Simon Says_. Walk (Kate Morgan #6)(44)
Author: Dale Mayer
“Agreed,” Rodney said. “I think you’re right, as much as I wanted this park to be the one.”
Twenty minutes later they pulled up at the second location. Kate immediately pointed out, “Oh, now this appeals.” The terrain was already on the rougher edge here.
Her partner snorted. “Should I be worried that you can look at a place from inside the car and say this appeals to a serial killer?”
“Maybe. You really have to get into their heads, if you want to solve the case.”
He stared at her, as if she had gone out of her mind. “I have been working in this department for a while, but your mind is somewhat messy.”
She winced.
Rodney explained, “I’m not trying to get you to change your technique. I have to remind myself that you do look at this from the serial killer’s point of view. I’m not trying to be snarky either,” he added. “Yet it is a strange feeling to know that you walked into our department—where we thought that your nose was up in the air, that you were too good for us. And then, when you proved yourself to be too good for us,” he noted, with a wry look, “it made all of us look at our game and try to pick it up to your level.”
“I never thought I was too good.” She shook her head. “I knew that I was new, and any acceptance appeared to be impossible, at least initially. And I get all the reasons why, so I put my head down and got to work.”
They exited the car and walked the front section of the park. It had lots of well-maintained green areas, but she could already see edges of woods off to the side that looked a whole lot more promising. She pointed out one direction. “I’ll go this way. You go that way.”
He nodded, and they quickly split up. She headed toward the water’s edge, remembering what Patricia had said in her interview. As Kate neared the water’s edge, she saw a bunch of ducks, wildlife, some geese, but no people. She walked a little bit closer to the edge—and because it was a lake and a small one at that—the surface of the water was calm, still.
It had been several days since Patricia’s death, so Kate wasn’t exactly sure if anything would be left to find. It didn’t, however, take very long to see odd tracks—hesitant, as if somebody wasn’t sure where they were walking, and behind them a second set of much more solid tracks. Kate noted more of these two sets of footprints, tracks in and tracks back out. She nodded, and then she saw the blood droplets. She followed them down and around, until she came back around, close to the parking lot. And there was Rodney, heading toward her. “Anything?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “No. You?”
“I found a blood trail.” She turned to show him where.
He raced behind her to see her find. “This is definitely blood,” Rodney noted. As they walked toward the lake, tracing the bloody tracks, he stated, “It starts here after the rocks. The victims bleed pretty freely, and then their torturer gets them into a vehicle and leaves.” Rodney nodded. “Fits our theory.”
“Sure, but what we really need,” Kate said, “is DNA proof that this is Patricia’s blood.”
“Or Luca’s.”
She nodded. “Or one of the other two victims, portrayed by the four lines in that graffiti.” She hesitated. “Do we take back some samples, or do we bring in forensics?”
“Forensics,” he replied instantly. “I do like your instincts.”
She laughed. “You say that, and then shit hits the fan.”
“I’ll be right there in hot water with you,” Rodney admitted, with a smile. With that agreed on, they phoned forensics and brought out a team. They waited off to the side, walking through the area.
Only by chance did she stop and look down. “Look at this.” More blood but it looked different.
Rodney nodded. “We should check this as well. We do have two more potential victims that we know nothing about.”
She nodded and carefully tracked this new blood trail, which droplets were older and half under cover, and again followed their trail back to the parking lot. As they stood here, discussing this find, she got a text message from forensics on the other blood trail.
Come here. We found something.
She showed the text to Rodney, and they raced back to where forensics were.
As she neared Michael, the team lead, she asked, “What did you find?”
He looked at her, his face grim. “Another body.”
*
Simon worked through the rest of the day, disturbed by weird but vague inklings, probably of the psychic nature, but trying to keep a handle on it.
As he walked into his apartment building, his doorman raised his eyebrows and said, “Looks to be another tough day.”
“You’re not kidding. Some seem to go that way.”
He nodded. “Sorry about that, man. Appears as if it is all that way lately.”
“Yep, to me too, but what can you do?” He smiled as he headed to his private elevator. He turned to his doorman and added, “If Kate shows up, send her straight up.”
The doorman gave him a big grin. “Will do. I do like that woman.”
“Me too.” Simon chuckled, as he headed up to his penthouse.
After a quick shower Simon opened a beer and crashed on the couch, wondering what the hell was going on in his world. He smiled when he got a phone call from Kate. “I hope your day was better than mine,” he greeted her.
“We found a body,” she stated, her tone grim. “We think it’s connected.”
“Shit.” He bolted to his feet, snatched the beer off the coffee table, and took a long swig. “Why do you think it’s connected?”
She went through what they found at the park, and he stared at his phone in amazement. “You narrowed it down to a park and then found blood?” he asked in wonder.
“Yes, and, of course, that makes me suspicious that maybe we were intended to find it.”
He pondered that and nodded. “I guess that makes sense. Still, there is a hell of a lot of ground out there to have even found this much.”
“The question is why this park and who is the victim?”
“Does it for sure connect?”
“No, we don’t know that definitely,” she admitted. “We’re still checking on it. What I can tell you is the body was tortured and not a whole lot is left to the feet, but they look more or less flayed, and it’s a woman, … a young woman.”