by Mike Omer
“Or he has a workshop,” Tatum said.
Zoe nodded. “That’s definitely a possibility as well. The killer was strong enough to drag the embalmed bodies of Krista Barker and Monique Silva to the locations where he posed them,” she continued. “So I’d say we’re looking for a strong man, but his appearance won’t be very intimidating.”
“Why?”
“Because both Monique and Krista agreed to ride with him,” Zoe said. “Crystal told us Krista had refused to go with another man who seemed suspicious. She was more careful than most working girls. If it was someone intimidating, she would have talked to her pimp first and made sure he was watching her back, or she would have told him no. This also leads me to believe that he drives a nice-looking car or at least a well-maintained one.”
“You don’t think it was the guy Crystal described? The one with the tattoos?” Martinez asked.
“I really doubt it. If it was someone that suspicious looking, people would have noticed. I read in the case report that you had several generic descriptions of Monique Silva’s last client. If it was someone like that, you’d get a very detailed description. And again, I doubt she’d enter willingly into his car.”
“Okay, that’s reasonable.”
“Now . . . the first victim was an art student. He attacked her in her home and then stayed there to embalm her. But the second and third victims were prostitutes. He probably paid them to come with him and then killed them in a safe place.”
“Maybe he killed them on the street or in an alley,” Martinez said.
“Then why tie them up?” Tatum asked. “They were still alive when he tied them, and it would be difficult to do that in the street. He could easily get them to come with him.”
Martinez nodded reluctantly.
“The second and third victims are classic targets for serial killers,” Zoe said. “High-risk occupations and vulnerable. But what about Susan Warner, the art student? And if he already targeted her, why stay at her place? Wasn’t he worried that a roommate or a boyfriend would show up?”
“He knew they wouldn’t,” Tatum said. “He knew her.”
Zoe nodded, feeling an inkling of appreciation she was careful not to display.
“Now, the thing that motivates a sexual serial killer to strike is a fantasy. At a certain point, the fantasy becomes too much, and he has to fulfill it. But reality never quite manages to live up to the fantasy, so he wants to try again. Do it better next time. Our killer was acquainted somehow with Susan Warner and probably fantasized about her murder. He knew she lived alone and was vulnerable. And then one night he struck. But things didn’t go as expected. The embalming didn’t work out so well, and he wanted to do it again, to do it better.”
“But he didn’t know any single women except for her,” Tatum said.
“That’s right.” Zoe nodded. “That’s why he began to target prostitutes.”
Tatum didn’t look bored anymore. His eyes had a spark that Zoe knew well—the spark of a predator catching the scent of his prey.
“Okay,” Martinez said, scanning his notebook page. “So let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Why is he embalming them?”
“He’s not only embalming them,” Zoe said. “He’s posing them and dressing them. The first body had an evening dress on with one of the sleeves torn. I’m guessing it tore when he dressed her because her arms were rigid and hard to maneuver. Krista Barker was wearing clothing that her friend said didn’t belong to her. She had a ring on her finger that wasn’t hers.”
“Okay,” Martinez said. “Why?”
“It could be some sort of power fantasy,” Zoe said slowly, feeling the doubt gnawing at her. “Playing with these dead women like dolls.” It didn’t feel right. Why embalm them? He had sex with the bodies after killing the women. There was clearly a necrophilia angle on this case. But after embalming them, she doubted he could repeat it. That meant a loss of power. It didn’t fit. “But I don’t think so. I don’t know why he’s embalming them. Not yet.”
“Right,” Martinez said. “Anything else?”
Zoe said, “I’d look for reports about stray animals found embalmed and discarded in the streets. Even considering the mistakes in Susan Warner’s embalming, it was a decent job for his first attempt. I’m willing to bet the killer did some practicing.”
CHAPTER 19
He slowed down when he spotted her on the corner. She stood with a group of others, but he hardly gave them a second glance. They were crass, boring, ugly. Unremarkable in every conceivable way.
But she was something else. Her entire being radiated an innocence rarely seen in her profession. The way she looked around, her eyes half-searching, half-terrified of what she might find. Her clothing was more modest, showed less skin, leaving everything to the imagination. And his imagination went wild.
This was the one. He could feel it in his bones. This was a woman who made him feel alive again, who would fill every day with excitement and joy.
This time, it would be different.
When his car stopped near them, one of the prostitutes immediately jumped forward, grinning, bending down, giving him a view of her cleavage. She wore no bra, and she wiggled a bit, grinning at him. But behind the grin, her eyes were tired. The moves were mechanical, calculated, something she had done hundreds of times before. He opened the passenger’s window.
“Looking for some fun?” she asked, and he could almost hear how vacant her soul was in her tone. “You look like you’re in a hurry. Twenty dollars for a quick blow job? Or are you looking for something else?”
He ignored her, turning his eyes to the innocent one. It was probably her first day on the street. He’d save her before she even began.
“What about you?” he said. “Want to join me for a ride?”
She turned to face him, her eyes widening in alarm.
“Me? Uh . . . I mean . . . you want me to come with you? Wouldn’t you rather just go upstairs with me?” she gestured at the motel behind her, its glass-paned door dirty with grime and worse. “I have a room. I just got it—I moved there just a few days ago. It’s really nice.”
He knew it. She didn’t belong here. He smiled at her warmly. “I prefer my own bed,” he said. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
Something flickered in her eyes. Wariness. She might be new, but she wasn’t as innocent as he had thought. She knew to take care of herself.
“Do you live far?” she asked.
“Twenty-minute drive from here,” he said. It was more like thirty. She took a small step back. He was losing her. But unlike her, he knew this game well, and he had a trick up his sleeve.
“But, uh, I have a special request,” he said.
“Oh?” she said, taking another step back. “What sort of request?”
“Would you mind if we buy you some clothes? I want to dress you like my ex-girlfriend. It’s kind of weird, I know, and you don’t have to if you don’t want to. But it would mean a lot to me, and you can keep the clothes afterward.” He smiled apologetically. He could see her relax. That was the thing with these girls—living on the streets, they learned to listen to warning signs. They could see something was off about him, even if they didn’t know what. All he had to do was tell them they were right, he was a bit strange, but wearing another woman’s outfits . . . that wasn’t dangerous.
“Okay,” she said. “But it’ll cost you extra.”
“Sure.” He smiled.
“Two hundred fifty,” she said. “It’s a long ride, and I’ll need some money for the cab back to the motel.”
He nodded. “You got it.”
She leaned forward, opened the passenger’s door, and climbed inside. The car filled with her perfume, an innocent, sweet fragrance, something a schoolgirl would wear.
He was in love.
CHAPTER 20
Lily watched the client as he drove. He was a nice-looking man, clean, nice clothes. His teeth were a bit crooked and could do with some cleanin
g, but whose weren’t? Bad breath was far from the worst thing this job could inflict. Occasionally, he would glance at her and smile sheepishly. She took care to always look a bit apprehensive.
They always went for the virgin whore.
It was her third year on the street, and she was doing just fine, thank you very much. Always got the best customers, was always tipped. Occasionally, she’d land someone who would tip her an extra hundred or two to “clean up and get off the streets.” All she had to do was cultivate the look of a good girl in the wrong place. That was her, an innocent child falling in with a bad crowd, trying to get out of an impossible situation.
Nate, her boyfriend, said she was a prodigy. A real genius, the hooker version of Einstein. And seriously, there were no drawbacks. She always wore warmer clothing; the whole point was to act shy. She never needed to try hard. She’d just face sideways when a customer showed up, looking afraid, as if she secretly hoped he’d pick someone else. If it was a real nice car, she’d tremble slightly or shed a frightened tear.
Men were so easily manipulated.
By this point she hardly needed to pick up new clients. She had three clients who saw her regularly to “keep her off the streets.” They all assumed they were her sole customer. She gave them her second phone number, the one she kept for work, and when that phone rang, she knew it would be an easy, lucrative night.
Lily looked around her in the clean car. She inhaled deeply. The car’s interior smelled a bit funny, sterile.
“What’s that smell?” she asked.
“Formaldehyde,” the client said. “Nasty smell, right? But you get used to it.”
She wasn’t sure what that was. “Are you, like, a doctor or something?”
“Something like that.” He nodded. “Are you okay? You seem cold.”
She wasn’t. But she shivered slightly anyway. “No, I’m fine,” she said. She considered telling him it was her first time, then decided not to. Sometimes it worked really well, and the guy would be turned on. But other times they’d feel guilty and drive her to the bus station, offering to buy her a ticket back to her hometown.
“So, uh . . . is your place a lot further?”
“No, not far. We’ll just stop to buy you the clothes and then go straight there, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Uh . . . but if we’ll be long, I’ll need to explain it to the guy I live with. He gets angry if I take too long and don’t charge extra. I don’t want him to be angry.” A subtle tone of dread, leaving the rest for the client’s imagination.
“Don’t worry. We won’t be too long. And I’ll pay you an extra fifty. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Thanks, mister.” She laid a grateful hand on his wrist. Her dumb knight in shining armor, saving her from her monstrous and imaginary pimp.
“You’re a really sweet girl,” he said. “What are you doing on the street?”
She shrugged. A look of sorrow. The weight of life on her young shoulders, and so on and so forth. “I just had some bad luck.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I thought so.”
She could hear it in his voice. He was falling for her.
She permitted herself a small smile. He had completely entangled himself in her web.
CHAPTER 21
Zoe’s motel room had two beds. One was covered with all her case notes and pictures, divided into three groups, one for each victim. She was lying on the other, staring at the ceiling, hoping the couple in the room next door wouldn’t have the stamina to keep the noise up much longer. On online reviews, people usually talked about the cleanliness of a motel or the service or the price. They never spoke about the thin walls and the distinct feeling that the couple in room 13 were orgasming into the ear of the person in room 12.
She always found it hard to concentrate in adverse situations, and this was absolutely ridiculous. It was their second time that evening, which at least meant they were both still alive. The woman had screamed so loudly the first time Zoe had thought she was being murdered.
Finally, she heard the sound she was embarrassingly happy to hear: a male groan. The bed in room 13 squeaked a bit longer—probably inertia—and the deed was done.
Zoe got up and returned to the case notes.
It was always about fantasy. What was this killer’s fantasy? She looked at the images: a corpse lying on the grass, another standing on a bridge, the third sitting on a beach crying. She had visited the first two crime scenes earlier, trying to get a feel for what had gone through his mind as he positioned the bodies. It was part of her process. She always visited the crime scenes, even if no shred of evidence remained. It helped her picture the crime better, and with that came a better understanding of the killer.
She shifted the picture of Susan Warner aside. She was important, even crucial, since the killer had probably known her, but the way her body had been discarded spoke only of failure. The killer hadn’t gotten it right. The dress had torn when he’d tried to put it on the body, the limbs had been too rigid to move, and the position hadn’t been lifelike, the mouth open. One big failure as far as the killer was concerned. She was sure of it.
She had been found on April 12. Then nearly three months went by. What was the killer doing in that time?
Learning. Experimenting. Trying to figure out how to get a body to have some flexibility even after embalming. Learning how to sew the mouth shut.
And then Monique Silva. Taken from the street, found a week or so later. What had he done with the body during all that time?
She read the autopsy report again, even though she knew it by heart. She’d visited the morgue and gone over the autopsy reports with the medical examiner after spending time at the crime scenes. Ligature marks on the body’s throat indicated a thin, strong, smooth rope of some kind had been used to strangle the woman. There was a round bruise on the back of her neck, and the medical examiner said it was probably because the rope was fitted around her throat and then twisted from behind, constricting the noose. Lacerations on her wrists and ankles indicated she had been bound and that she had struggled against the ropes.
The body had been sexually violated postmortem. However, according to the medical examiner, the embalming would have made future intercourse almost impossible due to the body’s rigidity. He’d seemed distinctly creeped out when she had asked him about it.
She had managed to creep out a man who performed autopsies for a living. Achievement unlocked.
She picked up Monique Silva’s picture from the bed. What had he been doing with her all that time?
Her phone blipped. She picked it up and glanced at the display. It was a message from Andrea:
Miss U. What R U doing?
She typed, Reading an autopsy report.
The reply was instant. U know how to have fun.
Then came the emoticon barrage: a sad face, a dead-looking face, two skulls, a ghost, and a thumbs-down. Messaging with Andrea made Zoe feel like an archaeologist, perplexed by ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. I’ll be here for a few days, she wrote.
The response was a GIF of Fozzie Bear screaming into the air. Zoe sighed and put down the phone. She was about to get back to her papers when a sound came from room 13.
It was the woman. She was asking who was a dirty little boy.
Zoe prayed that she was simply wondering about a dirty boy she was watching on TV.
But no, the response came quickly. The man was, apparently, the dirty little boy. Zoe considered thumping the wall and suggesting a shower to rectify the situation.
There was laughter. A whoop.
The bed began squeaking again.
Zoe collected all the papers from her bed and left the room, slamming the door behind her.
CHAPTER 22
Tatum had the distinct suspicion that Marvin was having a party at their house.
“Marvin, what’s all that noise?” he yelled into the phone. The music emanating from the phone’s speaker forced Tatum to hold the device away from
his ear.
“What? I can’t hear you!”
“The noise, Marvin, what is it?”
“Hang on.”
There was the sound of a door slamming, and the volume of the music diminished slightly. “Sorry,” Marvin said. “I couldn’t hear you because of the music.”
“What is that?”
“I invited a couple of friends over,” Marvin explained.
“The neighbors will call the police,” Tatum said. “The noise is ear shattering.”
“I invited the neighbors, Tatum,” Marvin said. “They’re enjoying themselves.”
Tatum sighed. “Everything okay there?”
“I think your cat is angry that you left him alone with me.”
“Why do you think that?”
“You know that pair of brown shoes you left in your bedroom?”
“Yeah,” Tatum said, his heart sinking.
“He shat in the shoes, Tatum.”
“Damn it. Did you throw them away?”
“I’m not touching them. I closed the door so the smell won’t get out. It also masks the pee smell.”
Tatum sat down. His life was being dismantled. “What pee smell?”
“Your cat peed in the bed. And then he shredded the blanket.”
“Maybe you should take him to a shelter until I get home,” Tatum said with a heavy heart.
“Yeah, I already tried that, Tatum. He nearly scratched my eye out. My hands look like I’ve been mauled by a tiny lion.”
“Right.”
“Frankly, Tatum, this cat is a menace. I’ve started going to sleep with a loaded gun by my bed.”
“You don’t have a gun.”
“I do now.”
Tatum tried to control himself. Yelling at his grandfather over the phone wouldn’t do any good.
“Listen, Freckle just needs a little love. Pet him a bit, let him sit in your lap—”
“That fiend is not getting anywhere near my lap. You know what’s in my lap? Some very important stuff.”
“Yes, I get the picture, but—”
