Silent Reckoning. Debra Webb
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Pictures of half a dozen kids graced his desk.
The thick glasses he wore indicated he was likely blind as a bat without them. He was known for his close attention to detail. Ammon didn’t miss anything. I was glad he was the one on call today.
Extensive sexual assault, he noted aloud for the purposes of the audio tape. I didn’t hear him, of course, but I read the words on his lips. I call it assault because the activity was so savage, he clarified with a glance over his glasses at me.
Dr. Ammon shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he studied the victim’s ankles. The ligature marks appear the same size and depth as on the previous victim, indicating a similar material was used for restraint. Perhaps a nylon cord. I appreciated that he always looked at me when he spoke. Not everyone thought to do that, forcing me to remind them.
“No semen this time?” I asked. I was hoping the perp had made a mistake this go-round. If this victim turned out as clean as Reba Harrison, this case would only get more frustrating.
Ammon glanced at his assistant who was peering into a microscope at specimens. The assistant said something, but I could only see his profile so I missed it entirely. My gaze shifted back to Ammon who shook his head. No semen as of yet.
Damn.
I noticed Patterson looking away as Ammon thoroughly examined the victim’s pubic area. Maybe the guy had a conscience after all, or at least limits on his comfort zone. Even I felt like an interloper as that part of the examination proceeded. I felt sorry for the victim. No matter that she was dead, this business was humiliating.
The M.E. lifted a number of hairs and placed them on a slide. Anticipation surged past my softer emotions. All we needed was one break. One piece of evidence we could use to nail the bastard, assuming we figured out who he was. That sounds dumb, but there’s nothing worse than catching a perp, knowing in your gut he’s the one and not being able to prove it in a court of law.
Ammon moved to the table where his assistant worked and slipped the slide into another microscope.
I surveyed the victim’s body once more. She looked different under the harsh lights of the lab. The marbling of her cold skin gave her a blue-gray hue. She’d definitely taken good care of herself. Worked out daily, I’d bet. The breasts were store-bought. An incision beneath each one gave away her secret. She had probably taken out all the stops to make her dream of fame and fortune happen.
My gaze shifted up to my partner, who stood on the other side of the examining table. He shook his head and looked at me. Another starlet bites the dust.
God, I hated those kinds of labels. The case from four years ago had been called the Starlet Murders. I hoped like hell that if we discovered these two recent murders were committed by the same perp, we would change that.
Patterson’s head turned toward the M.E., alerting me that the doc was saying something.
…got lucky. I have a couple of hairs that don’t belong with this body.
But they could be someone else’s. Not necessarily the perp’s. That possibility hampered the enthusiasm I wanted so much to feel.
“She could have picked them up at the scene or during an encounter of some sort prior to her final one with the perp,” I proposed.
Ammon shrugged. Possibly, but there’s always a chance one or both could belong to the killer or killers, considering they don’t match. I have hair samples from three different individuals here.
What a lucky break that would be.
When Ammon had finished looking for fingerprints, hairs, trace fibers, etc., on the victim’s skin, I was ready to go. I had no desire to witness the inhuman mutilation of the body. Certainly I understood that the procedure was necessary, but I still didn’t care to stand around and watch.
Patterson sauntered out alongside me. If he’d been the least bit squeamish about any of the procedures, other than the genitalia exam, he’d kept it to himself. He had nothing on me there. I could hang with the best of them. I was the only one in my class at the forensics academy who hadn’t thrown up the first time watching an autopsy.
When I reached my Jetta, Patterson hesitated before moving on to his own vehicle, a big shiny red SUV. Figures.
Barlow talked to me this morning, he said, looking straight at me as he did so.
I told myself to hear him out before I jumped to any conclusions. “Oh, yeah?”
Patterson nodded. He wants this partnership to work out. He shrugged nonchalantly. I just wanted you to know I plan to do my part.
How sporting of him.
“That’s great, Patterson. Why don’t we get on down to the office and we can both do our part.”
He looked uncertain as to whether my comment was positive or not. But only for a couple of seconds. See you there. Then he sauntered on over to his big, macho-man SUV and climbed aboard. I had two brothers who drove vehicles very similar to that. Gas hogs.
I slid behind the wheel of my conservative, ultra-efficient Jetta and headed for Metro.
I didn’t want Barlow running interference between Patterson and me. We needed to work out this relationship on our own. On my terms, of course. I planned to keep that part to myself.
I considered Patterson’s actions at the scene and then in the lab. He hadn’t said a hell of a lot about the case. Just that one remark about having a serial killer on our hands. If he was half as good a cop as Barlow thought he was, he’d surely formed a number of conclusions. Just as I had.
But he’d kept them to himself.
Maybe that was partly my fault. I hadn’t mentioned any of my thoughts thus far. I suppose I couldn’t blame him for doing the same thing.
As soon as the stench of death had cleared from my senses, I would make an effort and invite him out to lunch. It was Sunday, might as well make the most of it. Break the ice so to speak.
But first we had to see what we could find on Mallory Wells and look for any connection, if one existed, between her and Reba Harrison. We could start at her place of residence.
Verifying the similarities between this murder and the ones four years ago wasn’t necessary, I could already see that we either had a copycat on our hands or an old killer was back in business.
Someone in Nashville was killing young women who were chasing after the stars, literally and figuratively. Reba Harrison had been a known groupie for at least two country music stars, but she was also a singer herself.
If there was a connection we hadn’t discovered yet between Reba Harrison and Mallory Wells, that link could lead us to the killer.
But it would never be that easy.
Nothing ever was.
Chapter 3
Being nice is definitely overrated.
If I’d ever thought otherwise, I knew differently now.
Ray Patterson might be younger than me, with less seniority in the Homicide Division, but that didn’t stop him from bucking to be the boss. Or from being nosy as hell.
The chief seems awfully protective of you. You think it’s because of your hearing impairment?
See what I mean?
“He’s concerned about all his detectives,” I countered, a subtle warning of don’t go there in my tone. “That’s his job. He knows our strengths and weaknesses. That’s how he decides who would be best on what case when it comes to something like this.”
Like the Starlet Murders, you mean, he suggested.
There he went, using that old moniker. I mean, maybe it’s because I’m a woman, but I just didn’t like it. In my opinion the case should be called the Jealous Male Scumbag Murders.
Thank