Pretty Dead

by Anne Frasier

  David glanced at Elise in surprise. At no point during their brief conversation with the mayor had either of them intimated that the crimes were drug related, and at no time had they established a victimology. The mayor was rewriting history, had his own agenda, or had the ear of someone outside Savannah PD.

  Or more likely, was covering his ass.

  Since taking office, the mayor had cut police department funding, and the direct result was a drastic increase in crime. The seriousness of the numbers hadn’t yet hit the general public, but once they did, a second term looked doubtful. The guy was all about damage control. And if damage control meant lying . . .

  One of these days David would like to meet a politician who made his choices based on what was right, not on what was right for his wallet and ego.

  There were more questions and more lies, followed by a few half-truths tossed in by Major Hoffman, along with some standard replies from David and Elise.

  “We promise to do all we can do to bring this person or persons to justice,” Elise said.

  Then it was over. A crazy blur of activity and a room of highly charged people, then boom. Done.

  “That was bullshit,” David muttered under his breath as he and Elise headed out of the building and down the marble steps.

  “I agree.”

  Elise paused in the middle of the sidewalk, obviously trying to remember where they’d parked. David pointed, and they resumed their departure. “When I was a kid,” he said, “my mother used to tell us that a decent doctor could smell an illness and diagnose it from the odor.”

  Blow your nose, she’d once told David’s pediatrician. Maybe you’ll be able to smell something.

  “I could see that being true in certain cases,” Elise said.

  They reached the unmarked car. Elise directed the key fob, and the doors unlocked. “I enjoy these little visits back to your childhood,” she added, “but what does this have to do with our case?” They slid inside and simultaneously fastened their seat belts with firm clicks.

  David wasn’t ready to say it out loud, but the two crimes had a stench that made him uneasy. “Just small talk.”

  Elise put the car in gear and started to pull away from the curb when someone pounded on the trunk. She hit the “Unlock” button. A flurry of movement, then, breathing hard, Jay Thomas Paul dove into the backseat, slamming the door behind him. “What is it about shadowing that you two don’t understand?”

  Elise drove off for real this time. “Sorry.” She sounded genuinely contrite.

  “Good questions back there,” David said, attempting to smooth over the awkwardness of forgetting Jay Thomas.

  The reporter puffed up and smiled. “Where to now?” he asked.

  Elise glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “The morgue.”

  Jay Thomas’s smile faded.

  CHAPTER 7

  The morgue was its own private world. Bright and white and stainless steel, with polished cement floors and downdraft fans that did a fair job of keeping the odor under control. Fair. Sometimes Elise wondered if the smell of death was permanently embedded in her sinuses. There were times when she’d turn her head, or the wind would lift her hair, and she’d catch a whiff. And then she’d wonder if she’d absorbed the stench through her pores. And she’d wonder if anybody else could smell it. If so, was it strong? Stronger than she realized?

  The Chatham County morgue was in a nondescript, flat-roofed building on the outskirts of town. David and Elise stood in the autopsy suite, an hour into the exam. The body had been washed, measured, and weighed, with eye color noted. The paper bags had been removed from the hands, and John Casper’s assistant—a large, silent man who looked like he lifted weights as well as dead bodies—had collected detritus from under the nails to send for DNA testing. Superficial abrasions and contusions had been noted, along with the woman’s physical condition: malnourished, her dental hygiene characterized by negligence and decay.

  Elise wasn’t sure what made her sadder: the murder, or the evidence of such a hard, cruel life. Some might argue that the woman had brought it on herself, but this was a time for sympathy, not judgment.

  “Victim had a serious drug issue,” John Casper said. “Beyond the obvious like meth mouth, I’m seeing signs of systemic damage.”

  The Y incision had been made, but the organs had not yet been removed, examined, or weighed.

  “So she’d been at it awhile,” David said.

  “I’d say so.”

  “Cause of death?” Elise asked from behind her clear plastic face shield.

  “Pretty straightforward strangulation. Like the last victim, the trachea has been crushed, causing bleeding into the tracheobronchial tree.”

  “The perpetrator needed to be fairly strong to accomplish that,” David said.

  Elise looked at him. “Or riding a wave of adrenaline.”

  “So maybe driven by anger.”

  “And fear,” Elise said.

  “Fear?” David asked.

  “Of being caught. Or fear and horror at his own behavior.”

  “You give the killer too much credit,” David said. “To feel horror, he’d have to feel he was doing wrong. These animals don’t feel anything close to remorse.”

  “So you don’t think they have any humanity in them?” Elise didn’t believe that. Even after all she’d been through, she didn’t believe it. Her faith in the smallest shred of something good was how she broke criminals; it was how she got them to confess. You find the good and you speak to it.

  The cold body between them, David said, “No, I don’t.”

  “Almost every killer has a line he won’t cross,” Elise argued. “You’ve said so yourself.”

  “That’s true to an extent. But when they escalate, they push themselves to step over that boundary.”

  “I see no sign of escalation here.”

  “Not yet.” The words came out as a threat, even though she knew he didn’t mean them that way.

  Elise dropped her gaze from her partner to the body on the metal table. “These bruises . . .” She pointed to the victim’s arms, legs, and torso. “Precapture? Or later? I’d like to establish a timeline. When he picked her up. How long he was with her. Was the kill fairly quick, or did he keep her awhile? Did he torture her? More to the point, did the murderer know her?”

  She knew she was too anxious to get answers they didn’t yet have. Some of those answers the autopsy wouldn’t even be able to supply.

  “The bruises are a mix,” John said. “Some are old, some look as if they occurred hours before death. As far as torture goes . . . nothing extreme.”

  “What about sexual?” Elise glanced up at the clock. They typically didn’t remain for the entire exam, which could take four or five hours. She needed to get back to headquarters to see how Avery was doing putting together a task force.

  “Bring me the rape kit,” John instructed his assistant.

  The kit appeared, and a few minutes later John said, “No sign of forced penetration.” He swabbed the woman’s vaginal cavity, passing the sample to the assistant.

  “I doubt we’ll find the killer’s sperm,” David said. “So far this guy has been pretty thorough when it comes to not leaving a trace of himself.”

  Elise agreed. “And if she’s a prostitute, then she’s been with multiple people.”

  “See this bruise?” John pointed to the throat. “Deep, with some bleeding. I thought maybe I could lift a print from it. No print at all. Sometimes extreme pressure will leave behind at least a partial.”

  “No surprise,” David said. “We suspect he wore gloves.”

  “That would be my guess too.”

  Had she been beautiful at one time? Elise wondered. “So hard to tell what someone used to look like before the ravages of meth kicked in,” she said, then added, “Meth being another thing the mayor thinks is no big problem.”

  David let out a snort. “He needs to get his head out of his ass and look around him.”
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br />   John shut off the recorder he used to dictate his notes. “That might require some editing . . . ,” he mumbled.

  “It’s true,” David said in defense of his unprofessional comment. “The press conference today was irresponsible. I’m hoping that guy gets voted out this fall.”

  “Spoken like someone who’s actually from here,” John said with a grin.

  “It’s pretty easy to see he’s gearing up for the next election and wants to give people the impression he’s done a good job and made the city safer, when in fact crime has gotten worse while he’s been in office.”

  A polite cough came from the corner of the room, where Jay Thomas Paul had collapsed earlier in a pool of sweat, pale skin, and trembling bones. They’d decided to let him in on the autopsy, thinking he’d either decline or leave the room as soon as the Y incision was made. Instead, he’d staggered away to drop into the first chair he found.

  “Damn,” David said. “He’s like a fly on the wall.”

  Elise hated to admit it, but their new friend was one of those people you forgot was in the room, even when he was standing right in front of you.

  “My earlier comment had better not end up in print,” David told the reporter.

  Jay Thomas adjusted his glasses. “I . . . um, can’t promise that it won’t make it into the story.”

  David bristled. “Get out.”

  Elise shot her partner a look of warning.

  “If it’s pertinent.” Jay Thomas appeared to consider the possibility of just such a thing. “That said, I don’t see how it has any bearing on the story I’m doing on you two.” He got to his feet. “I don’t write for the Mirror—I have integrity.” He ripped off his disposable gown, tossed it in the bin by the door, and stalked from the room.

  John looked up from his removal of the heart. “Since when did you become so explosive?” he asked David. “You were kinda hard on him.”

  David sighed. “I was just annoyed with myself for forgetting he was there.”

  “Mara will be nice to him,” John said. “She’s probably getting him a coffee and a cookie right now.”

  “How are the wedding plans going?” Elise asked. Change the subject. Always a good idea when things got tense.

  John placed the heart on the scale. “Kinda wish we’d just decided on something quiet.”

  “Told you I could perform the ceremony,” David said.

  “I want you as best man.”

  Elise wasn’t big on weddings, but she was looking forward to this one. Normally she sat in the pew, trying to gauge how long the people at the altar would remain married—most of the time giving them a maximum of three years. It would be nice to attend a ceremony where she felt the couple would be together for a very long time. Maybe even forever. Their devotion made her happy in a world where happiness wasn’t always easy to find.

  Mara offered a plate of cookies to the dejected man in the vest and glasses. She kept them handy for visitors, especially for the ones who burst out of the autopsy suite, their faces pale and skin clammy. “They’re ginger,” she said. “It helps the stomach.”

  From his seat near her desk, the man examined the plate of cookies, chose one with the care and thoughtfulness of a child, and took a bite. “They kicked me out,” he said, his mouth full.

  “Well, that was rude.” David and Elise could be a little harsh, but kicking him out seemed excessive. “I think they’re a bit on edge because of the murders.”

  He smiled at her. “You know how it is. Cops and reporters. Oil and water.”

  “Oh, so you’re a reporter?”

  “Yeah. New York Times.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive.”

  He laughed. “You’re the first person around here to think so.” His color was improving, and he allowed himself to sink deeper into the chair with the yellow slipcover she’d added to brighten up the place.

  “Hey, is that the crossword puzzle?” he asked, spotting the folded newspaper on her desk. She noticed that he had a nice face, a kind face.

  She turned in her swivel chair and grabbed it. “John and I usually do it together, but we’re not going to have time today.” She passed the paper to him.

  He held what was left of the cookie between his teeth while retrieving a pen from his messenger bag. Removing the cookie to speak, he said, “I do the crossword every day.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Standing in her recently remodeled kitchen in the Savannah Historic District, Elise drizzled olive oil over asparagus and looked out the window at her friends gathered on the patio. David, tongs in hand, stood in front of the grill, wearing a black apron that said, “Kill the Cook”—a joke from John Casper, who sat at the picnic table next to his fiancée, Mara. Across from her, rounding out tonight’s group, was Detective Avery.

  The cookouts had begun as an effort by Elise to create a life for herself beyond work and the Savannah Police Department. Funny thing was, the only people she really knew were cops and coroners. The other thing? They were the only people she really wanted to hang out with, other than her daughter, Audrey, and maybe Strata Luna.

  Elise didn’t do small talk, and her world was so exactly calibrated that anything falling outside her well-defined boundaries failed to light a fire in her. Her job had created a world that was small by unconscious choice—a common theme in her line of work. Few good investigators had much of a life beyond their cases, and that very insulation created a strange bond—a motley crew. Try as she might to expand her circle beyond homicide, Elise found this group of people to be her tribe.

  Her phone buzzed. She picked it up. A text from Audrey.

  Made it to the dance. Be home by 10. Maybe we can watch Doctor Who when I get back.

  Elise replied with Let’s, then hit “Send.”

  Elise rarely read, and she watched very little television. She regretted her disconnect with pop culture, but she understood that those things weren’t part of her life right now. The one anomaly was the evenings spent watching Doctor Who, something Audrey had coaxed her into while Elise was recovering from the injuries she’d suffered at the hands of Atticus Tremain. At first she found the show silly, and her mind would wander, but somewhere along the way she’d gotten hooked.

  She seasoned the asparagus with cracked pepper and sea salt, wrapped and pinched the foil, took the package outside, and handed it to David. He lifted the lid on the grill, placed the foil on the rack, and began removing the cooked chicken breasts, along with a tofu burger for Mara.

  “I’m grabbing another beer.” John Casper pushed himself from his chair and headed for the house. “Anybody else?”

  Avery raised a hand.

  The get-togethers might have started as cookouts, but they’d somehow evolved into weekends spent laying down brick to create the patio on which they now sat. Then came the card games—often poker for pennies Elise kept in a gallon jug in the kitchen. And now here they were. Over a period of a few months, her house had become their unofficial hangout, the place where they congregated.

  Their visits were so familiar that everybody pitched in—cooking, preparing food, grabbing plates—until, like now, the tribe was finally settled at the wooden table, candles burning, food passed, wine opened.

  A perfect evening. Humid, but cool enough for long sleeves, the air heavy with the intoxicating scent of gardenias and confederate jasmine, their floral perfume mingling with ancient wood and sandy soil. Live oak leaves drifted to the ground, whispering softly as they fell, creating a carpet underfoot. Put all of it together and the night was everything Elise loved about her hometown.

  Once the food had been passed and served, Avery paused with a bite of grilled chicken on his fork, the sleeves of his plaid shirt rolled up to reveal freckled forearms. “So, anybody have any theories?”

  By some unspoken agreement, they rarely talked about work at these dinners, so Avery’s question took Elise by surprise. But they might as well discuss the case since it was on everybody’s mind.

 
Mara, her smooth dark hair reflecting the candlelight, pointed to the ketchup, and David passed it. “Were both girls prostitutes?” she asked.

  “Most likely.” Without lifting his elbow from the table, Avery took a long drink of beer, then set the bottle aside. “And they both had a record, both did drugs, and they hung out in the seedier areas of town.”

  Elise refilled her wineglass. “At this point it looks as if he might have simply been targeting women who were easy prey.”

  “What about the writing?” Casper asked. “Any theories there?”

  They all looked at David, who hadn’t yet offered anything. Not now, and not to Elise in private.

  “I’m still working on it,” he said.

  “Well, we’re brainstorming.” Avery’s comment was an invitation for David to contribute.

  “I don’t know,” David finally said. “Things don’t make sense.”

  Elise was surprised by his obvious reluctance to toss around ideas.

  “Does killing ever make sense?” Mara asked.

  “Yeah.” David reached for his beer. “It does. Repeat killers follow patterns, so you could call it ‘making sense’ in more of a formulaic way.”

  “Displaying them—that’s a pattern,” Elise said. “Writing—a pattern. Where are you seeing something that doesn’t fall into a ritual? Seems pretty straightforward to me.”

  “Right now we’re basically dealing with a list of what we don’t have,” David said. “And that very lack of clues was apparent at two crime scenes. No fingerprints, no matching DNA, no lead on the ink used, other than knowing it was most likely the same ink on both victims.”