Deep as the Dead

by Kylie Brant

  Her gaze traveled past them, settled on the now faceless corpse, as if it could provide answers for the myriad questions its death raised. “As you know, serial crimes are all about the offender. To generalize a gender for now—it’s his wants, his needs. Victim selection, manner of death…and in this case the items he leaves behind.” She looked from Ethan to Nyle and back again. “The dragon fly is also about the offender. It tells us something about him or how he perceives his crimes. It goes to figure then that the second sample is all about the victim.”

  Chapter Three

  After leaving behind the pungent scent of the autopsy suite, Alexa welcomed the muggy air outside, even with the light mist falling. She knew from prior experience that the smells would permeate her clothes, her hair. The motel the Mounties were using was in Enfield, relatively close to the dump site and less than an hour’s drive from the Halifax morgue. Although she’d only recently witnessed the inside of the victim’s brain, and the damage the drill had done there, she was grateful for the sandwiches they picked up on the way to the motel. She’d turned down the snacks offered on the plane ride here. Her stomach had been a tangle of nerves, a sensation that returned every time Ethan’s ice-blue gaze settled on her.

  As she’d watched the scenery pass by her window on the way to the motel, Alexa had been struck anew by the geographical similarities between Nova Scotia and her home in Virginia. They had vivid green countryside, rolling hills, mountains and beaches in common. But this trip didn’t feel like a homecoming. She had few good memories about her life here.

  They ate in the room the two men were using as a workspace. Both beds had been moved out of the room and two long tables had been moved in, atop which was a jumble of file folders and two laptops. A whiteboard sat behind it, to which photos and diagrams had been affixed with magnets.

  “We disseminated Simard’s ID this morning through CPIC, Canadian Police Information Center, to all law enforcement agencies in the province,” Ethan told her as he dug in the bag for a sandwich. “Simard’s only next of kin was an elderly aunt. Since she’s been notified, I also released his ID to the media, asking people to call a tip line if they recognize the victim. We need to establish a timeline for when he arrived in Nova Scotia to pin down how and when he met up with the unknown subject.”

  Alexa raised her brows, waiting for him to find his order before appropriating her sandwich and taking the remaining one to Nyle. “Discovering where Simard was kidnapped might help us zero in on the UNSUB’s location, as well.”

  “Yeah. Simard’s financials haven’t come in yet.” Ethan took another bite of the sandwich, swallowing before adding, “Credit-card records might make the search simpler.”

  Nyle ate in front of his computer, while scrolling through the day’s emails.

  Ethan finished first, wolfing down his sandwich while sending text messages with impressive one-handed dexterity. By the time he’d put down his cell, three-pointed his wrapper in the trash can, and turned to Alexa, she was only halfway done with her meal.

  “I don’t know how far you got through that file on the plane,” he started.

  “Are you offering a recap?” She picked up her napkin to dab at her lips. “Please, go ahead.” Last night had been spent in a meeting with Raiker after he’d tapped her for this assignment, and then bustling home to pack a bag. The files she’d looked at on the plane had included an overview of the crimes and more in-depth information about the ones that had occurred more recently in New Brunswick, but they were by no means complete. And honesty forced her to admit that she’d been unusually distracted on the journey. She had few pleasant memories of her time in Nova Scotia, and Ethan figured in most of those she did have. It would have been difficult enough just returning to the province. Mentally preparing herself for facing him the next day, working side by side with him on this case had been like staring at the headlight of the oncoming locomotive of her past.

  There was little Raiker didn’t know about his employees, so the meeting with him, as he’d probed her readiness for this case had been almost as grueling as seeing Ethan again. She’d managed to convince her boss that the past had no hold on her. There’d been moments since her arrival when that conviction had been sorely tested. She suspected Raiker knew that, too. He was still the foremost profiler in the States. The man was a human lie detector. Little could be hidden from him.

  “…span of thirteen years he’s killed fourteen victims, three of them in the last couple weeks.” With a jolt, she redirected her focus on Ethan. “There was a three-year hiatus, so that was eleven in ten years until recently.”

  “Just over one a year until now.” She thought about that for a moment. “If he’s making up for the time away, perhaps he’s now finished for a while. I’m sure you’ve checked prison records on recent releases. Passports and visa information for visitors to the country in the last few…” Recognizing the glint in his eye, she swallowed the rest of her words. “I was just thinking out loud.”

  “Inquiries are in progress. If I may continue?” His exaggerated politeness was more telling than a growl. She decided it would be wiser to finish her meal as he spoke. She picked up the remainder of her sandwich. Bit delicately into it.

  “We’ve determined the offender approaches them from behind and is left-handed, based on the angle of the blows that initially incapacitate the victim and the side he chooses to inject them.” Ethan prowled the space with long lithe strides, his activity a marked contrast to Nyle’s loose-limbed slouch in the folding chair. “Until Simard, there’d been no discernible manner of death. We’d settled on possible asphyxiation. Or an undetectable drug that would stop the heart, using the same injection site as that used for administering the Scopolamine.”

  “Potassium would do the trick.” Nyle’s voice sounded remarkably cheerful. His gaze never left his computer screen.

  She chewed pensively. Swallowed. “Those options say remarkably different things about your killer.” Stopped to shoot him a guilty look. But he didn’t seem irritated this time.

  “How so?”

  Twenty years and two degrees had imbued her with the confidence and experience she’d lacked in her youth. But having Ethan’s intense pale-blue gaze on her brought a flush to her system that she’d been certain only yesterday that she’d outgrown. “You mentioned the torture was a new addition to the three most recent victims. Before that, other than the blow to the head, the others didn’t show signs of untoward violence.”

  “No. And I see where you’re going with this.” He leaned a shoulder against the wall, his laser regard still trained on her. “There’s a contrast between the brutality of the initial assault and the relative ease of suffocating the victim. But asphyxiation can be plenty brutal. Placing a pillow over one’s face might take minutes, but if, say, he secured a plastic bag to the victim’s head and waiting for the oxygen to be depleted it would take far longer and be much more unpleasant.”

  Because he was watching so closely Alexa suppressed the shudder that skated through her at the thought. “Still a sadistic death, yes.” But something else was niggling at her, skating at the edges of her consciousness before dancing away again. “How long have you been assigned to this case?”

  “I joined the task force five years ago.”

  “Don’t let him go all modest on you,” Nyle shot her grin over his shoulder. “The team came up empty-handed under the last lead investigator’s sojourn. When The Tailor became active again, the new commissioner went with a new lead, plucking Sergeant Manning here from IHIT in Ottawa.”

  Alexa’s brows skimmed upward. IHIT was Canada’s elite homicide team. Ethan must have risen through the ranks of the RCMP to command a certain level of respect, despite his age. He’d be thirty-eight now. A year older than her. She didn’t recall him ever mentioning an interest in police work. Of course, her occupation was a far cry from her beginnings as a biology undergrad, too.

  Belatedly, she seized on the rest of Nyle’s words. “The
Tailor?”

  Ethan looked pained, whether at the other man’s compliment or her question she couldn’t be sure. “The media loves their hooks. The detail about sewing the mouths of the victims shut leaked after the second victim was found.”

  “But not the reason why?”

  “No, the insertion of the dragonfly has been kept quiet. Some of the victims have been engaged in criminal activities. Prostitution rings, organized crime…but others were just the opposite. We’ve got a doctor, a housewife, the mayor of a small town and almost zero overlap between any of them. He’s struck in nearly every province in the country and one territory.”

  A vastly ambitious hunting ground, Alexa thought, finishing her sandwich and folding the wrapper into a neat square. “Did the other victims live near the dumpsites where they were found, or were they transported?”

  He looked as though she’d surprised him with the question. “So far, all identified victims lived within an hour of where their bodies were discovered. Simard is an outlier. A Montreal resident found in Nova Scotia. We’re still waiting for an ID on one of the victims recently found in New Brunswick.”

  “Male?” At his nod, Alexa continued, “And another one not in RAFIAS?” The lack of a hit in the national fingerprint system meant he’d never been arrested like many of the other victims.

  “Hard to tell. His hands were burned so badly there was no way to pull a print from them.”

  She recalled the photo from the file she’d looked at on the plane. “The UNSUB obviously wasn’t trying to prevent identification since he’s never bothered with the other victims.” She mulled the information over. “The file said the injuries didn’t cause his death. And the other man found in New Brunswick…Albert Norton. He had the number twenty-eight carved into his back.” She considered—and dismissed—the idea of a copycat killer. Ethan seemed certain the details about the dragonfly had never been made public. And the dragonfly was too specific to believe a second person would also use it.

  She creased the wrapper in her hand with a thumbnail. Victim selection and offender motivation went hand in hand. Right now, both were puzzling. “Is he striking at random, with the intent to cover the entire country? Maybe to strike fear into each area. That might be about wielding power. No one is safe.” She was thinking out loud.

  Nyle finally tore his attention away from the computer and straddled his chair to face them. “We’ve considered that,” he put in. “Because we can find almost no connections between the victims, the task force has long thought the offender might be someone who travels regularly. A salesman, a long-distance trucker, something like that. Years ago, they even got lists from trucking companies of employees who made long runs and tried to match them to the locations of the murders. Nothing came of it. As for salesmen,” he shrugged, “no way to track that, so it’s another unknown. And this case is chock-full of them.” There was an unfamiliar grim expression on his wide, normally genial face.

  “All of the bodies are found near ponds, marshes, rivers or lakes. No ocean shoreline.”

  “Of course.” She nodded at Ethan’s remark as she got up to cross to the trash to drop her wrapper in it. “And he takes some care with the dumpsites, doesn’t he? From the most recent crime scene photo, it appears he selected a placid area of the river, avoiding nearby rapids or the Bay of Fundy tides.”

  “It’s more isolated,” Ethan pointed out, finally putting the cell down to look at her.

  “There’s that. But he also wouldn’t want the body disturbed by rising tides. He’s gone to a great deal of trouble with it. He wants you to find the dragonfly. He likely sews the lips of the victims shut to make sure his calling card isn’t disturbed until the body is discovered.” Yes, that would be important to him, Alexa mused. To take credit for the kill, or to taunt police, perhaps. “He leaves victims in areas near bodies of water where dragonflies are normally found. Except,” she corrected herself as she made her way back to her chair at the desk pushed into the corner of the room, “you wouldn’t find this particular dragonfly there because they’re not indigenous to this part of the world.”

  “So why is that?” Ethan demanded. “What’s he telling us by leaving it with his victims?”

  The question had nagged at her since first hearing about the case. “It could be any number of things,” she admitted, tucking back a strand of hair that escaped from the knot she’d fixed it in that morning. She saw Ethan track the action with his gaze and her fingers faltered. This collaboration wasn’t going to work if his every look threatened to yank her twenty years in the past. It took a moment to regain her focus. “Maybe he’s telling us where he’s from.”

  “That lead was exhaustively examined at the beginning of the case. It didn’t go anywhere.”

  She nodded, not at all bothered by Ethan’s curt tone. “The Rhyothemis fuliginosa is beautiful. Exotic. The offender could be saying he’s exotic, too. Different from anyone you might have tracked before. Or he’s beautifying his victims. Dragonflies are symbols of transformation and rebirth. He might be saying that he’s giving his victims new life.”

  “By killing them?”

  Alexa inclined her head at Nyle’s question. “It’s a mistake to try to consider a serial offender’s motive through a rational lens. Often, it only makes sense to them. Canada has slightly more lenient policies about importing insect samples than does the States, but it’s heavily regulated and importation leaves a paper trail. Which I’m sure you’ve already looked into.” She didn’t wait for Ethan’s nod before going on. “That leaves smuggling, which would easy enough, given the size of the cargo and maybe that’s how he began. But now, he’s probably either breeding the dragonflies or getting them from someone who is. There didn’t appear to be any preservative substance on the sample at the morgue, although it will take more testing to be certain. It’s been dead only a few days.” She glanced at Ethan’s face and guessed, “You already knew that.”

  “They brought in a forensic entomologist from a university several years ago who ran tests and told us the same thing. It was his guess that the offender believed he was transforming the victims in some way, as you said.” Ethan stopped pacing long enough to slip out of his suit coat. He folded it and draped it over a chair before he began prowling the room again. “We have no descriptions of the killer. No witnesses. We’ve guessed he might be slight, shorter than average. He makes up for that disadvantage by attacking the victims from behind. At one time, we even considered with that manner of attack, the presumed methods of killing might mean we’re looking for a woman.”

  “Except she’d still have to get the drugged victim to a vehicle and haul a body to the water…” The bothersome detail that had escaped her earlier finally snapped into place and she said slowly, “Or maybe it isn’t about transformation at all.”

  She saw the look the two men exchanged as she surged from her chair, the act of moving helping to shift her thoughts into place. “Do you know what the fiercest predator on the planet is?”

  “Uh…a lion? Maybe a cheetah. They’re faster, right?”

  Unlike Nyle, Ethan didn’t hazard a guess. Just watched her with that pale unfathomable gaze. She strode across the room and back again, certainty growing with each step. “It’s a dragonfly.”

  Ethan snorted. “A bug.”

  “You’d be surprised at just how vicious insects can be. In enclosures dragonflies are known to capture ninety to ninety-five percent of all their prey. They have the best vision on Earth. They’re doubly effective as a great white and four times more so than a lion,” she said with a nod in Nyle’s direction. “They can see every angle except for behind them.” She stopped behind Ethan. “And theirs is an ambush predation. They come up behind their prey and—” She reached out to gently touch him on the back of the head. Then snatched her hand away, her fingertips tingling from their gentle brush against his hair. “It never sees them coming.”

  Ethan turned his head to stare at her. “Blitzkrieg attacks,” he
muttered.

  “Like the killer,” she agreed. She took a step away to increase the distance between them. Then another. “Maybe you’re right about his physical description. Similar to the dragonfly, he’s been dismissed. Underestimated. People don’t look beyond the surface to suspect what he’s capable of. Until it’s too late.”

  “An interesting theory.” There was no inflection in Ethan’s voice, but she could tell he was considering her words.

  “The dragonfly is about him. The second insect is about the victim.”

  “So what’s a bat bug tell us about Simard?”

  “Something important the offender wants us to know about the man. I need pictures of the insects you took from the last two victims’ mouths. I assume the samples are at the crime lab.”

  Ethan nodded. “All evidence goes to Ottawa.”

  Driven to get to work, she gathered up the laptop and briefcase she’d brought with her. Stopped and looked at Ethan. “Have my bags been delivered?”

  “They should be in your room.”

  Nyle scrambled to find the file folder with the photos. “Here are the images.” He rose and walked over to hand her the file in question, which she took before heading to the door. Her mind was already on her next task. The insect samples could prove invaluable in fine-tuning the latest victim selection. She frowned as she reached the door, and juggled the items in her hands as she reached for the knob. A false conclusion, however, could send them in a completely wrong direction. It was here that the scientist in her often struggled with the criminologist. She preferred basing her conclusion on solid—

  “You’ll need this.”

  Ethan’s voice interrupted her thoughts. Halfway out the door, she turned. He’d followed her, holding her room card. Sheepishly, she took it from him. “Of course.” He let her get to the hallway before stopping her again. “Alexa?”