by Brenda Novak
Tim read her thoughts. “It’s not her, Doc. Sorry, I forgot to tell you, she’s black. Looks like a drowning.”
She blew out a breath. “Well, at least the break in the pattern means this victim isn’t part of the Vanderbilt series. No ID?”
“Actually, yes, there is. An ID card that says her name is Tammy Boxer.”
“ID card? Like a license, but not a license to drive?”
“Yep. Address is over on Dickerson Road.”
“Working girl?”
“Could be. I don’t know, looks like she’s been under the water for a while.”
“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll see you soon.”
She clicked off, shaking her head. Dead prostitutes weren’t a rare occurrence in Nashville. The police actually built a database specifically for their postmortem identification. Since many of the girls went by aliases, the midnight shift patrolled their most common hunting grounds, pulling over to chat and check them out. Dickerson Road, also known as Hooker Alley, was an area with the worst offenders. The officers would go over the girls’ information and run their sheets, then take Polaroid pictures and fingerprints and note any tattoos or characteristics. They got as much contact information as they could glean from the girls, though most of it was bogus. They’d use it to track down family, or pimps, should the need arise.
This information was fed into the database, and when a girl showed up dead, they were much easier to identify. Sam had ridden along when they first implemented the program, amazed at the lack of concern the prostitutes showed when they went through the process. It seemed they didn’t realize, or care, that the police were doing this so they could identify them when they were pulled out of a dumpster the next morning.
Sam picked up the phone again and placed a call to Lincoln. The database had been his idea and was still his baby. He picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, Lincoln. How’s it shakin’ over there?”
“Shaking and baking, sister. Taylor is heading your way. I’m getting ready to go home myself, get a couple of hours sleep.”
“Good, you guys need a break. I wasn’t calling about Taylor. I just got a call from my ‘gator, Tim. Looks like they may have pulled a working girl out of Old Hickory. We’ll send over the information to see if you can lay out a positive ID.”
Sam could hear him clicking away on his keyboard in the background and smiled, he was already loading the database. “Any chance you have a name? I have an MP report on a lost soul from Magdalene House.”
“Actually, she had an ID card on her, but who knows if it’s really hers.” She looked at her notes. “Tim said the name on the card is Tammy Boxer. Ring any bells?”
“Yes, damn it. That’s the name they gave me last night. Hadn’t seen her in a week, said she missed a couple of med checks. This is really going to make their day.”
Sam gave a big sigh. The Magdalene House was one of Nashville’s jewels. A minister at Vanderbilt’s St. Augustine’s Church had developed the program. It was designed to get girls off the street, cleaned up, give them some education and skills, and help them back out into the real world. It was a huge success, and Sam remembered reading that they were opening a second house because the demand had grown so large.
“Will you give them a call and let them know we may have found her? If they can send someone over this afternoon to ID her, we’ll try to get things moving over here.”
“Yeah, I’ll do it. Thanks, Sam, that’s one less thing I need to worry about.”
Sam wished him well, told him to get some sleep and hung up. As she did, she heard Taylor in the hall talking with Kris, their front desk attendant. She walked out of the office and nearly collided with Taylor in the hall.
Sam clucked at Taylor disapprovingly, a mother hen unhappy with one of her brood.
“T, you look absolutely awful. You didn’t go home last night?”
Taylor did, in fact, look awful. On cue, she sneezed and gave Sam a sheepish grin.
“Naw, I didn’t. Thought I’d clean up over here once we’re done. Do you have any sinus medicine? I’m out. I think my allergies are getting to me.”
“Your allergies, my ass. You have a sinus infection. Why do you always like to pretend you’re not sick when you are?” Sam headed back into her office and opened a cabinet by the door. She pulled out a box of Advil Cold & Sinus and gave it to Taylor. Like most good Nashvillians, she always had some on hand. It was a bizarre phenomenon that so many people in the city suffered from some kind of sinus problems throughout the year. The joke was if you didn’t have allergies before you moved to Nashville, you would within a year.
Taylor broke two pills out of their blister pack and offered the box back to Sam, who shook her head.
“Keep it, you’re going to need it worse than me. Do you have the radiographs?”
Taylor held up a large manila envelope and sneezed again. Sam shook her head, handed her a tissue and said, “Follow me.”
Forty-Eight
They went through the biovestibule and started the changing process that would turn them into medical butterflies.
“I talked to Lincoln a little bit ago. Looks like we have the body of his missing Magdalene woman.”
“You’re kidding,” Taylor replied, arms lost in a smock. “Where’d she turn up?”
“Couple of fishermen pulled a body out of Old Hickory this morning. Her ID card had the name Tammy Boxer on it, and Lincoln said that’s the name he was given on the report.”
Taylor shook her head. “Another murder. Sam, what’s happening to our city?”
“Let me cheer you up. I heard a great one the other day. This chick suspects her husband is cheating on her. One day she calls home and a strange woman answers. She asks who it is. The woman on the other end of the phone says, ‘This is the maid.’ The woman’s confused. ‘But we don’t have a maid,’ she says. The maid tells her the man of the house hired her that morning. ‘Well, I’m his wife,’ she says. ‘Is my husband there?’ The maid gets quiet for a minute. ‘He’s upstairs in the bedroom with a woman I assumed was his wife.’
“The wife is livid, gasping for air. She says to the maid, ‘Listen, would you like to make $50,000?’ The maid asks what she would have to do. The wife tells her to go to the top desk drawer, get out the gun and shoot him and the woman he’s with. The maid puts the phone down. The wife hears footsteps, gunshots, and then more footsteps. The maid picks the phone back up. ‘So what do I do with the bodies?’ The wife tells her to take them outside and dump them in the pool. ‘But ma’am, there’s no pool here.’ There’s a long pause. ‘Uhhh, is this 494-2873?’”
Taylor guffawed and Sam grinned, pleased with her cleverness.
“Jeez, Sam, that was awful. You’re awfully chipper this morning. You make up with Simon last night?”
“Taylor, how come any time I’m in a good mood, you automatically assume I got laid?”
“Because nine times out of ten, you did.”
“Fine. Yes, we had a very late dinner. And drinks. Then a few more drinks. Happy now?”
“No, I want to hear the details. I have to live vicariously through your sex life, remember? Really, Sam, are you ever going to marry that guy?”
Sam got a sly look on her face. “Yeah, I think I might.” She held out her hand.
“Whoa, lookie there. Now that’s a rock! Are you serious? You guys really got engaged?” Taylor was hopping up and down, pulling Sam in a hug up and down with her.
“Yep. Last night. He finally asked.”
Taylor couldn’t stop grinning. Maybe the planets were finally aligning. “Oh God, I am so excited. Ooooh, and we get to have a bachelorette party! When are you going to do it?”
Sam was laughing. “God, T, I have no idea. One step at a time, you know. I gotta get used to the idea of being engaged first. It was so sweet though. He actually got down on one knee. You’d think after all these years he’d just say, ‘Yo Sam, let’s get married.’ But he had this whole speech prepare
d and everything. Most of which I can’t remember. Roses, wine…I’m telling you, he really surprised me. And I just said yes before I had a chance to think. Something in my heart just told me it was time to quit thinking and start doing.”
“Oh, Sam.” Taylor had tears in her eyes. “It’s about time. I don’t think I can remember a time that Simon wasn’t head over heels for you, and you for him.” She started jumping up and down again. “Ahh, man. I gotta give that boy some shit. Let’s call him.”
“Let’s not. We have to get to work. Body’s are a-calling.”
The levity ended abruptly and Taylor gave a huge sigh. “You had to remind me, didn’t you? All right, let’s get moving.” She handed Sam the manila folder with the dental x-rays nestled inside. Sam took them and started across the room.
“By the way, I almost forgot. I ran blood work on Jordan’s baby. I figured it would be easier to see if the blood type from the fetus was compatible with the semen before we went to the trouble and expense of having Simon run DNA. Quicker too.”
“And?”
“Whoever killed Shelby wasn’t the father of Jordan’s baby. Statistical impossibility.”
Taylor tucked this morsel into the overgrowing database in her head on the murders. “Maybe he killed her because it wasn’t his baby,” she said softly.
“It’s a thought.”
They entered the autopsy suite. One of Sam’s assistants had already placed the burned out husk on a stainless table, and was ready to start with the X-rays. Sam nodded to him, and he got to work.
Taylor went to the phone on the wall and dialed Price’s office. She was surprised when Baldwin picked up the line. “Captain Price’s office.”
“Baldwin. It’s Taylor. Why are you answering the phone?”
“Well, I’m sitting here doing nothing. Price got called out to a meeting for something or another, and no one else is here. I just figured…”
“No, that’s good. I was calling to talk to you anyway.”
“Oh.” He sounded faintly surprised. Taylor thought she heard a note of pleasure in the single word. She blushed. Sam, who was watching, raised an eyebrow. Taylor turned away from her, embarrassed to no end. She quickly became all business.
“Sam ran the blood type of Jordan’s fetus against the semen from Shelby. It wasn’t a match.”
Baldwin was silent a moment. “Maybe he killed her because it wasn’t his child.”
“Funny, I said the same thing. Listen, I’ve got to go. Sam’s signaling, she has the radiographs ready. I wanted you to know.”
“Thanks, Taylor. I’ll think on it. Let me know what you find out, okay? Wait a second, Lincoln just walked in, and he wants to talk to you.” He handed the phone over.
“Taylor?”
“I thought you were going home?”
“I know, I am. Real quick, though, I talked with the people at Magdalene House. They said Tammy Boxer was HIV positive. Will you let Sam know?”
“Ah. Will do. Thanks for everything, Lincoln. You’ve been a lifesaver. Bye.”
She hung up and turned back to Sam, expecting a chastising or brutal tease. Instead, Sam was standing in front of the radiograph view box, shaking her head.
“I’ve got good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
“The good news.”
“The good news is this isn’t Jill Gates.”
Taylor stood frozen, immobilized by the finding. “You’re sure?”
“No doubt about it. These dentals aren’t even close.”
“What’s the bad news?”
Sam turned to her friend, her mouth a grim line slashing her face. “The bad news is, this is not Jill Gates.”
She turned back to the view box. “Who are you, sweetheart?”
She and Taylor stared longingly at the radiographs as if the teeth would come to life and spell out the name of their owner. Taylor turned away and sat heavily on a hard backed chair, leaning her arms on a built in desk. As she put her head down, her cell rang.
“Yeah? Hey, Fitz. Okay, route it through.” She turned to Sam. “Call came in for me, some guy wants to talk to me and me alone. Won’t give his name. Oh, hello.” She listened to the other end of the phone, her eyes growing wide. “Can you…Damn, he hung up.”
“What the hell was that?”
“An anonymous call from someone who claims to have done a pregnancy test on Jill Gates. Six months ago.”
“Wait a minute. Jill Gates is pregnant?” Sam’s astonishment was catching.
Taylor nodded. “According to this guy, she was six months ago. He wouldn’t tell me anything else.”
“Taylor, if it’s true, and she didn’t abort or miscarry, Gates could be at least seven months pregnant, maybe more. With all the emphasis on babies with this freak, I think you may have a bigger problem.”
“What’s that, Sam? Spit it out?”
“At thirty-four weeks, that baby can live on its own. Sometimes earlier, if they’re lucky. Assuming all’s gone well, she’s twenty-eight weeks at a minimum, and could be as much as thirty-two, depending on how far along she was when she had the pregnancy test.”
Realization of what Sam was trying to tell her finally sunk in. Taylor flipped open her phone and called back to Price’s office. No one picked up the phone. She hung up and dialed Baldwin’s cell. The voicemail came on almost immediately, and she left him a message that felt as desperate as it sounded.
“This body isn’t Jill Gates. She might still be alive, Baldwin. I think our killer is after her baby.”
Forty-Nine
Baldwin had been sitting in Price’s office for half an hour. He knew exactly what this conversation was going to be about and just wanted to get it over with. Yes, he was fine. Yes, he was interested in the case. No, he didn’t have any answers yet, only overblown theories.
His mind was chewing the tidbit of information Taylor had just passed along. The fact that the killer wasn’t the father of the child was of great importance to him. Though he didn’t know the motive behind Shelby’s killing, it was entirely possibly that Jordan had been killed because of the pregnancy. It had been known to happen: a man being inordinately jealous of a woman who had cheated. The theory played into several aspects of her murder as well; Sam had told him that some of the stab wounds were postmortem. Baldwin could see the scenario easily. He gets mad, stabs her in the chest, kills her, then in a fit of rage goes out of control and thrusts the knife into her flesh viciously, punishing her over and over again. But why the aconite? And the herbs? Why such a huge difference between the murders of Jordan and Shelby? And, most importantly, where was Jill Gates, and who was the woman at the morgue?
“You’re losing your touch, man.” He looked around sheepishly to make sure no one had heard him, but the offices were deserted.
It was time for him to start making some leaps, maybe try to get a little faith in himself back. He pulled out his notebook and started trying to tie things together. He muttered aloud as he wrote.
“Gotta assume this is the same killer. There’s no way all of them are coincidences. Okay. So we have the same guy. He kills Jordan because she got pregnant with someone else’s child. It was definitely an intentional murder. But Shelby, maybe she was an accident. If he was having an affair with both of them, maybe Shelby found out about Jordan and confronted him, told him Jordan’s baby wasn’t his. Is he having an affair with Jill, too? Is this a close knit group, and jealousy has crept in, or is this guy just a serial rapist who was close to being caught and had to shut the girls up?
“There’s a thought. Rapists do escalate; he could have graduated to murder. Shelby’s positioning could explain that, maybe she was the first one he murdered and he felt so badly about it that he tried to treat her with respect. But no, it looked like Jordan was killed first, and there was no respect there. Why poison Jordan if he was going to stab her? Did she fight back? Was he trying to give her the easy—yeah ha, easy—death that Shelby was given and she fought him? That could
be…
“Step away from that for now. The victims at the church. What in the hell was that about? He kills a priest and another woman, using fire. The priest is easy to explain away, he could have just gotten in the way. But why take her to a church to kill her? We’ve got the church, the river, and the Parthenon. Church, river, Parthenon. God, this just doesn’t make any sense.
“What’s the most logical place to find this guy? All the girls are students at Vandy. Assuming the fire victim is as well, we’re up to four students, and a possible priest of opportunity. Gotta be someone connected to Vandy. And what is he trying to tell us? River, Parthenon, church. Catholic Church. Poison, stabbing, fire. Trial by fire? Cleansing by fire? Damn it, this is crazy.”
He slapped the notebook down on Price’s desk. There was something he wasn’t getting. The locations could be the key; granted, the murders were incredibly diverse, but if the guy was trying to send a message, he certainly had picked the right places. And there was something about Jordan’s pregnancy that was nagging at him. He stood up and stretched. He knew from experience brainstorming, word association, throwing a jumble of thoughts together often forced an answer later on. He was starting to get some ideas, but he needed to talk them out, run through them aloud with another person. Preferably Taylor. He sensed she was moving along the same lines as he was. He liked seeing how her mind worked.
Price walked back while he was mulling it over. He came around to his side of the desk and sat down heavily. As he did, the phone rang. He stared at it a moment, as if he really didn’t want to pick it up.
“I could get that for you, if you’d like. Let them know you’re not here?”
Price gave him a smile.
“A magnanimous gesture, but that’s okay, I’ll get it. I’m just sick of putting out fires.” He picked up the receiver. “Price.”
Baldwin watched him listen to the person on the other line, wondering at the emotions that passed across his face. Good news or bad? Baldwin couldn’t tell.
