Vicious (13 page)

Lori came to her side. “Chief Burnett’s?”

Jess hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. “Yes.” She accepted the gloves and shoe covers Lori offered her. Hands shaking, she tugged on the protective wear. By the time they walked inside the apartment her heart was racing. This couldn’t mean anything.

Just a coincidence
.

The thick odor of coagulated blood had her breathing through her mouth. The main living area was one big space with a nice view of the city that she recalled vividly. The room was sparsely furnished, a typical bachelor’s apartment with a big sofa, an even bigger television and a table and chairs. An iPad sat on one those docks with speakers. Nothing appeared disturbed.

Ten years ago it had been much the same. Dan had been working his way up in Birmingham politics and a downtown apartment was all he needed. She had admired the view of the city. She’d been gone so long that staring out at the lights had mesmerized her. Even now something wistful swelled inside her. Then Dan had kissed her and thoughts of the view as well as the pie she’d purchased at Publix for Christmas dinner with her sister’s family had vanished completely, taking all semblance of good sense with them.

“This way, Chief.”

Jess blinked away the past and met Harper’s concerned gaze. He’d walked right up to her and she hadn’t even noticed. Lori had already moved across the room and was speaking to one of the forensic techs.

Breathe and focus
.

She gave Harper a nod and followed him to the small box of a hall that separated the one bedroom and bath from the main living space. The entire apartment had been carpeted before. Now it was hardwood or something that looked like hardwood.

“Our perp used the same MO this time. Washed up in the bathroom, leaving a hell of a mess and dozens of smeared prints.”

Like the previous scene, bloody hand and foot prints marred the tile. No discernable attempt to clean up the scene. The killer was daring them to catch him… or her.

Four or five feet away the door to the only bedroom stood open. Inside, a tech videoed the place where Logan Thomas’s life had ended. Feeling numb, Jess took the steps necessary to enter the room. For the first few seconds she stared at the window on the other side. The drapes were open, giving an inspiring glimpse of downtown. In the middle of the floor a pair of jeans, boxers and an Auburn t-shirt lay in a pile. Smudged footprints, made in the victim’s blood, were tracked all over the floor. The tools the killer had used, hammer, hatchet, screwdriver, pry bar and box cutter, had been cast aside.

The walls were white, uncluttered and untainted by the ugliness that had occurred within them. A single dresser stood on one side of the room facing the king size bed where the victim waited for her assessment. The sheets beneath the body were twisted and soaked with blood.

“Vic doesn’t appear to have been strangled or suffocated,” Harper said quietly. “The wounds all appear to be post mortem.”

“Something stopped his heart before it was taken from him.” Jess ignored the tossing and turning in her stomach. The same brutality and crudeness utilized to pry open Lisa Templeton’s and Alisha Burgess’s chests and to remove their hearts had been used on this young man.

“Drug overdose, maybe?” She stepped closer, searched his cold, marbled skin for any signs indicating cause of death. There were plenty of ways to end a life that might not be readily visible.

“That’s my thinking,” Harper said in answer to her question.

A puzzle best solved by the medical examiner.

“He’s been dead for five or six hours anyway.” Jess turned to the detective. “You haven’t found any messages or notes of any sort?” She steeled her body to stop the trembling. Whoever committed this murder wanted to share the experience with her—at least the before part.

But why send her a prequel to this murder and not the other two?

Harper shook his head before searching her face. “How did you have a description of the vic and the Auburn t-shirt?”

She passed him her cell. “I was sent a preview via text just before you called. Submit the video into evidence, would you?”

The ability to breathe grew more difficult as Harper played the video and the victim’s voice echoed in the room. Had he been murdered because he lived here? If so, how was that connected to the murders in Homewood?

Jess swallowed the bitterness climbing back into her throat. And how was it that the perp sent her the video only moments before Harper’s call? Another coincidence? She didn’t think so. He or, more likely, she had been nearby, waiting and watching for the police to arrive.

“Who called this in?” Jess glanced at the body of the young man whose life had been wasted.

“Neighbor. Some sort of symphony was blasting from the victim’s iTunes playlist.” He handed the cell back to Jess. “First on the scene turned it off in deference to the neighbors.”

“You certainly have a way of attracting the genuinely weird, Harris.”

Jess turned to find the medical examiner waiting in the doorway, assessing the situation before jumping in.

Dr. Sylvia Baron shook her head sadly. “There always seems to be at least one encore to every case that lands in your lap.”

“I’m a regular creep show magnet.” Jess didn’t bother attempting a smile for the ME. She just didn’t have it in her. “No visible cause of death this time.”

Sylvia Baron searched for a clean spot on the floor to leave her bag. Finally she gave up and shoved it at Harper. “Let’s see what we have here.”

Taking her time, she studied the victim, and then she glanced at Jess. “Let’s turn him over.”

Harper passed Sylvia’s bag to Jess. “Let me do that, ma’am.”

Jess couldn’t decide whether to hug the detective or to scold him for presuming she was unable to do the job. Truth was, at the moment she felt completely incapable of the task.

The gurgling sound of gases moving around inside the victim as he was rolled to his side had her gritting her teeth. Holding her breath was the only way to keep the urge to heave at bay. She’d seen, heard, and smelled this dozens of times. Didn’t seem to matter to her confused body.

“I can’t tell you if this is cause of death,” Sylvia announced, “but I can tell you how the killer most likely disabled him.”

Jess spotted the marks. “A stun gun.”

Sylvia nodded. “More than one hit.” She pointed to the sets of red marks. “One, two… three. We may be looking at the cause of death.”

“Time of death?” Jess hated that her voice squeaked. Sylvia glanced at her. She hated even worse the ME noticed.

“Give me a minute.” Sylvia reached for her bag.

While the ME measured body temperature, Jess ushered Harper out of earshot. “Have Cook go down to the property assessor’s office as soon as it opens and dig up the names of the owners for the house on Raleigh Avenue. I want to know every tenant who’s lived there since,” she shrugged, “I don’t know. Have him go back as far as he can. I need that list ASAP.”

“Do you have reason to believe location is the link between these murders?”

Jess hesitated but only for a second. “I don’t know, Sergeant, but I’d like to rule out a scenario that’s nagging at me. It’s probably nothing but—”

“I thought this place looked familiar.” Sylvia turned to Jess. “Didn’t Dan live here before he bought his house?”

“You know,” Jess looked around as if she hadn’t noticed, “I think you might be right. Since I was in Virginia I really can’t recall.”

Sylvia accepted the lie and went on about her business. Jess had a sinking feeling whatever was going on with these murders wasn’t about whether Dan had lived here or not… it was about that evening a decade ago when he brought her here. They’d made love all night in this very room. The sun had come up the next morning through that massive window while the city’s first snow of the year started to fall.

Jess had left that Christmas morning without saying good-bye. Not once in ten years had she allowed herself to look back. Until a few weeks ago…

Sylvia was right about what people were saying. The evil that intended to destroy Jess had followed her to Birmingham, and clearly had no intention of leaving before the job was done.

How many people would die before he achieved his goal?

11

Birmingham Police Department, 11:15 a.m.

“We have two killers.” Lori posted the updated information on the case board. “Or, at least, two people participating in the kills. Two distinct sets of prints—not belonging to the victims—were lifted from the tools found at the scene, but no hits in any of the databases.”

“We believe the perps are female based on the size of the prints collected, but we can’t confirm that conclusion by the prints alone,” Harper said as he perused the report he’d just received. “Analysis on the hair collected from the shower drain at the Homewood house shows two distinct Caucasian specimens besides those of the victims: one brunette and one a pale, bleached blond.”

“The killers are reasonably organized,” Hayes spoke up. He’d propped against his desk, legs crossed at the ankles. “They bring the tools, new ones, they need with them. I’m running down where the particular brands are sold locally. Depending on what I find, there’s the potential for security videos or a sales person who might recall the buyer.”

Lori flashed a smile for the newest member of the team. Jess had a feeling Lori had news that would take this investigation from going nowhere to getting somewhere.

“None of the neighbors noticed anyone coming or going in Mr. Thomas’s building.” Lori waltzed over to her desk and picked up a folder. “However, a few minutes ago, I reviewed the surveillance video.” She returned to the case board and posted more photos there. “Two females left the building at one-fifty. Dr. Baron estimated time of death between midnight and two this morning.” Lori gestured to the photos. “Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have our killers.”

Jess reached for her glasses as she moved around her desk. Slipping them on, she stepped closer to the board to inspect the images of the two women. “What kind of bag or sack is the one in front carrying?”

Lori tapped the photo. “With those blue cinch ties, I’d say Hefty trash bags. You know, the big black ones used for yard cleanup.”

The brunette kept her face turned from the camera. Both wore sweats but they were too clean to have been worn during the murder. The female with pale blond hair had on a hoodie but she hadn’t bothered to wear the hood up. The photo had captured her as she turned to look directly at the camera and smile.

Not afraid of getting caught
.

“Their clothes are in the bag,” Jess said, mostly to herself. “In addition to the tools, they bring a change of clothes and shoes to the scene.”

“After they strip off their bloody clothes and clean up,” Harper picked it up from there, “they put on the clean clothes and shoes they left near the door. Anyone who saw them on the street wouldn’t think twice. Just a couple of residents taking their garbage to the dumpster in the alley.”

Jess studied the blonde’s face. “What about the heart?”

“Since they’re not carrying anything else,” Lori answered, “we have to assume the heart’s in the bag, too.”

“Unless they ate it at the scene.”

Jess turned to Hayes. “You think this is some sort of cannibalistic ritual? We have no evidence to support that conclusion.”

“We don’t have any rumblings about black market organ sales either,” he offered. “That doesn’t leave many other options.”

“Not to mention,” Harper cut in, “if they were looking to make money, they left a whole hell of a lot at the scene. Like kidneys.”

Jess turned back to the board. The woman who dared to show her face looked young, early twenties maybe. “Templeton and Burgess may have been their first kills.”

“What makes you lean in that direction?” Hayes asked.

“Their work was sloppier the first time,” Harper explained, obviously enjoying the opportunity to show up the lieutenant. “The crime scene looked somewhat the same, but a closer inspection of the way they butchered the chests of the two female victims indicates they had a harder time removing the hearts that first time. With Thomas they knew what they were doing. The work was a little cleaner.”

“That only suggests they hadn’t removed a human heart before,” the lieutenant countered, “not that they hadn’t taken a life.”

Jess and Lori exchanged a look.

Harper crossed his arms over his chest. “When you’ve worked as many homicide scenes as I have, you’ll understand.”

Jess hoped these two weren’t planning to waste time in a pissing contest.

“What’s to understand?” Hayes folded his arms over his chest in a mocking manner.

“The killers hurried from the scene,” Jess interjected. “They didn’t close the door much less lock it.” She turned back to the photo. “They were excited and terrified at the same time. They couldn’t believe they’d done it. But they weren’t in a hurry after last night’s murder. Now they’re feeling brave. Cocky. This time they enjoyed all the excitement without the fear.”

Harper’s lips twisted in a little smirk of victory.

Hayes would learn this wasn’t as easy as experienced detectives like Harper and Wells made it appear. “What kind of motives are we looking at?” Jess asked, moving on.

“Since we don’t know the identities of the killers, we can’t prove a personal connection,” Lori said.

“Even without a distinct personal connection,” Harper added, “could be envy or revenge.”

Hayes pushed off from his desk and moved toward the case board. “But isn’t the personal nature of these murders right in front of us?”

“The objective may have been to humiliate the victims,” Lori pointed out. “When I was abducted by Matthew Reed, Eric Spears’s protégé, he wanted to scare me… to humiliate me the same way he did the other women he abducted. To anyone analyzing his actions, what he did to us appeared very personal but it wasn’t. We were the pawns he used to make a statement. Humiliating and scaring us was just for his personal entertainment.”

“One of the women,” Jess said, the images Lori’s words prompted playing rapid fire in her head, “was a federal agent. When she tried to escape, he cut off her hands and feet. She died as a result of those injuries.”