“Yeah, and that’s bad?”
“Yeah, it’s bad. You’re asking for trouble.”
He laughed. “That blonde stewardess is checking you out, man. At least smile at her. You do have a dick attached to your body, right?”
“That’s personal,” he stated.
Jay stared at him.
Apparently, he wasn’t going to give up.
Ethan sighed.
“Of course I have a dick. I just like to be selective with who I stick it in. My qualifications are a little deeper than just have a vagina and breasts.”
“You’re a stick in the mud. Sex is fun.”
Truth be told, he didn’t get off on shacking up with the ladies. Up to that point, no one did it for him. He wished he could be like Jay, throwing caution to the wind, but to him…
He craved something more.
The woman of his dreams was going to have to like Natives, she wouldn’t mind his tattoos, and she would let him be a Fed.
He was the job.
Ethan truly believed that he was born to do this job, and frankly, he knew not many people would accept it.
Any woman he spent time with would have to allow him to do what he loved most.
He couldn’t check out when he came home for the night. He had to stay focused. His job was tough.
It was long.
Tiring.
Time consuming.
Anyone who dated him had to accept that he was gone three weeks out of the month. The job was his life, and he didn’t believe that a woman would ever fit into it.
“Seriously, she’s giving you the eyes, man. At least smile at her.”
Ethan glanced up, and he checked her out. She was pretty. He’d admit that. Was she the hottest woman he’d ever seen?
No.
Then again, he was Indian. He wasn’t going to get the sexiest babe in the bunch. His ethnicity would make sure of that. The odds were that he’d have to marry another Indian.
Outsiders didn’t get all hot and bothered by men like him.
“Well?”
“She’s okay.”
“Dude, she’s checking you out.”
“I don’t like blondes.”
Jay stared at him. “You’re out of your damn mind. What are you looking for?” he asked.
“I like women with darker hair.”
“Hair dye.”
Ethan laughed. “I like blue eyes.”
Why he had a thing for those traits, he didn’t know. All he did know was that when he was a kid, he was drawn to certain characteristics. He recalled drawing his ideal woman.
This flight attendant wasn’t it.
Honestly, she wasn’t even close.
“I’m going to slip her your number. We’ve got to get you laid a little more often.”
“I don’t think a flight attendant is going to enjoy the time I’m away, Jay. It’s best you don’t do it.”
He ignored him.
“Will you trust me for a change?” he asked. “I know what you need.”
“And that is?”
“To get a pretty girl to ride that dick of yours. You need someone to take your mind off work.”
He stared at the blonde as she checked her makeup in a mirror. For some reason, he didn’t think she could keep his attention for long.
“Come on.”
“Fine. Do it, but let me work.”
“If you marry her and have little flight attendants, you owe me,” he teased, grabbing one of Ethan’s business cards.
Blackhawk laughed. “You’re insane. I’m not getting married, and I’ll never have kids.”
“Yeah, and you’re a prude. Lighten up.”
Ethan didn’t fight.
Why bother?
What would a few drinks with the blonde hurt? Maybe his partner was right.
He needed to get laid more often.
Besides…it sucked to always be alone.
* * * E l i z a b e t h L a R u e * * *
Morgue
Post Tony Introduction
It took a while to decontaminate the morgue. Chris was hell on cleanliness, and he’d gone off to shower. The entire time, Tony felt horrible. He’d dropped the ball on this one.
Elizabeth, on the other hand, was amused by the entire thing. There were a few things in life that she found downright funny—people being uncomfortable were at the top of the list.
She was sick like that.
Besides, she knew the hard and fast rule of their jobs. If you didn’t puke at least once in autopsy, you weren’t human. They’d all been there.
“Don’t stress it, Tony.”
“I have to stress it. I just puked on the ME—on day one. That’s not a good thing.”
She laughed all over again. “Yeah, and I should have taken some pictures. Ten years from now, we’ll look back at this, and it’ll be funny as hell. Well, now, it’s funny for some of us.”
He stared at her.
“Well, it is. You dumped bug bits on Christopher Leonard. The man is a clean freak.”
The new anthropologist groaned.
When Chris walked back in, he was covered in head to toe plastic. “I’m ready. I have my Magnus-proof gear in place.”
She snorted and wiped her eyes. This was how she knew there would be no hard feelings. Chris, while serious about the job, knew how to make the best of a bad situation. He was going to rag on the newbie.
This was hazing at its best.
Tony stared at him. Then he covered his face and began silently weeping. His whole body was wracked with sobs.
Chris looked panicked.
Crap!
They broke the newbie.
Gabe was going to kick someone’s ass.
“Shit! I was only kidding,” he said, approaching the man. “Tony! I’m sorry. I was trying to be funny to lighten the moment,” he offered, as he headed toward him. They could both hear the swish-swishing of the plastic he was wearing.
Doctor Magnus looked up and started laughing. “Yeah, me too. I figured that’s how this was going to play out.”
She laughed even more.
Yeah, they were going to be one hell of a team. She was working with two jokers, and she couldn’t be happier. When in a shitty situation, make light of it.
Chris began laughing too. “Good one. I’ll have to remember that. When in doubt, cry.”
Elizabeth gave them both fist bumps. “You two chuckleheads need to get your asses ready to work. If Gabe rolls in here, he’s going to toss you both to Unemploymentville. You don’t want to win the award for shortest employment, Tony.”
They got serious, and fast.
“Chris, let’s start all over again.”
He headed toward the bodies. “Don’t puke on them,” he ordered, pointing at Tony.
“I won’t. I was a little caught off guard by the face being held up without the skull attached. That was gross. I blame her too. She did hit me.”
Elizabeth stared at him. “Seriously?”
The man had just eaten bugs, he worked in the dead, and that grossed him out?
Yeah, to each his own.
“What do we have, Doc?” she asked, starting it all over again.
“Your killer garroted the second two victims. The wire cut across both carotid arteries and the COD is massive blood loss. He did it fast, efficiently, and likely without batting an eyelash.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“With the depth of the wire, he was angry. The vertebra is nicked,” he offered, holding up some skin so the other doctor could see it. “Glove up, Doctor Magnus.”
“Tony,” he stated as he did just that. With his fingers, he gently probed the part of her body. “He’s right,” he stated. “There are major chips to the bone. For that to happen, he’d have to be a large strong man, or he was amped up on some big-time adrenaline.”
She made notes.
“Well, Doc is always right,” she offered. “He’s the best damn ME this side of the states.�
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He winked at her. “Thank you, honey. I like to make my tag team partner proud.”
He always did.
“What else did we figure out?” Elizabeth asked, needing something more. She had to head out soon, and she was going to need to be loaded down with some mega details.
This was going to be a tough one.
“I can’t tell you if victim one is part of this or not,” Chris offered, knowing where she was going to be taking this. He knew Elizabeth. She had a set pattern.
Get COD.
Find out correlation.
Push for details.
“When will you be able to tell me?” she asked.
“Well, the city ME sent over his reports. He’s called COD as blunt force trauma to the occipital bone.”
Tony chimed in. “That’s going to mean an upswing.”
She glanced over. “What do you mean?”
“Can I show you?” he asked. “Think of it as show and tell. It’s easier if you see it. I’m a visual learner, like most people.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
He offered her his hand. When she took it, Chris cleared his throat.
Elizabeth knew why he did it, but she didn’t stop him. He’d earned it. Chris was the only one who had her back, and honestly, she didn’t mind.
They were close.
“Stand here,” Tony offered. “How tall was our victim?” he asked.
“A little less than six feet, but she was wearing heels,” Chris said, holding up an evidence bag that contained the worn and damaged shoes.
“Great. You’re about six feet tall, right, Elizabeth?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I like a tall drink of water when it comes to a woman,” he stated.
Chris stared when she didn’t immediately knock the man on his ass.
What the hell?
“Seriously? You’re not going to kick his ass for objectifying you?” he asked.
“It’s day one. I’ll give him leeway. He puked on the ME, and he’s trying to pick me up. By tomorrow, he’ll have come to his senses, Christopher, or I’ll hurt him then.”
Tony laughed.
“I’m serious. You get a one day cushion. On day two, I boot your derrière around the morgue with a big ol’ smile on my face.”
Point taken.
He cleared his throat. “Anyway, back to show and tell. The damage to her occipital bone is back here,” he said, touching Elizabeth’s skull. “The killer likely approached, and she was on her feet. Had she been incapacitated, she would have had a strike much higher on her skull.”
“So she was standing.”
He made a swinging motion. “Yes.”
“Okay, so our hooker, if she was a hooker, was on her feet.”
Chris flipped through the autopsy report. “They ran DNA when they found her. They have her ID. She was in the system for prostitution, so we have her identity.”
“And the other two?” she asked.
“They had their purses with them. He left the victims where he killed them. There was a shitload of blood at the scene, and we can tell they weren’t moved,” he stated, handing her the file with the Metro police photographs.
Elizabeth flipped through them.
“Okay, when did our first victim die?” she asked, needing a timeline.
Chris walked over to the table and began inspecting the decay. “For her, we’re talking months. What disturbs me, Elizabeth, is the fact that he carved out her eyes and removed her face.”
“Yeah, that screams crazy.”
It certainly did.
“With the second and third victims, he did the same, only he took souvenirs from the last one. Our second victim came with her face and eyeballs. Our third…not so much.”
Yeah, they definitely had a crazy.
Unless…
“Could an alley cat have dragged the face and eyes away? You know how cats will eat anything, and they love round things on string.”
Tony stared at her. “You’re a sicko.”
She laughed. “I’ve heard that before.”
“Now I have a picture of some tabby playing with an eyeball still connected to the artery.”
Yeah, she did too.
That’s why she said it.
Elizabeth continued, “Who are our victims?” she asked, making notes. While she couldn’t shake down victim one’s home, since it was so long ago, victims two and three were a different story. She’d have to start working this case from that angle.
Honestly, it was all she had.
“We have Wyanet Weston,” said Chris, waving his arm over the decaying remains of the one body. “She was your first victim. She’s African American, and she’s got an arrest record a mile long,” he stated.
Elizabeth liked working with Chris because he was thorough. He wouldn’t just give a name and COD. He would look it up. The man could have been an investigator had he not liked digging in bodies.
“Thank you. Next?”
“Victim two is Naima Abad. She was of Middle Eastern decent. Her arrest record isn’t as bad, and she’s not covered in blisters. I’m not saying she’s not a walking disease fest, but compared to our first hooker, she’s less communicable.”
She looked up. “You’re a funny man, Newton,” Elizabeth admitted.
He tried.
“I was a little shocked when victim one’s tox and bloodwork came back. We can play ‘Guess the Hooker’s Illness’ if you want.”
“How about you just tell me? I’m not up for more surprises today. Tony puking on you topped my list.”
The man groaned again. “You’re never going to let this go, are you?” he asked.
They laughed.
That was all the answer he needed.
Chris picked up the bloodwork report and scanned it. “She has everything from the herpes to syphilis. She was a walking time bomb. That was one vagina you didn’t want to go spelunking in.”
Elizabeth stared at him.
“What?”
She snickered.
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you? I know I like my women the opposite of contagious.”
He had a point.
Elizabeth stared at the dead woman. She was a mess.
This was going to be interesting.
“There’s nothing like sending your Johns home with a little extra something for a lonely night.”
He snorted. “Yeah, make the wife happy. They love surprises like that.”
She shook her head. “Next?”
“Victim two, Naima, was clean. She hasn’t been on the streets long. You can tell. Well, that or she’s a higher-class hooker. She must like condoms, a lot.”
Well, that was good to know.
“And she had her face with her?”
“Yep, and eyeballs were noted as being found in her pocket. That had to be fun for the tech who stuck his hand in there.”
She could only imagine.
“Who’s contestant number three in this game?” she asked, pointing at the woman’s faceless corpse on the table.
“We have Bao Yu, and she was the one who didn’t have a face on scene or eyeballs. Her driver’s license says they were brown/black.”
“I’m going to go with Asian for two hundred, Chris?”
Tony watched the interaction. It was easy, friendly, but they were getting the job done.
That’s how he liked to roll.
“And you would be correct with that guess. She had one arrest record, and she liked to frequent a street right off the Hill. She may have been taking on the higher paying Johns. She also had no disease, no broken bones, and just a missing face and eyes.”
Yeah, it was time to focus on that. “Tell me about them?” she asked.
“With our first victim, they were destroyed. The killer certainly wasn’t a doctor. That’s crystal clear. He carved them out, and he left a shit mess in his wake. He actually scraped the inside of the orbital sockets, doing a lot of damage.”
; “Oh! Let me see!” Tony said, moving toward the body. With his fingers, he probed the socket, searching for the damage.
Elizabeth watched him, and he didn’t actually ‘look’ at the victim. He used his fingers to feel the damage. That was a sure sign that the man knew what he was doing.
He was doing it all in his mind.
That was a skill someone picked up when they were doing this for a while. Tony may have said he was at a desk, but she wasn’t buying that. He’d handled a lot of bones.
“Yeah, I’m going to say the knife was serrated. It was possibly a hunting knife, but no wider than an inch.”
“So a buck knife?” Elizabeth asked.
Tony pulled off his gloves and picked up Chris’s chart. Flipping the paper over, he drew what he’d felt.
“That’s handy,” Elizabeth offered.
Chris agreed. “You didn’t look.”
“I don’t have to look. I know what bone destruction feels like,” he offered, finishing the knife. “I’ve handled a million bones in the last ten years, and I can give you just about any weapon when you ask.”
Elizabeth stared at him. “You have an excellent memory.”
“It’s photographic, but it works better when I see it in my head, not with my eyes.”
Good to know.
“Your killer didn’t care what he was doing. It was done maliciously.”
The killer was a sicko.
Chris flipped through the chart. “Again, victim two had them in her pocket.”
“How handy is that? Our killer took them out of her skull and left them with her. That screams cuckoo.”
“Yes, yes, it does, honey.”
Tony pulled on new gloves and did the same exact thing. It didn’t take as long. “While there is less damage, it was still done with the same knife. I can feel the ridges. He scraped the eyes out.”
“Wow. If only he’d known they pop out quite easily,” Chris offered.
Elizabeth stared at him. “Seriously?”
“Sorry, honey.”
“Number three?” she asked, keeping the crazy train on the rails. She didn’t need it going off the tracks yet. It was still early in this case. With her team, she never knew what they’d come up with during a case discussion.
“There wasn’t a trace of them. Again, back to the killer being crazy, or a cat being hungry. You’ll likely have your answer with the next victim.”
Stalked by the Past: An FBI Flashback Novel. (An FBI Romance Thriller Book 17) Page 7
