Lethal Confessions (13 page)

Amy allowed herself a small smile, since he didn’t sound sarcastic. At least someone thought she had superior wisdom, even if she didn’t.

Poushinsky’s lead foot had them pulling up in front of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office in Bartow not long after eleven o’clock. Amy had called Detective Webb Smith from the car, so he stood waiting for them in the reception area as they came in. She’d explained in advance why Beckett had accompanied them, sparing Smith a possible coronary from the excitement.

The brawny, bull-necked detective ushered them to a meeting room inside the small Homicide Unit and introduced them to his partner, Detective Zeb Kingman. The other man had to be at least a decade younger than Smith, who looked to be in his early forties.

“Webb and Zeb, huh?” Poushinsky smirked. “I like it.”

Smith shot him a glare as he opened his mouth, probably to fire back a retort.

“Thanks for meeting with us,” Amy said.

Smith gave Poushinsky another dirty look but then turned his attention to her. “Thanks for coming up to our neck of the woods. I assume you got the word from Martin County?”

“We got the call on our way up here,” Poushinsky answered. “Turned around and headed back to the scene.”

“Same killer,” Amy said, hating to put it into words. “We haven’t got the autopsy report in our case yet, but we’re assuming that our victim, like yours, wasn’t raped, either. The only visible signs of trauma on Carrie Noble were the ligature marks on her neck, wrists and ankles. He didn’t bash and cut her the way he did your victim. We’re pretty sure the autopsy will confirm the same cause of death.”

She glanced down at her leg as Beckett’s thigh brushed against her. He’d taken the seat on her right, Poushinsky the one on her left. The Polk County detectives sat directly across the small wooden table. Jammed in between the two big men, Amy felt increasingly uncomfortable, especially at the feel of Beckett’s muscular leg alongside hers. She frowned at him, pointedly drawing away. She
so
did not need this distraction.

“From the little bit we’ve been told so far, it sounds like Martin’s case might be more like ours,” Kingman said. “More trauma.”

Poushinsky nodded. “Yeah. This guy’s a sick fuck.”

“About the trauma in our victim’s case,” Smith said. “We decided not to release some information, for reasons you all understand.”

“Copycat killings,” Poushinsky said unnecessarily.

“The exact nature of her injuries was one of the things we didn’t release,” Kingman said. “But here are CSU’s photos.” He shoved a file folder across the table.

Amy steeled herself and opened the folder. She’d seen hundreds of murder and assault victims’ photographs, but it never got any easier to take.

“The cuts to her face were made with an extremely sharp instrument,” Kingman explained. “The killer carved three diamonds into her skin—one on her forehead, and one on each cheek. All approximately one square inch in area. The cutting was precisely done, with a cold, steady hand.”

“Post- or ante-mortem?” Poushinsky asked.

“Definitely ante-mortem. She was found covered in dried blood.”

“
Tabarnak
,” Amy muttered. The pain would have been excruciating. “The Martin County victim had a single, curving slash from temple to chin. Nothing like these diamonds. What the hell were they about?”

Kingman shrugged. “Who knows?”

“So, the killer didn’t rape her,” Amy said, “but he tortured the hell out of her, beating and cutting her, and then shot her up with a lethal injection cocktail.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Kingman said, looking as grim as all the rest.

“Then he carved the word
OUT
into her torso
after
she was dead.”

Smith nodded. “That’s what the M.E. determined.”

“Ours said the same thing,” Poushinsky said.

Amy resisted the urge to rub her aching temples as she tried to think through the anomalies. “What did you conclude from the autopsy finding on the drugs that killed her? All I saw in the material you released was that it was a combination of the three drugs that are commonly used in lethal injections.”

Smith gave her a puzzled look. “We didn’t conclude anything. We thought the report spoke for itself.”

Not to me.
“May I see it? Just the blood analysis.”

“Sure.” Smith flipped through the papers in his folder until he found what he was looking for. He shoved a single sheet across to her.

Amy studied it as the room went silent. “I’d like a copy of this, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure,” Smith replied. “Are you seeing something?”

She wasn’t ready to share, but the partial theory starting to coalesce in her brain made her stomach clench with revulsion. “I’m not sure yet. I want this for our records, and to compare with our own autopsy report.”

“No problem. You’ll share yours, too, I presume.” When Amy nodded, Smith got up and went out to get the copy made.

Beckett shifted, his leg brushing against hers. His restless energy seemed to seep into her. “What can you tell us about Kevin Kasinski?” he asked. “Our victim’s husband said he doesn’t know Kasinski personally.”

“We eliminated Kasinski as a suspect right off the bat,” Kingman said. “He was still in hospital in Tampa when his wife was abducted—he’d just had surgery on his knee ligaments. His wife visited him there earlier in the day, then drove home to Lakeland. As far as we could determine, Kasinski had no enemies. Same goes for the victim. Obviously we didn’t question him about any possible connection to your victim or her husband. We’ll follow up on that.”

Amy tapped her finger on the table. “What did Kasinski—and Krista Shannon’s friends—say about the state of their marriage?”

Kingman snorted. “Kasinski kept dodging around the issue. He said there’d been some problems, but nothing they couldn’t work out. But Krista’s best friend told us there’d actually been a lot of friction lately. Kasinski was apparently great last season, but he got off to a rotten start this year because he was pissed off about not getting promoted. He also apparently liked to party a little too much. The wife started ragging on the guy about what a slacker he was becoming.”

“Huh, sounds kind of like the Nobles, doesn’t it?” Poushinsky said.

Smith returned with copies of the report.

Beckett frowned. “But your man has a rock-solid alibi, and we don’t think Noble killed his wife, either. What difference does it make?”

“Unless they hired a killer. Or killers,” Kingman ventured. “It happens. But we’ve got nada so far on that angle. Now, with a third victim, that makes it even more far-fetched, as far as I can see.”

Amy shook her head. “These cases don’t look like murders for hire, but we need to dig deeper into whether Kasinski and Noble do know each other, despite Noble’s denial.”

“We’ll get on that,” Smith promised. “And there’s another piece of evidence we didn’t release.”

Poushinsky and Amy glanced at each other. “What?” she asked.

“A couple of days after the murder, Kasinski got an envelope in the mail with a photo inside. A wedding shot. He told us the picture had always been in a frame on top of the dresser in their bedroom, but wasn’t there when he got home from the hospital. He’d looked around for it, thinking his wife might have stuck it away somewhere.” Smith paused, probably for effect. “When he opened the envelope, he saw the head and shoulders of his wife had been cropped from the photo.”

Amy froze.

OUT.
The killer had cut Krista out—out of the picture. And he’d left his message not just on the photo, but on Krista herself.

Friday, July 30

3:40 p.m.

Poushinsky had insisted they stop at an IHOP for lunch so he could load up on a grease bomb of eggs, sausage and bacon with a mound of home fries and a stack of pancakes topped by a scoop of butter. Amy nearly gagged just looking at the mountain of artery-clogging food. Beckett had ordered a “Garden Omelet,” and that raised him a step in her estimation. She chose the least worrying item on the menu—a chicken Caesar salad that she picked away at until the others finished.

She’d spent their short lunch break ragging Poushinsky about his eating habits, and Beckett had pleasantly surprised her by backing her up. In fact, he’d fired off a few amusing verbal jabs at Poushinsky, which her partner had accepted with good humor. By the time they returned to the car, Amy was more relaxed than she’d been all day.

But once on the road, whenever one of the guys tried to engage her about the case, she’d deflected the conversation or put her headphones on. She wanted to think, not talk, and right now both Beckett and Poushinsky were a distraction.

Now that there’d been a third murder, the FBI would show up soon. Cramer would be on the phone to the Bureau, as well as to his Polk and Martin County counterparts. She’d be surprised if a Task Force wasn’t announced soon, probably based at HQ.

The biggest complication would be the media. It had only been thirty hours since she’d learned of Carrie Noble’s death, but the world was about to explode around her. Her case, her serial killer, her mission, were about to hit the big time.

More than anything, she needed to get her hands on Carrie Noble’s now-completed autopsy report. Poushinsky was pretending to be a NASCAR driver, but this time Amy actually told him to step on it. That drew a monster grin from her partner as he flipped on his LED flashers and booted it up another ten miles per hour. As soon as they pulled into the crowded HQ lot, Amy bolted out and jogged the thirty yards across the shimmering hot pavement to the building.

She took the stairs two at a time up to the second floor and into the Homicide Unit, grabbing the manila envelope containing the report off her desk. Tearing it open, she began to read before she even sat down. She quickly found the cause of death:
Cardiac arrest caused by administration of potassium chloride
.

Exactly what she’d expected. Lethal injection. Potassium chloride was the final drug in the cocktail used in death row executions.

The blood work was next. The victim’s blood contained the drugs sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide, along with alcohol and cannabis. Thiopental and pancuronium bromide were the other two drugs in the death cocktail, and the M.E. had concluded that the amount of thiopental in the blood had been sufficient to render the victim unconscious prior to the administration of the lethal drug.

Amy let out a tight exhalation. She hadn’t said anything in Bartow when she noted that the Polk County autopsy report had indicated a low level of thiopental in Krista Shannon’s blood, and speculated that the victim might have been aware when the other drugs had been administered. At least Carrie Noble had been spared that horror.

In addition, the M.E. had concluded that Carrie had engaged in unprotected intercourse that evening, but that there was no evidence of rape. There were two needle sticks in the victim’s left arm, plus abrasions to her neck, ankles and wrists. Very slight bruising to one side of the face indicated a possible blow.

Time of death had been narrowed to between two and four a.m.

She sank into her chair, still reading. Poushinsky and Beckett ambled in, absorbed in an intense conversation. She impatiently waved them over to her cubicle.

“The bastard executed her like she was on death row,” Amy said, looking up at the two men. Poushinsky leaned against the partition, while Beckett stood right beside her. “He gave her three shots. The first, sodium thiopental, would have put her to sleep almost immediately. The second shot was pancuronium bromide, the part of a lethal injection that paralyzes the diaphragm and the lungs and causes the person to be unable to breathe.”

Beckett didn’t flinch, but his color faded a bit under the tan.

“Holy fuck,” Poushinsky groaned. “I sure as hell hope she
was
unconscious.”

“No kidding. I’ve read a fair bit on lethal injections,” Amy said. “If the person goes to sleep, doctors think the pain from the rest of the injections is minimal. But if the sedation isn’t complete or wears off, the pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride will cause excruciating agony prior to death occurring. It’s one of the reasons why there’s been a lot of controversy about the use of lethal injections for executions.”

She hesitated, not wanting to say it. Not wanting to make it real. “I compared the blood analysis in the autopsy report to the one we got from Polk County. They’re pretty much alike, but there seems to be one significant difference.”

Poushinsky came to full alert. “Yeah?”

“The levels of the sedative in Krista Shannon’s blood were a fraction of Carrie Noble’s. That means Carrie was probably unconscious for the killing injections, but Krista was likely awake. Maybe wide awake.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Poushinsky breathed.

Beckett swore under his breath. “Who has access to those drugs? They’ve got to be damn hard to get hold of, so maybe they’ll be traceable?”

“That’s one of the first things we have to find out,” Amy said. “I’m going over to talk to the M.E. right now. I want to confirm my theory with her, and I’ll ask her where she thinks the killer could have obtained those drugs.”

“Weren’t they the drugs used in the Angel of Death cases?” Poushinsky said. “You know, where a nurse knocked off a bunch of patients in so-called mercy killings.”

Amy’s fury spiked in a hot wave.
Mercy killings
. What
this
killer was doing had nothing merciful about it. “Yeah.”

Beckett eased his big body down on the corner of her desk. His gaze was direct and serious, and…well, sympathetic. “What else did the autopsy say?”

Amy pushed backward in her chair, putting several inches between them. His close proximity had sent a flush of heat to her neck and face, and the warmth in his eyes made her look away. She mentally scolded herself for not telling Beckett to get his ass off her desk, angry at herself for responding like such a girl.

She settled for an annoyed frown. “Carrie had consumed both alcohol and marijuana that night, and had unprotected sex. But she wasn’t raped.”