Ties That Bind

by Anne Patrick

  "Care to share some of it?"

  Not particularly. "I was just thinking about your news." She offered a white lie instead.

  "I've got a good feeling she's our Jane Doe. Our victim's approximately the same age and the physical description matches. We won't know for sure though till we run a DNA test."

  "What do we know about her?"

  "Her name's Stephanie Harrison, age thirty-seven, single, lived in Salt Lake City, worked as a corporate executive for a software company. She was reported missing yesterday morning by her live-in boyfriend. According to the fax I got from the detective assigned to the case, she'd flown into Portland on the eighth on company business, and was due back day before yesterday."

  "What about a background check, any enemies? Do you have anything on the boyfriend?"

  "Clean background. Came from a decent family. Father is an architect. Mother a homemaker. Two siblings: a sister who's a doctor and a brother who's in the same line of work as his father. No known enemies and the boyfriend is a real estate developer, divorced, no children. According to neighbors and friends they were madly in love and were planning on getting married in October."

  "If I remember right, no jewelry was discovered on any of the victims. Do we know if this guy gave her an engagement ring?"

  "A one carat oval diamond, size seven and a half. I've got one of my deputies checking out the pawn shops in Portland."

  "I doubt you'll have any luck. He'll probably keep it as a souvenir."

  "Yeah, I kind of figured that, but we could get lucky. So did you enjoy your autopsy?"

  "It was interesting. So much in fact, that I managed to tick off an old friend."

  "How so?"

  "I took a urine specimen and sent it off to our Washington lab to have it analyzed. We should know within the next forty-eight hours if our victim was drugged or not."

  "So you think we screwed up, contaminated the samples somehow on the other three victims?"

  "I'm not accusing anyone of anything, Sheriff. I probably should have warned you, I'm somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to my work, and when it comes to processing and analyzing evidence on a case, well, I trust very few people."

  "Does this mean you're going to want to call in reinforcements?"

  The tone of his voice had changed considerably over the last few minutes, obviously taking offense to her actions. At this rate, she'd have every law-enforcement official in the state ticked off at her by the end of the week.

  "This is your case, Sheriff, I'm merely a consultant," she said, hoping to soothe his ego. "So if at any time you feel I'm overstepping my bounds, or stepping on your toes, let me know and I'll back off. If we hope to catch this guy, we're going to have to work as a team and trust one another."

  "Well, in that case, I do have one problem with you."

  She leaned back in the booth, crossing her arms, and waited for him to unload on her. Why is it men are so territorial?

  Several seconds passed before a smile crept to his lips. "I'd really appreciate it if you'd call me Austin so that it doesn't feel like I'm working twenty-four hours a day."

  She grinned. It was evident from the dark circles under his eyes this case was beginning to take its toll on him. "Sure."

  "Besides offending Cartwright, did you accomplish anything else at the autopsy?"

  "I found out our victim has given birth."

  "I was afraid of that," he said softly.

  "Me, too. Not only did he take a woman's life, but he also robbed some kid of its childhood."

  "She was strangled, like the others."

  "Yeah." Jo took a drink of her iced tea as her thoughts returned to the vision she had earlier.

  "Have you given any thought as to why he takes the head?"

  "A trophy, or so we can't determine whether or not he killed them with his bare hands."

  "What difference would that make...I mean if he killed them with his bare hands?"

  "Strangulation is a personal crime, which coincides with the care he took in staging the body, not to mention the significance of the string. Using his bare hands may be a facet into his personality that could help us on down the road."

  "How do you do it, Jo? I mean doesn't it ever get to you?"

  "Now you know why I run six miles a day. It helps put things in perspective."

  "So you replace the mental pain with physical pain?"

  She gave a slight nod. Running hadn't always worked, though. Some cases she knew she'd never forget. The classes she took in college, the years she'd spent at the medical examiner's office, the training she'd taken at the academy, none of it had prepared her for some of the sights she'd seen. With each case, she gave a part of herself, whether it be mentally or physically, and each one had left a lasting impression on her.

  Though she'd been taught to disassociate herself, it wasn't always easy. Cases involving children were always the hardest, their fragile innocence taken or scarred. They had always had the worst impact on her. That being the main reason she'd never considered having any children of her own.

  Though she usually wasn't actively involved in the investigation, beyond a consultant standpoint, there was always a danger that the killer would feel threatened by her and want to seek retaliation at her interference. With that thought always on her mind, she'd been terrified by the responsibility of bringing a life into this world and risking having them taken from her by one of the evil minds she'd run across. To even contemplate subjecting a child of her own to the unspeakable evils she'd seen over the years was more than she could bear. It'd been a sacrifice she'd accepted long ago so that she could fulfill what she'd always considered her destiny in life.

  "Any ideas as to how we catch this guy?"

  Her thoughts shattered, she met his gaze, only mildly surprised by its intensity. He was a cop through and through. "We wait. Sooner or later he'll make a mistake. They always do."

  "We can't afford to wait while he goes through the female population. There has to be something we can do?"

  "You can start videotaping the dump sites. If you're lucky, you can catch him that way. A serial killer will often revisit the crime scene or dumpsite. Also, once I've developed a profile, you can issue a press release to gain the public's support. Let them know what to look out for."

  "You said this guy knows the area or scouts out dumpsites beforehand. If he isn't from around here, why do you think he brings the bodies back here and then leaves them where they can easily be found?"

  "Because he wants us to find them. Not all, but most, serial killers like attention. They feed off the fact that they have the police at their mercy. They like to read and hear about themselves in the newspaper and on TV. This is why the police sometimes get lucky videoing the crime scenes or dumpsites? The killer's ego is oftentimes his downfall."

  "This guy seems smarter than that." Austin said. "He did bathe the bodies to eliminate all the trace evidence. So he's either done a lot of reading or he's familiar with police procedure."

  "Which is going to make our jobs a lot tougher."

  Any further discussion of the case was put on hold when dinner arrived. Their conversation covered a wide range of subjects, from how good the meal was, to how little the town had changed in Jo's absence. She was tempted to move the conversation to a more personal level, curious to where the mother of his daughter might be, but was afraid he might think her curiosity inappropriate.

  *****

  With the dinner dishes out of the way and on their second cup of coffee, Austin leaned back in the booth, watching his colleague finish off her piece of chocolate pie. It wasn't often he had the opportunity to share a meal with a woman his age who happened to have a background in law enforcement. Though he was far from being a hermit, the dates he'd been on in the past year had led absolutely nowhere. They either had nothing in common, were freaked out by the knowledge he had sole custody of a teenager, or they were frightened off when they learned of the meager salary he earned as the county
sheriff. It seemed a decent man just didn't have a chance these days.

  "You mentioned a daughter earlier, but I don't see a wedding ring."

  He glanced up, only mildly surprised by her forwardness. Whether she was only being sociable due to his lack of subject material or if there was an interest on a more personal level, he figured this was where he'd strike out. "I have sole custody of my daughter. My wife was killed in a car accident three years ago."

  "I'm sorry," she spoke softly, her sincerity evident in her tone. "How old is she?"

  "Bailey's fifteen going on twenty-one."

  Jo smiled. "That's a difficult age, especially for a girl. I imagine it's even harder without a mother around. So how did she take the move from L.A. to here?"

  "She pretty much hates my guts. At least she's making friends now. That's where she is tonight, sleeping over at a friend's. I usually don't allow sleepovers on a school night, but she has a biology test tomorrow and promised they were going to spend the evening studying for it."

  "And you believed her?"

  Suspecting she was only teasing him, he grinned. "What about you, were you ever married?"

  "Just to the job. It doesn't always leave much room for a personal life, as I'm sure you probably know."

  "Yeah, I'm afraid so. I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing, though."

  "Me neither," she was quick to agree. "Speaking of which, what time is our flight tomorrow?"

  "Eight-thirty," he said; pleased she'd decided to join him. "The parents are meeting us at the precinct, then we'll take them to the hospital to get blood samples for a DNA match."

  "Are they aware of the condition of the body?"

  "No. The good detective in charge of the case is giving me that chore. How do you tell a mother and father their daughter was decapitated by a mad man?"

  "Very gently," she advised. "Which reminds me, I didn't notice a news release in the file you sent. How much does the public know about the killer's M.O?"

  "We held back the fact about the string being tied to their toes."

  "Good. I'd hold back as much as you can from the press. A serial killer won't change the signature of their crime, the unique combination of behavior demonstrated by the perpetrator, but they have been known to change their M.O. Such as the type of weapon they use, to prevent getting caught."

  "You pretty much have to bring yourself down to their level to get to know them, don't you?"

  Jo nodded, took a drink of her iced tea and then looked at him. "The closest way to explain the process I go through is to compare it to what a game hunter does. You have to learn their habits and cravings, what sustains them and drives them."

  "And you learn all that from the victims?"

  "A lot of what I need to know. The rest is instinct derived by information gathered from other serial killers."

  "Doesn't sound like much fun." He couldn't imagine what it'd be like to do what she did, to go from one disturbing case to another, week after week.

  "Depends on how you look at it. Studying the mind of a killer can be a horrifying experience, but the knowledge you gain from it not only saves lives, but it also puts the killer behind bars."

  "Is that what motivates you, the saving of lives?"

  "Mainly yes, but I also do it for the challenge. I've always been very inquisitive, whether it was of how a mechanical device works, or what drives a seemingly normal person to unspeakable acts of evil."

  "I bet you were a real nightmare as a teenager."

  He noticed a slight hesitation before she answered. "I was a horrible teenager. Luckily your juvenile records are sealed or I probably wouldn't have made it into the Academy."

  Austin watched curiously as she slid over in the seat so that she sat directly across from him and then began to sink lower in the booth. "What's wrong," he asked and started to turn in the direction she'd been looking.

  "It's nothing. You ready to go?"

  He wasn't quite ready for this evening to end yet. "Yeah, I guess," he said, not bothering to shield his disappointment.

  When he stood, he felt her slide in behind him and when he stopped to pay the check he caught sight of her ducking out the door. It didn't take him long to figure out the cause of her unusual behavior once he spotted Billy McDaniels taking out the door after her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jo had barely made it out the door before she heard her brother call out to her. "Hey, Jo, wait up."

  She considered pretending she hadn't heard him, to just keep walking but knew that sooner or later she'd have to face him. So against her better judgment, she stopped and turned back to greet him.

  He caught up to her, drew Jo into his arms and hugged her. "I heard you were in town."

  "I arrived earlier this afternoon. How have you been, Billy?"

  "Good. I've started a new construction job up near the airport in Portland. It isn't much, but it's keeping us in clothes and we're not starving," he said, stepping back to pat his firm stomach.

  Still the same height as her, it appeared the years had been kind to him. Other than a few streaks of gray mixed in with his dark brown hair, and the addition of a few extra pounds, he was as handsome now as he was ten years ago. "Walt told me you're fixing to be a daddy again, congratulations."

  "Thank you. You look good. I saw you on the news a while back. You were in Atlanta I think. I tried calling you a couple of times, but you never returned my calls."

  "I know, and I'm sorry that I haven't, it's just—"

  "You've been too busy catching all the bad guys," he teased.

  She wondered if he would ever understand the reason she'd been too afraid to return his calls.

  "Have you gone by and seen Mom yet?" he queried, keeping in tune to his role as the self-appointed mediator of the family.

  Before she had a chance to answer, Sheriff Garrett joined them. "Hi, Billy," he greeted, offering his hand for her brother to shake.

  "Hey, Sheriff," he replied before turning back to Jo. "So have you seen her?"

  "I haven't had time, Billy. I just got here today, and I spent most of the afternoon at a crime scene, then the funeral home."

  "I'd heard another body had been found. Any new leads?"

  "I'm afraid not," Austin answered.

  "Slim said you'd been called in as a…what do they call you…a profiler?"

  She nodded. "So far I haven't been of much use I'm afraid."

  "That's not true," Austin argued. "We accomplished a lot today. As a matter of fact, I think it'd be a good idea if you take a look at the other victims, maybe they can tell you something."

  Billy laughed. "He makes it sound like they talk to you. Is that what you do now, Jo, talk to the dead?"

  "In a sense," she replied, only to wish she hadn't. Why should she expect her brother to understand anything about her or what she did for a living when no one else did?

  "You think maybe you could get a name out of one of them. Shoot, at this point even a description would be nice."

  Not bothering with a reply, she turned to Austin. "We should be going, it's getting late, and we have a lot to do tomorrow."

  "I hope you plan on going by and seeing Mom. She's bound to hear you're in town."

  "If Mom wanted to speak to me she would have called."

  "You know better than that. She's just as stubborn as you are."

  "I'm not the one who ended all communications, Billy."

  "He was your father, Jo. Of course she was hurt by your actions."

  "Dad would have been the first to understand why I couldn't come."

  "Well, you're right there. He had no conscience when it came to family either."

  She glared at him. His words slicing through her like a knife. "You know you can be a real jerk sometimes."

  "The truth hurts. You know maybe it's a good idea you don't go see Mom, 'cause I can see you haven't changed a bit. You're as selfish and self-centered as you always were."

  Austin intervened, slipping his a
rm through Jo's. "I think you better get back inside to your wife and kids, Billy," he advised. "Sister or not, Special Agent McDaniels has been kind enough to come here and lend a hand in this investigation and I don't appreciate you upsetting her."

  Billy shot Austin a vicious glare before stomping off toward the entrance of the restaurant.

  "I'm sorry you had to witness that," Jo said as they walked back towards her motel.

  "Don't worry about it, it wasn't your fault, you tried to avoid a confrontation."

  "Now you know why I was hiding out in my motel room."

  "You could have warned me," he said, adding a smile. "I suspected you had a rocky relationship with your family when we were all talking earlier, but I didn't realize it was that bad."

  "I spent the first twenty-eight years of my life trying to figure out the purpose of my life and the last ten defending it. Most people come from a dysfunctional family. I came from one that was too perfect, and never felt like I fit in."

  "Is that why you and your family don't get along?"

  Jo considered his question. Normally she wouldn't even consider sharing anything about her personal life with a colleague she'd just met, but knowing Claremont was a small town, and that a similar situation could arise again, she decided to give into his request.

  "The day I left Claremont, my father and I got into this huge fight. He wanted me to start my own practice, marry a nice man, and have a herd of kids. Not my idea of a good time, though. Anyway, to make a long story short, my father and I never spoke again. Through the years, I talked to Mom and Billy from time to time, but when I didn't return home for my father's funeral two years ago, that more or less destroyed any relationship I did have with them."

  "You didn't attend your father's funeral?"

  "I realize how cold and uncaring it sounds, but I was on a case in Maine at the time, a very disturbing one, involving children. We were getting close to apprehending the perp when I received the news about my dad. My mother and brother had each other; those children had no one. They needed me. It was a difficult choice to make, but I did what I felt was right at the time."