killer became clearer, the more macabre the investigation became. There was something about peering into a murderer’s psychology that intrigued Paige. There came to be an understanding of sorts between the investigator and the killer, despite the tendency to resist justifying such acts. This was the aspect of the job Paige really enjoyed—besides stopping killers—tapping into these people’s motivations.
Outwardly, everyone was the same. It was inside the mind, soul, spirit—however you wanted to classify or quantify the true essence of an individual—where the distinctions existed. Our being was molded by experience and upbringing, ingrained in us. For some, a lack of direction set them on a contrary course according to society’s standards. For others, it was learned from necessity or by example. They acted out of imitation, justification, or habit—or a combination of all three.
Paige and Zach were on the way to speak to Angela. It was already evening so there was a better chance they’d find her at home.
Blue Baby Page 12
